posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eftychia at 08:35pm on 2003-07-09
eftychia at 08:35pm on 2003-07-09-
Study Says Women May Ovulate More Than Once a Month (Reuters)
Important but very quick to summarize ... "scientists in Canada said
on Tuesday they had found women sometimes ovulate several times a single
month. Their finding, if verified, would overturn the traditional
wisdom that women produce an egg cell once a month. It would also help
explain why "natural" methods of birth control, based on the idea that
ovulation can be predicted, often fail." Probably also useful info
for designing fertility treatments for women trying to become pregnant.
"'We had 63 women with normal menstrual cycles. Of those 63, only 50
had normal ovarian cycles,' Pierson said. Thirteen of the women
ovulated multiple times, in various different ways. And of the other 50,
40 percent had up to three waves of activity by the follicles, any one
of which could result in the production of an egg." (I got the link
from
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angelovernh.) - Headlines from 2011 by Mike Johnston, will be more entertaining to photographers but has plenty of gems for everyone else as well. "Work on the Iraq/Texas oil pipeline continues, despite setbacks." And "[...] The book, which is more than 1,700 pages long and expected to sell more than 80 million copies (some to children as young as 4), has prompted renewed pleas for mercy from the Governors of both Oregon and Washington State, whose forests continued to be decimated by the Potter series' voracious requirements for paper." I'm going to make y'all go read the page yourselves for the bit about the terrorists and the robot, the Seqway joke, and (best of all in my not-so-humble opinion) the "Composition Nagger" chip. (I got the link from the Pentax-Discuss Mailing List.)
- Pluto's atmosphere behaves oddly (New Scientist) -- it gets larger as Pluto moves further from the sun. Nobody knows why yet. (I got the link from Fred.)
-
"Welcome to the Machine: How the GOP disciplined K Street and made Bush
supreme" (Washington Monthly) describes how the GOP is making
sure that trade organizations and industry lobbying groups are staffed
by Republicans, and the history and ramifications associated with this
plan. "The chief purpose of these gatherings is to discuss
jobs--specifically, the top one or two positions at the biggest and most
important industry trade associations and corporate offices centered
around Washington's K Street, a canyon of nondescript office buildings a
few blocks north of the White House that is to influence-peddling what
Wall Street is to finance. In the past, those people were about as
likely to be Democrats as Republicans, a practice that ensured K Street
firms would have clout no matter which party was in power. But beginning
with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, and accelerating in
2001, when George W. Bush became president, the GOP has made a
determined effort to undermine the bipartisan complexion of K
Street." The point: "[...] a Republican political machine. Like
the urban Democratic machines of yore, this one is built upon patronage,
contracts, and one-party rule." The message I get from this article
is "everyone's dirty, but the Republicans are more dangerous." (Caveat
lector: that was also my feeling before reading the article.)
And continuing a theme of observations about the current regime:
"Today, Daley dominates Chicago politics almost as thoroughly as did
his father. Like his father, Daley has used his power, in part, to
improve city services voters care about, from better schools to the
flower beds lining Lake Shore Drive. By contrast, the fruits of today's
Republican machine--tax cuts and deregulation--have been enjoyed mainly
by corporations and upper-income voters, while federal services, from
college aid to environmental protection, are getting scaled back."
The author draws parallels to 1896-1932, wondering whether history will
repeat itself. (I got this link from wayward_va.)
- Vroom, a silly MPEG file (caveat: it's 10MB, so if you're on dialup, as I am, it takes a while to download) showing an activity presenting some risk to one's posterior (nothing to offend sexually-uptight Americans, but you probably want to turn down the volume a few notches if you're at work just 'cause it's loud). Silly and cute. (The link was posted to Elbows.)
- An SCA
'geek code' (which showed me how much of a lightweight I am
as far as my SCA participation goes -- fortunately Pennsic is long
enough to count as more than one event for the code). (Not sure where I got
this; I think it was from jducoeur.)
- Adorable meerkat photo -- this is a modern, tech-enabled meerkat. Okay, it's in a zoo. Still, the effect is there. (I got this link from Fred.)
- Pollution good for trees? Identical trees planted in NYC and a hundred km outside of town. The ones in the city grew taller. But wait, I'll spoil the punch line for you: it's not the pollution, it's that the particular mix of pollutants in the city is less bad for the trees than the mix in the country, because some pollutants, such as nitric oxide, "scavenge" other pollutants, such as ozone, during the night. If I'm reading this correctly, the pollution stunting the trees in the country is actually blown there from the city, so it's city pollution in both cases -- it just causes more harm away from where it's made. Whee. (I got this link from Fred.)
- Oneword is an example
of what one of my high school teachers used to call a "shotgun" writing
exercise. The site presents you with a word, and from that moment you
have sixty seconds to write whatever bit of prose or poetry the word
evokes from you at that moment. As the
help page
explains, "the real purpose of this exercise is to alleviate our
natural tendency to edit everything. once one learns to flow freely in
his/her writing, their best material will emerge." They're saying
that editing should happen after the writing, not in-the-way-of
the writing. (I don't think that's a hard and fast rule, but I do see
merit in shotgun exercises to help sharpen the "writing reflexes".) (I
don't remember where I found this; I think I got it from
griffen.)
- And just to end this sausage on a song virus again, here's a song
which, if you can't remember the
lyrics,
I'm worried. :-) (It's okay to get a few details wrong.) Blame
cthulhia.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(Is this an actual complaint or just an excuse to tweak me? Wasn't sure whether the smiley was intended to mean "only kidding" or just to soften the emotional impact of criticism.)
(no subject)
Your "width" comment, however, is curious. The comic doesn't come up any wider for me than anything else on the page (and, yes, you were the first to mention anything). How bad does it actually look to you? I'd like to know how much I should shrink.
Mahna manha
Tried 'OneWord'
Nothing I didn't know already.
(departs, singing...
If you've two legs, four legs, six or eight,
Seventeen or none at all,
When the troop ship dumps you to your fate
You will hit the mud and crawl.
Whether Earthman, Kklup, or Zapphotuul,
When the buzz-beam's burning red
There is just one universal rule:
Guard your ass and duck your head!
--- Outerspace Marines )