Keeping Yourself Pale May Also Make Coral Reefs Pale

I love the smell of cocoa butter. It sends me immediately into daydreams of hot, summer beaches and cool water.

If that statement seems odd to you, then you are either old and forgetful or younger than 25, or were too much of a lily to go outdoors.

Back when I was a kid, running around mostly-naked on the beach during summertime, the word "sunscreen" meant a wide-brimmed hat. I would slather Coppertone on myself. That rich, mildly-chocolate smelling yummy lotion infused with cocoa butter seemed an excellent means by which I could sauté rotund little body to a beautiful tan in no time without sizzling to a crisp in the mid-day Southern sun. SPF values were something like 2 or 4, which meant that drenching myself with Coppertone only protected me four times longer from imitating a beet, which I did often. Anytime now I expect skin cancer to crop up and remind me why my grandma carried an umbrella (which she called a "parasol") to shade herself when she went outside (and with good reason – she developed skin cancer in her elder years).

But by the 80's, the term "suntan lotion" was gradually being replaced by "sunblock" or "sunscreen", until now you never hear the term "suntan lotion". HERE is a good discussion about the change in terms.

Is it wrong of me to be wistful? Maybe it's because I live in the Northwest, where it's too testicle-shriveling cold most of the year to lay around nearly naked absorbing photons, but I just don't hear about people trying to get tans anymore. Everyone's too busy coating themselves with sun-repelling chemicals. I miss being brown.

Besides, this picture illustrates how "artistic" you can be with your melanoma-inducing love of sun (see THIS page for information on the artist).

Oh, sure, sure, I know all the arguments. Skin cancer = bad. Pale = good. Love the skin you're in. No one wants to look like an alligator by the time they're 45. Even I use Coppertone Sport sunblock, with SPF 15, and my children, who are dark-complected African-Americans, get coated with Baby Blanket sunscreen, SPF 50+.

But before we pat ourselves on the back for being health-conscious and educated about the potential dangers of UV radiation, let us consider a recent study that shows that sunblock lotions washed off of our sweaty, body-surfing bodies are contributing to the bleaching of coral reefs:

http://www.physorg.com/news130762664.html

Yes, in addition to the effects of global climate changes like increased UV radiation, increasing water temperatures, and rising water levels, plus industrial pollution, which endangers some 60 percent of coral reefs, some 10 percent of reefs are also at danger to being bleached by dangerous by-products produced when sunscreen breaks down. 78 million tourists who visit these reefs each year may gawk at the incredibly diversity of fishes and corals, but they are also releasing some 4000 to 6000 metric tonnes of sunscreen into that water. Researchers demonstrated that even small doses of sunscreen can bleach coral reefs within 96 hours of application, probably by stimulating viral infection of the coral.

No, I'm not advocating giving up the sunscreen. But maybe my grandma had the right idea. Let's not rely completely on painting our bodies with chemical sunscreens. Bring a parasol. Or at least a beach umbrella. But I still recommend getting out from under it enough to get some Vitamin D and maybe darken your skin enough to hide the veins. Ew!


Image taken from HERE.

My Liquid Lunches

No, I haven't been going out to the bar at lunchtime.

As you can see in the margin of this blog page, I have been dieting lately. I've lost over ten pounds and over four inches off my belly. Yay me! Of course, I was as handsome as a lab rat could be beforehand, but now I'm a slimmer, healthier rat. How have I done it? Nightly exercise (one reason I haven't been writing as much lately), lower portion sizes, and calorie restriction.

In particular, my lunches typically involve drinking a Slim-Fast shake. Chocolate. 190 calories.

Now, I went into this little endeavor of drinking my lunch with the sort of enthusiasm typically reserved for National Guardsmen headed to Iraq, and drinking my lunch each day sounded about as fulfilling as trying to defend Hillary's chances of getting the Democratic nomination. And yet, I was surprised how well these shakes sated my appetite. They are high protein and high fiber, but low calorie. A recipe for success.

What's more, they are creamy and whipped with air. Whip it, baby! Whip it good! It turns out, according to a recent study, that this is a major factor in making a diet shake work well:

http://www.physorg.com/news130069235.html

Bulking up food with water and gas extends that food's ability to satisfy an appetite for one or two additional hours. Whipped milkshakes were a good choice. But not just any gas will do. Carbon dioxide, apparently, doesn't work. Darn, there goes my Pepsi diet!

Unfortunately, the article doesn't specify which gases are best. Let's hope it's not the kind that comes out the other end.

So, tomorrow at noon, I'll pop open another cold one, drink it before the whipped air escapes, and watch my beer belly melt away.

Slurp!


Image taken from HERE.

When Cremation Isn't Gross Enough

How much thought have you given to what will become of your corpse?

Oh sure, sure, we try not to think about such things. Death is a thing better not dwelled upon. But let's face reality. Eventually we're all worm food, in one form or another.

My paternal grandma was convinced that burial was the only option. A thoroughly religious and superstitious woman (is there really any difference between the two?), she believed that cremation was the Devil's work, that somehow by being cremated you were inviting eternal damnation in a lake of fire. Of course, she also believed that having a beard meant that you were hiding something, and she always distrusted daylight savings time so much that she kept at least one clock with "the correct time" all year round. I loved her dearly, but you have to admit she was eccentric. What would she think of me now, I wonder, being an atheist, an advocator of cremation, hairy like a rat, and adhering to that daylight savings time conspiracy?

Yes, Grandma thought a lot about her corpse. She had everything arranged. The cemetery plot was purchased, and she visited it now and then. She had purchased a headstone (unfinished, of course). She even had a funeral home on stand-by. It was that way throughout my youth, and she reminded me of it often. If she could have dug the grave ahead of time, she would have.

It's good to be prepared.

Personally, I'd prefer my body be laid out in state, with thousands of mourners shuffling by to look at my handsome face, then be buried in a massive and overly-expensive granite tomb with my most famous quotes chiseled into the side of it…. But since that isn't likely to happen, I guess I'll just donate my organs and have the rest of me cremated. (Lake of fire! Lake of fire!)

Of course, there are other options to burial and cremation. There's the ancient and (thankfully) extinct Native American practice (in some areas) of simply putting the body up on a wooden platform to rot in the wind, or the Tibetan practice of chopping off the limbs and tossing them to the winds for vultures to feed on, or (my favorite), the Viking burial in a burning ship at sea (now that's a way to go!).

Now there's a new option: Dissolving your body in lye:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080508/ap_on_sc/dissolving_bodies;_ylt=AhxAi5B3goY5EidSQI1hMoSs0NUE

Yes, that's right. Dissolving corpses is no longer reserved for lunatic murderers. Now a couple of medical centers (The University of Florida in Gainesville and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.) are using a special "pressure cooker" filled with lye, at 300 degrees F and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch, to literally dissolve the body away – a process known to chemists as alkaline hydrolysis, which has been used for years for disposal of medical waste and dead animals. Now a New Hampshire mortuary is wanting to buy one of those "pressure cooker" tanks.

The resultant human-goo is a "coffee-colored liquid [that] has the consistency of motor oil and a strong ammonia smell." Umm, appetizing! Need a cup of java, anyone? This liquid, which is now sterilized, is then poured down the drain.

I repeat: poured down the drain.

So if you're living in Gainesville or Rochester, give that water of yours another sniff, eh? If you drink it, does that count as cannibalism?

This whole body-processing thing dredges up visions of Charlton Heston running through the streets of a crowded, dystopic future New York yelling, "Soylent Green is made of people! People!"

Personally, I'm not as horrified by this rather macabre method as I thought I would be. I'd be dead, after all. It's technically sanitary, doesn't fill up otherwise wonderful sunny meadows with depressing graves for ghosts to putter around in, and you don't have to find a place in the rose garden for your Cousin Ralph's ashes. Just fill the pressure cooker, insert the lye, press a button and Voila!, your beloved is turned into gravy. Just be sure to flush twice.

And as for my Grandma, she died at a ripe old age, and she got the burial she always imagined for herself, in that grave she had prepared, and with the gravestone she'd bought so far ahead. But we deviated in one minor way from her well-laid plans. She had wanted a closed casket, believing herself too ugly to view. But I have to say, when I viewed her laying there, she was more radiant and beautiful than I had ever seen her in life. You can't get that with alkaline hydrolysis.


AP photo taken from HERE.

It's Time My Children Went Deaf

I've decided my children need to be deaf. Tomorrow I'm going to ruin their hearing forever.

No, I'm not kidding. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it, though. Ice pick to the ear drum? No, too bloody. How about playing Iron Maiden at volume level ten on my stereo system, shoving their tender little ears up to the speakers. No, that won't work. They won't stay still long enough. I know! I'll take them swimming and give them a serious case of swimmer's ear, then pack their ears with ear wax harvested from my own auricular orifices via ear candles. Yeah, that's the ticket. That way it will seem "natural", and I will only be accused of neglecting to take them to the doctor as their ear drums swell and burst.

Are you horrified yet? Has our bombed-out, economically-depressed, Paris Hilton-ized culture not yet ruined your sense of ethics and numbed you beyond gross fear and loathing? No? Is it just because I'm talking about maiming my children?

Ah, but wait! If they were deaf, my little 2 and 3 year old babies would be part of a fantastic subculture of deaf people, able to learn the mysterious ways of sign language, and partake in a rich milieu of disability-turned-sense-of-self with their other deaf friends. Why, they would have an "identity".

You wouldn't think this could happen in the modern world, right? Not if the sensible government of England has its way.

A couple in the United Kingdom wants to have the right to purposely choose an embryo, through in vitro fertilization, which is deaf like them:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7287508.stm

That's right. This couple wants to purposely choose an embryo that, like them, will have a genetic profile that indicates it will be deaf. Says the husband (who has the unlikely yet gustatory name of Tomato Lichy): "The core issue is that the government is saying deaf people are not equal to hearing people," he told the BBC via an interpreter. They are "profoundly grateful" to have a deaf child already. Now they want another one.

It's eugenics in reverse.

What bugs me, though, is that Mr. Tomato Lichy is assuming that a hearing child would not be able to be a member of her father's deaf subculture.

I've blogged on this in the past, a little more than a year ago. Now the UK is likely going to pass the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill, which, among other things, would make it illegal to purposely choose an embryo with a disability. The tiny minority of deaf people who, like our friend Tomato, actually wish to select a child like them will have an even harder time making their diabolical wish come true. They are calling it discrimination.

Oh, but please don't get me wrong. I know deaf people have a subculture. I can respect that. I even tried to learn American Sign Language once, and I've had friends who were legally deaf, but none of them ever expressed a wish to have children who, like them, would never be able to hear the bus bearing down on them, or the bear leaping at them in the woods, or the latest slaughtering of your favorite elevator music by star wannabes on American Idol (I'm not sure which of these is really the worst way to spend an evening).

Careful, you English Lords. You tread a fine line there regarding how you define "disabled" or "unhealthy". Sure, deafness seems an easy thing to label as disabled, but how "disabled" is disabled? Would having a gene for heart conditions count? Cancer? Irritable bowel? Acid reflux? And just because there's a genetic profile, the body doesn't always pay attention to it. Having a bad gene only increases your chances.

Is my purposeful deafening of my children really any different from dooming a child-to-be to a life of silence, just to satisfy its parents' sense of self? Would that embryo have any more say than my kids would?

Hmm. On second thought, maybe I won't ruin my kids' hearing. I'll wait and let them do it to themselves in their teen years, with whatever future form of iPod ear speakers are being used at that time. They'll just have to wait for that marvelous subculture that Tomato Lichy and his reverse-eugenics friends love so dearly. How heartless and cruel of me not to understand.

And as for Mr. Tomato's next child, I feel sorry for the baby if she isn't deaf, whatever way she comes into the world.


Image taken from HERE.

I'm Losin' It

Now that my vacation is over, and the in-laws have left (fled?) the guest bedroom, I have moved the exercise cycle back in. My intention is to lose weight.

Okay, you can stop rolling your eyes and thinking, "Great, another stupid weight loss story." The Angry Lab Rat blog isn't about weight loss, and you can rest assured that this will be one of only a very few blog posts on my personal weight loss attempt until I either succeed in my goal or give up completely. The exception is that, in the margin to the right on this blog site, I will keep an update of my progress, for those who are morbidly interested (or morbidly obese). Additionally, I will be joining a number of coworkers in the attempt, though we will surely be doing things differently from each other.

Now, I'm not the sort of guy who is obsessed with weight. In fact, I really don't mind the fact that I'm short, fat, and hairy. Aren't all rats? But now I'm hoping to be short, not-so-fat, and hairy.

This attempt at weight loss has happened before. Back in February 2003 I was 231 pounds with a waistline of 48". My liver enzyme readings were high, suggesting I had Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (yes, that's its real name!), a potential side affect of, you guessed it, being a fatty. I cut my serving sizes in half, generally ate better food, and, most importantly, exercised rigorously at least 15 minutes every day, no matter how tired I was. No special diets, no calorie-counting, and no fads. The only special thing I did, at the beginning, was get some idea of the nutritional value of what I was eating in order to insure I wasn't going to starve or go deficient in protein and vitamins. Over the course of 8 months, this technique led me to lose 23 pounds (to 208) and almost 8 inches off my waist (to 40.5") (click on the graphs). Most importantly, I have pretty much kept off the weight, even to today, though I've been slowly creeping back upward over the years without any real exercise, but my liver readings have been normal ever since. I was very hungry at first, but then I was fine, and I have generally maintained my eating habits.

It is an interesting coincidence that just a couple days ago the results of a very thorough study found that being a fatty around your belly around 40 years old significantly increases your chances of having Alzheimer's and dementia in your senior years:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23800703/

This correlation is apparently independent of other common health issues, including general weight problems (other than belly fat). According to the article, if you lie down on your back on a flat surface and then have someone measure the height of your belly, and that measurement is greater than 9.8 inches, you are at risk. I tried it. I'm somewhere just above 10 inches.

The researchers are unclear why having belly fat affects the brain later in life, but I think I have the answer: Your brain really is in your stomach! No wonder food is such a motivator!

So wish me luck in my weight loss endeavor. You can keep tabs in the margin of my blog. Hopefully I'll be successful, making me even sexier than I already am, and less likely to be senile in my old age.

Crap Fountains And Biosolids On Your Food

Just north of my little town is a cow farm. Every time I drive past the place I hit the little "recirculate" button on our car so that no outside air can get in. The stench is positively wretched almost any time of the year. During the winter (which I call the "rainy season" because of the climate here), the smell is somewhat tolerable as long as you drive too fast, but the cow dung is nice and soggy and fermenting. During the summer, though, the smell is overwhelming as the cow turds ripen in the heat.

And then there is a nightmare even worse than the usual nasty stench: several times in the spring and summer, all that cow crap is liquefied and pumped out over the neighboring agricultural fields in an ungodly fountain of sh*t, turning the crops dark brown with a rain of feces.

Oh – my – God! Now say with me: Ewwwwww!

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, "Oh, get over it, Lab Rat! It's just fertilizer in liquid form. You're a biologist. You know the value of poo for growing plants."

Fine! But I just want to say for the record that the typical cow dung fertilizer is first allowed to compost. Thus the harmful bacteria and parasites are neutralized, along with most of the foul smell.

But then I came across this wretched article, which informs me that it has been perfectly acceptable – nay, encouraged by our government! – for farmers to use human sewage and industrial sludge to fertilize their fields!

http://www6.comcast.net/news/articles/science/2008/03/06/Sludge.Poisoned.Land/

Are you f*cking kidding me?!! Has the world suddenly gone upside down? You mean to tell me that I've been eating food that has had my neighbor's crap sprayed on it? If you've ever seen my neighbor, you'd be shaking as hard as I am!

Apparently this policy has been in effect for 30 years. I'm very disappointed in Jimmy Carter!

From the article: "About 7 million tons of biosolids – the term that waste producers came up with for sludge in 1991 – are produced each year as a byproduct from 1,650 waste water treatment plants around the nation. Slightly more than half is used on land as fertilizer; the rest is incinerated or burned in landfills. Giving it away to farmers is cheaper than burning or burying it, and the government's policy has been to encourage the former."

HALF?? That's 3.5 million tons of wastewater sludge on our crops!

In addition to the risk of carrying human disease, bacteria, and parasites, the sludge has been found to contain dangerous levels of arsenic, thallium, other heavy metals, and PCBs. Plus the drugs you flush down your toilet when they expire. I shudder to think what else. Anything that can be pollutants of our waterways.

The article mentions a recent court ruling where a dairy farmer sued the government for poisoning and killing his cows, which had fed on plants fertilized with this raw sewage and sludge laced with heavy metals and PCBs. He won his case. The judge in the case said that, in addition to using questionable data for their actions and policy, "senior EPA officials took extraordinary steps to quash scientific dissent, and any questioning of the EPA's biosolids program."

Yes, this is America. Not China. Not some third world nation. Not the sewage-filled tenements of some late-night plea for helping poverty-stricken families in Latin America "for just pennies a day". No, this is the USA, where industry reigns supreme over the health and welfare of our Twinkie-eating obese citizenry. Heck, using sludge on fields is a win-win situation, right? I mean, the EPA gets to claim that they are cleaning up our waterways, and farmers get a free source of fertilizer. Wow! Genius!

The sad thing is that the product of all this a-maizing arsenic-laced miracle of modern agriculture is food direct to your supermarket, and milk from poisoned cows. Heck, it's the "cycle of poo". Once you've eaten your thallium laced food grown in crap-sprayed fields you can take a dump and start the process all over again.

Sure, the victim in that lawsuit had cows that died, but how many other cows aren't dying, but instead are merely passing along their PCB milk to you and me and our kids?

So the next time you pour yourself a glass of chocolate milk or put a pat of butter onto your ear of corn, take a quick sniff and think twice about its source. There may be more than chocolate in that glass of yours, and the yellow of your corn may hide little physiological timebombs.

As for me, the next time I drive past one of those fountains of sh*t, I'll be wondering if it truly is cow manure that's being sprayed, as I had thought, or crap from the farmer himself!


Image taken from HERE.

Watch Where You Point Your Top Gun, Flyboy

A recent study by Israeli scientists found that climbers on Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro who took the drug tadalafil were less likely to suffer dizziness and fatigue brought on by low oxygen levels near the top of the mountain.

Okay, you say, so what? But the story gets more interesting when you realize that tadalafil is the active ingredient in Cialis, that wonderful impotence-fighting, Viagra-like drug for erectile-dysfunction.

Now, after having read the results of that study, a retired Israeli general is proposing that the Israeli military give tadalafil to its fighter jocks in order to allow them better in-flight "performance" through increased blood flow while flying their jets, according to Bamahaneh (an official Israeli military magazine).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3330873.ece

I don't know which study the retired general referred to, but HERE and HERE are two recent examples of research papers dealing with the effects of tadalafil on the physiology of climbers.

Wow. Cialis for pilots! That gives a whole new meaning to the word "cockpit"! It's tight enough in there already. Now these poor pilots will have to contend with two joysticks between their legs. Careful, boys, you don't want to eject prematurely.

But, hey, as the Cialis webpage claims, the pilots will "have the option of being ready fast, or have up to 36 hours to take their time." But does this mean that they'll have to seek a doctor if their sorties take more than four hours?


Image taken from HERE.

Grow Your Own Heart

Okay, picture this potential scenario for the not-so-distant-future: You've spent your adult life overweight, eating poorly, no real exercise, smoking, heavy drinking, and with a family history of organ-affecting ailments like heart disease (sorta like me, except for the smoking and heavy drinking parts). Then one day – Bang! – your transgressions come slamming home to you when you have a heart attack. You're rushed to the hospital and saved in the nick of time.

From then on you're stuck on massive heart medicine, maybe have a bypass or two, or even require a heart transplant or artificial heart, right? Maybe not.

They may be able to grow you a spankin' new heart!

That's right. While you are kept alive with more traditional methods, the hospital can simply order you a new heart. They would take a cadaver's heart (or maybe even a pig heart) and "decellularize" it. In other words, they would pump detergents into the donor heart to kill all of its cells, leaving behind only the extracellular matrix – a sort of natural scaffold. Then they would infuse that scaffold with your own stem cells that had been differentiated into heart cells and repopulate the scaffold with them. After a few weeks, the heart would be pumping and ready to transplant into your body. Because they are your own cells, rejection is not as likely, and you could go on your happy, gluttonous way.

Some scientists from the University of Minnesota Center for Cardiovascular Repair recently took the first real steps toward this science fiction-esque scenario:

http://www.physorg.com/news119445798.html

Scholarly paper, published online in Nature Medicine on Jan. 13: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nm1684.html

They infused "scaffolds" of rat and pig hearts with live progenitor cells from newborn rats. The cells differentiated into heart cells then organized themselves and proliferated around the scaffold. After only four days the tissue started having contractions. After eight days, the heart was beating. It's alive! ALIVE!! Mwa ha ha ha ha!

And what this tell-tale heart tells us, in its rhythmic way, is that we may be able to do this with other organs. We can already make artificial blood vessels, skin, and bladders. Now we may be able to make not only hearts but also kidneys, livers, and other "complex" organs. Heck, pretty soon the scaffolds will be artificially grown, too!

Why, there could be no end to the partying, folks! Slam down another bottle of Jack Daniels and huff another pack of cigs, we're living the high life! If you wear out your organs, just order up new ones!

And as for me, seeing as how I already have a mild heart problem and have family with heart and circulatory problems (an aunt and a cousin have had bypasses, and my maternal grandfather died after multiple heart attacks), I guess I can take heart that I may have another option pumping for me in the future.


Image taken from HERE.

Once Bitten, Twice Extinct

Many years ago, when I was thinner, younger, and as wise as your average 20-year-old, I did some ecological research in the wilderness areas of Idaho, backpacking through the Rockies. On one particularly hellish hitch into the woods (during which I suffered acute mountain sickness, was abandoned by my crew leader, and was briefly lost in the wilderness – see previous blog post), my crew and I collected data from a high mountain lake. We arrived at the pristine, picturesque little lake just after dusk and pitched our tent right next to the shoreline, bedding down for the night. The next morning, we realized our dire mistake. Upon unzipping our tent to go take a whiz, we were immediately assaulted by a horde of mosquitoes.

Now, I've been victimized by mosquitoes many times, but this was nothing like I'd ever experienced before. In seconds, all exposed skin was completely covered by these little, black and gray devils. Off! spray had no effect. The only thing we could do was cover ourselves as much as possible with clothing and rain suits and soldier through it.

And then I had to take a dump in the woods. Oh, man! I've never been so creeped out in my life. That was the fastest sh*t I think I've ever taken. My ass was one giant itching sore after that. As I rushed through the process, I couldn't help but wonder how many mosquito-borne diseases I was contracting through my butt. Even if the odds were one in a million, I'm sure I was bitten more than that. It really made me feel sorry for people who live in tropical or swampy regions where mosquito infestations like that were the norm. No wonder diseases like malaria and dengue fever wipe out huge number of people in the tropics each year. It's a wonder humanity doesn't go extinct in those regions (or take a dump outdoors!).

So it should come as no surprise that even the dinosaurs were not immune to the horrors of the not-so-humble mosquito. In fact, two leading entomologists are suggesting that insect-borne diseases may have contributed to the demise of dinosaurs:

http://www.physorg.com/news118591469.html

George and Roberta Poinar, husband-and-wife entomologists at Oregon State University, have made this argument in their book, What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease and Death in the Cretaceous, which has just been published. These authors are more famous for their work studying ancient insects preserved in amber, and are very well-regarded in their field. I had the honor of working in the same department as Dr. Poinar, for a year and a half, back when I was an entomologist.

Now, likely you're all familiar with the idea of a gigantic meteor hitting in what is now the Yucatan area, causing a catastrophic climate change which likely was the leading factor in the dinosaur die-off known as the "K-T Boundary" at the end of the Cretaceous Period, but one perplexing thing about that has been that the die-off wasn't immediate. It still took thousands of years for most of those dinos to go extinct, and many took much, much longer. Though the meteor theory would be a good kick-off to weaken species, something like disease states would be good candidates for finishing the job. And there is evidence in fossilized dino crap of infections by nematodes, trematodes, and protozoans that could have brought disease conditions and viruses to these reptiles. These sorts of diseases were likely just emerging, so the vertebrates would have had little resistance.

So, basically, the Poinars are suggesting these lumbering beasts were the victims of getting bitten in the ass by bastardly, disease-ridden little mosquitoes and other biting insects and killed because of it.

I can sympathize. My ass still itches just thinking about it!


Images adapted from HERE and HERE.

Been Sick

I'm on the upshot after suffering a rather nasty stomach bug, with all the most horrendous symptoms (gut pain, fever, nausea, diarhhea, exhaustion, loss of appetite). God, I hate throwing up! I'm the sort who would rather endure stomach pain for days rather than just ralph and get it over with.

As I write this I'm eating a few spoonfuls of "Amazon Valley Chocolate" ice cream from Haagen-Daz, my first "meal" in over two days other than a small apple yesterday.

Then this morning my little daughter woke up with half her face swollen from an infected lymph gland. Now my lovely wife is coming down with the same symptoms I've had. Umpff. At least I'm on vacation. 'Tis the season.


Update (12/22/07): Other than a little lingering appetite loss and minor stomach pain, my wife and I are back to the usual state of disfunction, and my daughter's swollen jawline is returning to its normal beauty.

Get Mooned To Get Healthy

"By the light of the silvery moon,
I want to spoon, to my honey I'll croon love's tune.
Honeymoon, keep a-shining in June,
Your silvery beams, will bring love dreams,
We'll be cuddling soon,
By the silvery moon."

"By the Light of the Silvery Moon" by Ray Noble with Snookie Lanson
(hear the music HERE)


In honor of Tantalus Prime, from his spacey comment to my last post, I will bring you not one, but two posts on Earth's nearest celestial neighbor, the Moon. Lucky, lucky you, Tantalus. This is the first of those.

Yes, the Moon, that wonderful, lifeless, rocky sphere up in the sky that shines down like a magnanimous eye, spawning lunatics and poets alike. Some even believe that the moon possesses a special supernatural power that can be tapped to heal us.

Consider, for instance, my own mother. In a previous post I reported how she had once cast a sort of spell to help remove a wart on my finger. Whether it was the magic or not, I do not know, but the wart soon disappeared after being there for over a year. How fitting, then, that my Mom found this interesting little story:

A couple in Arizona have built a 5-story tall parabolic mirror which they use to collect and focus the moon's light, with the intention to heal those who bask in that light:

Article: http://features.us.reuters.com/techlife/news/N04633430.html

video: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=71792&videoChannel=7

That's right. For a mere $10 each, over a thousand people so far from all over the world have paid to stand up to 15 minutes in their underwear in the focused light of the moon, soaking up its "healing rays". According to the article, people with conditions as serious as cancer and asthma have gotten shone upon by the couple's "interstellar light collector" and claim that their symptoms have lessened. The Chapins (who built the device) shelled out $2 million (yes, million) of their own money to build this monolithic mirror.

Said the inventor, "If it could affect plants and animals ... I thought, 'what could the amplification of that light do?"'

Well, Mr. Chapin, here's what it can do, from my skeptical scientist's viewpoint: it reflects light. Nothing more, nothing less. But, hey, if it makes people feel good, more power to them.

Said one "moonlighter": "You feel almost like you are in heaven," said Aranka Toniatti, a cancer patient who has driven from Colorado twice to stand in the moonlight. "It's a gorgeous feeling."

I have to admit, if I lived near the big moonlight contraption, I'd be tempted to shell out ten bucks just to say I stood in focused moonlight. It's a novelty, after all. And I have enough of an open mind (as do all good scientists) to give it at least a moonbeam's width of serious consideration. But that's a pretty thin width, and I think I'd have to be on moonshine to believe it.

Turkey Day Drowsiness, But Don't Blame The Gobbler

Oh, yes! Pass me a wing and pile on the taters, baby! It's Turkey Day!

I have a soft spot for Thanksgiving. After all, believe it or not, I had relatives on the Mayflower, on my paternal grandmother's side of the family. Yes, those fairly clueless Plymouth pilgrims who were my family managed to make it in the new world thanks to Native American friends like Squanto and the Wampanoag Tribe, and were so thankful after their first harvest in 1621 that they fed and entertained the natives for three days, after which the Wampanoags went hunting and returned with 5 deer as a return gift (STORY). I doubt the native peoples would have been so giving had they realized the cultural devastation that would eventually be wrought upon them. I wonder what the Wampanoag word for "sucker" was?

But, hey, who am I kidding? I mainly enjoy having time off (I get today and Friday off, plus the weekend, plus a vacation day on Monday – 5 days!). Time to eat heavy, kick up my feet in front of the tube, let the children run free and crazy, and maybe find time in the ensuing days to do some projects around the house and yard. And you'd better believe there will be naps in there somewhere.

You've probably heard the reason why you're so sleepy after eating all that turkey, right? The story goes that turkey meat contains an abnormally large amount of the amino acid tryptophan, which induces sleepiness by producing the "sleepy" brain chemical serotonin. So, if you eat lots of turkey, you'll be drowsy. For some reason this myth comes out only around Thanksgiving time.

Although it's true that our little gobbling friends do possess a lot of tryptophan, the tryptophan is not easily transported from your bulging, overfed gut to your brain, and even if it makes it to your noggin, you would need to "ingest quite a number of turkeys" to get enough tryptophan to cause drowsiness, according to Dr. Carol Ash of Somerset Medical Center's Sleep for Life Center in Hillsborough, N.J.:

http://www.physorg.com/news114876658.html

More likely, the article says, your post-gluttony sleepiness is the result of overeating, alcohol consumption, and not getting enough sleep in the days before, not to mention sitting on your ass watching people called Jets and Cowboys running up and down a field with an oblong leather ball.

My lovely wife, though, suggested an additional cause for Thanksgiving sleepiness. "Don't forget the poor women who do the cooking have to get up before dawn to start the turkey, prepare all that other food, and finish cleaning the house for all those guests."

But if you still wish to believe those hapless birds are the cause of your snoozing, be my guest. Call it the dinosaurs' revenge (after all, modern birds like the turkey are direct descendants of two-legged dinos like T. rex and velociraptors, as evidenced by the shared "wishbone", or furcula -- STORY).

I'll take a dino wing, please, with my 2000- to 3000-calorie meal. And you'd better warm up the pie. I want it to melt the whipped cream when I eat it.

And if anyone asks, I'm still blaming the gobbler for the naps.


Image taken from HERE.

The Privy Prop

Go ahead, call me sexist, but one tiny thing that bothers me is the belief that men are indecent for not lowering the frickin' toilet seat when they're done pissing so that the women of the household won't "fall in" or have to lower it for themselves.

Gasp! How could I not be a gentleman?? I'm flushed with embarrassment.

Hey, shake it off, gals. This is supposed to be an enlightened time when the feminist movement has declared men and women to be equal. Oh, sure, women still have to fight the good fight, what with discrepancies in pay and promotions and such, but can't you at least give up the stupid toilet thing? This practice is circling the drain, like opening doors for women or pulling out a chair for them at restaurants.

You know what? How about we reverse the expectations on this one and have men start insisting that women raise the seat after they've gone "wee"?

I don't know about you, but I cringe every time I have to grab the seat and raise it. What kind of poo kooties are lurking there on the porcelain where my thumb and fingers touch it? Ew! Oh, sure, I wash my hands every time when I've finished. Still – yuck! Let's let women do some of that nasty touching for a change.

So I've had my heart set on one day getting one of those fancy toilets you hear about now and then with automated seat-raising and lowering buttons (along with stupid stuff like built-in radios and such). But those are out of my price range. I've heard about little handles you can glue onto the seat, but in my paranoid little mind I still imagine poo-contaminated flush-air wafting over it with each flush, and those aren't exactly available at the local department store.

Now, through the imaginative mind of a 9-year old boy named Jake Wulf, we have a solution: the "Privy Prop."

Story: http://www6.comcast.net/news/articles/odd/2007/11/03/ODD.Privy.Prop/

Tired of being hounded by his mother to lower the toilet seat, this innovative little boy saw one of those step-lever trash cans and decided to design a similar device for toilet seats. With a little help from his dad (an equipment designer) and using a school "Invention Convention", he successfully built a working prototype. Just step on a lever and the seat raises. Step off, and it lowers. His prototype won the contest and went on to a regional competition, then was featured at the Iowa State Fair. After word got out about it, the Ellen Degeneres Show called and had him on air today.

Not bad, little Jake! One small squirt for Man-kind. Unfortunately, the family apparently has no intention to patent or mass-produce the device. We'll see.

Personally, I'd love to have one. No more poo-kooties on my delicate digits.

Oh, by the way, our family's "default" toilet position is with both the seat and the lid lowered. Sigh.

Now China Is Giving Date-Rape Drugs To Children

I'm shaking my head right now. How many Chinese products need to be recalled because of lead poisoning, dangerous swallowable magnets, or faulty construction before our industry leaders and government officials realize they are slowly turning our children into mindless lead-poisoned vegetables one drooling lick of an Elmo doll at a time? The recalls just keep on comin'.

Yes, you have likely heard the most recent deadly Chinese toys to come to our Dollar Store and Wal-Mart shelves.

First, there are the Aqua Dots (CNN article). These lovely, candy-colored beads are an arts and crafts dream and oh-so-edible-looking. Your trusting, naïve small child can arrange them in whatever colored patterns they like on a nifty grid then spray them with water, and the glue coatings on them instantly glue them together into a semi-permanent craft project to be treasured by proud parents everywhere. Why, it's so novel, it was named Toy Of The Year in Australia. The only problem is that the supposedly inert glue is actually a chemical which, when ingested, gets metabolized into the date-rape drug gamma-hydroxy butyrate, commonly called GHB. That's right, a few of these beads, when ingested, become the equivalent of a rapist's dream. But overdosing, which happened to a number of children here and in Australia, leads to vomiting and coma. Luckily, no children have yet died. Apparently the manufacturer had not intended this chemical be used; it was the bright idea of the Hong Kong manufacturer to use it and save themselves some cash. And where, exactly, could one purchase these beads, prior to the recall of all 4.2 million units of them? One outlet is, you guessed it, Wal-Mart, lover of all things Chinese, cheap, and plastic.

Oh, it doesn't stop there! Today, two more recalls were announced. Dangerously high levels of lead were found in the faces of 175,000 Curious George dolls and in some 51,000 Dollar Store children's sunglasses. Lead poisoning in Chinese children's products? It's becoming such a skipping record hardly anyone is noticing anymore. Hell, I'm actually so wary now that I'm refusing to buy Chinese-made products for my kids. Of course, Chinese products are so commonplace now it's almost impossible to avoid them.

But wait! Don't we have a Consumer Product Safety Commission to oversee that these things don't happen to our lovely little nearly-toxin-free children? Why, yes we do! The only problem (and here's another skipping record!) is that the commission that is supposed to oversee our safety is headed by someone who comes from the very industries they are supposed to regulate (ARTICLE). Acting chairperson Nancy Nord, appointed by President Bush, is a former lobbyist for Eastman-Kodak and the leader of a consumer lawyer organization. Her predecessor, Hal Stratton, was also accused of unbecoming ties to Industry. She has opposed extending more protections to whistleblowers as well as better reporting of faulty products to the public. Prominent Congressional Democrats are calling for her resignation, in part for failing to stop these waves of faulty and toxic Chinese products, and in part for scandals on her part for conflicts of interest with Industry, including 30 trips paid for in part or in full by consumer industries to such locations as China, Spain, and a golf resort at Hilton Head, S.C. The fox is running the henhouse, folks.

Oh well. At least all these toxic products make us belatedly realize the benefits of governmental checks and balances and good, old fashioned, high quality American-made products. I just fear how many more children will be poisoned before our industries finally pull out of China.

Creep at Nightclub: "Hey, Baby! What ya drinkin'?"

Attractive and Tipsy Lady: (covering her drink) "I'm watching you, Buddy. I don't trust you any more than I'd trust a Bush appointee."

Creep: (acting hurt) "What? I'm just asking! Really, you can trust me. Here, I've brought this nifty arts and crafts project we can do together…."


Update (11/9/07): (LINK) Today China announced that it had suspended export of AquaDots and had started a thorough investigation. This comes as seven other children in the United States have fallen ill. The dots were supposed to have been coated with the nontoxic compound 1,5-pentanediol but had instead been coated with 1,4-butanediol, which metabolizes to GHB when ingested. 1,4-butanediol is 4- to 5-times less expensive.

Update (11/10/07): HERE is a news video where a mom tells what happened when her toddler swallowed just a few of these AquaDots.

Image taken from HERE.

And The Winning Hole Is ....

Back in June I published a post on some rather . . . um, how do I put this . . . novel methods of extracting a patient's gall bladder from the body. Instead of slicing open the abdominal cavity, leading to significant pain, scarring, possible infection, and slow healing, some doctors decided it would be a better method to pull the organ out through an already-existing orifice. Yes, choosing a hole already made in your body. Less scarring that way, quicker healing, and less pain. Which orifices do you think they chose? There are only so many you can choose from! The question is, which of your holes do you respect the most?

Doctors considered removing the gall bladder from the anus. That would be one hell of a dump! But, sadly, they apparently rejected the idea.

Instead, one set of doctors removed a patient's gall bladder through the mouth (HERE). Yum!

Another set of doctors removed another patient's gall bladder through (drum roll, please) her vagina (HERE)! Yow! Congratulations, it's a bouncing baby bladder!

Yet, for some odd reason, these options just haven't caught on in the medical world. Gee, I wonder why?

Well, now a different hole has been tried, and it's catching on. More and more hospitals are pursuing it. Quick! Run over in your mind which hole you think it is – I'll wait.

Did you figure it out? I'll give you another moment.

Yes, it's the belly button. That wonderful little spot in your rotund tummy which serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever after the day you are born.

HERE is a video of news footage on the procedure.

Is yours an "inny" or an "outy"? Well, it doesn't really matter when you want to have large organs yanked from your innards to your outards.

So far, surgeons have removed not only a gall bladder through this half-inch incision, but, according to the video, an ovary, a uterus, kidneys, a spleen, and an appendix, and have performed corrective surgery on a hernia and a colon.

I don't know about you, but I'm a bit relieved. I would MUCH rather have organs come out that way than through the other holes.

So the next time you're in the shower and look down at that little hole of yours (no, not THAT hole, you nasty person! Your belly button!), give it an extra little soapy scrub. You never know, it may not have finished serving its purpose on the first day you breathed!

An Experiment On Memory Retention

I'm busy preparing for my new job these days, a job I'll start in less than a week. Other than organizing and packing eight and a half year's worth of office crap and moving it from one building to another in some semblance of planned chaos, preparation requires only one thing: STUDY.

My company sells nearly 3000 products, not counting the ones sold at other sites globally, and I will have to know or be able to retrieve obscure facts about nearly every one of them at a moment's notice to help the customers. The one best way to do this is to read and be able to regurgitate the product literature, especially the tome-like company handbook that we distribute to customers.

It's over a thousand pages long.

I have one of the worst memories of anyone I know, at least for common day-to-day stuff. If I have to shop for more than three things in one trip, I'd better write a list or I'll have hell to pay from my lovely wife, who never ceases to remind me of my particular handicap, especially if I go to the store for cheese and come back with four bags of not-cheese groceries. My memory is better for work-related topics, but not exactly stellar, and though my long years of developing products has given me a strong basis of wisdom to grow from, it is still a daunting task to absorb so much product data.

I was thinking about this tonight as I pulled out my company handbook, when my wife proudly exclaimed that she had just finished the 759th (and last) page of the final book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Then it occurred to me how one might better be able to retain large amounts of data: Fiction.

Children's books do it all the time – teach lessons by incorporating them into the text and pictures of a fiction book.

I told my fantastic idea to my wife, and she immediately scoffed at the idea. "An adult ought to be able to study information without having to have it in story form." But I wonder. I can recall exquisite details about nearly every book of fiction I have ever read. It seems most any Harry Potter fan out there can do the same. Just ask one what Lord Voldemort's real name is, the name of the spell that scares away the Dementors, or who Mrs. Norris is.

So I am devising a test, and I'm wondering what you think of it. As a writer of fiction, I imagine I could convert your average textbook chapter into a reasonable story that contains the same facts. Of course it would be much longer in order to accommodate all the data plus a tolerable plot and dialogue, but I'd be willing to read extra if I was sure it would help me retain the info. My test would have one group of volunteers read a couple textbook pages, and I would have another test group read a work of fiction which contains the same information plus some sort of reasonable plotline. Sure, it wouldn't be able to compete with J.K. Rowling, but I'd bet that incorporating the data this way would allow it to be better processed in our brains. I'd then test the volunteers on what they read just after the reading, a day after, and a week after, to determine the retention rate. I'd put my money on the fiction-readers.

Do you agree? Would you volunteer for this test?


Image taken from HERE.

Will It Ever End?

Yes, for the second time in a week, another massive recall has been issued for Chinese-made toys. This time it is for 11 million (yes, million) toys which have been contaminated with lead-based paint or have small, swallow-able magnets:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/14/recall/index.html

Included in the recall are “Sarge” character products from the movie “Cars” as well as Polly brand toys.

These were made by a different Chinese manufacturer than the previously-recalled toys (as I reported in my last post, a co-owner of that company hung himself in a warehouse over the issue).

Also, an unknown number of Chinese-made vinyl baby bibs have been recalled due to high lead content:

http://www.redding.com/news/2007/may/03/wal-mart-issues-vinyl-bib-recall/

These bibs date back to 2004, and have 16-times the amount of lead allowed in lead-based paint, which is already very toxic. Hell, you might as was well use it as a fishing sinker with that sort of lead content. The lead is there as a “stabilizer” and can only cause harm if the bib is compromised. So your baby would have to have teeth and gnaw on a new bib to get poisoned, but if the bib is old and worn, or ripped, well, let’s just say he’ll be riding on the short bus later, if he survives. These bibs are predominantly sold through Wal-Mart.

Gee. Why am I not surprised.

Heck, it seems if you buy crappy Chinese-made toys and baby products, you might as well just tell your kid to chew on some lead pipes and get it over with.

“Here you go, Sweety. I got this from under the kitchen sink. Scrape it with your teeth, now! That’s a good boy.”

So let’s say you discover one of your kid’s brightly-colored Diego toys is lead-contaminated. What do you do? It’s the love of his life. The gleam in his eye. He plays with it, shows it off, sleeps with the frickin’ thing. How could you possibly be so cruel as to remove it??? Lucky you, there’s now a quick guide: HERE.

It’s a sad state of affairs, I think, when Chinese-made toy recalls have become so prominent that CNN releases a “how-to” on how take a toy from your baby. But that’s the world we live in.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go unscrew one of my lead pipes from the kitchen ….


Update (8/17/07): Now Toys-R-Us has pulled Chinese-made vinyl baby bibs from its shelves due to the lead content (STORY).


Images adapted from HERE and HERE.

Chinese Suicide And Cute Furry Monsters

Unless you’ve been living in a cave in Afghanistan, chances are you’ve heard about the numerous and increasing examples of recalled products from Chinese manufacturers. I recently posted a list of many of these toxic, hazardous, or misleading product warnings, everything from tires, to toothpaste, to toys. It seems China is trying to kill us.

Then it seemed they were trying to kill each other, when they executed their food and drug chief over these scandals and the bribes he was taking. Another official, who was at the heart of the recent dog food melamine poisonings, has been detained and may face the same fate.

Now they’re killing themselves:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/13/china.toymaker.ap/index.html

One of the most recent massive Chinese product recalls was for 967,000 Elmo, Big Bird, Diego, and Dora toys that had been painted with lead-based paint. Any children who may have stuck these toys in their mouth could have poisoned themselves, causing vomiting, anemia, learning disabilities, neurological conditions, or even death. I’ve paid close attention to this one, given that I have two small children who love those products with a cult-like devotion.

But I haven’t heard of any children actually known to be injured by these toys.

Nonetheless, Zhang Shuhong, co-owner of the Chinese company that manufactured these toys, Lee Dur Industry Company, hung himself in one of his warehouses this weekend. According to the article, it is common for disgraced officials to kill themselves in China. Hell, it’s probably better than letting the government execute you!

I can only guess what was going through his mind at the time of his death (other than a sudden desire to breathe and a wish that he’d used cheaper rope). Doubtless Zhang had lamented his role in potentially poisoning thousands of children to make better profits, though, ironically, it was his best friend, the paint manufacturer, who is probably the source of the issue. Had Zhang known the paint had lead? It remains to be seen. If he’d been in America, he would have simply professed ignorance and blamed his best friend. It’s the American way, don’t you know.

Now, being the father of young children who fawn over everything that bears the likeness of Elmo and Diego, I suspect there may be another cause to Zhang’s suicide: Elmo Overload.

Yes, overload of all things Elmo. Nothing new to parents with small children, only magnified. Can you imagine it? Going to work, day in and day out, seeing the little red monster everywhere you look, hearing that high-pitched laugh with every movement of every crate. Heck, he probably dreamed about Elmo. Only in his dreams the little beastie’s fur was probably blood-red, it’s laugh echoing across the caverns of his mind, its silly little voice chanting demonic curses. What’s the number of the day, Zhang? 666! It’s enough to drive a man to suicide.

I’m guessing Zhang isn’t the last Chinese official to face death over these scandals and recalls, either at their own hands or those of the government.

In the meantime, I recommend checking the source of your imported products. Oh, and don’t go sucking on any Diego toys, okay?



Image taken from HERE.

Brought Back To Consciousness

Six years ago a man was assaulted and brain-injured to the point of being put into a minimally-conscious state, unable to eat, and only able to intermittently communicate using slight movements of his eyes or thumbs. Recently, scientists put electrodes in his brain and, through the miracle of mild electrocution, have given him a partial recovery:

Article: http://www.physorg.com/news105194778.html

Scientific abstract from the journal Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7153/abs/nature06041.html

The 38-year old patient, whose name was not given, now has the ability to speak a few breathy words at a time when asked for a reply, and has recited the first half of the Pledge of Allegiance. He can chew now, so they took out his feeding tube and can feed him the normal way. And he can make more complex movements with his hands and arms, though his tendons and muscles have atrophied from lack of use over the years. To do this, the scientists inserted electrodes and gave electrical stimulation in short sessions. Now he is stimulated constantly.

I would love to know what his first words were, but I could hazard a guess. Here's a top-ten list of things I might want to say if I were in his shoes:

1. "What the hell are you doing to my f*ckin' head?"

2. "Scratch my back, quick! Ahhh!! That's been itching for years!

3. "Get me a bacon cheeseburger, and make it snappy! I don't know how long this will last!"

4. "I've been staring at a blank ceiling for six years. Hang some posters of pin-up models, already."

5. "We're at war in Iraq? I thought the idea was to fight Osama bin Laden?"

6. "So how does Harry Potter end?"

7. "Damn, I'm horny! Let's electrically stimulating something else.…"

8. "Would it kill you to put a TV in here? I've been SOOOO bored!"

9. "How about lowering the voltage a little? My fillings are sparking."

10. "George W. Bush is still president?? Quick, put me back under!"

Be Stung By Jellyfish -- For Fun!

Have you ever had a desire to help science – as a human guinea pig? No? Oh, come on, you know there's an inkling in there that you'd like to subject yourself to some sort of diabolical testing for the betterment of mankind. Heck, you don't have to be a starving college student to enjoy the subtle pleasures of being exposed to strange pills, electroshock experimentation, dietary disruptions, or psychological manipulations for laughable compensations.

Consider, if you will, a recent call for volunteers to be stung by jellyfish:

http://cosmeticsdesign-europe.com/news-by-product/news.asp?id=78577&idCat=0&k=AC-suncare-Nidaria-Technology-sunscreen-jellyfish

Another source of the story: HERE

Norwegian researchers at the University of Oslo are looking for volunteers to help them test a sunscreen that can also repel jellyfish stings.

From the article: "The study, sponsored by AC Suncare, a Norwegian sun care company and manufacturer of the product, will test the efficacy of an anti-jellyfish sting sunscreen developed by Nidaria, an Israeli technology company." The protectant is mucus-like in consistency and is supposed to mimic the protective coating on clownfish, which live in the tentacles of stinging anemones without being harmed.

As long as you are over 18, not pregnant, asthmatic, or have skin allergies or diseases, you can sign up. Oh, and you have to be hairless on your inner arms. Seeing as how I'm as hairy as a frickin' caveman, I guess that leaves me out. Shucks. But maybe YOU could still sign up, eh?

Should you join their research, one of your arms will be coated in regular sunscreen and the other will be coated with sunscreen plus jellyfish protectant. Then – oh lucky you – both arms will be subjected to stinging jellyfish tentacles. That's 2000 stinging jellyfish needles for every square millimeter of your supple flesh that comes in contact with a tentacle. I can just see you willingly lowering your arms into a giant tank packed with pulsating jellyfish.

When I was about 13 years old, my family and I traveled to Panama Beach, Florida, on vacation. On my first dip into the ocean, I waded off the bone-white beach into the surf. Literally the second wave to hit me, some sort of jellyfish wrapped around me and then washed away. Instantly I was hit by blinding pain. Looking down at my torso, I saw red whelps developing, front and back. It was as if someone was shoving about a thousand red-hot ice picks into my quivering teenage skin. I shouted to my mother and managed to make it back to the beach. Knowing the secret of how to treat such stings, my stepfather ran to a nearby store and bought a container of meat tenderizer, then ran back. Mixing the meat tenderizer powder with water into a paste and applying it to the whelps, the pain quickly dissipated. A decade later, I learned why. The enzymes in the meat tenderizer, which are used to break down the protein matrix of meat to make it tender, also broke down the proteins that caused the stinging sensation. Now, having experienced jellyfish stings, I can say I would rather not re-experience the sensation – over and over again – even in the name of science.

And what, per se, do the intrepid volunteers of this study get in compensation for their sufferings? Good pay? A glamorous all-expenses paid trip to Oslo? A night with beautiful Norwegian women?

Not even close: Three bottles of anti-jellyfish sunscreen.

Wow! Let's not get too extravagant! Hell, it would be less embarrassing to claim you're just doing it for fun than to boast about being compensated with three lousy bottles of anti-jellyfish sunscreen which has yet to be shown to work.

And let's hope they have plenty of meat tenderizer around the lab.


Image taken from HERE.