03-18-2011

Sci­en­tists LOVE Data!!

I am endeav­or­ing to embrace social media; to par­tic­i­pate with the global inter­net com­mu­nity. But I’ve needed a tool to actu­ally tell me, unob­jec­tively, how I am doing. I think I found that tool today. I have linked all my social media accounts to klout score. This site pro­vides a way to rank your influ­ence within social media while also rank­ing the qual­ity of the peo­ple you fol­low. Just start­ing out my score is a wimpy 13, but now I have a means to watch it improve. Klout scor­ing is pretty cool. Check mine out HERE.

Meet­ing at Katz Ana­lyt­i­cal Laboratories

March 18, I met with Dr. Bill Katz, Pres­i­dent of Katz Ana­lyt­i­cal Lab­o­ra­to­ries. This com­pany has diverse ana­lyt­i­cal ser­vices includ­ing ICP/MS, GC and HPLC. They can per­form test­ing on a vari­ety of prod­ucts includ­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, med­ical devices, nutri­tional sup­ple­ments, cos­met­ics, clin­i­cal sam­ples and food prod­ucts. In addi­tion, they are expe­ri­enced in Method Devel­op­ment. Katz Ana­lyt­i­cal Ser­vices may be a great source for your ana­lyt­i­cal test­ing. Check them out!

In the Lab

The batch of blood orange mar­malade was reworked by adding more lemon juice (increas­ing pectin level) and sugar (for increased vis­cos­ity). The final prod­uct is slightly more vis­cous, but still appears too thin. In addi­tion, I believe it is too sweet. I noticed that each blood orange seg­ment is about half red and half orange. The red half is sweet; the orange half is tart, like an orange. This obser­va­tion may explain why the mar­malade didn’t set prop­erly; not enough pectin. I think this for­mu­la­tion needs to be made pre­dom­i­nantly from tra­di­tional cit­rus fruits (lemons, limes, oranges and grape­fruit)
Next steps:
1. Obtain com­mer­cial pectin
2. Make tra­di­tional Lime Mar­malade
3. Con­tinue to study the rela­tion­ship of pectin / sugar / water in the set­ting process.

While surf­ing the Net, I came across a mar­velous blog post by Shuna Fish Lyndo. Shuna is a pro­fes­sional bak­ing chef, cur­rently in New York City. Her writ­ing is enter­tain­ing and insight­ful. I plan to incor­po­rate her mar­malade advice in my next batch. Check out here blog, it’s great.

© Glo­ria A. Rood, 2011
© Grove Ridge Con­sult­ing, 2011