Category: Things that make you go hmmm

Things that make you go hmmm…How physically fit are our political leaders?

Oct. 03 Things that make you go hmmm 1 comment

Question:  How physically fit are our political leaders?

Answer:  Well, we’ve all seen the cover of Men’s Health magazine last spring, which sported a picture of U.S. Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois in all his washboard glory.  Schock, who is on the cusp of his 30th birthday, is the youngest, and ostensibly fittest, member of the House of Representatives. He is also one of the dozen of so congressmen who make 6:30 AM daily treks to the House gym for weight training and sessions of P90X, a video series created by Tony Horton.

And who do you think runs these early morning workout sessions? None other than Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee for Vice President. According to TMZ, Ryan is “totally shredded” and would probably contest Men’s Health claim of Schock being “America’s Fittest Congressman.”

Fitness seems to be a truly bipartisan issue. First Lady Michelle Obama has spearheaded Let’s Move!, a comprehensive exercise and healthy eating initiative dedicated to solving the problem of obesity among American youth.

So everyone seems to be concerned about fitness and weight. Well, as a well-nourished woman packing a few extra pounds, I wanted to know if this has always been a political obsession.

There seems to be a long tradition of scrutinizing political bellies. In 1965, after Lyndon Johnson had his gallbladder removed, he faced rumors that the operation had really been to excise a cancerous tumor. During a press conference outside Bethesda Naval Hospital, he famously lifted his shirt to reveal the telltale jagged scar across his stomach. (TMI-wise, this was topped by the time Johnson showed his penis, which he’d nicknamed “Jumbo,” to a group of reporters.) More than 30 years later, Bill Clinton, dogged at the time by Paula Jones’ sexual-harassment lawsuit, was photographed in his swim trunks – his baby-boomer torso exposed in all its flabby ­glory – as he slow-danced with Hillary on a beach in the Virgin Islands.

But in Washington as on the ­Jersey shore, it’s the toned abs that tend to get the most attention. The Kennedys, ever attuned to optics, were known to flash midriff—think of the iconic pictures of the twentysomething John aboard PT-109 or bare-chested Bobby and Teddy playing touch football on the beach. A buff Reagan, running for governor of California, had himself photographed in his pool. In December 2008, as Barack Obama prepared to enter the White House, he was photographed sans top emerging from the Hawaii surf, prompting not US Weekly but the Washington Post to report: “The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weight-lifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.”

Yet not all politicians feel it necessary to be buff. As a matter of fact, a study at the University of Missouri found that male politicians should be thinking about supersizing, as people considered fatter men more reliable, honest and better able to cope with the pressures of public life. (Alas, the opposite was true for heavier women – there go my political aspirations!)

But in the case of someone like the obese Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, hopes for moving up in the political world might be short-lived. Many feel that Christie’s common man physique won’t endear him to the common man, since the common man aspires to be thin. Yet should girth really matter in the voting booth?

Apparently, it wasn’t always that much of any issue. William Howard Taft, our 27th president, was known as “Big Lub” at Yale because of his size. He is remembered by some historians as being the fattest president and his weight problem led to many incidents including loud belches and chronic flatulence. One embarrassing episode involved Taft becoming stuck in a bath tub in the White House, where he had to call for his staff members to use butter to dislodge him from the tub.

So when you’re in the voting booth in November, would you rather opt for the rippling pecs or belly hanging over the belt. Or maybe you should actually find out what these pols believe in and vote based on the issues and not on the abs.

Things that make you go hmmm…Is penis size related to finger length?

Sep. 19 Things that make you go hmmm no comments

Question:  Is penis size related to finger length?

Answer:  We’ve all heard the old wives’ tale that the size of a man’s hands and feet hold clues about his genitalia and their various metrics. I have to admit that I have often been guilty of checking out a man’s shoe size to ascertain any penile shortcomings.

But maybe these aren’t such tall tales after all.

Researchers in South Korea think they’ve finally been able to crack the code that indicates the size of a penis, and it comes down to a ratio of finger length on the right hand.

A study was conducted on 144 Korean men undergoing urological surgery.  The patients’ penile lengths were measured just after they went under anesthesia, as well as their finger lengths. Now, the ratio of the length of a man’s index finger to that of his ring finger, known as digit ratio, may seem like a strange thing to measure. But it was found that the lower the ratio (index finger, 2D, was shorter than the ring finger, 4D), the longer the stretched penis length, which is well correlated with erect size. (This info will most likely have men all over examining their right hands.)

Previous studies have linked the so-called 2D:4D ratio of finger length with exposure to the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone in the womb. So most men have a low ratio (higher testosterone), while women have a high ratio. Interestingly, research has shown that lesbians and female-to-male transgendered people are more likely to have more “male” ratios (so Lady Gaga is right, we are born this way). However, the “gay” link did not hold true for men.

In earlier research, digit ratio has been linked to sexual behavior or hormonal activity. A recent study linked digit ratio to facial attractiveness or “hotness.”   But digit ratio could be useful for more than just a pick-up line in a bar. Various illnesses, such as prostate cancer and Lou Gehrig’s Disease, have been associated with this ratio, so these results offer researchers insights beyond the obvious cocktail conversation.

Now that we’ve established that there’s a possible way to determine size, why do we really care so much? Obviously, after checking out our spam e-mails, we see that penis enlargement is big business. Well, believe it or not, studies have shown that some of techniques really do work (good news for those high digit ratio fellas). While surgical treatments were found to be dangerous, at least one non-surgical method appeared to help grow a man’s member: the “traction method,” in which a penile extender stretched the phallus daily. The gains were hard earned: in the first study, participants had to be in traction for four to six hours each day for a total four months, and in the second study, the daily treatment lasted for six months.

But do you really need to go through all this effort? Researchers have found that the vast majority of men who seek treatment don’t need it.  Ironically, more than a third of men studied say their feelings of inadequacy began by viewing porn during their teen years.

One study found that the majority of gay men regarded a large penis as ideal, and having one was linked to higher self-esteem. In addition, it was found that the average penis of a gay man was larger than the average penis of their heterosexual counterparts. Is that why the jumbo size condoms are always sold out in gayborhoods?

And, in the end, men seem to care about it a lot more than their partners. In more than 50 studies spanning the course of 60 years, it was found that 85% of women were satisfied with their partner’s penis size — yet only 55% of men felt good about their penises! Like they say, it’s the size of your skills, not your sex organ, that matters.

Things that make you go hmmm…Do transplant recipients get the memories of their donors?

Sep. 05 Things that make you go hmmm no comments

Question:  Do transplant recipients get the memories of their donors?

Answer:  We all know the typical horror movie plot of the transplanted hand that starts killing people, with the emphasis on scantily clad coeds. Well, that actually doesn’t happen. But it has been found that some people get more than just organs when they receive transplants. Some common quirks recorded have been changes in attitude, temperament, vocabulary, patience levels, philosophies, and tastes in food and music. The theory behind this is called cellular memory, which states that the brain is not the only organ that stores memories or personality traits, and that memory as a process can form in other systems in the body and can be stored in organs such as the heart.

Paul Pearsall, a neuropsychologist, studied 74 transplant patients, 23 of whom were heart transplant recipients. These case studies point to the fact that both the brain and the heart hold important information about a person, and this information from the donor seems to install into the recipient’s memory.

Pearsall became open to the possibility of cellular memory in transplant recipients partly because of his own bone marrow transplant in 1987, and also because of his Hawaiian heritage that has always valued the heart as being a “thinking, feeling, communicating, and spiritual organ.”

The most stunning example of cellular memory was found in an 8-year-old girl who received the heart of a 10-year-old girl who was murdered. The recipient was plagued after surgery with vivid nightmares about an attacker and a girl being killed. After several consultations with a psychiatrist, it was decided that the police should be notified. The heart recipient was able to identify key clues about the murder, including who the murderer was, when and how it happened, and even the words spoken by the murderer to the victim. Amazingly, the entire testimony turned out to be true and the murderer was convicted for his crime.

If you still feel skeptical, consider some of the following cases Pearsall noted:

The donor was a 17-year-old black male student who was a victim of a drive-by shooting. He was walking to violin class and loved classical music with a passion. The recipient, a 47-year-old white male foundry worker, stated that he used to hate classical music, but now loved it. Knowing nothing about his donor except for race and gender, he stated that his new love for music was not because of his new heart “because a black guy from the ‘hood wouldn’t be into that. Now it calms my heart. I play it all the time.”  He claimed not to be a racist, but for the first time invited his black friends over from work. His wife stated that “it’s like he doesn’t see their color anymore. He seems more comfortable and at ease with these black guys, but he’s not aware of it.”

The donor was a 19-year-old woman killed in an automobile accident. She was a vegetarian who owned a health food restaurant. As she was dying, she wrote notes to her mother saying how she could feel the impact of the car hitting her. The recipient was a 29-year-old woman who reported that she could actually feel the accident her donor had. “I can feel the impact in my chest. It slams into me.” She also said she was “McDonald’s biggest money-maker” but now meat made her throw up and her heart actually started to race when she smelled meat. What really freaked her out was that her sexual orientation seemed to have changed somewhat. Prior to the transplant, she was openly gay. Afterward, she started dating men and was engaged at the time of the study. She said, “The sex is terrific. The problem is, I’m gay. At least, I thought I was. After my transplant, I’m sort of semi- or confused gay. Women still seem attractive to me, but my boyfriend turns me on; women don’t. I have absolutely no desire to be with a woman. I think I got a gender transplant.”

The donor was a 34-year-old police officer shot attempting to arrest a drug dealer. The recipient was a 56-year-old college professor who stated that the only real side-effect of his surgery was glimpsing Jesus and then feeling burning hot flashes of light in his face. The police officer was shot in the face, so that the last thing he must have seen was a terrible flash as he felt the burning bullet. The killer was never found, but has been described as a “guy with long hair, deep eyes, a beard, and this real calm look. He looks sort of like some of the pictures of Jesus.”

So check the organ donor box on your next driver’s license renewal – you really can save a life. But in the meantime, make sure that you behave yourself while you’re still in this world, because some of your secrets may stay here even when you go to the great beyond.

Things that make you go hmmm…Is "f-bomb" actually in the dictionary?

Aug. 22 Things that make you go hmmm 1 comment

Question:  Is “f-bomb” actually in the dictionary?

Answer:  Believe it or not, the new 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which appeared last week, included the word “f-bomb.” In all, the company picks about 100 new words for the 114-year-old dictionary’s annual update, gathering evidence of usage over several years in everything from media to the labels of beer bottles and boxes of frozen food.

So, what’s the definition of f-bomb? Well, everyone knows what an f-bomb is. But if you need to look it up, it’s described as a “lighthearted and printable euphemism.”

So who’s responsible for lobbing the f-bomb far and wide? Word spies at the Massachusetts company traced it back to 1988, in a Newsday story that had the now-dead Mets catcher Gary Carter talking about how he had given them up, along with other profanities. But the word didn’t really take off until the late ’90s, after coach Bobby Knight went heavy on the f-bombs during a locker room tirade. There was another huge spike after Dick Cheney dropped an f-bomb in the Senate in 2004, and then again in 2010 when Joe Biden did the same thing in the same place.

The dictionary experts feel these new words paint vivid pictures in your mind and show that English speakers can be very creative as they describe the world around them. What were some of the other words to make it into the 2012 edition?

aha moment – The first reference found by Merriam-Webster dates to 1939 in a psychology book. Its use was sporadic until the `90s, when it became Oprah Winfrey’s signature phrase, meaning a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition or comprehension.

earworm – Stephen King popularized this term, meaning a truly torturous tune you can’t get out of your head. Earworm isn’t actually a new word for Merriam-Webster, as it was previously listed as the description of a specific blight on ears of corn.

copernicium – This is a short-lived, artificially produced radioactive element and is the most recent addition to the Periodic Table of Elements. It was first created in a German lab in 1996 and named for the astronomer Copernicus.

The freshly added vocabulary also reflects a defining event of our time — the global financial crisis and the recession blues:

systemic risk – This is the risk that the failure of one financial institution could cause other interconnected institutions to fail and harm the economy as a whole.

underwater – The heartbreaking realization that you owe more on your mortgage than your property is worth.

toxic – This is related to an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market.

Of course, in our society there have to be some food-related new words, such as:

flexitarian – Traced to 1998, this is defined as one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish.

obesogenic – Dating to 1986 and more restricted to technical writing, this refers to an environment where something or some pattern is suspected of putting people at risk for obesity.

gastropub – Originating in England and coined in 1991, this concept of a restaurant in a pub reinvigorated both pub culture and British dining.

And there have to be some techie words to make the geeks among us happy:

cloud computing – This is the practice of storing regularly used computer data on multiple servers that can be accessed through the Internet.

sexting – This is the sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone. Remember Anthony Weiner, whose sexting scandal cost him his congressional seat?

So next time you want to use the perfect pick-up line, why don’t you try something like, “hey, babe, what’s a nice girl/guy like you doing in a gastropub like this? Just looking at you gave me that aha moment where I just knew you were a flexitarian who avoided those obesogenic foods – wanna do some sexting?” Just see how far that’ll get you – or how far that’ll get you thrown out the door of the club!

Things that make you go hmmm…Do identical twins really have a special connection?

Aug. 15 Things that make you go hmmm no comments

Question:  Do identical twins really have a special connection?

Answer:  Have you ever wondered if you had an identical twin somewhere who not only looked like you but made uncannily similar life decisions, liked and disliked the same things, and had the same habits? Identical twinship is so fascinating because of what it tends to indicate about nature vs. nurture, including how intelligence and talents are genetic or environmental.

On average, identical twins raised together tend to be around 80 percent the same in everything from stature to health to IQ to political views. The similarities are partly the product of nurture, or similar upbringing. But evidence from the comparison of twins raised apart points rather convincingly to genes, or nature, as the source of a lot of that likeness. In the most widely publicized study of this type, launched in 1979, University of Minnesota psychologist Thomas Bouchard examined 60 pairs of identical twins raised separately, but who displayed personalities, behaviors and social attitudes that were remarkably alike. Check out some of the freakish similarities of these identical twins that were reared apart:

As children, Jim L. and Jim S.  each had a dog named Toy. Each bit his fingernails and, since age 18, had suffered from mixed headache syndrome. Each had been married twice, first to a Linda and then to a Betty. One twin had named his son James Alan, and the other, James Allen. Each had put a circular bench around a tree in his garden. Each had worked at a gas station and later part-time in law enforcement as a sheriff. Each chain-smoked Salems and preferred an occasional Miller Lite beer. Each scattered love notes to his wife around the house. Every summer, each had driven his family in a light blue Chevrolet from Ohio to the Pas-Grille Beach in St. Petersburg, Florida, for their summer vacation. They had similar voices, hand gestures, and mannerisms.

Gerry and Mark were nearly bald and had bushy mustaches. Each was a volunteer firefighter and made his living installing safety equipment. Each wore aviator glasses, big belt buckles, and big key rings. Each drank Budweiser with his pinky hooked on the bottom of the can and crushed the can when he finished. Both had the same distinctive laugh, both were partial to Italian and Chinese food, and both enjoyed hunting and fishing.

Jack and Oskar were identical twins born in Trinidad in 1933 and separated in infancy by their parents’ divorce. Oskar was raised by his Catholic mother and grandmother in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and he joined Hitler Youth. Jack was raised by his Jewish father in Trinidad and became an officer in the Israeli navy. Each wore aviator glasses and a blue sport shirt with shoulder plackets, had a trim mustache, liked sweet liqueurs, stored rubber bands on their wrists, read books and magazines from back to front, dipped buttered toast in coffee, flushed the toilet before and after using it, enjoyed sneezing loudly in crowded elevators to frighten other passengers, and routinely fell asleep at night while watching television. Each was impatient, squeamish about germs, and gregarious.

Bessie and Jessie each had a bout of tuberculosis, and they had similar voices, energy levels, administrative talents, and decision-making styles. Each had her hair cut short in early adolescence. Jessie had a college-level education, while Bessie had only 4 years of formal education; yet Bessie scored 156 on an IQ test, while Jessie scored 153. Each read avidly, which may have compensated for Bessie’s poor education. She seemed to have created an environment compatible with her inherited potential.

Daphne and Barbara both had miscarriages the same year, followed by the births of two boys and a girl. They admit that they’ve also cooked the same meal from the same recipe book on the same day. They have been called the “giggle twins” because they laugh and fold their arms the same way.

Of course, there are differences in these twins too. And most of the other twins in the study weren’t nearly as alike as these examples. Furthermore, since no one is claiming there is a gene for flushing the toilet before you use it, or a gene for marrying women named Betty, such coincidences are statistical anomalies. These quirky cases strengthen our sense of the power of nature, but they don’t provide enough data to make a scientific case. On average, identical twins raised separately are about 50 percent similar — and that defeats the widespread belief that identical twins are carbon copies. Obviously, they are not. Each is a unique individual in his or her own right. So if I have an identical twin out there, feel free to e-mail me and we’ll compare IQ’s (betcha I’d win!).

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