Study

Back when I was in college, in my final year I took Human Sexuality. Let's just say it was like signing up for Health class but in college. One of the first conversations I had with a complete stranger was about our favorite sexual positions. Let's just say the University of Texas at Austin may have been pushing the limits. *Hint of Satire*

Nonetheless, one of my favorite lessons was on Homosexuality. I remember the teacher made us take a questionnaire and till this day I will remember how akward it felt answering it, not because they were hard questions but because they seemed ridiculous at times. It was called the "Heterosexual Questionnaire" and it is still relevant now as it was back then. Thanks to jobsanger for jogging my memory on this beauty created by Martin Rochlin, Ph.D. in 1972.  Read More »

If all you were to listen to were talk-radio then you would think getting healthcare in the United States as an immigrant is as easy as 1, 2, 3. They forget to tell you that the same bureaucratic system that fails to insure millions of American citizens does a good job at preventing those that are not documented to be in the United States.

Take for example Antonio Torres, a 19-year old from Arizona that is a legal immigrant from Mexico who was in coma after a car accident last June. Let me repeat, the gentleman was legally allowed to be in the United States, there was nothing illegal about his status.

Well, after learning that the individual was uninsured, the hospital deported him back to Mexico. Get that? The hospital not the U.S. government took it upon themselves to decide the fate of this individual and sent him back to his home country while in a coma and on the brink of death.  Read More »

Remember the pen used in Men in Black to erase a person’s memory after they saw an alien? That movie was so 10 years ago; let’s try something more recent.

How about Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind where two lovebirds traumatized by their relationship, decide to wipe their memories clean of each other?

Well, it seems science has caught up with Hollywood. Scientists have been successful at selecting and safely removing specific memories from a mouse’s brain.

Joe Z. Tsien, brain scientist and co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, claims, “While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives”  Read More »

It is well known that people don't always ‘speak their minds’, and it is suspected that people don’t always ‘know their minds’. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology.

The study presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.

I took the test not knowing what to expect and it was straightforward. I was told that I have, "a moderate automatic preference for White people over Black people and a moderate automatic preference for Barack Obama over John McCain." I am not sure what that really means but, oh well.

The test claims:  Read More »

Today I retired my first running shoes. After 300 miles and one official race, I had to part with my Nike Air Max 180+ that I received as a Christmas present back in 2006. I had to go buy some replacements right away since I am training for the Nike+ Human Race 10k in Austin, Texas.  Read More »

With the economy in the dumps and everything in sight seeming to be overpriced or at least that is what it seems like, gas hits the $4 dollar mark officially today. This comes the day after Associated Press reports that unemployment rate has reached 1986 levels. There are more people with no jobs and many more with underpaid positions who can not afford the $4 per gallon gas to get them to their low paying jobs.  Read More »

Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than loopy liberals a recent study found, because they’ve been conditioned to rationalize social and economic inequalities. In spite of marital status, income or religious allegiance, right-wingers affirmed more life satisfaction than lefties, but they also scored highest on the tendency to explain away and justify inequalities. "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," they believe, or, "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are." Conservatives support the idea of Meritocracy, meaning that if you climb the ladder of success through hard work, whatever position in society you reach is perceived as completely fair.

If your mind-set doesn't justify status gaps, however, you might feel frustrated and disheartened, according to New York University’s Jaime Napier and John Jost in the journal Psychological Science. "Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater [mental] toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."

The results mirror a 2006 Pew Research project where 47% of U. S. conservative Republicans described themselves as "very happy," while only 28% of liberal Democrats indicated such a state of brainwashed bliss.

And incidently, a U.S. General Social Surveys study has revealed that people tend to become more liberal as they age, putting to rest another long accepted myth, mister right-winger.

And finally, researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School have determined that "Regardless of how much income each person [makes], those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not.” 

Lawsuit Challenges Immigration Raids in New Jersey - Immigration agents systematically entered homes and made arrests without proper warrants during raids to round up immigration fugitives in New Jersey, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday. The lawsuit, brought by lawyers at the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, will provide a constitutional test of law enforcement methods often used by immigration agents since May 2006 when they began operations across the country to track down and deport immigrants who had been ordered to leave by the courts.

Olympics 'worsening China rights' - China's human rights record is getting worse, not better, because of the Beijing Olympics, a rights group says. According to Amnesty International, China is clamping down on dissent in a bid to portray a stable and harmonious image ahead of the Games in August.

80,000 Jobs Cut in March; Unemployment Rate Rises - The economy shed 80,000 jobs in March, the third consecutive month of rising unemployment, presenting a stark sign that the country may already be in a recession. Sharp downturns in the manufacturing and construction sectors led the decline, the biggest in five years. The Labor Department also said employers cut far more jobs in January and February than originally estimated.

Back to pencil and paper for 2010 census - Technology problems will force the government to count all of the nation's 300 million residents the old-fashioned way in the 2010 census -- with paper and pencil.

Gene links smokers and lung cancer - Three new studies analyzing the genetics of lung cancer have identified two inherited gene variations that raise white smokers' chances of getting the disease by as much as 80 percent compared to tobacco users without the genes. All smokers have a tenfold greater risk for lung cancer than nonsmokers, but less than 20 percent of smokers eventually develop the disease. Scientists believe heredity is why some smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer.

I briefly saw this following report on CNN while I was at the bank earlier today and thought it was intresting enough to share. How the researchers tricked the entity into funding this research is beyond my comprehension but the hypothesis that was tested was "Does the endurance of sexual intercourse impact the pleasure?" Researchers concluded not at all. Pleasurable sexual intercourse among both parties regardless of sex or sexual orientation can be achieved between 3-13 minutes. This does not include sexual foreplay which would add more time of course.

This sort of debunks the myth that longer is better right? No, not really. You still have to fulfill your partner. Researchers only concluded that most couples are able to achieve that end goal within that given time range. This counters the long standing notion that the longer you go the better. On the contrary just like you could be terrible in 1 minute you can be horrible for 60 minutes.

There was an intresting comment that I had to share. Marianne Brandon, a clinical psychologist and director of Wellminds Wellbodies in Annapolis, Md states, "There are so many myths in our culture of what other people are doing sexually. Most people's sex lives are not as exciting as other people think they are." I never thought of other people's sexual lives or compared them. I guess I enjoy mine so much that I do not care what other people are up to . . . or not.

[Note: I think it is funny that a Viagra Advert is juxtaposed next to this article at USA Today] 

Consumer spending hits lowest point in 17 months - Consumers, jolted by a credit crisis, job cuts and soaring energy costs, turned in the weakest spending performance in 17 months in February, further evidence that the risks of a recession are increasing. The Commerce Department said today that consumer spending edged up by just 0.1 percent last month, the poorest showing since September 2006. And if the effects of inflation are removed, spending was flat in February, the third consecutive month of sluggish activity.

China Law Could Impede Microsoft Deal for Yahoo - Microsoft’s hostile-takeover attempt against Yahoo may encounter an unexpected hurdle in August after a Chinese antimonopoly law takes effect that will extend the nation’s economic influence far beyond its borders. The law, which goes into effect on Aug. 1, is intended to strengthen an existing set of antitrust regulations the Chinese originally established in 1993.

Ledger's Joker could be biggest posthumous movie role -  Heath Ledger's frenzied reinvention of the Joker had fans and colleagues buzzing. His dreadful clown face was seen online by millions, and stood as the goosebump-raising image upon which nearly all early marketing of "The Dark Knight" hinged. Now the Batman archfiend stands as Ledger's next-to-last performance. And while it's not the first, "The Dark Knight" has already emerged as arguably the biggest movie featuring a posthumous role in Hollywood history.

Cuba lifts curbs on mobile phones - Cubans are to be allowed unrestricted access to mobile phones for the first time, in the latest reform announced under new President Raul Castro. Some Cubans already own mobile phones, but they have had to acquire them via a third party, often foreigners.

Human noses 'can detect danger' - Our noses can quickly learn to link even subtle changes in smell with danger, claim scientists. Volunteers who could not differentiate between two similar smells found they could do it easily after being given a mild electric shock alongside one.