Chef Rob Morasco didn’t set out to make a planet-friendly burger.

But the 25 percent mushroom burger he created at food service company Sodexo not only has a lower carbon footprint, it’s also lower in calories, fat and salt.

It’s juicier, too.

“When you bite into it, it’s kind of like a flavor explosion,” Morasco said. “And you don’t taste the mushrooms, either.”

And because mushrooms are cheaper than beef, he could answer customer demand for antibiotic- and hormone-free burgers “without having to jack up the price,” he said.

Mushroom-blended burgers have been catching on among both chefs and environmentalists. In March, Sonic Drive-In became the first fast-food chain to offer them.

WATCH: These Burgers Are Better for the Planet, but You’d Never Know It

​2 million cars

Americans eat about 10 billion hamburgers each year, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI).

All those burgers take a toll on the planet.

Beef is “the most resource-intensive food that we commonly eat,” Richard Waite of WRI said.

Beef accounts for about half the greenhouse gases produced by the American diet, he added. Cows take far more feed, land and water than any other source of protein.

If every burger in America were blended with mushrooms, WRI estimates the greenhouse-gas savings would be like taking more than 2 million cars off the road.

It would save as much water as nearly 3 million American households use in a year. And it would reduce the demand for farmland by an area larger than the state of Maryland.

For the carnivore

Blended burgers are part of The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Menus of Change project, challenging chefs across the food industry to make their meals healthier and more sustainable.

Demand for meatless meals is growing along with rising health and environmental concerns. There are bean burgers, soy burgers, even beet-infused veggie burgers that “bleed.”

But it’s a limited market.

“The veggie burgers tend to cater to folks who identify as vegetarian or vegan, or actively want to be eating less meat,” Waite said.

On the other hand, blended burgers appeal to “the real carnivores, someone who really loves meat,” he added. “This is potentially a dish that could have broad mainstream appeal and also pretty big environmental benefits.”

Helps keep burgers juicy

Chefs say the mushrooms retain water, helping the burger stay juicy as it cooks.

Sonic Drive-In’s ads for its new Signature Slinger blended burger play up the juiciness and the lower calories.

“When you’re about something that is going to be better for you, it had better deliver the flavor first,” said Scott Uehlein, vice president for product innovation and development at Sonic Drive-In.

The company is piloting the burgers in a two-month trial run.

And the potential goes beyond burgers.

About 400 cafeterias, universities and hospitals are using Sodexo’s blended beef to prepare not only burgers, but lasagna, chili, meatballs, meatloaf and more. The company has adapted 30 popular recipes to use its mushroom blend.

“All those different things you can make with that product just like you would make with regular ground beef,” chef Morasco said.
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From: MeNeedIt

As the world’s population heads toward 10 billion by midcentury, experts are wrestling with how to feed the world without wrecking the planet. It’s not easy to find foods with lower environmental impact that still taste as good as the ones they are intended to replace. But chefs and environmentalists are both cheering one new menu item: the mushroom-blended burger. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Space scientists keeping track of dysfunctional space equipment are closely monitoring the expected re-entry of the largest piece of space junk so far. The Chinese space station Tiangong 1 will re-enter the atmosphere Sunday, but experts say it will be traveling so fast that the resulting friction will cause it to disintegrate and burn. But as VOA’s George Putic reports, small pieces may still reach the Earth.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Easter holiday is synonymous with symbols of spring, and for kids, it means candy in their Easter baskets. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig finds out how much sales increase over the holiday, and what the best sellers are.
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From: MeNeedIt

We’re airborne with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending March 31, 2018.

Last week, we had a big new addition to the Top Five … this week it’s the same lineup, just slightly shuffled.

Number 5: Post Malone Featuring Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho”

That comes in fifth place, where Post Malone and Ty Dolla $ign back off a notch with “Psycho.”

It’s Post’s second Top Five hit, and also the second for Ty … back in 2016, he topped out in fourth place as Fifth Harmony’s guest on “Work From Home.” If you’d like to see the video for this song, head to our Facebook page, VOA1TheHits.

Number 4: Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line “Meant To Be”

Taking over fourth place is the dynamite combination of Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line, with “Meant To Be.” 

That’s not all: It’s your Hot Country Songs champion for an incredible 17th week. Born to ethnic Albanian parents in New York City, Bleta “Bebe” Rexha won a “Best Teen Songwriter” contest sponsored by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. That set her on her way to her recording career.

Both Bebe and Bruno Mars have been performing since they were little kids.

Number 3: Bruno Mars & Cardi B “Finesse”

This week, Bruno and Cardi B spend another week in third place with “Finesse.”

Esquire magazine recently took a close look at Bruno’s fashion choices. If you want to copy his look, go for silky track suits, bolo ties, sunglasses at all times, bold chains, and sequins. You can get a closer look by reading the article on our Facebook page.

Number 2: Ed Sheeran “Perfect”

Ed Sheeran may be permanently attached to second place, because that’s where you’ll again find “Perfect.”  He’s popular everywhere, but seems to hold a particular place in the hearts of his Australian fans.

Ed’s “Divide” album tops the Aussie album list for a 25th week. Only three albums have lasted longer at the top: Delta Goodrem’s “Innocent Eyes” at 29 weeks; Adele’s “21” with 32 weeks; and the all-time champion, “Brothers In Arms” by Dire Straits, which topped the ARIA album chart for 34 weeks.

Number 1: Drake “God’s Plan”

Meanwhile, Drake notches another frame atop the Hot 100 with “God’s Plan,” bringing his championship run to eight weeks. Drake just dropped a piece of news about his next album.

Last week, Drake went on Instagram to say he’s working on a new album …and Murda Beatz is among the producers. They’ve collaborated several times, most recently on Drake’s 2017 collection “More Life.”

We’ll have more hits next week, so join us if you can!
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From: MeNeedIt

Alex Rodriguez received a special opening day visit during his first official broadcast with the ESPN Sunday night baseball team.

His girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, dropped by the booth at Dodger Stadium on Thursday with her son.

Rodriguez was working with Matt Vasgersian and Jessica Mendoza when Lopez popped in.

Lopez gave Rodriguez a kiss and her son gave him a hug.

Rodriguez later said Lopez is a baseball fan and her father, who grew up a Mets fan, was also there for the Dodgers-Giants opener.

San Francisco beat Los Angeles 1-0.
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From: MeNeedIt

Bill Cosby’s lawyers first pressured the judge in his sexual assault retrial to quit, and now they are counting on him to make rulings critical to their plan to portray the accuser as a greedy liar who framed the comedian to get rich.

Judge Steven O’Neill could rule as early as Friday on whether the defense can call a witness who claims Andrea Constand spoke about falsely accusing a celebrity before going to police with allegations Cosby drugged and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

Prosecutors said the theory that Constand wanted to set Cosby up is undermined by his testimony in a 2005 deposition that she only visited his home when invited and that he gave her pills without her asking.

The judge also will decide how much jurors will hear about Cosby’s financial settlement with Constand.

Cosby’s lawyers argued that the lawsuit and payment were the direct result of her scheming against him. Prosecutors said Cosby’s negotiators wanted to bar Constand from ever cooperating with law enforcement.

O’Neill presided over Cosby’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury last year.

O’Neill remained on the case after rejecting the defense’s assertions on Thursday that he could be seen as biased because his wife is a social worker and advocate for assault victims.

In arguing for the judge to step aside, Cosby’s lawyers pointed to a $100 donation made in his wife’s name to an organization that gave money to a group planning a protest outside of the retrial.

O’Neill said the contribution was made 13 months ago by the department where his wife works at the University of Pennsylvania and that Cosby’s lawyers held an antiquated view of marriage where spouses must agree on everything.

“How are my wife’s independent views of an independent woman connected to me?” O’Neill said. “She’s an independent woman and has the right to be involved in anything that she believes in.”

Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Monday and jurors will once again be sequestered at a hotel. Opening statements and testimony are not expected to get underway until April 9 at the earliest.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

China’s defunct and reportedly out-of-control Tiangong 1 space station is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere sometime this weekend. It poses only a slight risk to people and property on the ground, since most of the bus-size, 8.5-ton vehicle is expected to burn up on re-entry, although space agencies don’t know exactly when or where that will happen.

Below are some questions and answers about the station, its re-entry, and the past and future of China’s ambitious space program.

What will happen and how great is the danger?

The European Space Agency predicts the station will re-enter the atmosphere between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon — an estimate it calls “highly variable,” likely because the ever-changing shape of the upper atmosphere affects the speed of objects falling into it.

The Chinese space agency’s latest estimate puts re-entry between Saturday and Wednesday.

Western space experts say they believe China has lost control of the station. China’s chief space laboratory designer Zhu Zongpeng has denied Tiangong was out of control, but hasn’t provided specifics on what, if anything, China is doing to guide the craft’s re-entry.

Based on Tiangong 1’s orbit, it will come to Earth somewhere between latitudes of 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south, or roughly somewhere over most of the United States, China, Africa, southern Europe, Australia and South America. Out of range are Russia, Canada and northern Europe.

Based on its size, only about 10 percent of the spacecraft will likely survive being burned up on re-entry, mainly its heavier components such as its engines. The chances of anyone on Earth being hit by debris is considered less than one in a trillion.

Ren Guoqiang, China’s defense ministry spokesman, told reporters Thursday that Beijing has been briefing the United Nations and the international community about Tiangong 1’s re-entry through multiple channels.

​How common is man-made space debris?

Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a U.S. Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997. 

Most famously, America’s 77-ton Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwestern Australia city of Perth, which fined the U.S. $400 for littering.

The breakup on re-entry of the Columbia space shuttle in 2003 killed all seven astronauts and sent more than 80,000 pieces of debris raining down on a large swath of the southern United States. No one on the ground was injured.

In 2011, NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was considered to pose a slight risk to the public when it came down to Earth 20 years after its launching. Debris from the 6-ton satellite ended up falling into the Pacific Ocean, causing no damage. 

China’s own space program raised major concerns after it used a missile to destroy an out-of-service Chinese satellite in 2007, creating a large and potentially dangerous cloud of debris. 

What is Tiangong 1 and what was it used for?

Launched in 2011, Tiangong 1 was China’s first space station, serving as an experimental platform for bigger projects such as the Tiangong 2 launched in September 2016 and a future permanent Chinese space station.

The station, whose name translates as “Heavenly Palace,” played host to two crewed missions that included China’s first female astronauts and served as a test platform for perfecting docking procedures and other operations. Its last crew departed in 2013 and contact with it was cut in 2016. Since then it has been orbiting gradually closer and closer to Earth on its own while being monitored.

The station had two modules, one for its solar panels and engines, and one for a pair of astronauts to live in and conduct experiments. A third astronaut slept in the Shenzhou spaceships that docked with the station, which also contained facilities for personal hygiene and food preparation.

​How advanced is China’s space program?

Since China conducted its first crewed mission in 2003 — becoming only the third country after Russia and the U.S. to do so — it has taken on increasingly ambitious projects, including staging a spacewalk and landing its Jade Rabbit rover on the moon.

China now operates the Tiangong 2 precursor space station facility, while the permanent station’s 20-ton core module is due to be launched this year. The completed 60-ton station is set to come into full service in 2022 and operate for at least a decade.

China was excluded from the 420-ton International Space Station mainly due to U.S. legislation barring such cooperation and concerns over the Chinese space program’s strong military connections. China’s space program remains highly secretive and some experts have complained that a lack of information about Tiangong 1’s design has made it harder to predict what might happen upon its re-entry.

A mission to land another rover on Mars and bring back samples is set to launch in 2020. China also plans to become the first country to soft-land a probe on the far side of the moon.
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From: MeNeedIt

Lawyers for the children of the late French rock singer Johnny Hallyday have started to contest the will that leaves everything to his widow.

Hallyday’s eldest children are contesting the document that bequeaths his property and artistic rights “exclusively” to his widow, Laeticia Hallyday, 43.

A hearing was held Friday at a tribunal near Paris at the request of Hallyday’s eldest children, David Hallyday, 51, and Laura Smet, 34.

They want their late father’s inheritance to their stepmother — Hallyday’s fourth wife — to be frozen.

The hearing had been postponed after the children’s lawyers said basic documents were missing.

Hallyday — dubbed the “French Elvis” — died last December.
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From: MeNeedIt

The United States is on track to meet the targets of the Paris climate agreement despite President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from the accord, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

Guterres said emissions-cutting plans put in motion by American businesses, regional governments and cities meant that the goals set by the former U.S. administration, which signed the deal in 2016 were within reach.

“We have seen in the cities, and we have seen in many states, a very strong commitment to the Paris agreement, to the extent that some indicators are moving even better than in the recent past,” Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

“There are expectations that, independently of the position of the administration, the U.S. might be able to meet the commitments made in Paris as a country.”

Greenhouse gas emissions

Under the deal, the administration of former president Barack Obama pledged to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

Nearly 200 countries and parties have signed the landmark agreement after intense negotiations in Paris, where all nations made voluntary carbon-cutting pledges running to 2030.

The agreement is aimed at limiting global warming to within two degrees Celsius, but Guterres warned that more action was needed by 2020 to reach that goal.

Withdrawal notice due in 2019

Trump faced condemnation when he announced in June 2017 that the United States was pulling out, painting the accord as a “bad deal” for the U.S. economy.

Under the agreement, the United States can formally give notice that it plans to withdraw in 2019, three years after the accord came into force, and the withdrawal would become effective in 2020.

Describing climate change as “the most systemic threat to humankind,” Guterres said recent data on extreme weather events showed that “2017 was filled with climate chaos.”

“2018 has already brought more of the same,” he said. “Food security, health, stability itself all hang in the balance.”

Guterres is planning to host a major summit next year to take stock of progress in implementing the climate deal, but it remains unlikely that Trump would attend.

Plan to loosen emissions, fuel standards

Though Guterres said the U.S. is on track to meet Paris climate agreement targets, the Trump administration still has the ability to change current regulations.

The New York Times reported Thursday, citing an Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman, that the White House was expected to push a plan to loosen standards on emissions and vehicle fuel economy standards, undercutting the previous administration’s bid to fight climate change.

Such a move would represent a win for automakers, potentially paving the way to lower the bar for standards globally.
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From: MeNeedIt

A Los Angeles judge Thursday ordered coffee companies to abide by California state law and put cancer warning labels on their products.

A nonprofit group called the Council for Education and Research on Toxics is suing such popular coffee roasters and retailers as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s. They say the companies fail to warn consumers that roasting coffee naturally produces a carcinogen called acrylamide.

In the first part of the three-phase trial, Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle ruled the coffee companies failed to prove their assertion that there is no significant risk from acrylamide.

In Thursday’s ruling after the second phase, Berle said the companies failed to adequately show coffee is a healthy drink.

“Defendants failed to satisfy their burden of proving by a preponderance of evidence that consumption of coffee confers a benefit to human health,” he wrote.

An upcoming third phase would decide what civil penalties the coffee companies would have to pay.

Company officials have not yet responded to the judge’s ruling.

Acrylamide forms naturally when such foods as coffee, hot wheat cereals and potatoes are cooked or deep fried.

Most medical studies show no increased risk of cancer from eating such foods.

Some recent studies have shown possible benefits from drinking coffee, including protection against liver disease, some diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
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From: MeNeedIt

The search for worlds circling star  far beyond our solar system will intensify in the coming weeks with NASA’s launch of a spacecraft scientists hope will enlarge the known catalog of so-called exoplanets believed capable of supporting life.

NASA plans to send the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set for blast-off on April 16 on a two-year, $337-million mission.

The latest NASA astrophysics endeavor is designed to build on the work of its predecessor, the Kepler space telescope, which discovered the bulk of some 3,500 exoplanets documented during the past 20 years, revolutionizing one of the newest fields in space science.

NASA expects TESS to detect thousands more previously unknown worlds, perhaps hundreds of them Earth-sized or “super-Earth”-sized — no larger than twice as big as our home planet.

One of a kind orbit

Such worlds are believed to stand the greatest chance of having rocky surfaces or oceans, and are thus considered the most promising candidates for the evolution of life, as opposed to gas giants similar to Jupiter or Neptune.

Astronomers said they hope to end up with about 100 more rocky exoplanets for further study.

The new probe will take about 60 days to attain its highly elliptical, first-of-a-kind orbit that will loop TESS between Earth and the moon every two and a half weeks.

Kepler’s positioning system broke down in 2013 about four years after its launch, and though scientists found a way to keep it operational it has nearly run out of fuel.

“So it’s perfect timing that we’ll be launching TESS to continue the great activity of looking for planets around stars other than our sun and thinking about what it might mean for life in the universe,” Paul Hertz, NASA’s director of astrophysics, told reporters at a news briefing in Washington on Wednesday.

Size of refrigerator

TESS, roughly the size of a refrigerator with solar-panel wings, is equipped with four special cameras to survey 200,000 stars that are relatively near the sun and thus among the brightest in the sky, seeking out those with planets of their own.

Like Kepler, TESS will use a detection method called transit photometry, which looks for periodic, repetitive dips in the visible light from stars caused by planets passing, or transiting, in front of them.

But unlike Kepler, which fixed its glare on stars within a tiny fraction of the sky, TESS will scan the majority of the heavens for shorter periods and focus much of its attention on stars called red dwarfs, which are smaller, cooler and longer-lived than our sun.

One reason is red dwarfs have a high propensity for Earth-sized, presumably rocky planets, making them potentially fertile ground for closer examination, said David Latham, TESS science director for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Also because red dwarfs are so small, and their planets orbit more closely than the Earth does to the sun, the dip in light from a planetary transit of a red dwarf is more pronounced compared with a larger star, Latham said.

“It’s easier to find interesting planets around smaller stars,” he said.

Measuring dips in starlight can determine the exoplanet’s size and orbital path. Further observations from ground telescopes can supply its mass and ultimately the planet’s density and composition — whether largely solid, liquid or gas.

Earth-sized planets found

Martin Still, the TESS program scientist for NASA, said more than 50 rocky, Earth- or super-Earth-sized planets have previously been identified, and NASA expects to increase that number through the new mission.

The most favorable discoveries will undergo closer scrutiny by a new generation of larger, more powerful telescopes now under development that will search for telltale signs of water and “the kinds of gases in their atmospheres that on Earth are an indication of life,” Hertz said.

“TESS itself will not be able to find life beyond Earth, but TESS will help us figure out where to point our larger telescopes,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt