July 13, 2013

From imitation crab to McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, Alaska pollock is ubiquitous. American fishermen haul in more than a billion dollars’ worth of the flaky white fish annually. Yet just a century ago, Americans had no interest in pollock. Bailey, a fisheries biologist, documents the fish’s rise in popularity over the last 60 years, interweaving the scientific, political and economic forces that shaped the “most lucrative marine fish harvest in American waters.”

Fructose fever
I was fascinated by the article “Sweet confusion” (SN: 6/1/13, p. 22) about the ambiguous health effects of high fructose corn syrup. I was surprised, however, to find little mention of taste, flavor and satiety. I can clearly recall from my childhood the satisfaction from a bottle of Coca-Cola. The transition in America in the 1970s from sucrose to corn syrup as a sweetener in soft drinks was brought home to me in my travels to Central America in the ’80s and ’90s, where cane sugar was still used as a sweetener. Drink a soft drink with cane sugar and you are satisfied. Satiety is the key to the obesity epidemic.
Art Vaughn, Warren, Ohio

Scientists are getting an idea about the odd family tree of periodical cicadas, how the insects synchronize their life cycles and why they breed side-by-side with others unsuitable for mating.