Friday, April 21, 2006

We're just getting better: Better Sex, Lower Death Rate and Shocking Hands

Yet again, another predictable result from a research: Equality Makes for Better Sex - no surprises here:
"Male-centered cultures where sexual behavior is more oriented toward procreation tend to discount the importance of sexual pleasure for women," Laumann said.

"When mama's not happy, nobody's happy," he said.

This is also no surprise, especially for someone like me who truly believes we're advancing quickly towards immortality or something like it: U.S. Records Big Decline in Death Rate
In a powerful testament to U.S. health improvements, the annual number of deaths in the country dropped by about 50,000 in 2004 -- the largest such decline in more than 60 years.

And now we have proof: men and women are wired differently, emotionally that is. Yes, I know, big surprise here too... but it's nice to have the actual physical evidence of it -
An almond-shaped cluster of neurons that processes experiences such as fear and aggression hooks up to contrasting brain functions in men and women at rest, the new research shows.

Anyone living in a really cold, dry climate knows about the awful static electricity buildup. Especially for those with long hair who also tend to twirl their curls. So today I read about how static electricity charges are actually much larger than we would have expected and I was wondering that maybe if I could control the static electricity I could be a superhero, shooting electricity from my hands - cool!

And finally, something for the soul, my fave - art and science mix - solar wind music
The music of composer and musician Roberto Morales-Manzanares has been inspired by the sea, by wind and wave, by mathematical equations, and now [by] the breeze of electrons from the sun.
[...]
"You can look at wiggly lines, and you can look at spectrograms, which are kind of rainbow plots, and your eyes can give you certain feedback, but sometimes you hear patterns you don't see readily," she [physicist Janet Luhmann] said. "I see the sonification as possibly adding to the ability to recognize certain kinds of characteristic behaviors."
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