Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa in Italy found that new lovers adjust their testosterone to more closely match each other. "[M]en and women in love have considerably higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol." "Men who were in love had lower levels of the male sex hormone testosterone – linked to aggression and sex drive – than the other men. Love-struck women, in contrast, had higher levels of testosterone than their counterparts" "[W]hen people look at their lovers, the neural circuits that are normally associated with critical social assessment of other people are suppressed"…
Ryan Grim of Slate writes about the decline in use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). The Drug Enforcement Administration claims it reduced the LSD supply by 95 percent with the arrest and conviction of Clyde Apperson and William Leonard Pickard in rural Kansas in November 2000. The article also mentions the correlation between Grateful Dead and Phish tours and the use of LSD. (via BoingBoing)…
Saul Hansell writes about phishing scams in today's New York Times. Brightmail of San Francisco, which filters e-mail for spam, identified 2.3 billion phishing messages in February, 4 percent of the e-mail it processed, compared with only 1 percent of its messages as recently as September. Phishing got its name a decade ago when America Online charged users by the hour. Teenagers sent e-mail and instant messages pretending to be AOL customer service agents in order to fish, or phish, for account identification and passwords they could use to stay online at someone else's expense. After AOL switched to a…
Bathroom Mania has a new urinal, Kisses, "shaped like a woman's mouth, dolled up with red lipstick, wide open and ready for business." Fashion Wire Daily reported on these new additions to the new Virgin Airways Clubhouse in New York's John F. Kennedy airport….
Ben & Jerry's has a new ice cream flavor for everyone caught up in the Atkins craze: Chocolate Carb Karma Ice Cream. It uses Sucralose (Splenda® Brand) instead of liquid sugar, more water than milk, and adds polydextrose, sorbitol, glycerine, carob Bean Gum, acesulfame to its ingredients list. Sounds very scientific and not the natural Vermont's Finest I am used to….
NY Times article today about cheeseburger fries, the beef industry's way to get more beef into snacktime. A beef industry R&D document shows the full ingredients and prep info. Sounds nasty, but I am curious to try one….
Glad to see so many people concerned that I haven't updated my Web page in a while! I passed my Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform 1.4 exam yesterday. Athena did really well in her trial runs! I have achieved Competent Toastmaster and Competent Leader status in my Toastmasters club. I bought a Sony Ericsson T68i. My old Nokia 8200 got caught under a leaking air conditioner on my flight to London last July. It is nice to have a phone that actually works now. AEOsports is still going well….
