The Oyster’s Garter

Priapulids have nothing on this HIV/AIDS prevention poster (REALLY, REALLY NSFW). This ocean scene is a highly disconcerting combination of gorgeous and Legend of the Overfiend. (Though how could a phallic ocean not include those epically well-endowed barnacles?)

Meanwhile, it’s BOOOOBS INNNN SPAAAAAACE (STILL NSFW) for the hetero lads. The theme for both posters? “Explore. Just Protect Yourself.”

The posters are put out by AIDES, a European HIV/AIDS NGO. What is with those Europeans and the sexy science? I’m never, ever, going to look at a turtle the same way again.

Via Boing Boing

Even coffee haters respond to the smell of fresh brewed coffee in the morning: dark, and rich, with just the right note of bitterness to compliment the feeling of leaving a nice, comfy bed. It’s one of the pleasures that makes it worth getting up in the morning. Now some  Japanese researchers seem to think we don’t even need to drink the stuff. Smelling it may be enough. Scientists from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan deprived rats of sleep for a day.

When they examined their brains they found reduced levels of mRNA - messenger molecules that indicate when a gene is being expressed - for 11 genes important to brain function. When the rats were exposed to the aroma of coffee, the mRNA for nine of the genes was restored to near normal levels, and pushed to above normal levels for two - GIR, involved in neuro-endocrine control, and NFGR, thought to control oxidative stress.

The study doesn’t address whether the caffeine that we crave from our coffee is what’s doing the stimulating, or whether there are other chemicals that are doing the job. Of course, even the scent of coffee isn’t as good as taking a nap to fix tiredness, but that’s not going to stop me from drinking the stuff.

Especially as we get more and more confirmation that it’s good for our hearts. Another study, this one from the Autonomous University of Madrid, says we should do far more than sniff our delicious black nectar, we should damn near guzzle it. These scientists tracked 129,000 people over 20 years. They found that men who drank seven or more cups a day reduced their possibility of death from from heart disease by 34%, while women who drink five cups a day reduce it by 44% .

The scientists are characteristically cautious. They say we should maybe get some additional experimental results before we start mainlining coffee, and they’re probably right. But at least we can abandon this sniffing business, yeah? At least now I know why tea drinkers hover around my french press in the morning, like moths at the porch light.

P.S. For younger readers who  don’t get the title joke, here’s the reference.

The human egg is notoriously camera-shy. While sperm wiggle around for the microscope every time an undergrad with lab keys has a few beers, ovulation had never been caught on camera…UNTIL NOW. Check out these incredibly clear photos (SFW) of the egg bursting forth from the ovary.

Of course,  those photos exist because surgeons were preparing to do a partial hysterectomy on the woman. So that egg’s fate (like that of most eggs) was similar to that of the falling blue whale in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Ahhh! Woooh! What’s happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my… well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a… tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what’s this roaring sound, whooshing past what I’m suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I’m dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There’s an awful lot of that now isn’t it? And what’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’! That’s it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me? Hello Ground!
[dies]

Did my previous post on anatomically correct heart-shaped jewelry leave you unsatisfied? Fear not, dear reader. Here’s another lovely heart-shaped necklace, in still-beating red or formalin white. If you prefer brains or teeth or ribs, there’s a little something for you too.

Or if you are more into tech than bio-goo, you could make floppy disk earrings.

Via Boing Boing

Never mind plain old antibiotic resistance - some soil bacteria can actually EAT antibiotics. In this week’s Science, researchers reported that they isolated hundreds of types of bacteria from regular soil and grew them in the lab with antibiotics as their sole food source. Not only did the bacteria survive, but some strains happily munched on common antibiotics like penicillin & ciprofloxacin. NOM NOM NOM indeed.

To make matters more disturbing, eating one type of antibiotic made the bacteria resistant to other, related antibiotics. If a bacteria was able to eat a single antibiotic, it was resistant to all related antibiotics up to ridiculously high concentrations (20 mg/L).

Though none of the soil bacteria tested were actual human pathogens, some strains were closely related to bacteria that do cause disease. Since bacteria are able to share genes with each other in a kind of pseudo-sex called conjugation, it is possible that soil bacteria could transfer their antibiotic-munching skills to their disease-causing cousins. That would be bad. Though pathogenic bacteria probably don’t need to eat antibiotics (since they’ve got all kinds of lovely human bits to dine upon), they would acquire the eaters’ intense antibiotic resistance.

Does this mean that eating food off the floor actually could contribute to antibiotic resistance? All those years of refusing to buy antibacterial soap, and now I am undone by the 10-second rule! Oh cruel world, where the jellybean from inside the couch is always my favorite flavor…

Dantas, G., Sommer, M.O., Oluwasegun, R.D., Church, G.M. (2008). Bacteria Subsisting on Antibiotics. Science, 320(5872), 100-103. DOI: 10.1126/science.1155157

The hobbit-people of Flores may just be stunted cretins with hypothyroidism, says a new study. (Apparently “cretinism” is an actual disease involving a deficient thyroid gland.) Or maybe the hobbit-people didn’t listen to Oprah and “swallowed too many words they were aching to say,” leading to their thyroid breakdown & teeny size. Oh, well. We’ll have to go elsewhere for our ring-destroying needs.

Photo from the National Geographic hobbit photo gallery

My dad loves his Splenda and his no-calorie drink mixes. He’s a bit of a health fanatic, but I’ve been after him for years to eat less weird gross manufactured food and more real food. (Recently, in an attempt to wean him off margarine, I bought him this French butter dish.) Now I have even more ammunition for my Omnivore’s Dilemma-inspired Real Food Diet - evidence that artificial sweeteners make rats gain weight. From Scientific American:

Typically, they [the study's authors] say, the taste buds, sensing something sweet, signal the brain to prep the digestive system to gear up for a caloric onslaught; when the expected sugar jolt (extra calories) fails to materialize, the body gets rattled and has trouble bouncing back and regulating appetite when other food is available. As a result, the rats eat more or expend less energy than they would have had they had the real thing.

In other words, real food makes you feel full and satisfied, so you eat less. Isn’t it great when your health depends on making food that tastes better?

Take science, add a dash of poor science reporting and a hint of homophobia and get this media coverage of antibiotic resistant MRSA, or flesh-eating bacteria. The source is a study that found gay men in Boston and San Francisco were about 13 times more likely to be infected with antibiotic-resistant MRSA than the general population in the cities.

Antibiotic-resistant MRSA is not sexually transmitted - it is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact (which may or may not be sexual) or by touching contaminated surfaces. So a high prevalence is not necessarily related to sexual practices, but to a population that has a lot of close contact. However, most of the press coverage focused on TEH BUTT SEX!!! For example, Reuter’s lede (via CJR):

A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Monday.

But when I looked at the original study, the prevalence of infection in the buttocks, genitals, or perineum was only 25-37%. TEH BUTT SEX was not responsible for a majority of the infections - the skin-to-skin contact (like dancing or touching the same doorhandle) that results from living in highly concentrated gay areas like the Castro was at fault. That’s why outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant MRSA have been found among other people in close proximity, like schools, the military, and sports teams. (I know, the joke is obvious, but they can’t ALL be gay.)

Because everyone who touches other people is theoretically at risk of an antibiotic-resistant MRSA infection, putting the onus on gay sex is problematic. It’s not a Gay Disease. Of course, that didn’t stop the lovely ladies of Concerned Women of America from blaming poor Will and Grace (via Salon):

“Television shows like ‘Will and Grace’ glorify the homosexual lifestyle,” Barber declared, “while our children are taught in schools that homosexuality is a perfectly healthy, alternative sexual ‘orientation.’ ‘Stay out of our bedrooms!’ we’re often commanded by militant ‘gay’ activists. Well, now the dangerous and possibly deadly consequence of what occurs in those bedrooms is spilling over into the general population. It’s not only frightening, it’s infuriating. Citizens, especially parents, need to stand up and say, ‘No More!’”

I hope CWA boycotted the Superbowl, too, since it’s not just the gays we need to fear - it’s football players. Salon goes on to point that in a study on the St. Louis Rams, researchers found that

…infection occurred only among linemen and linebackers, and not among those in backfield positions, probably because of the frequent contact among linemen during practice and games.

That’s right, Concerned Women of America…no infection among those in backfield positions. Now I need to go scrub any not-gay MRSA off my not-gay-though-kinda-mannish hands.

Thanks to Scott for the suggestions and the links!

Shortly after making aliyah (moving to Israel for religious reasons), Gila Weiss* was seriously injured in a suicide bombing at the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. Six years later, she’s writing about her experiences as a “Poor, Sad, Heroic Victim of Terror” in her excellent blog, My Shrapnel.

Why read a blog about traumatic injury? Because Gila’s got the Yiddish sense of pitch-black humor, and she makes being blown up…funny. (It’s got to be either black humor or clinical depression. That’s why Jews also make tasty cookies commemorating the shape of a genocidal madman’s hat. )

If you want another look at the long-term consequences of suicide bombing, Gila linked to “Inside Terrorism: The X-Ray Project.” This art installation displays X-rays and CT scans from the two largest hospitals in Jerusalem, showing the foreign objects that get blasted into people’s bodies. Some of the objects are shockingly recognizable - watches (Image 2 - flash interface prevents direct linking), hex nuts (Image 28), and nails (Image 5). Not for the faint of stomach.

*Yep, same Gila who is a superstar TOG commenter. I discovered her blog a couple weeks ago and started commenting there, and she started commenting here, and now there’s a whole commenting party. w00t.

Two British doctors are protesting the new shape of the Teasers and Truffles chocolates in a letter to the British Medical Journal. Why? Well…I really can’t say it any better than this:

We were recently dismayed to discover that the manufacturer has changed the shape of both these chocolates. Both are now flat bottomed, and even non-specialists will notice that they bear little resemblance to testes. More disturbingly, they are no longer much use for assessing testicular volume.

Fortunately, the doctors offered marketing suggestions:

Clearly, the original design should be reinstated. With skillful marketing, this could play to the manufacturer’s advantage: by including a simple package insert with clear, easy-to-feel instructions, young males could self evaluate their pubertal status (while pointing out that this should ideally not be done at the point of sale). This could provide a rare opportunity for the chocolate industry to become palpably involved in public health promotion.

Palpably involved, indeed.

Via Martini-Corona, who really outdid herself on this one