Showing posts with label health and wellness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health and wellness. Show all posts

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Out of Viagra? Try rotten eggs instead

Keeping a dozen outdated and rotten eggs on hand in the refrigerator could come in handy during those special intimate occasions. According to researchers, the odor emitted by rotten eggs could be an alternative to Viagra. Seems that hydrogen sulphide prompts arousal in men with key nerve cells that release minute amounts of gas when a male becomes sexually aroused, causing blood vessels to relax and fill with blood. This is the process that sustains an erection.

University of Naples researcher, Professor Cirino is suggesting that it could be possible to develop drugs which will either deliver hydrogen sulphide or control hydrogen sulphide production.

"Of course, the hydrogen sulphide pathway represents a new therapeutic target for erectile dysfunction. These observations may lead to the development of therapeutic approaches in the treatment of erectile dysfunction."

The results, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are particularly significant since approximately one-third of men with erectile dysfunction do not respond to Viagra. It's believed that half of all men aged between 40 and 70 suffer from the problem at some stage.

Taking this to the extreme, if science and pharmaceutical companies do discover a way to bottle hydrogen sulphide in pill form, how could one distinguish whether males are passing gas or horny? Just wondering...

Monday, December 24, 2007

MAN SUES 8 YEAR OLD SKIER FOR BUMPING INTO HIM

What is it with people that they will use any incident in an attempt to get money for any boo-boo? In this case it concerns a 60 year old man suing an 8 year old boy.

A 60-year-old man is taking an 8-year-old boy and his dad to court, claiming the boy caused a ski-slope collision that left the older man with a shoulder injury.

David J. Pfahler of Allentown, Pa., sued in federal court in Denver, claiming Scott Swimm, then 7, was skiing fast and recklessly when they collided in January, the Vail Daily reported Thursday. The suit claims Pfahler suffered a torn shoulder tendon and seeks compensation for physical therapy, vacation time, nursing and medical services provided by Pfahler's wife, and other expenses. It estimates the couple's losses at more than $75,000.

We're talking about a then 7 year old kid, here, who wants nothing more than to spend a fun day on the slopes.

Scott's father, Robb Swimm, said that he saw the crash and that Scott was skiing slowly and in control.

"It wasn't a violent collision or anything; Scott just kind of tapped his ski boots," he said this week.

Scott's mother, Susan Swimm, said her son weighs 48 pounds and couldn't have been going more than 10 mph. By the way Scott is in the third grade.

"Who in the world sues a child?" she said. "It just boggles my mind every day."

Amen Mrs. Swimm!

Pfahler's Denver attorney, Jim Chalat, declined to comment on specifics but says Pfahler, who works for Reader's Digest, wants to go back to work.

Bah-humbug to Mr. Phafler!


Writers & Friends
www.jrslater.com/forum

Monday, December 10, 2007

So just where do Santa's reindeers live in off-season?

We all know where Santa lives in a comfy warm house along with Mrs. Claus, some elves and other assorted helpers, in the North Pole all year round. However, ever wonder where Santa's reindeer live? Also, just what specie of reindeer are these magical creatures, anyway?

The Alaska Fish and Game have the answers to this question in addition and other Santa related issues.

For example, in the "General Description and Differences Between Subspecies category, "among the common subspecies of reindeer, the largest bulls shed their antlers in late October and the small bulls and non-pregnant cows shed their antlers in April.

It is not known when or if Santa’s reindeer shed their antlers. We do know, from a few furtive sightings, that their antlers appear to be extremely velvety and robust in late December prior to their Christmas run. Santa’s reindeer also have the unique and remarkable ability to fly. The Claus’ have helped to further develop and condition this ability enabling them to fly great distances in a very short time period, provided they receive frequent carrot snacks."

Bet you didn't know that!

Anyway, there's a beautiful photographic image of Rudolph - the Rudoph:

http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/santasreindeer.php

FEELING CHILLY? TRY THE HEATED BRA!

Women living in cold climates or at least climates that experience winter for a good portion of the year, might welcome this new innovation or some would call it, gadget.

A leading lingerie company has joined Japan's fight against high fuel use, unveiling a heated bra for winter.

You read it right: a heated bra to keep your breasts nice and warm and cozy. Now how this fits into the big picture of fighting global warming is somewhat questionable.

The fluffy creation contains special pads filled with an eco-friendly gel that can be easily heated in a microwave oven or with a hot water bottle. The design also includes a furry boa designed to double as a winter scarf.

Lingerie giant Triumph unveiled the bra months after PM Junichiro Koizumi urged Japan's office workers to ditch ties to save on air conditioning.

Being padded, the new bra packs a little more bulk than most regular designs, but the Japanese arm of Triumph insisted the look was more chic than sheep.

Sheep?

"We hope this will not only help prevent global warming but also provide a little fashion chic to the office," the company said in a statement.

The bra, which comes only in white, also features a pendant shaped like a chili pepper dangling on its front.

Only in white? How unfashionable! And a chili pepper? The siginifigance one presumes is that the bra provides enough heat as when consuming a chili pepper. Or something similar... I dunno!

The boob warmer also comes with matching shorts but is not being offered for general sale and the two pieces are being promoted as a prototype product, the first step towards mass-producing eco-friendly clothing.

Japan's government is encouraging people not to set their domestic heating higher than 20C this winter, to reduce fuel consumption and conserve energy stocks.

During the summer, Mr Koizumi surprised Japan's traditionally well-dressed office workers by discarding his tie and urging his countrymen to do the same.

Just wondering how discarding a tie will help the environment. Perhaps it's a small effort to keep cool. Go know!

The drive to reduce air-conditioning use and thus greenhouse gas emissions was estimated to have saved enough power to supply 240,000 homes for a month.

Somehow and maybe it's just me but a bra that is heated in a microwave makes me a little nervous.

See a photo of the bra here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4420820.stm

For some interesting and fun postings on a variety of subjects, drop by the:

Writers & Friends
www.jrslater.com/forum

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

TOILET EQUALITY OF THE SEXES

Being that November 19th, World Toilet Day, is almost upon (or beneath) us, couldn't help but note this news item. After all - using the toilet is part of our daily life. Right?

Seems that public bathrooms are an uncommon source of controversy with experts arguing over how their usage can avoid discrimination by class or sex.

Actually I have to confess it never entered my mind as to using the toilet being a discriminating act but then go know...

"In the USA, but also in many other parts of the world - including India ... issues having to do with human waste are taboo from public discussion. It is a last frontier," said Harvey Molotch, a professor of cultural analysis at New York University (NYU).

To be honest it's not a topic most likely many of us think about. Write about, however...

At a conference in New York City organised by NYU and the New York Architecture Centre, architects, sociologists, designers, activists, health officials and city leaders have gathered to discuss how the toilets of the future might be overhauled, and debate the potential civic and social effects.

The conference also saw the premiere of the film "Q2P", written and directed by India's Paromita Vohra.

The documentary, filmed in Mumbai with its title an abbreviation of "queue to pee," takes a long look - 55 minutes worth - at public facilities. The film depicts who uses public toilets including sexual, social and even caste nuances.

One (me) wonders the methodology used and who actually held the camera and whether or not said person(s) entered the hallowed internal world of the bathroom and/or stall.

The conference, "Outing the water closet," according to NYU, aims to reconsider and rebuild the public toilet.

Oh? Now bathrooms are being..."outed"? What were they before one wonders...

Parallel to the gathering in New York, some 170 delegates from dozens of countries were attending in India another international conference on access to bathrooms.

Non-governmental groups such as the German Toilet Organisation were to press their campaign for a universal right to clean lavatories, especially for women.

"Access to appropriate sanitation is a human right," reads one of the group's slogans. "It's time to break the 'toilet taboo'."

"This silence disables everyone to some degree, but particularly certain groups - women most clearly," Mr Molotch said of the taboos on discussing the issue in some countries.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/05/2081379.htm

Monday, November 05, 2007

MAD (VERY) COW OUTBREAK; PIG ABUSE...ANIMAL TALES

OWNER ACCUSES PET SITTER OF SWINE ABUSE

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!Perhaps - just perhaps - this is a case for going on a diet!

After asking a friend to take care of her pot-bellied pig while on medical leave, the owner of said pig wants to file abuse charges against the pet sitter. Seems that her pig who she named, Alaina Templeton's (interesting name for a pig) weight tripled while under the care of her friend or pet sitter. Her BPS (before pet sitter) weight was 22.5kg and nine months later the pig weighed in at 68kg and it took 4 hours to surgically remove the collar. Police are investigating whether Alaina Templeton was indeed the victim of abuse by neglect or over-feeding.

"That pig is my life," said the pig's owner, who has a tattoo of Alaina's name.

I dunno! Given the amount of people in the world who suffer from physical and/or psychological abuse in this world... Makes you wonder...

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=609&id=1739662007

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MAD (VERY) COW OUTBREAK

So a police officer in Sussex, England, has been hospitalized after being attacked by gang members. The members being particularly physical, butted and stamped on him while out walking his dog. Did I mention that the participants were a herd of 50 cows?

The officer, Inspector Chris Poole, received 4 broken ribs and a punctured lung as a result of the normally docile animals sudden urge to charge him. One angry cow charged him in the back forcing him to the ground, before the others members of the herd joined in.

Inspector Poole said he only managed to escape when Zak, his faithful golden retriever, ran away and the cows chased after it. Inspector Poole then managed to attract the attention of another dog walker, who called for an air ambulance.

However, this wasn't the end of his ordeal.

Three days later, while still in hospital, one of his broken ribs shifted out of place and severed an artery. Fortunately, this was detected in time or he might have died.

In warning other walkers, Inspector Poole advised walkers to give all cows a wide berth in future.

The RSPCA said cows could become protective of their young to the point of becoming aggressive, especially if a large dog was nearby.
Web links

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=609&id=1735302007


WRITERS & FRIENDS
www.writersandfriends.org

Friday, October 05, 2007

AND THE WINNERS ARE (AMONG OTHER) HOW TO EXTRACT VANILLA FROM COW DUNG

It brings a tear to the eyes - at least the prize handed out to Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, who developed a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavoring from cow dung. This is something the world has been waiting for!

The prize is among other - how shall we say - unusual awards known as the Ig Nobel Prize handed out by the Annals of Improbable Research in their ongoing quest to “celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology.”

O-kay. We'll drink to that. Actually, maybe not.

Among the other prize winners was a team at Quilmes National University in Argentina, who took home the honors in the aviation category for finding that - wait for it - hamsters given Viagra needed 50% less time to recover from a six-hour time zone change. This vital information should be of great interest to rodents that fly the friendly skies. I mean...really.

In the medical sphere, the prize for medicine went to radiologist Brian Witcombe at Gloucestershire Royal NHS foundation trust for his study of the vocational risks of sword swallowing Moreover, “sore throats - ’sword throats’ - occur when swallowers are learning, when performances are repeated frequently, or when odd-shaped or multiple swords are used,” he concluded. This conclusion is all the more interesting given the means in which they arrived at this. Who were the subjects and what were they given to partake in this experiment? Equally fascinating, are they still alive and what did they do with the leftover swords?

Juan Manuel Toro, Josep Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Barcelona University, collected the linguistics Ig Nobel for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards (but only sometimes!). Now this begs the question as to how the researchers actually found rats that understood Japanese AND Dutch and then determining if they could distinguish the difference when speaking Japanese and Dutch backwards/forwards... Oh who cares anyway!

Back state-side, the U.S. Air Force’s Wright Laboratory in Ohio took the peace prize for its 1994 research into a “gay bomb” that could deploy a chemical substance that would turn the enemy’s front lines into an orgy. Unlike most of the other winners, no one from the lab showed up for the presentation. Perhaps they were other-wise occupied one ponders?

The Biology honors went to Dr. Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds. No mention of numbers acquired in the mite research, which could be a good or bad sign. Then again there could have been duplication given their propensity to jump around. Was this research conducted world-wide or locally?

Now in as far as Economics go, here is something that has some merit or at least logic. Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan presumably patented a device that can catch bank robbers by dropping a net over them. Oh the inventiveness of this device!

Can't wait for next year's prizes. Got any ideas?

Writers & Friends
www.writersandfriends.org

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

HOLD THE SALT

If ever there was a news item that fit into this category - this is it. I mean - c'mon - gimme a break!

Get this... An employee who works for McDonalds, ended up spending the night in jail and what's more is facing criminal charges for - wait for it - a police officer's burger was too salty! What's more the cop is claiming that it made him sick. Some would say that fast food in general sometimes has that effect on people but I digress.

The McDonald's server was arrested last Friday and charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct and freed on a $1000 bail.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-09-09-mcdonaldsburger_N.htm

In the way of an explanation the McD's server admits to accidentally spilling some salt on hamburger meat and informed her supervisior and a co-worker, who handled the problem by trying to remove the salt by "thumping it" whatever that entails.

Read the salty details here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-09-09-mcdonaldsburger_N.htm

Next thing you know somebody is going to claim that ketchup served was too tomato-y or the fries were the wrong color or the coffee was to hot... Hang on - somebody already sued for that. I mean, really...

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Got a penis to spare?

The world's only penis museum has appealed for a human specimen.

Curator Sigurdur Hjartarson opened the museum in 1974 in Husavik, Iceland, and has collected 195 penises from various animals. His collection includes penises from hamsters, horses and whales however now he is appealing again for a human organ.

He said people from the UK, Germany and the US had contacted him offering their penises in the past but that none of the offers had ever been serious.

According to Wikipedia, "the Icelandic Phallological Museum (Hið Íslenzka Reðasafn, in Icelandic) in Húsavík, Iceland (formerly in Reykjavík) is a museum devoted to phallology. As of July 2006, the museum houses 245 specimens (or more than 170, according to El periódico de Cataluña) displayed like hunting trophies, embalmed in formaldehyde, or dried in display cases. The museum attempts to collect penis specimens from every mammal in Iceland, including several species that are endangered or currently extinct in Icelandic waters.

Sigurður Hjartarson, a former teacher of history at an institute in Reykjavík, is the founder (since 1974, when he was 63 years old) and current director of the museum, which also exhibits a few specimens from mammals not living in Iceland, as well as folkloric specimens (alleged elves, trolls, sea monsters, etc.) and penis-themed art.

Although the museum does not yet have a Homo sapiens specimen, in the interest of advancing phallological knowledge, a patron (Páll Arason, born in 1915 and currently 92 years old) has donated, presumably posthumously, an affidavit for his penis."

So if you know anyone who has one to spare - spread the word.