I'm not so sure I like this, but a study has drawn a tentative link between estrogen levels (in men) and academic inclination. There is apparently a link between estrogen levels in men and the length of their index fingers.
The study drew on work in the last few years which established that the levels of estrogen and testosterone a person has can be seen in the relative length of their index (second) and ring (fourth) fingers. The ratio of the lengths is set before birth and remains the same throughout life.
The length of fingers is genetically linked to the sex hormones, and a person with an index finger shorter than the ring finger will have had more testosterone while in the womb, and a person with an index finger longer than the ring finger will have had more estrogen. The difference in the lengths can be small – as little as two or three per cent – but important.
My index finger is roughly the same length as my ring finger, so I guess I'm less of a man. Or something. This is kind of a silly study anyway. Who appropriates funding for something like this?
Know anyone who sleepwalks? Well, apparently a woman in Australia went around and had what I guess you could call sleepsex. That's better than the guy who killed people in his sleep. Just read the article. I sleep really deeply, but maybe I just go around and have raging orgies with random people in my sleep and don't know it. Or maybe not.
How good are you at spotting a liar? I'm bad at it, but that may be because I am a horrible liar to begin with. There apparently exist some people who are just really good at detecting liars. They seem to pick up on subtle cues in body and facial langauge that people exhibit when lying. I'm not that observant, but it would be a good talent to have.
This may be the least interesting to those of you who do not follow genetics too closely, but you have heard of so-called junk DNA, which doesn't seem to serve a function in the human genome. It lies in between actual genes, all of which have yet to be determined. Evolutionists like to point to junk DNA as very good evidence that we were not created, as this DNA does nothing, and just makes us expend more energy to duplicate it, as we are writing bases that we shouldn't need to. I also ended that sentence with a preposition, but grammar is fluid anyway, and while I am sort of a grammar nazi myself, I bend the rules whenever I feel it in my best interests. At least I admit it.
First we were told that junk DNA does nothing. Then were were told that it might serve some function, possibly holding enhancers or promoters that are not part of an actual gene. However, some scientists deleted parts of a mouse genome, and it seems to be fine. So it seems again that junk DNA does basically nothing, and we can safely dispose of it without and serious consequences. Adding support to this is the fact that the pufferfish genome (scroll down) carries very little of this junk DNA that we have. It is obviously a fully functional creature, but it's genetic makeup is radically different. Once we figure out how that works, we might be one step closer to figuring out what, if anything, junk DNA actually does.
If you read through all of that, here's your reward. Two flash animations, one a little disturbing, and one a little awesome It's amazing what you can do with flash. It's also horrible, since they can use it to make ads. I guess you can't win 'em all.
posted by Eric @ 8:40 PM
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