Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 590

Sudden population increase in Wilmington, Delaware

The city council of the city of Wilmington, Delaware, USA has just passed a resolution (#12-02, on March 1, 2012) calling for every human sperm and every human egg to have the full set of rights to which each human citizen is entitled. This would instantly increase the population of the city of Delaware from its current 70,851 to well over 100,000,000,000. The resolution declares, in part:

WHEREAS, each "egg person" and each "sperm person" should be deemed equal in the eyes of the government and be subject to the same laws and regulations as any other dependent minor, and be protected against abuse, neglect, or abandonment by their parent or guardian; and

WHEREAS, laws should be enacted by all legislative bodies in the United States to promote equal representation, and should potentially include laws in defense of "personhood", forbidding every man from destroying his semen.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF WILMINGTON, that the City Council requests that our Delaware General Assembly, State legislatures across the country, and the United States Congress address these "equality" issues and enact any necessary legislation for the preservation of equal rights.

The full resolution is the city's web site. If its demands are met, the city council [pictured here] itself would see its membership increase from the current 13 to several billion.

NOTE: The city council has not yet released its plan to pay for educating the billions of additional students who would be required to enroll in school.

BONUS:  Monty Python's song "Every Sperm is Sacred":

 

George Macleod and book dilution

George Macleod (MRCVS, DVSM, Vet.FFHom, according to reports) wrote several books. A web site [from which we reproduce the apparently diluted photo you see here]  that sells those books says:

George Macleod, a graduate of Glasgow University, is one of the world's foremost authorities on homoeopathic treatment of animals. He is one of the few veterinary surgeons to use homeopathic medicines wholly and exclusively.

The web site says both (A) that he is the only veterinarian doing this, and (B) that he died in 1995.

His books include Dogs: Homeopathic Remedies, Cats: Homeopathic Remedies, Goats: Homeopathic Remedies, and other such.

If we correctly understand the theory of homeopathy, the most effective way to use one of Dr. Macleod's books is to dilute it tenfold in water, do so again, and continue doing so at least one hundred times. Then you may be able to swallow it. This goat video explains the general process:

A hybrid instrument: The badgermin

This instrument, the badgermin, has something to either please or offend almost anyone. It's a hybrid — part taxidermied badger, part theramin. Information about the badgermin appears on the badgermin web site. The video below shows what may constitute a performance.

(Thanks to investigator Jhayne Holmes for bringing this to our attention.)

Medical metaphors: Cottage Cheese and Vagina

Here is another example of a culinary medical term.

QUESTION: What is the relationship between cottage cheese [pictured here, above] and a vagina [pictured here, below]?

Candida albicans is a fungus that is normally found in the vaginas of healthy women, however, in certain circumstances an abnormal overgrowth of this fungus can occur resulting in a thick white curd-like vaginal discharge that resembles cottage cheese in appearance (Achkar JM, Fries BC. Candida infections of the genitourinary tract. Clin Microbiol Rev, 2010 23(2):253-73.).

In this case, the relationship between the vagina and Candida becomes unhealthy.

MORE DETAIL:  A short illuminating summary of genital tract  candidiasis.

BONUS: The vaginas of reproductive age women work best at their normally acidic pH of about 4. Professor Kate Clancy has explored the matter in detail.

Mechanical high security, on paper: The paper safe

In an age when security — especially security on paper — is all the rage, Rob Ives designed this all-paper working safe:

Cross your legs and mind your pees

"…In fact the only decent academic study that I can find on how conditions at meetings can diminish brain power is a somewhat unexpected one. It is a paper that was given one of last year's Ig Nobel Prizes (handed out for research "that makes people laugh – then think"). Its title: The effect of acute increase in urge to void on cognitive function in healthy adults. Or, to put it more urgently, how the need to pee affects our brains."

—Lucy Kellaway, in her Financial Times essay called "Meetings of minds are effectively a tool for dulling them"

Hank says that's why carbon is a tramp

Hank Green is pretty good at explaining things, with clear language, lots of metaphors, quick talk with varied pacing, hints of naughtiness, and bits of this and that. Here he talks about carbon, and how and why it matters to living things, then zips through other chemical gossip:

(HT metafilter)

Dr. Martens' Extermination Machine

Dr. Andy Martens,  of the psychology dept. at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and colleagues from the University of Arizona, US, have devised an Extermination Machine [pictured at right]. The machine was designed to experimentally investigate a bug-killing paradigm – in order to provide clues towards answering the  the question 'Might killing something (in this case some pill bugs) fuel the urge for subsequent killing (in this case some more pill bugs) ?'

The results of the experiments suggest that it may do, and thus "Implications for understanding lethal human violence are discussed."

But aside from the human implications, some may ask 'What of the poor bugs?' Happily, Improbable can reassure insect lovers that the Extermination Machine was, in reality, harmless…

"Inserted at the base of the tube was an unseen stopper, which prevented bugs from actually entering into the vicinity of the grinder blades. The apparatus was fitted with an activation button, which, when depressed, initiated the grinder such that the blades could be heard and felt to spin with strong force. Torn bits of paper were planted within the grinder, so as to simulate the sound of grinding bugs"

The research, 'Killing Begets Killing: Evidence From a Bug-Killing Paradigm That Initial Killing Fuels Subsequent Killing' was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, September 2007, vol. 33, no. 9, pp. 1251-1264, and can be read in full here.

History Detectives Interpret a Subtle Clue (Walks/Orgasms)

It's always a good time to look back and ponder on this study about how some people stroll:

"A Woman's History of Vaginal Orgasm is Discernable from Her Walk," Aurélie Nicholas, Stuart Brody, Pascal de Sutter, and François de Carufel, Journal of Sexual Medicine, vol. 5, 2008, pp. 2119-24. (Thanks to Sam Petuchowski for bringing this to our attention.) The authors explain:

"The objective was to see if appropriately trained sexologists could infer women's history of sexual orgasm from observing only their gait." [AIR 16:1]BONUS: Co-author Stuart Brody:

Earthquake-activated house-levitating pneumatic system

The  Air Danshin Systems company of Japan says it offers pneumatic technology to protect buildings in the event of an earthquake. The shaking triggers a stream of air that levitates the house. The diagram below, from the company, shows to some extent how the system works, with blue representing the stream of air. (The Spoon & Tamago blog gives some details in English.)

These two videos demonstrate how it works:

(Thanks to investigator Mark Dale for bringing this to our attention.)