Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 11:05:48 -0700
From: "Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Blueberries in Paradise: Farmer tweaks soil to
successfully
To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <009501c8f725$e3c3f4e0$ab4bdea0$@org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
That was pretty cool, and I'm happy for the farmer and for blueberry lovers
in Utah.
As a biochemist, though, I've been getting a bit annoyed at some reporting
I've seen lately. Here, "removing the calcium and magnesium - referred to
as carbonates." Wouldn't it seem sensible to someone who's taken high
school chemistry that carbonates should contain, I don't know, some carbon?
And that calcium and magnesium per se would not, and exist in forms other
than calcite and magnesite? I understand in this specific case he was
removing Calcium and Magnesium carbonates, but the inference that,
therefore, Ca and Mg are "referred to as carbonates" I'm sure was
universally accepted as blindly as it was assumed and reported. I think the
public hears sciencey or mathy talk and goes, "oh, I don't understand those
things, but I learned something now - carbonate means calcium or magnesium.
So, let's see, milk is a good source of healthy carbonates;" or the brain
just shuts off altogether when it hears about somethingates.
Yes. I see I'm testy. Will stop complaining now and drink my coffee. I
take it black, no creamer, so no carbonates for me this morning..--
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