Free Republic

The coconut has developed a bit of a faddish following in the West. Today, devotees add coconut oil to coffee, dab it on acne and, following Gwyneth Paltrow's example, swirl it around in their mouths to fight tooth decay. Starbucks has launched a coconut-milk latte. And the coconut-water business has surged to $400 million, with a little help from Madonna and Rihanna. No one would be more delighted at the coconut's rising star than August Engelhardt, a sun-worshipping German nudist and history's most radical cocovore. From 1902 to 1919, Engelhardt lived on a beautiful South Pacific island, eating nothing but...

Written in coconut DNA are two origins of cultivation, several ancient trade routes, and the history of the colonization of the AmericasThe coconut (the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera) is the Swiss Army knife of the plant kingdom; in one neat package it provides a high-calorie food, potable water, fiber that can be spun into rope, and a hard shell that can be turned into charcoal. What’s more, until it is needed for some other purpose it serves as a handy flotation device. No wonder people from ancient Austronesians to Captain Bligh pitched a few coconuts aboard before setting...

Surprise benefits of humble coconut oil - Reversing Dementia.

It appears Jean Saintilus bit off more than he could chew. After chanting and smashing a coconut in the middle of a dead-end road, police say, the 27-year-old man opened his hand and showed baffled officers his brother-in-law's severed pinky finger.

A coconut lying next to a column near the Frederick County courthouse caused police and fire personnel to evacuate the outside area and one inside office for about 20 minutes today. A courthouse deputy on his morning perimeter check spotted the coconut about 7:55 a.m. It looked like it had been sliced down the center and put back together, according to a Frederick County Sheriff’s Office press release. The Maryland State Fire Marshal’s bomb squad was called in to assist members of the sheriff’s office, the Frederick Police Department and the Frederick County Fire and Rescue Services in determining whether...

Coconuts removed from trees in preparation for Barack Obama's India trip India is preparing for Barack Obama's first visit to the country by removing coconuts from palm trees in Mumbai to protect the US president. Published: 7:00AM GMT 04 Nov 2010 Mr Obama will arrive in India on Saturday for the first leg of an Asian tour. But as well as the usual security measures that come with welcoming a a visiting dignitary, Indian authorities have decided to go one step further, by removing all natural threats to the president as well. All coconuts around the city's Gandhi museum, one...

A diet rich in coconut oil keeps fat away and also protects against insulin resistance, a new study shows. The study also helps explain how people who incorporate medium chain fatty acids found in coconut oil into their diets can lose body fat. Obesity and insulin resistance are major factors leading to the development of Type 2 diabetes. Insulin resistance is an impaired ability of cells to respond to insulin. Nigel Turner and Jiming Ye from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research compared fat metabolism and insulin resistance in mice fed coconut oil and lard based diets. "The medium chain...

SYDNEY – Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. Julian Finn and Mark Norman of Museum Victoria in Melbourne observed the odd activity in four of the creatures during a series of dive...

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., had a very casual conversation with women in North Carolina, Saturday morning, that offered little news value –- but was insightful to a more personal side to Clinton. One question Clinton was asked raised eyebrows. When asked if she would go all the way to the convention -– she said, “Well, I plan on going through the next contests -– West Virginia, Kentucky and others.” Clinton has previously said she plans to go all the way to the convention if Michigan and Florida are not settled. This may indicate a possible shift in thinking about how...

Rare coconut tree on sale for $1m By John James BBC News Abidjan No buyers have come forward for the tree Scientists in Ivory Coast are trying to sell a rare multi-headed coconut tree for a million dollars. They have yet to find a buyer. Most coconut palms have a single trunk and head - this one has three heads. "It is a rare botanical curiosity", says Dr Roland Bourdeix, who works with the Marc Delorme coconut research station outside Abidjan. "We have 150,000 palm trees in this research plantation and there is only one which has three heads like...

Here is a photograph of the Ron Paul 2008 national office in Arlington, Virginia. We have the entire second floor; about 3,000 square feet. The photograph was taken around 6:00 o'clock this morning.

Indian policeman stand gaurd outside of the Durgiana Temple in Amritsar. Indian police shot dead an Islamic militant suspected of links to a triple bombing that killed 23 people in Hinduism's holy city of Varanasi and sparked a nationwide alert.(AFP/Marinder Nanu)

It might sound nuts, but two engineering students in New Zealand claim that coconut oil can be used as an alternative to diesel, providing a possible answer to rising fuel cost woes. Samoan Dominic Schwalger and Penaia Rogoiumari from Fiji, both students at Auckland University in northern New Zealand, demonstrated on Friday how a diesel engine can run on a blend of diesel and coconut oil, or on pure coconut oil alone. "What we have shown is that without any modification to either the pure oil or the engine you can use it as an alternative fuel,'' they said in...

Police in India have arrested a 'holy man' who allegedly forced a woman to strip naked and broke coconuts on her head. Senthil Kumar, 27, promised to treat the woman, 30-year-old Selvi Dhanalakshmi, after her parents brought her to his hermitage at Velliraveli, near Erode. Kumar claimed she was possessed and offered to exorcise her of the evil spirit, reports the Deccan Chronicle newspaper. He locked himself up with the woman in a room before stripping her of her clothes and lighting camphor on her palms and breasts. The woman began yelling in pain when the holy man, chanting prayers,...

SUVA - Villagers in Fiji plan to challenge the sale of an island hideaway to Hollywood star Mel Gibson, claiming their ancestors were cheated out of the land over a century ago and those who refused to leave murdered, a report said. Namalata Development Committee chairman Timoci Waqalevu alleged the villagers were defrauded when the 21 square kilometre (eight square mile) Mago Island in the Lau group was sold by chiefs in the 19th century for 2,000 coconut plants, the Fiji Times said. The island was on the market late last year for $15 million and was reportedly bought by...

Any Miami FReepers here? If so, I have a question about this Victory 2004 event at the Coconut Grove Convention Center. Namely, when does it start? I got a ticket for it, but I haven't exactly heard a lot about it, and so would like to know what time it's supposed to happen. Soooo, when does it start? And any other FReepers here going? Thanks for any and all help.

WASHINGTON, June 12 (UPI) -- Never mind Hillary, her husband, or the book. What about the dog? Julia Gorin started worrying about Buddy, the chocolate Labrador retriever, when he was brought to the White House as a puppy late in 1997. She had heard that Bill Clinton's poll-oriented advisers feared the president would lose his "family man" image when his daughter, Chelsea, went off to college and recommended a dog as prop. A Lab, America's most popular breed, was the obvious choice. Even the color was calculated. Gorin, a dog lover who adopted a pit bull she found discarded on...

Everybody knows that lefties of all stripes are concerned, compassionate, tolerant, and generous. It's the right that's mean-spirited, spiteful, reactionary and extreme. Now comes Julia Gorin, author of The Buddy Chronicles to spoil this picture. Damn! Julia Gorin is a columnist and standup comic who on January 4, 2002 published an op-ed piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer in which she expressed anguish over the accidental death some days before--he was hit by a car--of Buddy, a chocolate Labrador retriever resident in the Clinton Chappaqua cottage. You can read a copy of the op-ed piece, Buddy's Dead, Is Anyone Surprised? here....

WASHINGTON--Never mind Hillary, her husband, or the book. What about the dog? Julia Gorin started worrying about Buddy, the chocolate Labrador retriever, when he was brought to the White House as a puppy late in 1997. She had heard that Bill Clinton's poll-oriented advisers feared the president would lose his "family man" image when his daughter, Chelsea, went off to college and recommended a dog as prop. A Lab, America's most popular breed, was the obvious choice. Even the color was calculated. Gorin, a dog lover who adopted a pit bull she found discarded on a New York subway platform,...

International coconut conference to be held in Riau PEKANBARU, Riau, (JP): The Riau district of Indragiri Hilir will host an international conference on coconuts from Oct. 22 to Oct. 24, district head Rusli Zainal said here on Monday. Rusli said the event would include coconut experts and businesspeople from numerous countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Indragiri Hilir district is rich in coconuts, with 438,000 hectares of land having been developed into a coconut plantation. "A coconut processing company here buys some two million coconuts from local people every year," Rusli said as quoted by Antara....