Raisin the bar

There may have been other players in the grape market, but it was Welchade that you begged your parents for. The power packed refresher helped Fred land a hole in one, and as the folks at Welch’s reminded us, it had more juice.

Fast forward to today and another berry seems to be vying for the title of the ultimate power packed refresher. Absolutely loaded with antioxidants, crowberries are making headlines as an exceptional superfood.

Looks like another berry made it ;)

(Love nostalgia? Play today’s trivia below for a chance to win a $25 Amazon eGift Card!)

A lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco court the other day alleging Amazon provided developers with lines of code that would allow Amazon to track a consumer’s location without their knowledge.

Called Amazon Ads SDK, the code allowed the geolocation tracking data to be collected by Amazon and then sold to advertisers.

"Amazon has effectively fingerprinted consumers and has correlated a vast amount of personal information about them entirely without consumers' knowledge and consent," the complaint said.

If certified, the class-action would seek justice and restitution for millions of California phone users whose data was collected without their knowledge.

Amazon did not respond to requests for comment as it becomes the latest company to be sued for nefarious data-collection practices.

A similar suit was filed last year by the state of Texas against Allstate Insurance, who reportedly used similar data-collection tactics to assess the risk of Texas motorists and used that data to justify raising premiums.

Cacio e pepe is a famous type of pasta invented in the central Italian region of Lazio for shepherds who would travel long distances and needed something that was high in calories and wouldn’t spoil.

Cacio e pepe translates literally to “cheese and pepper,” and is a dish prepared with spaghetti, pecorino cheese, and black pepper.

But how does one make the perfect cacio e pepper—so much so that those three simple ingredients transform into the to-die-for bowl of creamy and velvety greatness?

According to a study published in Soft Condensed Matter, the secret of the perfect cacio e pepe is the emulsification process created by the ideal suspension of cheese and water. When a “stable emulsion” has been achieved, it’s been optimized to perfection.

The study’s authors noted the water must be added at the correct speed and the correct temperature, so as to not cause the proteins in the pecorino romano to curdle.

The key? Start off with four grams of powdered starch mixed with 40 grams of warm water, followed by adding the blended pecorino cheese and dashes of black pepper. Then all you have to do is boil the spaghetti al dente, strain it, mix in the sauce, and watch as your culinary dreams become reality. 😋

We live in a time when ‘wonder drugs’ are everywhere. They’re positioned as catch-all, cure-all substances and aggessively targeted to anyone who cares about their health.

There’s no such thing as a single, cure-all but still plenty of the $50 billion USD spent annually on vitamins and supplements is doled out for pseudo-scientifically-backed products, including turmeric.

An orange root historically used for medicinal purposes in Eastern traditions, its popularity in the West has skyrocketed in the past decade. Users are happy to pay $20 per bottle to relieve arthritis pain and inflammation, and lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels, among other marketed solutions.

Like many popular Eastern pseudo-medicines, the issue critics have isn’t that it’s ineffective but rather that its , but that its advocates declare it a miracle drug.

There’s evidence turmeric can relieve arthritic pain and help regulate blood sugar, largely thanks to the natural compounds it contains called curcuminoids and medical experts maintain the root can be helpful, but any insistence on its medicinal supremacy probably does more harm than good.

A study published in Environmental Research Letters by researchers at the U.K.’s University of Reading may be the first to truly draw a parallel between the growing energy imbalance on earth and the accelerating warming of its oceans.

The study found the rate of oceanic warming has increased by a factor of four over the the last 40 years, and in that same time period, greenhouse gases have increasingly reduced the earth’s ability to reflect energy from the sun, trapping it instead of reflecting it back into outer space.

44% of the extra heat trapped inside earth’s atmosphere has been absorbed by the oceans in recent El Niño years. Increasingly warm ocean surfaces will make hurricanes more intense and deadly.

“The oceans really set the pace for global warming for the Earth as a whole,” said Christopher Merchant, the study’s lead author and a professor of ocean and earth observation at Reading. “That really needs to be understood, but it also needs to filter through to governments that changes might be coming down the line faster than they’re currently assuming.”

It’s hard to believe it’s been 45 years since Bon Scott played his last show with AC/DC. The curtain fell on the Highway to Hell tour on Jan. 27, 1980 in Southampton, U.K., and just under a month later, tragedy struck when Scott choked to death on his own vomit.

"For us, it was like losing a member of your family,” guitarist Angus Young later revealed. "It’s very, very difficult to go through something like that. Not only is it your friend, it’s also somebody you’ve been working with all that time."

It’s perhaps even harder to believe that such an iconic and legendary rock ‘n roll front man could be replaced. Nobody had ever heard anything like the raspy devilish growling set of pipes Bon Scott possessed—that was, of course, until Back In Black was released just months later in a highwire act of ambition and pressure that would see the band’s success explode with the introduction of its new frontman, Brian Johnson.

Partly in tribute to their fallen friend and the family he left behind—all of whom encouraged the band to go on—AC/DC finally reached the top of the charts in the United States with the album’s title track and You Shook Me All Night Long. The rest, as they say, is history.

To close out the week style, adjust your converter to today’s ‘70s sitcom trivia. Not only are you bound to have some laughs while reminiscing, you’ll also earn a shot at a $25 Amazon eGift card.

Winner will be notified on Monday afternoon—keep an eye on your inbox!

Have a great weekend Staker!

Today’s issue written by Michael Cowan, Joey Cowan, and Maureen Norman.


*SEE FULL STAKE TRIVIA CONTEST RULES HERE.