Bionic Tongues

I found this on Slate.

The military is developing "Brain Ports" to enable soldiers to see with their tongues. The idea is to route audio or video signals (from a helmet-mounted camera, for example) through microelectrodes in the tongue so your brain receives these extra images without distracting your eyes, ears, or hands from immediate tasks. "In testing, blind people found doorways, noticed people walking in front of them and caught balls." Applications: Rear vision, night vision, sonar. The navy will watch the technology in action next month and consider whether to fast-track it so it's operational by the end of the year.

I have heard of electrodes being implanted in the eyes of the blind which can send signals to the brain that the brain can then translate into an "image". But, this tongue port thing is new. I am hoping they go ahead and make that a WiFi compatible port. Putting signal wires into one's mouth seems mildly shocking , speech impeding, as well as drool inducing and the last thing we need is a navy full of sparkily, lispy sailors drooling on each other.

Culinary Math

Inspired by a cooking mishap. I was wondering why egg tastes so different from chicken considering they are essentially the same thing. The best explanation I could come up with is that you need to add some time and chicken feed to a fertilized egg to get a chicken as illustrated by the equation below;

Egg + Corn + Time = Chicken

Because of Time-Temperature superposition we know that;

Time = Heat

By combining these equation we get;

Egg + Corn + Heat = Chicken

QED

Simply by following the math, I am suggesting that cooking eggs with corn will resulting a dish that tastes like chicken.

Addendum: Some have raise the point that there should be a shifting constant, so the equation should look like;

Egg + Corn + Heat + Constant = Chicken

I concede that this is technically the more appropriate formulation, but I argue that the shifting factor changes the intensity of the flavor but not the overall character of the chicken flavor , so though it is practically important for the exact construction of the chicken flavor is not theoretically critical.

I do not age gracefully...

Twenty seven is a painful age to be turning because it means I'm leaving my mid-twenties and entering my late-twenties. I usually pass these particular celebrations of decay more than mildly drunk. Last year, I challenged a 350lb friend to a drink off. In that he is more than twice my weight this was an interesting proposition. Despite the obvious disadvantage, I drank him to a truce 2 84oz pitchers of margarita, 4 long island ice teas, 2 seven and sevens, 2 amaretto sours, 2 rum runners, and 1 jack and coke later. Much dancing was had by all and much falling was had by me. When I awoke and could leave my bed the next day (~3:00p.m.), I found the furniture in my apartment completely rearranged and wreaking of cooked egg. Mind you I don't remember moving the furniture nor cooking eggs, but there was definitive evidence that I had tried to put on a drunken knock-off of Martha Stewart Living. Anyway, not so much this year. I'm to busy for such things right now, but maybe this weekend...

Cutting the Apron Strings

I realize that there are all kinds of interpersonal dynamics out there, but this one from craigslist seems a little odd.

Looking for a sugar-daddy - 36

I'm not judging the concept of a sugar-daddy nor the idea of being "generous", but at 36 should not this fellow be a sugar-daddy. If you were born before/during the Ford administration, you need to start coming terms with the fact that you are not looking for a sugar-daddy. You are looking for a john.

Flaming Gnome Sex

Surfing Nerve I found this excerpt.

Hallgerdur Hallgrímsdóttir lost interest in sex three years ago. Clarification: Sex with people. This twenty-one-year-old Icelander is smitten with screwing elves. The Icelandic Tourist Board just awarded her approximately $3,000 to pay for publishing and distributing her book on the subject, Please YoursELF, because "they thought it would attract tourists to come" as it were "to Iceland." - David Sokol

I thought this concept was insane, but then I checked the visitor count on her site. If the masses want writings about amazing sex with mythical creatures instead of rather mundane analysis of pop science news, low level international cultural misunderstandings, and travel adventures who am I not to deliever. His name was Thomas. He was a gnome, but don't let the lack of stature fool you. He's a grower and I'm not just talking about in the garden. Now I don't like to kiss and tell, but it was awesome. The hands, the beard, the common everyday lawn-care tools. Good gawd, who knew you could do that with a rake and hoe. Now all you have to do is wait for the midwest states to give me ~$3000 as an advance to pubilsh these memoirs to get the full story of this torrid love affair. To be honest, it was more physical than a true spiritual/emotional connection, but isn't that how it always is with mythical woodland creatures. But I prefer that to the reclusive mountain dweller always who always seem to cum then cry - that's right Yeti, I'm talking about you. It's called Zoloft. Give it a try.

If I get a spike in visitors after this, I'm going to puke.

Not so hidden motives

Here is another craigslist find.

looking for a date, maybe more. 23 m student here. older welcome

That nude photo you posted with this message makes me think you are not looking for a meeting of the souls, but rather that something more of which you speak. By the way with a nude photo, you don't have to tell me your gender. I'm just saying if you want to optimize your key strokes, I can figure it out.

Holy Crap...

I am no infectious disease expert, but this article states,

"At 40 percent, Baltimore has the highest percentage of HIV-positive [gay] men among its population in a study of five cities, with San Francisco second, according to a 2005 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study."

Will somebody please tell me that this is not right. How does that happen. I am shocked when I read about areas of South Africa where up to 25% of the adult population has HIV, let alone 40% of a particular poopulation. And those are only the people who know their infected. How does this happen in the first world. We know this how this disease is transmitted, and with minor effort it is mostly preventable. The CDC states that the infection rate for anal sex is 0.5% or a 1 in 200 chance of infection per act, while oral sex is 0.0001% or 1 in 10,000. So, it's not like 40% of the population had a one night lapse of judgement. There had to have been a systematic disregard for basic safety in an epidemic. I'm at a loss. If you want to kill yourself why do it slowly?

Good gracious, I hope my grandmother never reads this. I sound like an obsessive compulsive sex fiend. I am not grandma. Don't worry, I've been good.

On the one hand....

I almost burned down the lab. On the other hand, I finally get to go home. It's 9:30p.m., and I arrived slight before 7:00 a.m. I'm beginning to hate Fridays.

Beware of Super Ova

I just got done trying to convince a Korean colleague that he should not call his new molecular system "Supramolecular Sperm-like Self-Assemblies". Though the alliteration is awesome, I suggested tadpole-like as a descriptor. So if you run across an article talking about supramolecular sperm, you know I failed.

(As a side note, I got knocked out of my fifth grade spelling bee by the word tadpole. Spelling has never been a strong suit. Good gravy make the alliterations stop.)

Women: You can't beat them!

I got this email today.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Join us for the first-annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes! Stop by to show your support and stay to make history. Men from our University and community will walk one mile in women's high-heeled shoes through campus to protest rape, sexual assault and gender violence.

Can't we as a gender be against sexual assault without drag? I prefer to keep my protest against any form of violence slightly more subtle.

(Side Note: The post title comes from an actual violence against women awarenesss campaign, so is not a sign of insensitivity to the issue.)

Nerve Redux

This week Nerve is featuring sex advice from scientists. Being able to identify with this particular profession, unlike other weeks, I posted some of my favorite responses below.

What scientific term sounds the most sexual?
HOMO — Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital.

Which scientific term is most sexual?
I once saw a talk about ribosome structure called Probing the Exit Tunnel.

Are you asked out constantly?
I was assistant-teaching an engineering course, and on my teacher's evaluations I got comments that had very little to do with teaching.

Such as?
"Wear shorter skirts."

What's the best way to get a scientist to go home with you?
Being an editor of Nature helps. Failing that, just claim to be an editor of Nature.

Revenge of Angela Lansbury

The smoking gun has a copy of the search warrant issued to gain access to one of the Duke Lacrosse player's apartments. He had sent a creepy email about getting off while killing strippers the night of the alleged rape, drawing suspicion on himself. In the warrant was a list of things that the police would be looking for. Item 8 is "copies of emails that have sentences punctuated with two periods." Now I'm no detective, but why would you limit yourself to sentences punctuated with two periods? I realize the original email had sentences with two periods, but why not get legal copies of all the emails? Maybe the guilt causing him to write a confessional email also drove him to atone for his grammatical sins by using correct punctuation, but the police would not be able to get it. Clearly, Murder She Wrote should be mandatory viewing in the police academy.

Egotistical View of the World: Part II

I would like to think that my hard hitting article influenced this.

Getting Better not Older

While walking around campus during a freshman orientation day, people kept asking me if I had been separated from my orientation group. In that this was a good natured question, I would politely say no and move on. Admittedly, I have a young looking face which gets me carded at bars, casinos, movie theaters, and once, even at a bank. This has lead to certain amusing incidents including having to convince a fey fellow trying to bed me, a presumed underage "club kid," with his vast worldly experience of the fact that I had him by a good five years. The wisdom of your average 21 year-old appears quite dim from the view-point of your average 26 year-old. This point became more pointed this weekend as a friend found old photographs of five years ago when we had just met. I actually looked demonstrably younger, which was a point of amazement to many others. I'm surprised anyone let me buy the massive quantities of alcohol I consumed in my early twenties. In relating the stories behind the pictures, I proudly realized how naive I was. I make it a point each year to recall the person I was 5 years previously. If I can honestly be amazed at my own ignorance at the time, then I know I am continuing to grow and not atrophy. Which is thankfully still and hopeful will continue to be the case.