I don't know why I think this is bloggable, but I do. I guess it falls under the rubric of normal boring blogs but oh welll.
Anyway, I just realized that about a year ago, I started being a verbal love whore. I tell everyone that I love them. This is new to me. Even my family. Also very new. The family part, I can thank my sister Meg for, as she lamented out lack of love and I set about to fix it along with others. But friends have no explination.
Perhaps, I just got to that point with my Canadian friends where we realize and recognize that specific emotion. Or maybe it's an age thing. I'm 28, maybe I'm just that much more aware of my own mortality and want to form stronger ties to the living?
Or maybe hippies just gush. Which I adore.
I have no idea. But if you have any thoughts, I would like to hear them.
More from the realm of sciene that everyone knows already, but it's nice to have on hand at dinner parties with nonbelievers: A new study documents scientis' surprise to find that meditation acutally helps you focus emmensly. It helps you perform better and quicker on tests, especially if you've had little sleep the night before. The study was done with people who were not weathered practitioners so I bet your brain is even better if you've been at it for a while. It's also just a good thing to remember before going into an exam or meeting of any sort.
ALSO, the most intersting part: experienced meditators also GROW parts of their brain that they use while meditating. Amazing.
This article falls into the catagory of things I just don't know what to do with. It claims that the more oestrogen you (being female) had in your body during puberty, the prettier and healthier you will look as a woman. They did a study of 59 women and said there was a "very strong coorelation" with the 30 guys and gals who judged beauty.
But I just can't believe it! That one hormone would govern such a complicated affair as beauty. It's social! And political! And has a lot to do with diet! Just one hormone is far too simplistic. And scarey! What happens when New York socialites get their hads on this stuff for their pre teen daughters? I guess it was bound to happen....
From the ever-fascinating Stu:
(apparently he's working on bringing them to North America)
BETTER THAN SILICON
Young girls from East Africa (mostly Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda) use whirligig beetles (Gyrinidae) and predaceous diving beetles (Dytiscidae) to stimulate breast growth. The girls will hold the live beetles up to their nipples, where the beetles bite in a defensive reaction. This practice was most widespread in girls in rural communities that were from 7 to 12 years of age.
The bite of the beetles is described as a stabbing, burning pain that eases after 30 to 60 minutes. Two to three days after the bite the breast will be slightly swollen. Most of the girls also reported that their breasts grew bigger in the 6-12 months following the treatment. This bit of ethnobiological knowledge is unique in that it is almost entirely passed on amongst the young girls and not from mother to daughter as would be more common for other traditional knowledge.
In practice in Uganda is slightly different than in Ethiopia and Tanzania. It was common in a bit older girls, from 14 to 15, if they found their breast development to be unsatisfactory, and they would be told about it by their grandma instead of their peers. Also, antlion larvae would sometimes be used instead of the beetles.
Similar practices have also been recorded in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Congo, although it isn't as widespread there.
Water beetles in general produce a wide variety of compounds that are antibacterial and antifungal, as well as often acting as an anaesthetic, narcotic, or toxin to vertebrates. Gyrinids produce a variety of unique norsesquiterpenes in their pygidial glands. These compounds are structurally related to nepetalactone, the active component of catnip. Dytiscids have prothoracic glands that secrete large quantities of a great variety of steroids. Some of the steroids that have been isolated are: progesterone, androsterone, deoxycorticosterone, testosterone, estradiol, cholesterol, and mirasorvone.
Reference:
Kutalek, R., and A. Kassa. 2005. The use of gyrinids and dyctiscids for stimulating breast growth in East Africa. Journal of Ethnobiology 25(1): 115-128.