burning bubble wrap

It appears that burning pure polyethylene shouldn't be too dangerous - i.e. it will not produce dioxin. However, I am not certain that bubble wrap is only polyethylene; Kristin might know better.

cutting boards

Okay, so there does not seem to be consensus on the best cutting board for preventing contamination. Glass is easiest to clean, but for both plastic and wood, you probably should be using a separate cutting board for your raw meats than everything else. Alton Brown puts a red tag on his meat cutting boards to tell the difference. For reference, I looked at the wikipedia page, an FDA pamphlet, and another site which is less formal.

various corrections

• Salads are one of the oldest foods; there is evidence that Egyptians ate raw salads.
• A mile is 1609 meters, not 'about 1300'.
• The hippocampus controls episodic memory, among other things. I was probably thinking of the amygdala, which regulates fear response - and creates picky eaters. However, as far as pain localization goes, that is, to some degree, subjective.
• The RFID thing is a 'security thread', which glows (perhaps color-coded to the note?) when placed under UV light.
• Donna Hay is from Australia; Ina Garten is from the US.
• According to Capers Jones 48% of million+ lines-of-code projects fail, and 65% of 10-million lines of code projects fail. However, it is safe to assume that many of the 'successful' projects were delivered with highly reduced or altered features.
• The IU is defined on a per-substance basis.