Rotundus.com

Premenstrual Women Seek Snakes

Are there benefits to PMS? "... recent research involving images of snakes has revealed that the luteal phase of a woman’s menstrual cycle enhances cognition when it comes to evoking evolutionary imprinted fear known as 'fear modules.'"

A lethal beacon for migrating birds

"The researchers point out that the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, a benchmark of environmental disasters, killed around 250,000 birds, and that communication towers are annually responsible for a figure 27 times that size." It seems that the tallest few towers account for about three-quarters of the bird fatalities. Some suggested solutions are also offered in the article.

The Burger Lab: Revisiting the Myth of The 12-Year Old McDonald's Burger That Just Won't Rot (Testing Results!)

Basically homemade burgers of the same shape don't really rot either - testing relates it to the rate of moisture loss as mold and bacteria need water to grow.

Ocean Renewable Power, Tidal Energy Company, To Sell Electricity To Maine

The price they're to be getting paid for this run at about 2 times the current average electricity price, with an increase of 2% per year. Perhaps this will start to come down in cost somewhat relative to fossil fuels in coming years as the article suggests.

That's the title of a response to an earlier Globe and Mail article on changing gender roles. The author in that earlier work asserted that:

Women are flourishing in this new world, but many men aren’t. Men have always defined themselves as providers — it’s the main source of their identity. What happens when they aren’t needed as providers any more? What happens when their sense of purpose is lost? The answer is, they become unmoored. They stop being adults

The response asked the following questions:

... [A]fter a while I started wondering if it really was a bad thing after all. It only makes you nervous if you believe men are losing a position they aspired to: breadwinner, provider, working stiff. What if feminism only recognized half the problem, i.e. the female half? What if it wasn’t only women who’d been shunted into a role they didn’t want, what if men had as well?

Elaborating, the author mentions that

Think about it. What do those men lucky enough to strike it rich do once they reach a level of real income security? Some stick to the job, because to be that successful usually requires that you love your work. But a big proportion ditch the drudgery first chance they get and start enjoying life. They do something they’d like to have spent their life at all along but couldn’t, because of financial pressures. Well, the more successful working women out there, the more men find themselves in the happy position of having a choice in life.

Add in the current divorce and family law situation, and the return on investment into a career has dropped somewhat as well. With the wife being the initiator of at least 2/3 of divorces, she'll probably land up with the kids, the house, and her income, while he'll likely still be stuck footing the bills. (That study on why wives more frequently divorce their husbands than vice-versa does attribute this difference in large part to current family law by the way).

James Lovelock has revised his views somewhat:

Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared. He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far."

Made me think back to an 1989 statement by Stephen Schneider:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

That was the general theme of a recent New York Times piece entitled Disabilities Act Prompts Flood of Suits Some Cite as Unfair.

What problems did it note?

• "The lawyers are generally not acting on existing complaints from people with disabilities. Instead, they identify local businesses, like bagel shops and delis, that are not in compliance with the law, and then aggressively recruit plaintiffs from advocacy groups for people with disabilities."
• "Lawmakers and federal judges ...say the lawyers typically do not give the businesses a chance to remedy the problem before filing suit
• There's no test whether the person filing the suit will ever use the place in question: "... Asked if she ever patronized the businesses she sued after they made improvements, Ms. Massi said, “Unfortunately, no.”"