Posts in biology
Japanese use “culture” as lame excuse for barbaric whale hunting
Japanese fleet harpooning a whaleFor anyone that doesn't believe killing whales is cruel and that the Japanese have a cultural right to do so, Tony Long at Wired has a good editorial you should check out. The barbaric practice is far from being relevant today, and Long makes some good points. An exerpt: "This isn't about culture. Like almost everything else in the world that stains the human spirit, this is about greed. Whaling, as practiced by the nation-states, has always been a purely commercial venture. In the Age of Sail the industry grew out of economic necessity. When a whale was killed all of it was used -- as food, as lamp oil, as lubricant. Whalebone was used to make corset stays and scrimshaw. Blubber was used to make soap and cosmetics. A single whale -- remember, we're talking about the largest animal on earth -- could produce a lot of stuff and that meant a lot of money. It had to be lucrative. There was no other reason for men to willingly spend months at sea in miserable conditions and dreadful weather for the chance of catching a few whales. Of course, they hunted from open boats in those day, too, using standard harpoons, so the most advanced technology of the day wasn't really very advanced, limiting their catch and increasing their peril. But that was then. Excepting a few indigenous settlements here and there, where local hunting using traditional methods is still practiced, whale meat is no longer a dietary staple, and whale oil hasn't fueled any lamps in well over a century. There is no byproduct taken from a whale that can't be made or obtained by other means. In other words, any whale being killed in the open ocean today is being killed for absolutely no good reason at all. Whaling is an obsolete industry, serving no one, which only makes the cruelty of the killing that much more repulsive."
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Why men can’t find things they’re looking for, don’t shop well, and can’t wrap presents…
holiday battle of the sexesYay! Finally, some scientific evidence to show that it's not my fault that I can't find anything in the fridge or cupboard until I ask my wife! This terrific article at the UK's Daily Mail offers scientific explanation for: - why men can't find anything they're looking for around the house (hint: it has to do with men's primordial hunting skills and biology.) -why men wait until the last minute to do their holiday shopping (hint: it has to do with men's primordial hunting skills and biology. We go for the kill and then go home.) - why women are good at wrapping Christmas presents and men aren't (hint: it has to do with men's primordial hunting skills and biology. Our eyes are better suited for long-range tunnel vision, good for sighting prey.) - why women are better at multitasking than men (hint: it, um... doesn't have to do with hunting) I'm sure you're mostly wondering why us guys can't find things around our homes when we need them. According to the article (excuse the Britishism "Sellotape"), "Men sometimes feel that this is a trick and accuse women of always hiding things from them in drawers and cupboards. At Christmas, the list of things that men 'can't find' is seemingly endless - they can't find the Sellotape, or the scissors, or the ribbon, and, now they think about it, they're not really sure where the presents have got to either. They're all there, they just can't see them. Men don't just say this to cause a festive feud - there is actually a scientific reason why they can't find things. As a nest-defender, a woman has brain software that allows her to have an arc of at least 45 degrees clear vision to each side of her head and above and below her nose. This was needed to keep an eye out for potential predators. A man's eyes are larger than a woman's and his brain configures them for a type of long-distance tunnel vision, which means that he can see clearly and accurately directly in front of him and over greater distances, almost like a pair of binoculars - useful in times gone by for tracking down prey, but not so helpful when it comes to finding things in cupboards. The female hormone oestrogen also prompts nerve cells to grow more connections in the brain and makes it easier for a woman to identify matching items in a drawer, cupboard or across a room and later remember objects in a complex random pattern - such as where the ribbon is in relation to the Sellotape in the cupboard. New research suggests that male brains are usually searching for the word to go with an item, so if the tub is facing the wrong way and he cannot read the label, he virtually can't see it. This is why men move their heads from side to side and up and down as they scan for a 'missing' object." Now men have a good reason for frustrating their girlfriends and wives by not being able to find things!
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