Good Morning Lowcountry

Friday morsels

Tonight, those of Scottish descent (like GMLc ... of Clan GMLc!) celebrate the poet Robert Burns with the reading of some of his inscrutable Gaelic Lite poetry and the eating, preceded by a bagpipe parade, of haggis. Haggis is something of a national dish in Scotland, even if it is, in essence, offal. The first of our weekly news morsels concerns an objection to haggis.

Mad sheep? Haggis is made from the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, cooked inside the sheep's stomach lining. It's actually edible if you like that sort of thing. Anyway, the United States banned imported Scottish haggis after Britain had an outbreak of mad cow disease a few years ago. Now, Reuters reported, Scotland is considering lobbying the U.S. to lift the ban. Meanwhile, American companies, often founded by Scots who know the recipe, are making haggis for your dining pleasure.

Nauseating movie. CNN reported that audiences for "Cloverfield," a horror movie filmed using handheld camera, are getting motion sickness at the theater screenings. Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained that the film gives you the sense of moving when you're not, which creates vertigo. Watch the trailer at www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvNkGm8mxiM.

Green. Yale University's ranking of the world's greenest countries puts Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Costa Rica at the top for environmental performance, Newsweek reported. The rankings weighted each country by its carbon and sulfur emissions, water purity and conservation practices. Mali, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Angola and Niger make up the bottom five. The United States is 39th on the list.

IQ. Newsweek also reported on 30 studies by researcher Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London, that show men and women to be fairly equal overall in terms of IQ. But women, Furnham found, underestimate their own intelligence (and that of women in general). And men overestimate theirs, he said. "There certainly is a greater male ego," he said. "It's what we call the male hubris and female humility effect."

Xuchang Man. An almost complete human skull fossil that could date back 100,000 years was found last month in China. This week, Chinese state media said the skull could be the greatest discovery since Peking Man, Reuters reported. Peking Man, found near Beijing in the 1920s, dates back roughly between 250,000 and 400,000 years ago.

Rain forest. The Associated Press reported that the rate of Amazon deforestation rose sharply in the last five months of 2007. The report was issued this week by the Brazilian Environment Ministry, which estimated that as many as 2,700 square miles of rain forest was cleared in that time.

Lose weight, make money. The British government could begin paying obese and overweight adults in England to lose weight, The (London) Times reported. A 372 million (that's more than $730 million) plan being considered by the government aims to cut the number of overweight and obese children to levels they were in 2000 by the year 2020. A 75 million advertising campaign will promote fruit-tasting, cooking classes in schools and walking to buses, The Times reported.

Luxury gone mad. GMLc has noted the $1,000 pizza cooked up in New York, the $10,000 dessert served in a diamond-encrusted bowl and the $1,500 hamburger made with Kobe beef. Now there is a $20,000 cup of coffee, The New York Times reported. Well, not just one cup of coffee. The machine that makes coffee at Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco is a Japanese "siphon bar," with brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, and it cost $20,000. Coffee snobs will love it.

GMLc

Call 937-5564. Write gmlc@postandcourier.com. Find the blog at gmlc.typepad.com.