Violins by Stradivari are worth a fortune, but may not be best
Q. In the 1970s, beef consumption in the U.S. accounted for nearly 50% of all meat, followed by pork, then chicken at 20%. By 2018, chicken’s share had climbed to 36%, nearly 20% higher than beef. Why the shift?
A. “The main reason for chicken ascendance has been its low price, which reflects its metabolic advantage: No other domesticated land animal can convert feed to meat as efficiently as broilers,” says Vaclav Smil in “IEEE Spectrum” magazine. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it takes 3-4 units of feed to produce one unit of edible meat for broilers, 9-10 units for pork and 20-30 for beef. Further, broilers have been bred to mature faster and to put on an enormous amount of weight, helping to lower prices more.
Consumers benefit while the birds suffer, Smil says, since people’s desire for excessively large breasts “shifts the bird’s center of gravity forward, impairs its natural movement and puts stress on its legs and heart.” Moreover, a broiler is allotted a very small living space (slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper, 8.27 x 11.69 inches), and its life ends in less than seven weeks, though its normal life span is up to eight years.
But pork is still about 10% ahead as the choice of meat worldwide, thanks to China and Europe. Concludes Smil: “Still, broilers mass-produced in confinement will, almost certainly, come out on top within a decade or two.”
Q. Calling all bibliophiles. As lovers of books, you may know the following book-related terms: “biblioclast,” “bibliophage,” “chrestomathy” and “feuilleton”? Do you?
A. “Biblioclast” derives from the Greek “biblio” (book) and “clast” (breaker), hence, “one who destroys or mutilates books,” says Anu Garg on his “A.Word.A.Day” website. “Bibliophage,” from Greek “phage” (one who eats), is “one who loves to read books; a bookworm.”
For “chrestomathy,” two meanings apply: “a volume of selected literary passages, usually by one author”; or “a selection of literary passages from a foreign language, especially one assembled for studying a language.” Finally, from the French “feuillet”
ACROSS
1. Cylindrical fungal spore sac
6. Slow, dignified tempo
11. High-ranking Turk
16. Breastbones
18. 27% of the universe and no one knows what it's made of
20. Wine and coal place
22. Target with un
23. Not working? Turn it off and this
24. Crumbling empire, now a mockery to EU
25. Hairy cousin
26. Tiny pest to a gnu, perhaps?
28. "___ say!"
30. The __ crowd, isn't necessarily the best to be __
31. Computing with fewer commands
33. Iguana-toothed dino
36. Nothing's gonna stop __ now
37. Fiddly, detailed, (sheet) comes “feuilleton” (FOI-i-ton), “a short literary piece,” “a novel published in installments,” or “a part of a European newspaper devoted to light literature, criticism, and the like.”
No need to worry about “abibliophobia” (fear of running out of books to read) any time soon.
Q. Violins made by the Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari around 1700 sell for millions of dollars and are often regarded as the best ever made. Are they the best?
A. Scientists have speculated that the wood used in Stradivari’s time had subtly different mechanical properties (density, stiffness) than today’s, somehow leading to richer sound, reports Sid Perkins on the “Science News
complex
39. Belly round
41. A jot
42. Sah to the Egyptians
44. "At the ____ pole with Virgil Oddum" (Harlan Ellison story)
47. Hawthorn fruits
48. Dry, like dust
49. Steel span
51. Old at New Year's
52. Plato's creed, Aristotle disagreed
54. Before
55. Aero is the lightest type
56. How kids walk at first
57. One flower in a pocket full
58. Any for short, literally
60. He was a brave man that first ___ an oyster -Jonathan Swift
61. Cuckoos
62. Short Matthew
63. Jewish month of repentance for Students” website. Perhaps early craftsmen chemically treated the wood in some way lost to history — an idea bolstered by the observation that old violins seem to be remarkably resistant to wood-eating worms.
But are Stradivarius violins really superior? What does recent research suggest? In one study, 21 experienced violinists, wearing goggles and odor desensitized, each compared three old violins and three high-quality new instruments. As for the results, says Perkins, “Overall, and in head-to-head tests, most preferred the new violin. They preferred the Stradivarius least.”
64. Presage
65. Rock of
DOWN
1. Intestinal parasite of vertebrates Come inside Distance from celestial equator Universal resource locator
Hitch in a plan Astra, nauseum, infinitum Reviled rodent Between the abdomen and thigh
10. Radiohead's computer Universal
All terrain
Set phasers to this first
A jolly good fellow Turkish river, formerly Araxes Yellow flower, daisy-like
19. Crown adornments
21. Epic, long tale
2.
3.
4.
5.
7.
8.
9.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
17.
27. Schooled privately
29. Turtle programming language
30. Between
32. What this group does in a small space, ironically
34. Taken from above
35. You must make a choice
38. It is short
40. Hell to a Greek
43. Car's on but not moving
45. Arid, like dust
46. Three pip card
47. Defines a colour with saturation and brightness
48. Basic arithmetic
50. Poe's was perverse
51. Seyfert galaxy core
52. Jovian moon of fire
53. They are, it __
59. Settles snugly
60. To an LP as digital is to an MP3
61. Animalcule with no defined shape