Cooking Lean in Times of Economic Downturn: Learning Lessons from the Depression

In the spirit of resilency during this (seemingly neverending) period of economic downturn, I'm sharing a great how-to video on a charming 91-year old woman, Clara, making egg drop soup. Inexpensive, easy to do, and looks tasy. I love how Clara says "Depression", she's all cheery until she reaches that word in the script. This soup beats instant ramen anyday.

Here's the video.

Love by Numbers: Evidence on Relationships

Former staff member of the Guardian newspaper in the UK, Luisa Dillner, gets interviewed by her former former co-workers about her new book, "Love by Numbers"(LbN). LbN distills lengthy research papers into guidance for all of us. Listen to the interview. Dr. Dillner finds that many are incredibly lazy about finding love, but that internet dating has actually been pretty successful.

From the interview, it sounds like she knows what she's talking about. She discusses the weaknesses of study designs used like an Epidemiologist and works for the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Martha Stewart and Pot

Monday's Episode of Martha Stewart will be completely pot themed....

...pot bellied pig, planting pots, and Jimmy Fallon.

info via Jezebel

The Amazing Dr. Reddy, Condom Genius and Other Grand Condom Inventions

Even in the world of condom distribution, value-added condoms get titters. Value-added condoms include condoms that are studded (also called "dotted), ribbed, there are those which are even packed with Benzocaine (a topical numbing agent and cousin of Novocaine) to help men battle against the old foe, premature ejaculation.

A hero in this field is Dr. Reddy, inventor of some of the more interesting shapes of condoms. Dr. Alla Venkata Krishna Reddy invented:
(1) the Pleasure Plus (with a pouch that is an equivalent of a "waddle" on the lower part of the shaft to create additional sensation)
(2) the Inspiral and (3) the Twisted Pleasure - 2 condoms based on the same principal- a spiral shape for more pleasure.

Salon did an article on Dr. Reddy and the sad legal history of these condoms.

Some organizations even tested some Reddy inventions for use in public health interventions to motivate condom-haters to give protection a try.

While the innovation in India on condoms may have slowed, there is a new young Turk on the scene. Jan Vinzenz Krause in Germany is developing a spray-on condom that can provide a perfect fit with little chance of slip. They are still working on the coverage and vulcanization process, but it has been getting some media coverage-- including from Time Magazine.

Here's a video of the condom and an amusing diagram from the company website (in German).

Sexual Sabotage among Crickets

NeuroDojo reports on an article which finds that exposure to male cricket seminal fluid has some odd impact on female crickets. First of all, female crickets who were exposed walked forward less and secondly, they have shorter lives. Now the question would be that if the female crickets knew their lives would be shortened by sex, would they still do it?

This research sounds like some sort of warning a mother cricket tells her girls to try to prevent them from becoming slutty or a bad joke one tells in an insect bar.

So here's another: "A praying mantis is angry at his girl friend. He says to her 'Bite Me', so she did."

Bonk: Behind the Science on Sex

Mary Roach, ignoring the fatalistic pull of her name to other issues, has written a book called "Bonk", where she looks at how research is done on sex. Her account of sex studies- what is their focus and how they are done- gives us a better sense of the need for a good sense of humility and humor in this sub-discipline.

Listen to her talk on Authors at Google

In tricking our sweet tooth, we are only cheating ourselves

Frontal Cortex (FC) has an excellent posting on the dynamics of artificial sweetners and the human body. It seems that while our tastebuds may be tricked by diet soda and the sweetness in blue, yellow, and pink packets, this trickery changes how the way we manage our dietary intake.

As FC writes, "Rats fed artificial sweeteners gained more weight than rats fed actual sugar...Animals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet noncaloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship."

So in summary, the article cited by FC suggest that:

1. Our brain uses how sweet a food is to estimate the number calories and relatedly, how much we can eat.

2. Artificial sweetners screw up this mechanism so we end up thinking we can get away with eating a lot more sweets.

This reminds me of what a family member once (half jokingly) said to me, "I don't understand why I don't lose any weight, I eat diet crackers all day." The labels "diet","light", or the even more annoying "lite" gives us that comforting feeling that we can get away with eating more of the wrong thing. It makes it so much easier to convince ourselves that drinking that soda is acceptable because we are tired, had a long day, and deserve it.

Read more about this study at Frontal Cortex and Diet Soda

Food Porn

Food porn I hate you Love you

Photography of delicious looking food .

Radioactive IEC Materials

I've also come across an IEC materials in Vietnamese to warn people against the dangers of Avian Flu. In it you see a radioactive man with green muck on his face who is being menanced by an angry looking rooster carrying a bloody scythe and a figure who seems to be a mix of the Grim Reaper and the Tuxedo Mask character from Sailor Moon.

This poster is laughably bad. It also serves as a sad memory of the media to build HIV awareness that continues to be produced in developing country with donor funds. I've seen way too many grim reapers/grinning skulls, blood, and other evil looking characters carrying a syringe. This approach simply doesn't work! It translates HIV into some fantastical evil out of a comic book and makes it seem less like a real risk. We all know to avoid roosters with scythes, but how many of us know how we can reduce our risk of Avian flu in areas at risk?

It reminds me also of a forward passed around a few years ago. This is a fake Tajik Airways safety card. It features glowing bad guys hijacking a plane and suggests ways passengers can protect themselves like offering hijackers a cigarette and flirting with them.

Link to the larger picture of Tajik Air's "Safety Card

Condoms for Kids?

I'm of the mind that all sites and literature promoting safer sex should provide guidance based on real situations.

I'm sick of materials designed for high risk groups such as Men who have sex with Men (MSM), sex workers, and injecting drug users that uses child-like cartoons like little condom-men with smiling faces. I've seen more projects that I'd like to admit that have responded to the challenges of trying to reach a young or low-literate target group by making their communications too childlike. Sex is a very adult issue. Treating your target group with a modicum of respect makes for more effective interventions.

Example from: http://www.thethreeamigos.org/

There is hope. I am a big fan of the work at Hard Cell, a website targeting Men who have Sex with Men who address questions of protection with a heavy dose of sexual content. Only those 18 and over should visit.