It turns out there were actually two batches of cumin from two different suppliers…

It turns out there were actually two batches of cumin from two different suppliers that were contaminated with peanuts, both in Turkey, though they haven’t yet determined whether the contamination happened there or further up the chain. One of the batches was also contaminated with almonds.

Inside the Peanut-Tainted Cumin Recalls: What Happened?

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Because probiotics are trendy these days, and news outfits tend to miss the detail:…

New Study: Combining Probiotics with Oral Immunotherapy for Peanut Allergy

Because probiotics are trendy these days, and news outfits tend to miss the detail: The study compared a *combination* of two therapies to a placebo. It didn’t compare probiotics+OIT to OIT alone, and other studies with OIT have had a comparable success rate. So there’s a good chance that the probiotics didn’t make a difference, and the effect was due entirely to the OIT.

If your password is on this list, you REALLY need a better one. Or…

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/password-and-123456-keep-top-spot-on-list-of-most-popular-passwords-as-security-experts-panic-9990442.html

If your password is on this list, you REALLY need a better one. Or better yet, use a password manager like LastPass or KeePass so you can use passwords that look like keysmashes and not have to worry about (a) remembering them or (b) someone guessing them.

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It’s been interesting to watch the cascade of allergy recalls over the past month…

It’s been interesting to watch the cascade of allergy recalls over the past month after a single spice supplier discovered that a batch of cumin had been contaminated with peanuts. Most of the time, recalls are over labeling errors, or cross-contamination in prepared food. Seeing it happen further up the supply chain is eye-opening.

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Chestnut trees once dominated the forests of the eastern US, until a blight imported…

https://www.popsci.com/transgenic-chestnuts-roasting-open-fire/

Chestnut trees once dominated the forests of the eastern US, until a blight imported from Asia devastated them early last century. Its continued presence has prevented them from recovering. Now there's a project to repair the damage to the chestnut forests by inserting a gene from wheat that makes the trees resistant to the blight.

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