Talk about a bad, awkward STD advertisement

A procedure, albeit expensive, has been discovered to cure HIV for certain patients.

"Hey honey! We need to talk!  :D  "

We are the Borg. Resistance is Futile

Edit: Public Announcement. Google has ripped me off, arbitrarily canceling my advertisement account, and taking back all the money I've earned. All thirty bucks of it, the cheap bastards (lol). They won't even give me a reason why. Do yourself a favor, if you're a publisher, avoid Google's Adsense. For more horror stories, including a lawsuit, see here.

Large cities remind me of Borg ships.

Bluetooth, borg, Borg cubes, Cities

AIDS Cured in Patient

A procedure, albeit expensive, has been discovered to cure HIV for certain patients.

Valentine's Day Science: Science's Perspective on Love

Here's a quick explanation of what we know from science about love, as well as some fun facts.
Love explained by science

Hormones: Certain hormones are involved in the human brain in generating attachment, bonding, and love. These hormones are oxytocin, vasopressin, and endorphines. Oxytocin is involved with trust, and vasopressin with faithfulness in monogamy. Endorphines are released when something *special* happens, such as when someone receives roses from someone they are attracted to, as endorphines are primarily responsible for excitement and elation. Hormones, of course, don't actually originate these feelings, however.

Monogamy in birds: A few animal species are monogamous, and even rarer are those that are monogamous for life. These are mostly birds (not mammals). Among the temporary monogamous, which are species that are monogamous only for the mating season, are the penguins. Most birds, in fact, engage in temporary monogamous relations. Some of the birds that mate with only one individual for the rest of their lives include eagles, swans, and albatrosses. Like humans, however, a few do cheat on their partners.

Certain neurotransmitters are also involved as well. Dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin tend to surge in the ebbs and flows of romantic adventures, as they are also implicated with excitement and elation.

Deadbeat Dads in Fish: If a parent is judged by how much effort they put into raising their children, these dads have nothing on the worst deadbeat dad. When scientists first studied the deep-sea angler fish, they couldn't imagine how they could mate, because there would be thousands of miles between individuals. Worse, they couldn't find a single male fish.

Well, it turned out that there were males - but they weren't fish. They were swimming sacks of sperm, parasitically biting into females and releasing sperm into them. They had no eyes, gills, or digestive systems. Just bags of sperm.

A Match Made in Evolution: There are a few strange patterns found between human mates. For example, people with the gene for making broccoli taste awful tend to be married to people without that gene. When women are most fertile during their menstrual cycle, they are more attracted to masculine-looking males. When they are not, they tend to be more attracted to feminine or child-looking males. Of course, this is found via statistics, and therefore really are inapplicable for individual and specific cases. And they can't take into account individual personality and values.

Dat ***: Some evolutionary psychologists believe that the shape of a heart is really an upside down buttocks. Some of these psychologists hypothesize that many features of women's bodies have evolved to mimic the shape of the buttocks and genitalia; the lips appear like genitalia, while the breasts are shaped like the buttocks.

Makeup is Cheating!: Makeup generally mimics signs of fertility. Blush makes the cheeks appear rosier, making women look younger, healthier, and more fertile. Eyeliner makes eyes look larger, again mimicking youth (which again correlates with fertility). Lipstick may enhances the blush effect, again signalling youth and fertility. And as a small waist to hip ratio correlates well with successful child-bearing, men have evolved to be attracted to the hourglass figure (think Jessica Rabbit).

Does knowing all of these correlations take away from the mystery of love? Maybe these things can explain attraction to some degree, but really, nothing in biology can explain the intense care and cherishment involved in true love.

Choices, and not Discrimination, results in Gender Gap in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Fields

A study by Cornell sociologists seems to indicate that the lack of women in the sciences and engineering fields is due not so much as from discrimination, but rather from individual choices to be drawn to certain careers and not others, reports Science Daily in their article "Choices - Not Discrimination - Determine

How to make Clear Care go faster

WARNING: I DO NOT AT ALL RECOMMEND ATTEMPTING TO DO SPEED UP CLEAR CARE'S REACTION RATE. THE FOLLOWING IS FOR SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION ONLY, AND FOLLOWING THROUGH WILL MOST LIKELY END IN HARM. THEREFORE, DO NOT DO THIS.

Let's say you're in the situation that you've popped in your lenses into the Clear Care lens case and used their hydrogen peroxide lens solution. Then you realize that you need to go out again in a couple of hours. Or, for whatever other reason, you need your lenses again in less than the six hours states in the directions.

Okay, first of all, my advice is to just wait the six hours. Open a new package of lenses if you need to and

Linus Pauling and his magical Vitamin C

Multiple-time Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling had an incredible fascination with Vitamin C, one that many scientists and medical professionals could call a dangerous obsession. His controversial claim about Vitamin C was that it could cure all sorts of health problems. And we're not just talking about the common cold or flu, here.

How Science Reporting Works

These are two cartoons by the incredibly talented Zach Weiner at Sunday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Dogs trained to detect cancer...through sniffing poop and pee

Scientists have successfully trained dogs to detect cancer through sniffing human feces and urine.

Too much college?

Study asks: Does everyone need a college education? (CSM)

By AMY ROLPH
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Is a national push to prepare every young person for college harming some students?

That's the question a group of Harvard researchers posed at the start of a recent study, and they answered themselves with, "Probably."

The report, titled "Pathways to Prosperity," points out that an increased emphasis on college may push some students to drop out of high school.

Students who are bored at school are often deterred by the thought of spending four more years in school, the study's authors point out. They advocate a dual system of preparedness more like some European countries, where students either prepare to enter college or opt for more career-oriented training traditionally associated with trades and apprenticeships.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan responded to the study Wednesday saying "college and career-ready skills are

A Conservative Politician's Take on an Environmentally-Friendly Economy

Book Review and Summary of The Constant Economy by Zac Goldsmith

conservative environmentalism

Zac Goldsmith, editor of the Ecologist magazine and current Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate in Britain, outlines a number of political policies designed to move industrialized countries (focusing on Britain in particular) towards a more sustainable economy. In addition, he compiles many critical facts that demonstrate the absolute necessity of change. His book, The Constant Economy, incorporates these facts and ideas into one practical vision for an economically-stable, environmentally-sustainable economy.

As a British politician, Goldsmith goes into detail into fixing Britain’s particular problems through Britain’s particular governmental structure. However, I’ve generalized his ideas for the purposes of this review.

One of the themes of Goldsmith’s recommended policies is the idea that governments should set

Amateurs use balloon to film Earth from space (Wired)

By Amy Rolph
SeattlePi

Who needs a satellite to take pictures from space?

Two Ph.D. candidates from Sheffield University in England launched a weather balloon into near space to capture footage usually only seen in photos from NASA or research groups.

The result of the three-hour experiment was a breathtaking view of the world from above. A panoramic shot of the footage is posted on Flickr with the title "Thin Blue Line."

Chris Rose and Alex Baker, both studying mechanical engineering, told Wired.com they wanted to inspire an "I can do that, too" reaction in others.

They posted a video on YouTube showing how they launched and retrieved the camera -- and what it saw during that time. Click "Read More" to see the video.

Careful with your products!

Whenever I look up information about Clear Care, I find a lot of people who have made mistakes and burned their eyes by putting the hydrogen peroxide solution into their eyes, despite the directions repeatedly and explicitly warning them NOT to do this. These people then blame the product, rather than taking personal responsibility.

Instead of taking personal responsibility, the complaints about Clear Care are always something along the lines of "poor labeling and packaging! They should have made a bigger deal out of this" or "the bottle looks too much like normal lens solution." Everything Under Review has an entire list of consumer complaints, from "Clear Care will burn your eyes" to "I will never buy Clear Care again!"

Where have we gotten to as a society? Are we so irresponsible that we can't do anything but blame some

Dangers of EATING LICORICE

Yes, you read that correctly.

A new study suggests that eating licorice while pregnant can harm your child. Apparently, women who eat too much licorice have children who, on average, have lower IQs and more behavioral issues. 

Expectant mothers who eat excessive quantities of liquorice during pregnancy could adversely affect their child's intelligence and behaviour, a study has shown.

A study of eight year old children whose mothers ate large amounts of liquorice when pregnant found they did not perform as well as other youngsters in cognitive tests.

They were also more likely to have poor attention spans and show disruptive behaviour such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

It is thought that a component in liquorice called glycyrrhizin may impair the placenta, allowing stress hormones to cross from the mother to the baby.

High levels of such hormones, known as glucocorticoids, are thought to affect fetal brain development and have been linked to behavioural disorders in children.

The article continues here

I guess sometimes weird tasting foods are weird-tasting for a reason.

Evolutionary-based medicine would suggest that our palates have evolved in a way to help us survive. Basically, we avoid bitter foods because they tend to be poisonous, and enjoy sweet foods because of the sugar content, and devour fatty foods because they were so rare to come by in our hunter-gatherer

Make it snow!

Someone throws boiling water into the air outside where it's negative 22 degrees celsius!

See what happens when you toss boiling water in the air at -22 degrees!

Apparently, incredibly hot water also freezes much faster than cold water.