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Professor Quippy: Jittery joggers jinx skin cancer

By on July 31, 2007 in Odd Science

Professor QuippyWoo-hoo, finally some good news for all of us caffeine-addicted, incredibly pink, high-noon joggers out there.

Two of our predilections actually help prevent skin cancer!

According to a team of researchers at Rutgers University, lab mice who drank caffeine drinks and voluntarily exercised had an increased destruction of precancerous cells that had been damaged by the sun’s ultraviolet-B radiation.

So, I guess I can stop feeling guilty about the two insanely strong black coffees I have after my morning jog. It is actually good for me!

You can’t tell from the black and white photo, but I’m even more excited about this than many would be because my hair (or what remains of a once great society of follicles) is ginger (or red, to you North Americans).

Go caffeine joggers!

(But you should still use sunscreen, according to this report: Exercise, caffeine, fight cancer).

Saturday O-Rama

By on July 28, 2007 in General Skwib, Odd Science

Boozy Rocket Jockeys

There is a bit of a brew-ha-ha around NASA this week, as word that (in the past) astronauts have been a little blasted before they blasted off.

Can you really blame them, I mean the ones that aren’t driving? You’re strapped onto a tube filled with 2 million liters of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and you’re about the light a match. Plus, you don’t even have anything to do, just sit there.

I think a little nip is in order.

The O-Rama

Speaking of spaceflight, The Skwib launched itself at the Carnival of Space this week. And while you’re up there, pirouetting in slow motion, perhaps you could also check out the Carnival of Music.

And we’re a week too late on this, but we found this Harry Potter parody from SNL. It’s kind of one note humor (or should that be two note), but it’s still fun.

Questions that answer themselves (#1)

By on July 26, 2007 in Monkeys!, Parody & Satire

Is it appropriate to use a Taser on non-violent protesters?

The best thing about this question is the use of the word “appropriate”. Tasering a non-violent protester is so far beyond “appropriate” that you have to question the very sanity of the reporter. Then again, if you’d just talked to Detective Eric Johnson, perhaps you might start questioning your sanity. According to the Brattleboro Reformer story about the hippie tasering :

“We are a very busy department,” said Johnson, who said he sympathized with the protesters but disagreed with their decision to not leave the property when ordered to by police.

“If we go to a scene and ask you to please leave, just leave and move to a public place,” he said. “Our responsibility is to enforce the law,” adding “if I ask them to leave and they don’t, what am I to do?”

How about arrest them? Drag them off the property and put them in the cooler for a couple of hours, while they consider the next victim of their civil disobedience Jones?

The video shows the aftereffect, though it’s not too illuminating, except for the end when the taseree comes round and smiles at the camera.

The Carnival of Satire (#79)

By on July 26, 2007 in Carnival of Satire

The Carnival of SatireWelcome to our regular roundup of satire on the blogosphere (or the part of it that submitted something, anyway). We have some great stuff this week, beginning (predictably, for you regulars) with a post that has the word “monkey” in it:

Ahistoricality found this gem, The Monkey’s Paw, at Bouphonia.

It’s the dawning of the Age of the iPhone, and just in time, alejna has a review of the iPhone: good features, but falls short of design expectations.

However, this modest technology solution to the fairness issue, provided by Divided We Stand United We Fall, looks like a winner!

Madeleine Begun Kane is always a little controversial, but this week she wants us to Pity The Poor Lawyer (Limerick).

Continue Reading →

Professor Quippy: Don’t talk to that fat dude — it’s catching!

By on July 25, 2007 in Odd Science

Professor QuippyAccording to a new study, if you’ve got fat friends, then you’re more likely to be fat yourself.

The research from James Fowler at University of California in San Diego and Nicholas Christakis at the Harvard Medical School in Boston suggests that there is a 60 percent higher chance of becoming obese if your friends also fit in the category. According to the New Scientist:

The finding has prompted researchers to call obesity a “socially contagious” disease in which a sense of what constitutes a normal body weight passes from one person to the next.

Of course, if you’re already fat, then the best thing to do is seek out thin people and become their friend, because the study also suggest the relationship works the other way.

But you’ll have to be fast. Those thin people will be running — screaming — the other direction the minute they see your gargantuan carcass heave into view.

New Scientist story: Is Obesity Contagious?