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Nitro Vs. Cold Brew Coffee: What’s The Difference?

Noah Sanders
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Nitro Vs. Cold Brew Coffee: What’s The Difference?

To say the very least, we are a culture inundated with cold coffee. The frigid, caffeinated beverage has gone from a low-cost, high-profit staple of specialty cafes, to a ubiquitous beverage served at the Peet’s and Starbucks of the world. It has become synonymous for the coffee-drinking public with the idea of a hot summer day.

Flavor is thought to improve with experimentation and profit is driven by innovation, so a simple jar of cold brew cooling in a fridge has evolved. Cold brew now flows from taps installed into bars, the syrupy beverage moving away from it’s casual, pitcher past into a new world of kegs. And now, well…now the the coffee-consuming public is privy to a selection of beverages that fall under the “cold brew” moniker, nitro cold brew the newest, and most popular addition to the stable. And though nitro cold brew (NCB) may flow from a different tap at your favorite coffee shop, and though nitro cold brew may pour like a hearty breakfast Guinness, make no mistake, this is cold brew — water and coffee — with one simple addition.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYctVDiAHCb

Don’t let anybody fool you: the basics of cold brew aren’t rocket science. Prior to this wave of cold brew passion, cold coffee was called “iced coffee” and was concentrated hot coffee poured over ice, the melted cubes thinning the beverage to make it drinkable. Cold brew isn’t exactly a galactic step forward from that. Is is, quite simply, ground coffee mixed with water, left to sit for anywhere between 12 and 24 hours, strained through a cloth filter, chilled, poured, presumably over ice and served.

Yes, there are a variety of blends and recipes many coffee companies have perfected in order to create the exact flavor profiles they’re looking for. And yes, some companies are pioneering new and exciting ways to create cold brew to maintain the subtlety and nuance it’s known to lose during the cold brew process (Four Barrel, we salute you). At the end of the day though, cold brew is cold-steeped coffee, filtered, chilled and dumped over ice.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXyV9ebFlIK/

NCB isn’t any different than cold brew in terms of preparation. You’re still making your basic cold coffee — with the mixing and the filtering and so on — but post cold brew readiness, your nitro cold brew purveyor is infusing the now chilly coffee with nitrogen and pumping it into a keg.

When NCB is served, the thicker, maltier coffee liquid is released through a tiny-holed valve and then shot past a “disc” of sorts that forms the Guinness-like head and preceding waterfall effect. Nitro cold brew, in general, is served without ice to let those about to consume it ogle the foam’s descent to the bottom of the glass.

The only real difference between cold brew and nitro cold brew (outside of the presence of nitrogen) is flavor.

Cold brew has an occasionally acrid, near-bitter taste — a flavor most cold brewed coffee, regardless of recipe or producer, could be described as tasting. Nitro cold brew, on the other hand, because of the nitrogen, has a smooth mouth feel (again, similar to a Guinness or Boddington — both nitro poured beers) and a richer, nuttier flavor. Like cold brew though, nitro cold brew loses some of its subtlety, on most occasions, taking on a flavor that could be described as “the taste of nitro cold brew.”

When you’re vacillating between cold brew and nitro cold brew at the register, know that whatever you decide, you’re getting two beverages that are extremely close to one another: cold-steeped caffeinated coffee served in a glass. Hell, you’re getting the same beverage with the exception that one is produced with an element from the periodic table and one’s not. Leaving you, the cold coffee fan, with only the power of your own preference to guide you.

Here Is Clinical Evidence That Marijuana Fights Epilepsy

Richard Faulk
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Here Is Clinical Evidence That Marijuana Fights Epilepsy

In the ancient world, epilepsy was considered a spiritual condition. Epileptics, so it was thought, had been favored by the gods with a hard-to-define genius.

Anyone who actually experienced the anxious uncertainty of awaiting the next onset of tremors—Will I break 20 today? 50? 100?—or endured the frothing, convulsive terror of a grand mal seizure, however, may be excused for entertaining sacrilegious ideas about what the gods could do with their shitty “favor.”

Today we know that epileptic seizures are caused by disruptions in the brain’s electrical impulses. Now, since the body’s cannabis receptors are densely clustered in parts of the brain that control coordination, it stands to reason that marijuana might help ease epileptic seizures.

Clinical evidence—as with much of the available medical cannabis research, you should assume the caveat what little there is—shows that THC does indeed reduce convulsions. Unfortunately, it can also provoke them. But there is still a promising avenue of cannabis research. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is the less known and even less understood cousin of THC. It’s less fun too, since CBD doesn’t produce the high that THC does. What it can produce, however, is a considerable lessening in epileptic seizures, with almost no side effect

In a 2015 study, the drug Epidiolex, which is 99 percent CBD, decreased seizures by at least 50 percent in slightly more than half the subjects of the 12-week trial. Side effects were quite mild: fatigue in less than a quarter of participants and weight gain in an even smaller proportion.

There is no research on the longterm effects CBD—particularly on kids, who are susceptible to some of the most debilitating and hard to treat forms of epilepsy. But, to be fair, the same caution applies to our current battery of epilepsy medications.

Because of these favorable results, the Epilepsy Foundation considers cannabis a “not unreasonable” option for epilepsy patients who have not found success with standard treatments.

What Are Marijuana Tampons And What Do They Do?

Al Olson
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What Are Marijuana Tampons And What Do They Do?

When it comes to treating those painful monthly menstrual cramps, it may be time to put that Motrin, Midol or Vicodin back in your medicine cabinet and give marijuana a try. More specifically, marijuana tampons.

Foria Relief, currently available only in California and Colorado, has introduced a medicated tampon that the company promises will “maximize the muscle relaxing and pain relieving properties of cannabis without inducing a psychotropic high.”

The vaginal suppository come in a package of four at a retail price of $44. It’s not an absorbant product, so you’ll want to keep your regular tampons around. But each suppository contains 60mg of THC and 10mg of CBD.

Photo courtesy of ForiaPleasureThe Ingredients Label Is Short:

  • Organic Fair Trade Cocoa Butter
  • Distilled THC Oil
  • CBD Isolate (99.99%) from Organically Grown Hemp

The product will give your vagina a slightly intoxicated sensation, but the effect won’t travel to your brain. (And it won’t exactly make your vagina high.) According to one happy customer, the product “smells like cookie dough and cocoa butter.”

On the website Racked.com, Sophie Saint-Thomas tested the suppositories and reported her results:

It was like if Ativan made a baby with Tylenol, except I hadn’t thrust any nasty pharmaceuticals into my vag; just cannabis and cocoa butter.

And here’s the science:

THC positively affects the nerves and assists in blocking out pain while also allowing for more pleasant signals to be received by the brain. CBD works in the immune system by suppressing the mechanisms responsible for inflammation. CBD also slows down electrical signaling to muscles and allows them to relax, thereby reducing cramping.

Is it FDA approved? Nope. Since cannabis is considered a Schedule 1 drug by our federal government, the FDA cannot and will not sanction the medical efficacy of the product. Yet.

Watch A Texas Man Catch Fish Barehanded In Living Room

Brendan Bures
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Watch A Texas Man Catch Fish Barehanded In Living Room

Hurricane Harvey ravaged the city of Houston with floodwater and rain. It wasn’t just Houstonians who were feeling the storm’s effects either. “Our whole city is underwater right now,” Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman wrote on Facebook.

Heartwarming videos continue to pop up across social media of humans risking their lives to help other strangers. One group of individuals formed a human chain to rescue one man washing away in floodwater. In the middle of a live shot, CNN correspondent Drew Griffin noticed a man accidentally drive into a ravine that appeared to be a road. His crew luckily found some rope to pull the man in and save his life.

So while Hurricane Harvey isn’t nothing to joke about, it’s still encouraging that some affected by the storm have found ways to laugh in the face of such tragedy.

That’s what Saul Saldana and his daughter Viviana did as floodwater filled their house. But then they noticed something sinister swimming around. Something that needed to be caught. So Saul went to work while his daughter recorded him catching a fish swimming in his living room.

Vivian later wrote that they had opened the door to let some of the knee-high floodwater out. In the process they unwittingly allowed the creature to swim in. Thankfully, as you see in the video, Saul is a keen fisherman and was able to capture the critter with his bare hands.

Gossip: Lady Gaga’s New Malibu Neighbors Hate Her; Angelina Jolie Does Not Enjoy Being Single

Naughty Gossip
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Gossip: Lady Gaga’s New Malibu Neighbors Hate Her; Angelina Jolie Does Not Enjoy Being Single

Apparently, Gaga moved into a new Malibu estate and she’s turned part of it into a chicken farm. Her neighbors hate her rooster. I feel you, neighbors.

Lady Gaga bought her Malibu beach estate for $23 million in 2014, and since then the singer has turned part of it into a farm. Now, Life & Style has learned her neighbors are not too happy about it.

“Gaga’s roosters have been waking us up at the crack of dawn!” one complains to Life & Style. “We have a newborn baby, and he can’t get any sleep because that rooster is squawking away.”

The six-acre property came with a two-lane bowling alley, a saltwater swimming pool and even an eight-stall horse stable.

“We don’t mind watching that beautiful white horse of hers walking around the yard,” the neighbor tells Life & Style, “but that rooster never shuts up. Who has chickens and roosters? She doesn’t live on a farm. This is a multimillion dollar residential beach neighborhood in Malibu.”
[From Life & Style]

Angelina Jolie Does Not Enjoy Being Single

She chatted with The Telegraph about what’s going on in her life and how being single was not her choice.

She’s feeling shy about doing press: “This is the first time I have done this for a long time. It’s not easy. I am a little shy this time, because I am not as strong inside as I have been in the past.”

The emotional & physical toll of the divorce: “Sometimes maybe it appears I am pulling it all together. But really I am just trying to get through my days. Emotionally it’s been a very difficult year. And I have some other health issues. So my health is something I have to monitor. I feel sometimes that my body has taken a hit, but I try to laugh as much as possible. We tend to get so stressed that our children feel our stress when they need to feel our joy. Even if you are going through chemo, you need to find the ability to love and laugh. It may sound like a postcard, but it’s true.”

Finding herself as a single woman: “I don’t enjoy being single. It’s not something I wanted. There’s nothing nice about it. It’s just hard.”

Her life now: “I am going to cooking classes. Cooking is one of those things you do when you are settled in your life and you can take the time. But somehow I am just very impatient and I am a little bit erratic. But I am getting into it now. I feel like, if I cook, the kids can all hang out. Although they often take over and tell me that they can do it better.”

Looking for Vintage Jolie: “I think now I need to rediscover a little bit of the old me. I think we lose our way a bit. I have had a lot happen in my life, from certain people passing to health issues to raising the children. And it’s been a very good time to absorb and develop and grow. But maybe now that my kids are growing up I am starting to realize that my own sense of play has been put on hold for a while. And maybe them hitting their teens is going to bring out a little more fun in Mom. So maybe I am going back. It may be time.”

Love the fresh dirt we bring over daily from Naughty Gossip? Let us know in the comments!

Alaskan Grizzly Bears Are Going Vegetarian For This Surprising Reason

Brendan Bures
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Alaskan Grizzly Bears Are Going Vegetarian For This Surprising Reason

When we discuss climate change, we often think of how it affects humans and nature write large. Higher average temperatures, melting glaciers, more powerful hurricanes. But a recent report indicates climate change has the ability to affect natural dietary patterns of Alaskan grizzly bears, too.

Typically around this time of the year, grizzly bears of Kodiak Island feat upon delicious salmon. This is one of nature’s premiere spectacles, as watching salmon attempt to leap past hungry, hairy grizzly bears never gets boring.

Just look:

But warming temperatures in Alaska’s Kodiak Island has caused elderberries to ripen faster than usual. This is happening at the same time as sockeye salmon travel upstream in the freshwater rapids. As a study indicates in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, grizzly bears will typically feast upon salmon around this time of the year. Around September, around when the berries usually ripen, the bears will switch to the berries then.

Because of this change in ripening, the bears have opted to hunting for berries instead of salmon.

“What you have is a scrambling of the schedule,” said William Deacy, a biologist at Oregon State University that studied the phenomenon.

“It’s essentially like if breakfast and lunch were served at same time and then there is nothing to eat until dinner. You have to choose between breakfast and lunch because you can only eat so much at a time.”

Traditionally the bears will kill 75 percent of the salmon. During the atypically warm summer in 2014, bears were nowhere to be found near the streams. They were devouring berries, which contains less protein and easier for their digestive systems more quickly. The end result is the bears can store fat more quickly.

This disruption has fractured an important ecological link and it doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. The elderberries are ripening two and a half days earlier each year. By 2070 they will coincide directly with salmon season if the trend continues.

The Fresh Toast Marijuana Legislative Roundup: Sept. 5

Alec Engber
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The Fresh Toast Marijuana Legislative Roundup: Sept. 5

There was a lot of cannabis news last week from coast to coast. In Nevada, the distribution uncertainty continues. In California, 10 marijuana-related bills were tabled in order to give the new Bureau of Cannabis Control time to get set. And in Tennessee, medical marijuana will be studied. Find out about that more in our weekly marijuana legislative roundup.

 National:  

Last week, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz sponsored an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act that would protect medical marijuana research from federal law enforcement action. The amendment would bar the Department of Justice from using federal funds to “prevent or delay the approval of an application, which complies with all applicable requirements, submitted to the Attorney General to possess, distribute, or manufacture a schedule I controlled substance, including marihuana, for the purposes of conducting research, for a substance that is legal for medicinal use pursuant to State law…”

The Justice Department has reportedly been blocking efforts to increase the number of entities licensed to grow the plant for research, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has expressed skepticism regarding the use of cannabis for medical purposes. The amendment could go before the House Rules Committee as early as this week.  

 Nevada:  

On Tuesday, Nevada regulators dismissed an appeal brought by a group of liquor wholesalers over recreational cannabis distribution licenses. A provision of the marijuana legalization measure approved by voters in November granted liquor wholesalers exclusive rights to such licenses. However, the Nevada Department of Taxation ruled earlier this year that there was insufficient interest among liquor wholesalers to meet demand for the drug, and began accepting applications from marijuana businesses.

A lengthy court challenge by the group of wholesalers has led to uncertainty and supply shortages since the July 1 start of recreational sales. A Carson City judge ruled in favor of the Taxation Department, which nevertheless agreed to postpone issuing licenses until after it heard the group’s formal appeal on August 29. The state will now begin issuing licenses to other applicants in addition to liquor wholesalers in an effort to meet demand for recreational marijuana.  

 California:  

On Friday, 10 separate marijuana-related regulatory bills were shelved by the Senate Appropriations Committee in order to give the new Bureau of Cannabis Control time to finalize its comprehensive set of marijuana regulations. The bills would have restricted where marijuana could be consumed and how it could be advertised, among other issues.

Many of the bills were redundant or dealt with issues already addressed by the Bureau of Cannabis Control. The Bureau is expected to begin issuing new licenses and regulations for the state’s medical and recreational marijuana systems on January 2.  

 Tennessee:  

On Monday, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Beth Harwell announced the creation of a committee to study medical marijuana legalization. The Joint Ad Hoc Committee on Medical Cannabis will “study, evaluate, analyze and undertake a comprehensive review regarding whether the legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes is in the best interest of the state.” The move comes just months after a bill to legalize medical cannabis died in the state Senate, and is seen as a first step in the process of eventual enactment of a medical marijuana law.  

People Are Putting Marijuana In Their Butts And Here’s Why

Maria Loreto
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People Are Putting Marijuana In Their Butts And Here’s Why

There are all kinds of ways to medicate, via smoking, eating an edible and even putting some marijuana up your butt or vagina. As weird as it may sound, cannabis suppositories work really well, producing fast effects that take away pain quickly and can even produce a high that’s different than any other.

Cannabis suppositories enter the bloodstream directly, without contacting the liver, producing a bodily highs that has no effects on the brain. These suppositories are fast acting and have a lot of medicinal value, relieving users of gastrointestinal issues, muscle pain, and menstrual cramps. They’re also popular amongst medical cannabis patients, especially those who suffer from MS, rectal and liver cancer, and many others. 

The sensations that the suppositories produce begin in the pelvis, and then distribute themselves throughout the body, leading to a very physical high that doesn’t affect the brain. This kind of high is hard to compare to the average high you obtain while smoking a joint or eating an edible. As a point of reference, when smoking marijuana you absorb around 15 percent of the medicinal value of the plant. By ingesting it orally, you absorb 50 percent of it, and while consuming it through a suppository, you absorb around 80 percent of it’s medicinal value.

Cannabis suppositories have developed a substantial following because of their powerful results. They may not be the most approachable way to get high, but they have really great medicinal value that doctors and experts on the matter are only just beginning to discover.

You Officially Can’t Smoke Cannabis In Casinos In Nevada

Maria Loreto
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You Officially Can’t Smoke Cannabis In Casinos In Nevada

The Nevada Gaming Commission recently announced that it was illegal to consume cannabis within their casinos and establishments. Gambling and drinking still is, of course, completely allowed and encouraged. 

Even though cannabis is legal in the entirety of the state, it’s still banned in bars, casinos, hotels, and public places, making it hard for tourists and users to legally consume cannabis in places that aren’t their homes.

While the reluctance to change may seem strict and obsolete from an outsider’s point of view, the Gaming Commission has their reasons to be weary, especially considering the fact that marijuana is qualified as a schedule I type of drug for the US government. Allowing for the consumption of cannabis within their establishments can endanger the legality of their business, especially since it’s the gaming industry, which has fought over the years to obtain legality and respect.

Andrew Jolley, the Nevada Dispensary Association President, claims that there’s still hope for cannabis users and that they’re looking into creating consumption lounges, which are places where people can go and consume cannabis openly. The bill proposed for these lounges failed, but representatives from the government of Nevada are still at hard work developing a bill that will fulfill all the necessary demands. 

I think we should just get real and talk about it – the realities of the world we live in. And that is, if you’re going to ban cannabis on the strip and in gaming properties, you need to provide a place for people to use it where they don’t have to look over their shoulder.”

Now you know that when in a casino in Nevada, no matter how much fun you’re having, you can only smoke and consume cannabis within a private residence. The rest is still undefined.

Gossip: Prince William And Kate Middleton Expecting Third Child; Madonna Is Moving To Portugal

Naughty Gossip
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Gossip: Prince William And Kate Middleton Expecting Third Child; Madonna Is Moving To Portugal

LONDON — Kensington Palace said Monday that Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, are expecting their third child.

The announcement comes as a surprise, as there had been little indication that William’s wife, the former Kate Middleton, was pregnant.

As with her other two pregnancies, the duchess is suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, a form of severe morning sickness, and was forced to cancel her engagements Monday.

“The queen and members of both families are delighted with the news,” the palace said in a statement.

Kate is being cared for at Kensington Palace.

William and Kate already have two children, Prince George, 4, and Princess Charlotte, 2.

Madonna Is Moving To Portugal

The Michigan native had been living in New York. She said on Instagram Saturday that she finds the energy of Portugal inspiring, and it makes her feel creative and alive.

A spokesman for the singer said she fell in love with the country after ending a tour there in 2004. Madonna posted that she’ll be working on a film and new music in Portugal.

She said in her Instagram post: “It’s time to conquer the world from a different vantage point.”

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