Articulatory Loop

Howard Stapleton and Robert Gough do not like children. Stapleton has developed and Gough has installed a device, which he calls the Mosquito, which emits a noise in a high register that most older adults have lost the ability to hear, but that young people can hear and find irritating. Their goal: drive teenagers away. They probably also want to have their balls ripped off by neighborhood dogs and their bank accounts looted by noise pollution and nuisance lawsuits. Both of which they richly deserves.

I understand the problems of loitering kids (having been one myself), and appreciate that chasing them off or calling the cops is minimally effective, but this is bloody stupid. I also have very good hearing, and don't want to spend the rest of my life suffering external tinnitus in the name of chasing off kids.

As if being shorter than the other kids in your class wasn't hard enough, new research indicates that it may mean you really are worse off: IGF-1 levels seem to vary with intelligence in children. The study is correlational, and doesn't really mean much, but still. Clearly, taking growth hormones later in life does not make you smarter.

Women have spent a long time fighting for equality in the workplace, and we've come a long way, but there are still some strange biases lying about. Executive women who conform to societal demands of sexiness (à la Sarah Jessica Parker) are thought of as less competent than frumpsters. Attire did not have a similar effect on perceptions of non-executive women. More evidence that Sex and the City is doing more harm than good!

If you're creative, you might be schizophrenic - but you also get laid more! At least, that's what the BBC seems to be saying. I don't have the time or energy to go in to how ridiculous this little fluff piece is, because I'm too busy being..err...creative.

Tylenol has been more or less synonymous with 'safe medicine' in the American commercial pharmacopoeia since forever. The thing is, of course, that like every other drug, acetaminophen has side effects. It is really, really bad for your liver; that's why I tell my friends not to take it for their hangovers.

How many times a week do you take it? What about something that shares its active ingredient, acetaminophen? Probably more than you think: the popular pain reliever/fever reducer is in all kinds of stuff, from pain killers to cough supressants to PMS treatments. But why should you care?

In small doses, or even larger ones often given by doctors, acetaminophen is about as safe a medication as you can hope for. The problem is that, since it's in so many things, more and more people are quietly giving themselves acetaminophen poisoning and needing new livers. It's still a small number, in reality, but something to watch out for - especially if you like to exercise your liver regularly.

New research has found that the posterior parietal cortex seems to be involved in body shape perception, and may be implicated in dysmorphic disorders such as anorexia and bullemia. You can see this are displayed here, but I do not recommend smacking your fat-blogging friends there to help them get over their dieting compulsion. Not at all.

I just want to take this opportunity to apologize for all the self-indulgent crap I've been posting recently, and will likely continue to post for a few more stressed-out, medication-clouded days.

I think I had a point, or at least some kind of clever/witty punchline here, but it seems to have wondered off...

Anyways, enjoy the non-scientific fun, while it lasts.

It's bad enough that CNN.com feels that there's not enough real news out there, and that they must consequently write articles about third-rate celebrities. But, I really want to know: is CNN actually quoting chortler? I mean, come on CNN, if you're trying to be hip, funny, clever, or hell, even satirical, you should try writing your own material. I know lots of people who could write better celebreality copy that this, and probably for cheap.

I've been away from the office too long, and thus have no time to blog; so here's a quickie:

Cranberries contain an agent which may help prevent tooth decay. Cool. It seems to affect bacterial adhesion to surfaces, which could have implications in lots of other areas too. Very cool.

I have a shockingly persistent case of strep, and am spending Thanksgiving drugged up and hungry, instead of pigging out with my family.

I figure I especially need to remind myself there's plenty good in the world.
This is also stolen from Chrisafer.

I am thankful for my family.
I am thankful for the rest of my family.
I am thankful for friends who put up with me, call me on my bullshit, and make me go dancing.
I am thankful for the nights spent laughing.
I am thankful to be able to laugh.
I am thankful to be able to cry.
I am thankful for the darkness, and sometimes, the light.
I am thankful for moments of calm before and after a storm.
I am thankful for the storm.
I am thankful for the process of learning to just be me.
I am thankful for the internet, in all its (often dubious) splendor.
I am thankful for music - to make me laugh, to make me cry, to make me dance, to take my mind off things, and to make me singscreech along.
I am thankful for my job.
I am thankful for the opportunity to leave my job.
I am thankful for my puppy.
I am thankful for my shiney new camera.
I am thankful for people who write comments on my blog.
I am thankful for chocolate.
I am thankful for comfy clothes.
I am thankful for gorgeous, uncomfortable shoes.
I am thankful for leather goods, in general.
I am thankful for the smell of falling leaves.
I am thankful for the comforting glow of too many LEDs from my desk.
I am thankful for ear-shatteringly loud alarm clocks.
I am thankful for the wisdom to know what I can do, and the strength not to do it.
I am thankful for waking up after every time I go to sleep (even if too quickly).

That was more therapeutic than I'd expected. Or hoped. Hm.

I'm at that stage of illness where, through the heavy medication (since this morning I've reshuffled: ginseng, echinacea, goldenseal, telithromycin, clarithromycin, naproxen, ibuprofen, and methylprednisolone) and probably also because of it, I can feel my immune system really kicking in, which means I have way more energy than I should for not having slept properly in five days and am more easily amused than even my usual ease of amusement. Not to mention my uncontrollable love for run-on complex run-on sentences.

Also, I am happy to learn that there is some use for bacteria, other than fucking up my pre-holiday plans: bacterial photography. Researchers modified e. coli to produce a pigment when exposed to light, so that when they die off what's left is a projected image. The 15 hour exposure time will limit is usefulness in the short run; but then, silver emulsion photos took a while to become practical too. Plus, if you view bacteria as at least slightly demonic, this is one step closer to Terry Pratchett technology come to life, which makes me happy.

UPDATE: Nope, spoke too soon. No turkey for me.

Now, this is why I played hooky so much when I was a kid. There is something genuinely refreshing about staying home all day, not allowed to leave or do anything particularly strenuous. Admittedly, it would be better if my uvula was not the size of a jawbraker and I was not on a combination of not one but two antibiotics and twothree painkillers.

All this misery did lead me to one conclusion: I can not really do anything but watch TV and read crappy magazines. I mean, on all that medication, the brain certainly can't be bothered to follow anything complicated! So, after deciding that daytime TV is unforgivably bad (Why do you think the housewives are so desperate? You would be too if you had to spend your days watching Maury and Judge HackHatchet.). So, I decided to pop in the Trigun DVDs that Frenchie lent me, even though when I watched the first episode to kill time before going out a while ago, it sucked so badly that I pretty much wrote it off. Now I'm halfway through the series, and DAMN! I am impressed.

Also, Jake Gyllenhaal on the cover of Details? Yum.

And there is your medication-infused rambling of the morning.

I'm going to be rather equivocal in the recent backlash against fat blogging. For starters, I gotta say that I really don't care about your latest diet. Yes, I know we're in the middle of an 'obesity epidemic,' but please be real: if you're a woman, size 10 is not obese. Unless you're 4'5", and even then.

Losing those five pounds of rib covering is easy: instead of stressing over which frozen dinner has less carbs and then blogging about it, do 25 situps and pushups*. Whatever nutritional fad/scheme-of-the-week you're trying, I've probably been there, done that and trust: it is not a worthwhile way to live.

On the other hand, I realize that blogging can be good therapy/a great support group. It's just that I'm guessing that plenty of 'fat blogging' comes from the same ladies who are constantly on a diet and asking their boy/girlfriends if a given outfit makes their ass look big (I do love you, but you know who you are). "No, the pants do not make your ass look big; the Cheetos do."

I have to throw the dieters a bone though: this Holiday Season® , you can automatically trim the portions you're likely to eat by using smaller utensils. See? Who says I'm not sensitive to dieters' needs?

* If I followed my own advice, I'd have a six-pack and nice arms, but alas, I have no self-discipline.

We all know that smoking is bad for you and that its effects can kill. Well, now here we have a serious example of how it might harm others: an airline passenger tried to open the plane door mid-flight to have a smoke. She claims to have been sleep walking during this suicidal nic-fit; one can only hope she doesn't reproduce.

We humans are pretty clever, for a bunch of walking masses of improbability (unless you're a creationist, in which case we're pretty clever for being some deity's side-project). The thing is, that for all the things we think we've got figured out, nature has pretty much already been there and done that. Two examples: fighting the flu and building LEDs.

In the panic about a possible Avian flu pandemic, the drug Tamiflu has emerged as a potentially effective treatment. The active ingredient in Tamiflu is not some synthetic wonder of modern medicine, but a remedy people have been using for millennia: star anise. And this sudden heightened interest in star anise is quickly changing lives of many in China, but it also has the potential to punctuate the importance of 'traditional' remedies: things that people have known work since long before controlled trials and spectrographic analyses. Who knows where the next cure will be hiding?

In attempting to develop a more efficient LED, researchers have found that they've already been beaten to the punch. Butterflies have had high-emission LEDs on their wings for, well, longer than there were people thinking about LEDs, to say the least. Again, this is part of why not only conservation but also interdisciplinary work are so important: think how much work could be saved if engineers and builders knew better how to look at nature to see what's been done already and how. Nature is brutally efficient: it's a good bet that if something evolved that way, it's a pretty good way to do it.

Well, everybody seems to be reacting to the Information Leafblower's Top 40 Bands in America 2005 list, so, since I have no self control and many other things I should be doing, here's my top eight, including some who don't actually really fit the "American" tag, but I don't listen to nearly enough American music (none of this should really come as any surprise to anyone who's been paying attention):

1. Self. Matt Mahaffey is a genius, pure and simple. Similarly to Fiona Apple, Self's last album is tied up in record company bullshit, but unlike Fiona, Self just went ahead and released a bunch of other new material free on the web. I've been a fan for many years, and giddily await each new release (which will hopefully include the stuff now in Limbo). He also toured with Beck this year.

2. Stephin Merrit. As if his massive catalogue of pop, electronica, and other oddities wasn't enough, this year saw My Life as a Fairy Tale, an operatic work based on Hans Christian Andersen's life produced and performed in NYC (with no tickets for me, much to my chagrin!). The music to that and Merritt's other showtunes will be released (and purchased by me) in February of 2006.

3. Madonna. Duh. I hated her last album, but what I've heard of the new one is really good, and well, she's Madonna.

4. Diplo. You indie kids probably know him for providing the beats behind spunky darling M.I.A., but really he's done much more really cool stuff. It's just that now he's even bigger. Have a listen to his stuff. (yes, he also gets points for being utterly adorkable).

5. Gorillaz. 'Cuz, uhm, they are fucking awesome. When I hear some of their stuff, I almost want to call them the "rock OutKast." Except they're not rock. Or any other genre I can identify, which is why I love them. That and the fact that it makes me feel happy and bouncy.

6. Bertrand Burgalat. Producer. Composer. Instrumentalist. Singer. This guy is awesome, and his newest album is unlike really anything I've ever heard before. Ever. From infectious grooves to goofy nonsense, it all gets inside you and does funny things to your brain. Even the sad songs are kinda sexy, in the same strange way that his halting, awkward voice sounds utterly gorgeous.

7. Shakira. He songs make me want to dance, or make big sad puppydog eyes at someone who will never return them. Her videos make me want to do serious damage to said someone. She's also hot, and with an accent that makes me all melty.

8. Garbage. Bleed Like Me is not their best album, but then again neither were any of the others. They all have all sorts of random bits that don't quite fit together for any reason except exquisite production quality and engineering. But they all have that evil little something that Garbage puts into everything they do that makes it fun.

Today for breakfast, I'm having coffee. A large cup, brewed from 50% dark roast Sumatra and 50% dark roast Kenya, with a splash of cream and a pack of sweet-n-low. I will probably have two or three more of these babies today, as I stayed out later than I out to have last night at the DC Bloggers Meetup at Pharaoh (which is a great bar, by the by). Waking up to Peggy Lee is helping.

It's good that I like my caffeine though, because new research indicates that decaf may be bad for you. Decaf drinkers had elevated levels (versus regular and non-coffee drinkers) of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs) and apoB, both risk factors for heart disease. Plus, decaf is nasty!

Speaking of strange food effects. If you eat a lot of methionine, you may be permanently deactivating a number of your genes: diet seems to affect methylation. This is one of those times where I had an 'ohshit' moment simultaneously with an 'ohmygodthatsfuckingcool' moment; that diet can influence genes so dramatically is really odd, and kind of scary. Still, I eagerly await where this all goes.

But today's news isn't all bad: it seems that eating sweets may be the best medicine for stress! Not that this isn't something every chocolate lover in the world already knows, but confirmation is nice. Eating sweets seems to decrease glucocorticoid production, which is related to the bad side-effects of stress. Only real sugar works here, not sweet-n-low, so I guess there's more evidence for the jolly fat man archetype! But eating too many sweets in unhealthy, so remember to keep a balance!

A Kelowna, BC mayoral candidate thinks that offering junkies crack as reward for doing work would not only be effective, but also magically make them less addicted to the stuff. I don't really think there's more to say.

Is a dangerous game. The Times ran an article today about the growing trend of young people self-diagnosing illnesses, especially psychiatric conditions, and prescribing themselves and others medications - either by demanding their doctors write scripts, or by getting them by, erm, other means. It focuses on a group of people who seem to be fairly savvy - using the internet and PDR to research their choices - but these people still seem to have no real medical or pharmacological training. Which really worries me.

I manage meds for my grandparents, and to some extent my parents, and sometimes do help friends out with their considerations, because I have taken pharmacology, worked in psychiatric facilities, and have some medical training, while they don't. But everyone is very clear that I. Am. Not. A. Doctor. and that they need to consult someone who is.

I understand the appeal of making your own decisions on psychiatric drugs especially, as each one is so idiosycratic, and I fully agree that patients in this regard should, when they are able, take an active role in finding out about the drugs their doctors suggest. Read that last sentence carefully: when they are able - many psychiatric patients, regardless of their personal opinions, do not make sound judgments; and the drugs their doctors suggest - it's one thing to ask your doctor about a new drug you've seen advertised, but demanding a medication contrary to your doctor's advice, or even one with which s/he is unfamiliar, is dangerous*.

And don't get me started on people sharing prescriptions. Yes, you've taken Vicodin before and didn't have any problems. Thing is, you were at home recovering from a tonsilectomy, not out clubbing. OK, so you were out clubbing, but make no mistake: you got lucky.

I see my friends doing this, and it makes me spitting mad. Not just because it's stupid, but because it's inevitably me who has to do CPR/get puked on/call the ambulance/explain to the paramedic what you've taken and why you were taking it on a belly full of tequila. All of these things seriously ruin my buzz.

*If your psychiatrist needs to read up on a drug before prescribing it, that's what should happen. Let me assure you that, unless you are a medical professional, your doctor will almost always read/interpret the literature very differently and more effectively than you will.

The US went to war in Iraq based on claims that Saddam Hussein was developing/using weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons designed to maim and inhumanely kill his own people, right? Oops! Seems the US did that to the Iraqis as well. That white phosphorus is not classified as a "chemical weapon" is utterly irrelevant: if it looks like a duck, and pecks your eyes out like a duck, it's probably not a ham sandwich.

Two really, really cool new technologies are on the horizon: a new type of microscope and new type of camera. The microscope has resolution down to a single H atom, and can see - in real time! - protein trafficking. Really cool. Really, really, really cool. The new digital camera may be able to eliminate the need to stop and focus: you could snap your photo quick, and adjust the focus later on your computer. I wonder if you'll ever get the same super-sharpness you can with a really good lens though. Still, very cool.

High blood pressure? Eat more fat! Well, not really. But kinda: new research indicates that replacing about 10 percent of your dietary carbs with beans and other sources of unsaturated fats can raise your HDL ("good cholesterol") levels, help lower your blood pressure, etc. Yet another reason to eat healthy!

"...what started out as a roundtable quickly turned into The Jessica Cutler Show." This sounds like it should have been a tragedy.

The tragedy is that Cutler is the only interesting thing in the entire article: five sex columnists and four pages with nothing to say but "like, ohmigawd, she was, like, a hooker!" You'd think modern, liberated women who write about sex all day would be less prim: they talk about feminism, but apparently it's some new form of feminism which involves being quiet and docile and frigid. Le snore. Still, Cutler's antics at and surrounding this interview were pretty bizarre*.

In response to her antics, my friend and Hill resident WRC had this to say:

I think this conclusively proves that prolonged exposure to elected officials is a persistent contaminant that permanently alters brain function. Therefore we need to declare the Hill a superfund site and plow the Congress under.
I think this might lower property values enough for me to buy my house.


*I chatted briefly with the fabled Washingtonienne at a party earlier this year; she was perfectly sweet and she has a well-spoiled cocker spaniel, so she's clearly good people. Just an easy target.

Harriet, a Giant Galapagos tortoise currently living at the Australia zoo, is probably sick of Tuesdays. Today (or, actually, yesterday, due to the date line thing) she celebrated her 9100th Tuesday, give or take a score. Some people want to live forever, at the moment, I just want to get in to grad school*.

* I'd be happy if I got a 6-8 figure salary without grad school too, but since I've already started applications...

The Beeb is reporting that a UK man of 25, who was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2002, is now free of the virus. Now, first of all, can anyone say 'false positive'? I would love to believe that this is real, but given that the guy refuses to submit to real examination, I don't. If the story is to be believed, he is a ginormous fucking asshole to not let doctors seriously examine him - not become a permanent human guinea pig, but let them draw blood a few times, give him free donuts, and take a personal history, etc.

Aside from denying the world potential new treatments for HIV, he is also being totally irresponsible: if he lives his life as if he's negative, but is in fact not, he's putting himself and others at serious risk.

I really hope he contributes to a cure.

While out for a nice family dinner, go ahead and smack your bitch up, but not your brat*. New research indicates that kids who are physically disciplined, regardless of local culture, tend to be more violent and anxious. While in theory I'm against hitting kids, sometimes a little mortal terror does wonders for discipline. See, for example, that screaming brat at table 5, versus the boisterous-but-not-irritating child at table 3.

At the restaurant, you may be tempted to stick to your low-carb routine. Be warned: this diet may do some pretty significant damage to your heart. Researchers found that people on a low-carb diet had reduced coronary energy stores, and their heart muscles became slightly 'stiff.' Though the n is miniscule and the length of follow up brief, the findings are worth consideration (and, hopefully, replication).

When you get home from dinner, you may open a letter from your mailbox to find white powder inside. Anthrax!!!! (not the band) You inhaled it, so you're probably going to die. But, at least now science can tell you why inhaling the spores is so much more dangerous than getting them on your fingers: it turns out that anthrax is pretty easily killed by neutrophils using alpha-defensin, but that there are too few neutrophils in the lungs to do the job. Maybe in a few years there will be an inhalable alpha-defensin? No, that would probably cause severe inflammation and kill you anyways.

* This blog does not endorse or advocate the smacking of bitches. Unless he asksbegs for it.

The ethical (and, more prominently, political) furor over use of embryonic stem cells in research may soon diminish: Florida researchers have developed a new type of bioreactor, in which they claim to be able to reliably culture and direct differentiation of adult (bone marrow) stem cells. These cells can't do everything an embryonic cell can, but they can do a lot, and are fertile ground for more basic research. Cool!

The ethical (and, more prominently, political) furor over use of embyonic stem cells in research may soon diminish: Florida researchers have developed a new type of bioreactor, in which they claim to be able to reliably culture and direct differentiation of adult (bone marrow) stem cells. These cells can't do everything an embryonic cell can, but they can do a lot, and are fertile ground for more basic research. Cool!

We know about insulin and ghrelin, CCK and leptin - all these hormones affect how hungry we feel and how much food we burn versus store. Obestatin, a hormone derived from the same precursor as ghrelin, has been found to be a potent appetite supressant.

What suprises me about the article is how surprised the researchers aparently are by this. Why shouldn't two antagonistic proteins be made together, when the goal is homeostasis?

As a big proponent of open research, I think the recent trend of patenting and copyrighting everything - from genes to chemicals to the word "hott" - is bloody stupid and scary. A new survey from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) suggests that intellectual property wrangling in science is doing noticeable damage to the field. The details are sketchy, really, but their implications are clear: greed is bad for everyone.

Now, can we have more PLoS please?

Lichen placed on the outside of a European space craft in May seem to have survived in the vacuum. If these photosynthetic characters could be seeded on other planets like, say, Venus or Mars, they could (given a few millennia, probably) help terraform either one. Also, if lichen can survive in space, it does bode well for the panspermia/exogenesis hypotheses.

I find this fabulously exciting, but as there is no actual citation in the article, I have no idea how valid the results in fact are. Still, the idea is all sexy and stuff.

(Hat tip to former füdite WRC for this one.)

The biggest thing people say about the infamous Atkins Diet is that, unlike on low-fat-high-carb diets, they feel more full and satiated. A new study helps explain why we feel more full after a high-protein meal: it seems that eating proteins causes release of glucose in the small intestine, which makes us feel full.

I'm not entirely clear why this doesn't happen when we eat carbs, though...shouldn't eating glucose have the effect of adding glucose to the small intestine? Anyone got ideas here?

So you have your shiney new color-screen iPod, and you've loaded all your favorite music and a few episodes of the Daily Show (for emergencies). But there's still space left over, and it hasn't really changed your life that much. What it needs to do is actually improve and expand your mind, not just shrink your musical attention span.

What? You want to learn neuroanatomy on the bus? You can, with a new program which runs through the Notes function of the iPod. This is the only thing I have found that makes me maybe want an iPod, instead of the precious.
(via)

Drugs have side effects. Drowsiness, nausea, diarrhea, anxiety, and, in the case of the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin, possibly improved learning and memory. The FDA has approved trials of lovastatin for the congenital learning disability Neurofibromatosis type I (NF1), and researchers hope that the drug will be helpful for other learning and memory problems as well.

It seems to act to lower the overproduction of Ras in NF1, improving intercellular communications and reducing the effects of the disability. Though it's not clearly involved, this means that lovastatin could be a helpful for other LD's as well. Cool!

As we well know, there is a major battle raging between the forces of American Christianism and science (among other things, but science is my thing). The side of good and rationality (science, natch) has a slightly surprising ally: the Vatican.

A while back, the Vatican's cosmologist was vaguely critical of the 'intelligent design' nonsense, and now the Vatican has more or less gone on record in support of science and (probably less surprisingly) taking a potshot at the fundies rallying for ID. Yay for Catholics? It is interesting to me that we haven't heard this kind of stuff from the usually-vocal Rabbis...the ones I know seem to feel more or less the same way the Vatican guy does - science and religion are separate spheres.

So a priest, a rabbi and a geneticist walk into a Kansas elementary school... There's gotta be a joke there somewhere.

Taint was fun. Tired this morning. Cool news though:

NASA researchers have developed a visor, called JORDY, inspired by Star Trek: TNG's Geordi La Forge, which allows the functionally blind to see well enough to read or watch TV, etc.

Researchers have found that inflammatory neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimers and HIV-1-associated-dementia, are associated with increased dendritic susceptibility to excitotoxicity, such that it occurs even at usually non-toxic glutamate levels. This is an encouraging step to understanding more about the pathophysiology, etiology, and hopefully treatment and prevention of these diseases.

Another experiment in mice suggests that estrogen is central to fat storage and metabolism, as well as insulin regulation. Women famously gain weight and become more prone to diabetes after menopause, so this is a nice confirmation of ideas. The thing is, taking estrogen supplements wouldn't be guaranteed to help you lose weight, or at least there would be side-effects. Now the goal is to isolate the ways in which estrogen performs these functions, so hopefully targeted drugs can be developed.

Yeah, so I broke down and found myself with K-Fed's new single, "Ya'll Ain't Ready" on my computer, and had a listen. Yeah, so I'm famously a massive music snob despite my unhealthy obsession with, say, Mylène Farmer. And yeah, I am aware that I risk heavy ridicule from the Gay Community by saying it.

"Kevin Federline is, like his wife, unforgivably painful to the ears."

I had to erase the track from my hard drive, and was sorely tempted to reformat the whole thing by way of exorcising the awfulness from my poor, innocent computer. There are, really, only about three white people who get to rap: Blondie, Eminem, and Stephen Hawking. There are no white people who get to try and sound like P.-Diddi-Daddi-Woomoomaaninononaananinanibooboo or whatever the fuck he's calling himself this week. Hell, I'd prefer if he stopped being himself himself. There is also no one in any way related to Sean Preston Spears Federline who should be allowed anywhere near a microphone, recording studio, or most importantly whatever it is a lyricist uses to write lyrics.

Just had to say. Yay for boozeblogging!

The personality profile is fairly accurate (as much as vague, nonspecific adjectives ever are, anyways), but I'm really not clear what part of my personality, or for that matter what part of "...moody, moderately unstructured, accommodating..." says Kazakhstan, South Korea, or Switzerland. Iceland, England, even Wales I can see, but Turkey?

Tell that to the "str8-acting" queens on the block. But seriously...

New research suggests that autism may be related to an overexpression of certain male brain development patterns. This would, in part, help to explain why more boys have autism than girls - even if a girl is getting higher-than-usual testosterone exposure, she's still female, so it's unlikely to cause her brain to develop so far in the male direction that she gets autism.

More data on this puzzling condition is, of course, a good thing.

A gene (and its protein) called Klotho, which has been indentified as an anti-aging factor, seems to have its effects by protecting cells against oxidative stress. Cool! Where can I buy Klotho supplements? (not.)

Another recent 'fountain of youth' target, adult stem cells, may or may not be as pluripotent as hoped. New research suggests that they may be partially differentiated: for instance, muscle stem cells can be coaxed into becoming heart muscle or skeletal muscle, but perhaps not, say, neurons or kidney cells. Still, new heart muscles would be a good thing to have on hand.

This could be the only really good reason I've ever heard for going veg: meat-eating animals need more sleep than do herbivores. Needless to say, there is nothing in this research indicating that changing our diets would affect our sleep needs, but it's fun to go for sensationalism sometimes. Just not too much.

It's like a highway collision of fetish material....Catholic school girls, led by their teacher, a nun, working in the lab and presenting their results. That's: jailbiat, uniforms, authority figure, scientists, needles, and exhibitionism/voyerism, all at once! But alas, I'm gay, Jewish, and not into kids.

Still, this makes me very happy, not only because the girls are doing good science, but also because it re-enforces a critical point: religion and science ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE!!!! Ignore anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.

Evening primrose oil shows promise as a source of new breast cancer treatments. One of its components, gamma-linolenic acid, interferes with the Her-2/neu receptor gene which is characteristic of many very virulent cancers. That's pretty cool.

It turns out that rodents (and maybe humans) have a sixth taste on their tongues - sweet, sour, salt, bitter, umami and fatty. This doesn't shock me - encouraging fat consumption would have been an advantage before agriculture - but it's very cool to discover something new.

Sometimes things are best left undiscovered. I think that's how I feel about Nestlé's newly patented product: coffee beer (pdf). It's not coffee, it's not beer, but it has some similarities to each. Why on earth anyone would want a foaming, fermented (but non-alcoholic) coffee-flavored drink, instead of, say, an iced coffee, is beyond me. Ew. EwEwEwEwEeeeewwwww.

According to a new study from the Agricultural Research Service, a cow's rumen can break down around 83% of the perchorate it ingests. The researchers claim that this helps show that environmental perchlorate contamination is not a risk for beef eaters or milk drinkers. Then again, they didn't really study that.

Researchers are investigating a potentially quite comedic treatment for two types of chronic pain - complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and repetitive strain injury (RSI): looking in the mirror. The idea makes sense - trick the mind into seeing only healthy bits of the body - but it's really an odd concept to me. But cool.