Quack of the Week: His "Holiness" Pope Benedict XVI

AIDS "cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems".

- Pope Benedict XVI, recent message to Africans

Is this man really so ignorant about the basic facts of biology? I doubt it, but I bet he's hoping potential new recruits from Africa are. Maybe some teaching about evolution would be of use here? Maybe the drive to reproduce has more to do with mutation and our ancestor's success in passing on offspring and less to do with Satan and his condoms? Just a thought. Guess that's the problem with putting a 90-year-old virgin on the soapbox. And what's up with the dress?

Hopefully sensible catholics are smart enough to ignore this idiot.

Absence Makes the Beard Grow Thicker

I saw this posted by Scicurious at Neurotopia. If you're not reading that blog regularly, you're missing out. This particular piece of blogging on peer reviewed research has it all: desert islands, self-experimentation, beards, sex and measuring things. And it was published anonymously in Nature.

In this study (n=1), a man who spent great deal of time alone on an island discovered that when he returned to the mainland and was able to visit his girlfriend his facial hair was thicker. So he tested it. By collecting daily shavings and weighing them, the anonymous author determined that sex (or anticipation thereof) caused an increase in beard growth. But the effects were only after being away from her for some time, and diminshed quickly after the first day together. He followed this up with self-administered hormone studies on the island, and determined that many different hormones resulted in similar growth, with androsterone having the best effect.

The full paper is available here (subscription required) and more details can be read at Neurotopia.

One of the commenters there has suggested that the paper itself was a hoax. I haven't been able to find any retractions (and it wasn't April Fool's Day), but almost all of the letters in response to the paper suggested alternative reasons for the difference in shaving weight - most having to do with time of day and/or relative skin thickness. The author tried to control for this with a regular shaving schedule. One correspondant suggested some further experiments:

Your anonymous correspondent (Nature, May 30, p. 869) ought, in the interests of science, to try abstaining from sexual activity during some of his returns to civilization. Or, better still, the lady concerned might be persuaded to cooperate in the experiment by unexpectedly withholding her favours during certain of his visits, chosen at random.

Hmm. Doesn't sound like a very fun follow-up. And if the results are real and generalizable, it doesn't quite explain my own thick facial hair.

Recall: Melamine Nipple Spread

On our upcoming podcast we discuss the melamine tainted milk scandal and some of the affected products. The average Bayblab reader probably hasn't been affected, until now: The recalls continue, and just this past weekend The Guardian reported that thousands of novelty chocolate products were being pulled from shelves of sex shops because they contained up to 100 times the allowable limit.

"The Food Standards Agency issued an alert over chocolate willy spread, a related nipple spread and a novelty pen set, which contains a chocolate-flavoured body pen, all of which were imported from a Chinese manufacturer called Le Bang.

Food safety experts detected levels of melamine were up to 100 times greater than limits set by the European commission."

I guess I'll be sticking with butterscotch.

Sex or chocolate?

Every year, new research comes out saying that chocolate and sex are good for your health. But for some reason it always seems like a competition, which one is better? What's the proportion of woman who will take chocolate over sex? I don't know why you have to choose, but what do we have so far....


Brain:

• Chocolate is anti-neurodegenerative, the flavonoids protect from amyloid beta-induced apoptosis.
• Sex pheromones given off by males can make the brains of female mice grow.

winner: chocolate, because no use having a big brain if you have Alzheimer's...

Blood pressure:

• Chocolate improves your aterial blood pressure a new study finds. Especially dark, non-fat non-sweet chocolate. However if you are a fan of the greasy sweet stuff, it's not all bad news either since obese people tend to recover better after a heart attack.
• Sex on the other hand is a good exercise and as such is good for your vascular health. However if you already have low blood pressure problems and you are a male you probably can't do it anyways.... In fact if you are hypertensive you may experience cephalgia and syncope, so now we know where the headache excuse comes from, it's a consequence rather than a cause....

winner: chocolate, all gain no pain.

Toxicity to pets:

• Chocolate is toxic to parrots.
• I'm not so sure about sex with you parrots. But at least between them it is safe.

winner: Sex, I think.

Pleasure:

• Chocolate tastes good, apparently even more so to woman.
• Sex feels good.

Winner: That's an easy one, because chocolate doesn't fix you a sandwich after.

Nutrition:

• "A 100 gram strip of chocolate will give you about 500 calories of energy, 8 grams of protein, 60 grams of carbohydrate, 30 grams of fat, and small amounts of calcium and iron. But the possible health benefits come from the polyphenols in chocolate, especially the largest group, called flavonoids."

• sex: I'll spare you that one.

Winner: Sex, if you include the sandwich.

So here you go folks, a scientific proof that a hummer and a sandwich beats a parrot and a chocolate bar any day of the week.