Why does salt enhance the flavor of almost all food?

Ever wondered why salt is so important to us in our diet? Ever noticed that the taste of something can actually change significantly after you’ve added salt? The Straight Dope has the answers:

Besides banging harder on the body’s salt gong, adding NaCl to some foods can increase the volatility of certain chemical compounds, meaning the molecules are more easily released to the air, and of course aroma is an important part of the taste experience. Finally, studies have shown the sodium in salt can suppress bitter tastes.

See full article for everything you wanted to know about salt, but were afraid to ask.

Motivation: Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret

Lifehacker has a post on a neat idea to improve your productivity, which is attributed to Seinfeld:

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

“Don’t break the chain.” He said again for emphasis.

See full article.

Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks

This guy rewrote a whole bunch of famous poems as limericks. The results are hilarious. For example, here is Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud”:

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

There once was a poet named Will
Who tramped his way over a hill
And was speechless for hours
Over some stupid flowers
This was years before TV, but still.

See all of them.