Coworker 1 (middle-aged Chinese woman): Here, try this candy from China.
Coworker 2 (20-something Ohioan grad student): No thanks.
1: No, try, it's good.
2: Ok, just put it on my desk, I'll try it later. I have chemicals on my hands.
1: No, it's good. Try. I'll put it in your mouth. (does so)
2: (making a face) It tastes like fish and beef.
Been a little while since the last post....can't say too much has happened. I guess mostly we've been working on the house -- new hardwood floors in the office, painted a few rooms, and and set up a garden in the back. But more on that later, I've promised pictures of the new members of the orphanage. I apologize in advance for the cutesiness:
Queenie enjoys socks.
Alli (rear) hates Queenie and has activated laz0rz. Little does she know Queenie is ready.
One of the only shots of Susie with her not digging a hole in my backyard.
Susie doing her best anime face.
Lacey is pretty sure you are being rude and not sharing whatever food you have hidden in your pockets.
So what does Oscar think about all of this?
IT'S GREAT!!!
Our new pets (again, 2 dogs and 1 cat) have basically lived in captivity for most of their lives. Well, ok, maybe just slightly more than any other dog or cat. The cat, Queenie, was an office cat, so she was basically in a pen for half the day when no one was working in the vet clinic. So now, in our house she wanders free the entire day, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what to do with herself for most of the time. It's like Brooks in Shawshank Redemption -- he finally gets out of jail and is miserable working at the grocery store. She has also taken to scratching on our sofa. Probably something like "Queenie was here" in LOLCAT. I hope we don't come home one day to find her hanging from the rafters. But hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
The dogs seem to be doing fine so far, but they've been busy digging a hole next to the foundation of the house. No poster or anything on top of it, but I tried to fill it in this morning and there was hardly any dirt around. They're probably taking it to other parts of the yard in their pockets.
On an unrelated note, when I was driving into work today I noticed a guy shaving in his car. That wouldn't have been too odd, but it was 1) with a dry disposable razor; 2) while smoking; 3) using his car rearview mirror (NOTE: He had pulled it off the windshield glass). Just be 5 minutes later to work, please. Thanks.
Just a few points I wanted to mention...
1) Not sure who all has heard, but Valerie's dad has officially closed his vet clinic and has begun his semi-retirement. We'd all heard rumors that this was coming, but the reality hit pretty suddenly. As a result, we have come into the possession of one black cat (Queenie) and two elderly mutt dogs (Susie and Lacey). So now we officially have more pets than we can handle. Though I think Oscar is enjoying his new role as pack leader. He leads them in his never-ending crusade against the fat mutt dog who likes to come by every morning. I'll post pics later this week.
2) Why do the Coke and Pepsi products in every grocery store have to be separated by the generic stuff? Do they get into fights at night and the store brands act as mediators? This would make an interesting movie premise for those East Asian Pixar rip-off companies.
3) Not too much going on in our lives right now. We pulled up some gross carpet in our office, hoping to find hardwood underneath. Unfortunately, we found strange wood laminate from the 70s. So the next project is new floors for that room. Woot.
4) Almost time for spring planting season. I think I'm gonna try tomatoes and zucchini again this year, but I think I want to add some new plants. Any ideas? The zucchinis were going great last year until they got hit by a blight, and were gone within a week or two.
I'll continue with some more questions later. My wife has built up quite a few in my absence.
Hey all! Here's a longer post to get caught up. I may take a break from writing, but it doesn't mean the wife stops asking questions.
Why do women as a group seem to enjoy chocolate more than men do?
Chocolate is composed of as many as 800 different chemical components, ranging from the good (anti-oxidant catechins) to the not-as-good (the fatty acids in cocoa butter). Thus, it seems likely that one of these compunds may have some influence on the hormones that differentiate men from women. A researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has shown that female rats have heightened cravings for chocolate over their male counterparts. Further studies have shown that eating chocolate activates the hypothalamus (area of the brain that regulates hunger) while inactivating the amygdala (involved in emotion and memory). This finding may reveal why eating chocolate is soothing when upset or depressed.
Another hypothesis is that cravings come and go with increases and decreases in hormones. Progesterone is thought to promote higher body fat levels. As progesterone concentration increases towards the beginnings of menstruation, this may also be why women crave chocolate. However, much of this may be cultural. One study has found that the difference in chocolate craving between women and men in Spain (90 to 78%) is much closer than in American women and men (91 to 59%).
Why do people crave particular foods when they are lacking in nutrients those foods are rich in? How does your body know that food items (on non-food items like dirt for those with pica) have those nutrients?
Pica is a weird disease. It comes from the Latin word for magpie (pica) as these birds are found to collect and eat practically anything. A Missouri psychiatric museum contains a collection of nails, spoons, and pins removed from a female asylum patient's stomach. While large consumption of objects can indicate a type of autism or mental retardation, the most recognized cravings are seen in pregnant women.
Studies from the late 1960s and early 70s revealed that 35-40% of pregnant women consistently craved clay, starch, and soil. Very little research has been done on this disease, but there seems to be a correlation with ingesting of "non-food" with some kind of nutritional deficiency. However, it seems easier to prove that this is the case than to prove why this is the case. Animals made to be deficient in certain essential minerals are more apt to selectively ingest items that contain high quantities of the missing supplement. In people, iron deficiency and anemia seem the most likely to cause pica. Low iron levels have been shown to cause pagophagia, increased ingestion of ice. When the anemia is treated, the craving for ice goes away.
Besides the nutritional explanation, there are psychological and cultural hypotheses as well. For instance, papers by Vermeer and Frate in the late 1970s claim that the practice of clay-eating "ingrained in southern black society" stems from its use in Africa to promote fertility and lactation.
So, as it seems common in these blog posts to say, no one knows the answer to your question and apparently no one is really trying to find it. How the body can "know" that it has certain deficiencies is still a mystery.
Do fish really not feel pain? I never quite bought that -- seems like almost any animal would be evolutionarily able to feel pain for self-preservation.
Ok, I've been typing too much, so this'll be a quick one. Recent studies seem to indicate that, yes, fish feel pain, but this doesn't make them less tasty. They respond negatively to injections of bee venom and vinegar over controls, and may actually be more sensitive than humans. And is this really surprising? Fish are vertebrates and have a relatively complex nervous system in the grand scheme of the phyla charts.
Why do some people get stung by mosquitos a lot while others don't? I definitely fall into the first category, and would love to know how to sic the bugs on other folks for a change.
Female mosquitoes are the biters, and primarily find their victims through a type of smell. It seems possible that different people would have less appealing smells to the buggers and not attract them. Some of the major chemicals that mosquitoes detect are carbon dioxide and lactic acid, key components of respiration. People who sweat less generally get bitten less. Repellents like DEET work by blocking the mosquito's ability to pick up these olfactory signals. So, besides holding your breath whenever outside, just remember to wear plenty of repellent and avoid other floral-based chemical attractants like perfume and sweet-smelling lotions.
Were classic ancient beauties (Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, etc.) really all that hot or did they just have good PR?
Ideals of beauty change over generations, so who's to say if the ancients would find today's supermodels attractive at all. But, in her day, Cleopatra was the rage around the Mediterranean. Cassius Dio, a second century Greek historian, refers to her as "a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to every one." But was she reliant on her looks alone as she sought to diplomatically link to Greece through seducing Julius Caesar and Marc Antony? Plutarch says "[f]or her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but converse with her had an irresistible charm..." So, maybe she wasn't all that hot. Recently, Roman coins of her likeness have been found, revealing (if this likeness is at all accurate) that she had a small forehead, hooked nose, and a pointed chin. A marble bust possibly sculpted upon her arrival in Rome reveals more soft and rounded features.
Helen of Troy is probably based more in mythology to be considered "accurately beautiful as stated." Though I find it kinda funny that Isaac Asimov defined a measurement of beauty as the ability to launch one ship -- the millihelen.
Why is prostitution called the oldest profession? What were they being paid with? Meat? Fire? Stone wheels? Pterodactyl record player / woolly mammoth shower (think Flintstones)?
Uh, yeah...this one's a doozy. Prostitution, as loosely defined as providing sexual intercourse for some compensation, has probably been around as long as there has been sex and/or compensation. While I couldn't find a good answer to when it was deemed as such, there were brothels in ancient Greek, Aztec, Roman, and Jewish societies. Some theories suggest that prostitution (and adultery) came from the establishment of monogamy as a social norm in humans. Or rather, the conflict between monogamy and the male need to inseminate whatever is possible to pass along the genes. It seems unlikely to me that this would be the "oldest" of all professions. Wasn't Adam a nomenclature zoologist?
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