I’ll fight pretty much anything, but the sun…really?

I find it a little disturbing that things never really change.

When I was a kid, young, innocent and fresh faced (yes, this was a very long time ago) we lived in the shadow of a full blow nuclear war. It was just one of those things that could happen at any given moment and you sort of factored that in to your everyday experience of things.

In part I think that’s why it’s so easy for my generation (probably the Gen X, or roughly thereabouts) to figure we’re all going to die horribly and in bits. So we got behind the whole “save the planet” thing, because there’s something to that. Seems like a good idea, you know?

However, there’s always something new to worry about if you’re the worrying kind.

So now, we’ve god Black Holes created by mad scientists (ah, not to worry, they are very small black holes, you’ll hardly even notice them) and poisoned seas and test bombing in flu pandemics and lions and tigers and bears, ohmy.

So when the alarms go off about solar storms, or geomagnetic storms, that can cause massive damage and disrupt communication, satellites and navigational systems frankly I basically shrug and go … yeah, and?

But, we must protect ourselves from the evil sun! it’s out to get us! It’s going to rough us up.

Again – yeah, and?

‘Cause I can take on the stupidity of man, as in “stop blowing shit up!” and I can take on the stupidity of science and progress as in “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” but I really can’t take on the sun.

Celestial bodies are beyond my pay grade and way out of my division.

ROL

I knew it! Fruit is bad for you!

Science again, folks!

Okay – so first for the backstory. I used to work in the fruit packing business. The company party line was naturally that fruit is good for you.

I have seen fruit in all stages of decay and general nastiness. I have seen the banana at its most rotten and the mango at its most green. I have smelled every kind of mold and I understand better than anyone exactly how unsexy cherries are once threy’ve lost their sweetness and become the home of a mulitude of crazed fruitflies.

So I always knew fruit was evil.

Hence my unmitigated glee at recent discoveries that state quite simply that – hey, fruit might not be good for you at all.

There is actually no scientific evidence that fruit is good for you. It’s just one of those things we all know to be true. It’s like with milk – a couple of decades of indoctrination and we believe that it’s good for us. Unless your lactose intolerant – or, hey, not a cow.

Now, scientists, as we all know are an interesting bunch. But in this case I am willing to give them a little leeway, because I like this idea.

Recent studies show, as the typical statement begins, that fruit – which is basically sugar, water and a little fibre (at least sometimes) is like soda. It’s sugar and water. If you break that down what you get is – first off you increase your sugar intake and you’re more likely to be prone to diabetes. And the sugar you’re not burning turns into fat. So you’re more likely to get a little potbelly going on if you happily munch away at that recommended half-kilo a day.

There are no scientific studies as of yet of the possible harmfull sideeffects of fruit. Just a few one-off things where doctors have recommended overweight patients to knock off the bananas. And as a result of that some patients lost weight. We don’t know what else they were told to knock off though. You know, they might have been topping that banana with whipped cream and chocolate sauce, but still.

My argument is still solid. Sugar is not good for you in large quantities. And of course there is no way that a Snickers bar is going to be a better mid-day snack than an apple. But still.

At the fruit company I worked for we got one of those fridge magnets for one of our bosses as a Christmas present. It said “Fruit is not Candy”.

Out on the floor the party line was distorted further.

Fruit is not candy – we needed candy to make it through the sixteen hour shifts.

Fruit is not food – because there is no excause for pinapple in food. None.

Fruit is Evil – because anyone who has ever stared down the business end of a peach turned green and slimy will know that this is the face of evil. And the smell is like something from the X-files.

I am going to be all over this as it works its way through the scientific community.

And I’ll be eating my M&M’s while reading too…

ROL

The Brains of a Fruitfly

Okay.

So I enjoy science. It’s so much like straight up lies sometimes it’s just plain funny. And I do laugh.

Okay, I was reading the paper and found this article about sleep and sleep-deprivation and you could say I have a vested interest in keeping up with that stuff, yeah?

So I read the latest scream in sleep research. No, not a nightmare scream…Sheesh, the puns, the puns.

Science is still trying to figure out why we sleep, what the whole point is with the sleeping-thing. Seems like a waste of time, now don’t it? (don’t ask me, I wouldn’t know)

Anyway – they have come up with a theory now that during sleep the neurons get cleaned. Some gunk builds up during the day, or so they claim, so that at night neurons, actually the synapsis, need a quick dusting and vaccuming.  All in all once the cleaning gets done your brain fires on all cylinders again.

Hmm… this is why, or so they say, when you don’t sleep enough you get that fuzzy feeling. (What? Have these people never heard of coffee?)

And that fuzzy feeling is … dirt on your synapsis? Imagine trying to sell that as an excause for being off at work. “Sorry, sir/ma’m/dude my synapsis haven’t been properly cleaned last night”

Didn’t think so.

Meanwhile I’m just running this stuff through my mind and thinking “wait, you mean I could be faster without performance enhancing drugs?” And then I hit the part of the article that had me (and all my synapsis) boggled and snorting coffee out my nose.

They are basing this amazing discovery on tests they’ve done – on fruitflies.

First off – How do you know you’ve managed to keep a fruitfly up?

Secondly – How do you know it’s feeling a little under the weather?

What kind of test can you give a fruitfly to determine if it’s doing its level best?

And thirdly – In what way is a human being like a fruitfly? (other than the whole ‘here have  a banana’ thing)

See this is why I love science. It sounds so clear and intelligent and worked through – and then you get to the part with the fruit flies.

I get that you can’t perform these tests on people, that would be cruel. Also I’m thinking you need to perform an autopsy and I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules.

Oh, well.

I guess that puts a spin on having a dirty mind.

ROL