Audience participation!

I have had an idea, but I'd like to gauge it's potential success. So here goes.

I would like to collaborate with one of you on a piece of music! So, what I'm thinking of doing is compiling a loop sample that I will upload onto this, here blog for your auditory enjoyment. There is a catch: I'd like you to try and write/record lyrics for a song to this! Now, I know that not everyone has the most sing-worthy voices, but if you feel confident enough to do so, please do record and email me the recordings! Otherwise, strap a friend/family member to a chair and force them to sing for you! If possible, please make sure the recordings are of relatively high quality and are in a *.wav format. But this isn't crucial...

I royally suck at writing lyrics of my own, so I'm sure you will do far better than I can!

If you think you'd be up for it, please mail me at watchmonkeysblogsong@gmail.com with 'I wanna write your song!' as the subject line and I will then know how many of you are interested! Fill the contents of the mail with whatever you want (provided it isn't offensive...or viral in nature).

It's also a neat way to see how many of you are still avid readers here...

I'll miss you SO much!

Given that I will be leaving my alma mater, Wits, in the not-too-distant future, I have been thinking a lot about how much it has meant to me to be part of it. The other day, while on the hunt for food, I was reminded of one of the more fun aspects of Wits' charm: The quirky promotions that seem to happen on campus on a regular basis. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to snap a few on my phone, before the promo broke up!

Where else in the world am I  likely to encounter giant walking fruit on my lunch break?!

I'm not entirely sure why the giant fruit were hiding under black sheets, especially seeing as it is the middle of summer in Johannesburg (usually around 30 degrees centigrade in the shade at this time of day...). The one on the left is a giant lichi, in case you're wondering...

Behold, the giant granadilla! You can also make out the giant mango behind him and what appears to be an orange too...what the other one is...I have no idea.

Even giant fruit get tired! Here they are, parking off on the grass for a well-deserved break.

This, amongst other things, I will really miss when I'm gone.

What's in a name...?

I don't understand it really. But it's just the way I am. I do all my best thinking either in the shower, or when brushing my teeth. When I say 'best thinking' I don't mean that I come up with solutions to food security or world peace, but rather that this is when my brain tends to really get it's hands dirty, regardless of the idea in question.

Last night, standing in front of my bathroom mirror still dripping and wrapped in a towel after a shower, the topic of choice was names. I began to think about all the people that I'd met in my life and how so many of them seemed to display traits that were common to all the other people I'd met with the same names. Take, for example, Tyron (or any variant thereof, such as Tyrone...).

To this day, I have never met a single individual by that name that was even vaguely pleasant. Parents, if you have a boy and you don't particularly want to spend a good part of your sons life in the principles office at school being read the riot act and waxing his growing list of misdemeanours, don't name your child Tyron! It's strange, but true. My mother was a nursery school teacher and my aunt, a primary school teacher, for many years and both confirmed for me that there is indeed a hex on that name; all who bear it are nothing but trouble.

This is not to say that I believe that Tyrons the world over are evil. Far from it! I just have yet to meet one that wasn't.

This all got me thinking about how no matter what the name in question is, it is forever associated with that first person that we met who had it. Another example: I remember in primary school (elementary school for our American readers) having a girl in my class by the name of Angelique. While a tad on the naughty side, what really set her apart from the rest of us was that she had been born with a physical impairment. Her left leg had not fully developed and thus was permanently about 15cm shorter than her right leg. She wore a prosthetic leg extension all the time except for when we had to do PE (physical education - an excuse for teachers to park off and bark orders at children already burnt out from a hard day's work in the classroom).

The truly amazing thing about this girl was not her leg, but rather her approach to life. Angelique was, in spite of all that her biology had thrown at her, unstoppable! I remember that she was always very friendly, but took no nonsense from anyone. She always stood up for the underdog (with the added advantage that few people would argue with a metal reinforced plasticised leg extension...) and even when doing PE, she strove as hard as, if not harder than, all the other kids to do well. As such, this name has a number of connotations for me: scallywag, virtuous and unbeatable.

Another example from primary school was a girl by the name of Catherine. Actually, more than one by that name. And, true to form, both Catherines had equally unpleasant personalities. The first left our school shortly after entering the second grade, much to our unanimous relief. This child, in hindsight probably a deeply troubled individual, would frequently erupt into fully fledged temper tantrums in the classroom. I remember one in particular when she trashed the reading corner, tossing books willy-nilly and overturning the bookshelf, a feat I at the time marvelled at, unable to budge the bookshelf under my own strength. Obviously, rage provided a fuel unmatched by any amount of sugar and tartrezine.

The second Catherine was with us for longer than the first. But, while physical violence wasn't her thing, her skill lay in her unmatched ability to be very unpleasant. She was one of those kids that just never had anything nice to say about or to anyone. Somehow she had friends, but I certainly didn't count myself in their number. In both cases, I learned very quickly that the one thing common to the name was the tactic you used when dealing with them: don't! Just avoid them completely!

So prospective parents, think long and hard about the names that haunt and colour your past. Consult with others about the names that shaped them and give much consideration to the idea, before frivolously applying a label to your offspring!

Life-long To-do list Item 32: Check!

Before I begin, I must point out that I don't really have a Life-long To-do list. Not in the formal sense, anyway. I rather have a kinda space in my brain that holds all the stuff that looks cool to do and I'll get to later...

Avid followers of my blog will remember me once writing a post about my lifelong quest to partake of all the exotic fruit wonders that our world has to offer. Well, I am now one step closer to that goal! I have finally sampled the amazing flappy-purple-orb that is DRAGONFRUIT!

This is all thanks to my mother, who somehow managed to track down one at our local supermarket (not usually the place for edible rareties of nature...).

Behold! The amazing dragonfruit!

As you can see, my sister takes these things very seriously. Her carpophobia really got away with her... 

The innards of a dragonfruit: 

Giving the fruit a try: 

Look at the amazing colour!! Visually, a stunning piece of food: 

It's a very odd fruit. It doesn't really have much flavour. It's very delicate. It has a consistancy that lies somewhere between a persimon and a kiwi fruit. Very odd. The seeds are like those of a kiwi too. But the colour is amazing! It's really beautiful! It also stains your hands like beetroot does, which was kinda cool. I would totally recommend it for anyone to try!

I'm a dad! World, meet Greg...

So, seeing as I had never attempted this in the past, I decided to give Movember a bash. Had my last shave at the end of October and have successfully grown quite the facial lawn! Behold:

This picture is a little outdated...Greg has grown substantially since this was taken.

However, two rather unpleasant things have come out of this follicle-driven endevour; My sister has fallen in love with my beard. She has decided that I am just not a whole person without it and that I should never get rid of it. Thus, she has named (I kid you not!) my beard: Greg. Her thoughts were that if I gave it a name, I would feel terrible when I eventually got rid of it and thus would be deterred from shaving ever again.

Unfortunately for her, I have no qualms about slaying Greg come December! This is because Greg has become a bit of a nuisance. He has taken on personality traits and behaviour that I find less than desirable. He seems determined to make me very aware of the fact that when I talk, I do actually use my top lip. He keeps bobbing up and down along the edge of my vision as I converse with people and it drives me nuts!

Secondly, and probably the worst of his character flaws, he has become very vexatious (I like that word...) and continuously pokes me! It's so irritating! It's a bit like a combination of having a pot scourer attached to your face and having a spider walking over your lips at the same time. And it's just that much more irritating because you know that the pot scourer is the product of your own body and that you have consciously decided to cultivate the thing!

Having said all this, I am told I look rather dashing with my new lip-lawn and that I should strive to keep it going. Unfortunately for Greg's admirers, I alone control the razor...heh heh heh...

Pelted with flowers!

Now, anyone that knows me will tell you, I am by no means a superstitious person. I will happily smash mirrors, hang around black cats (although my cousin's one is genuinely evil) and scoot under open ladders. But for some reason, this year I was overcome with worry regarding a local superstition and it's implications for me.

Okay, so maybe that's a minor exaggeration; I wasn't exactly overcome with worry, but it had occurred to me...

So at our university, there is an urban legend that, come the end of the year and the advent of spring, there is only one sure way to know that you will pass your exams (or the year, if exams are not something you have to do anymore): be hit by a falling Jacaranda flower on campus.

Every spring, the jacarandas of Johannesburg bloom, transforming the landscape from a hollow tan that personifies the dead highveld winters, into a lush forest of deep greens, offset by the lilac-blue explosions that are the jacarandas. Jacarandas produce an exhaustive display of flowers at the start of spring, before they produce any leaves, resulting in huge purple trees scattered across the city, and campus. Johannesburg isn't really known for the jacarandas and dwindles to insignificance when compared to our sister-city, Pretoria (Tourists apparently go there just to see the jacarandas!), but you still feel the transformation in Joburg all the same.

So I was a little concerned when, almost half-way through the university exam month, I had yet to be hit by a flower. Then, yesterday, I was loading stuff into my car, exhausted, mind abuzz with statistics nonsense that I'd been doing all day. I felt a breeze picking up and noticed that my car was awash with little purple flowers, almost adding insult to injury. I looked up at the jacaranda above my car and sighed.

A flower drifted down and bounced playfully off my shoulder and at that moment I knew I was okay. I was going to make it this year.

Look to the sundog!

Yesterday morning, Johannesburg was privy to a spectacular climatological phenomenon! The sundog, or parhelion! It's a corona (ring) that forms around the sun, creating a glowing, rainbow-halo type of effect. The result: A beautiful coloured ring that encircles the sun. The effect is apparently created by the presence of tiny ice crystals floating around in the upper atmosphere in the form of cirrus clouds. By the sounds of things, the light from the sun is bent at a 22 angle, resulting in the light halo. They are apparently best observed  when the sun is low, but we saw it fine with the sun almost directly overhead. There's more info available here on the ever-faithful, source of all true knowledge: wikipedia!

Here are some of the pics that I took yesterday. The dark bits are my building; I really should have been tending to the coffee machine at the time, but these climatological phenomena don't just happen everyday you know...!

 

 

Friday is NOT a work day!

A while back I posted about how fantastic Fridays were because we got to have doughnuts and coffee. Well since then, Fridays have continued to uphold all that is important and true. However, this Friday has been a little different...

Our supervisor is away at the moment and, well, when the cats away, the mice...swordfight with broom-sticks!

...or perhaps a little song and dance number?

Time-warp tests

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of having to invigilate a test or exam in their lifetime can attest to this simple truth; it’s not fun. Tests seem to alter the space-time continuum, drawing time out, extending it beyond what is normally possible. It’s much like deadlines, which compress time into smaller and smaller bits, but it works in the opposite way.


Anyone who has ever invigilated a test will also tell you that as an invigilator you need something to occupy your mind while doing this job. If you don’t, the time-warping effect of the test is exacerbated tenfold. If you are smart, you take a book to read, or some marking to do from the previous time that you invigilated. But if you are like me, you only realise you are supposed to be invigilating about two minutes before the test starts and thus fail in the forward-planning department and end up stuck, pacing the rows of students with nothing to occupy your time.

On Friday, I had to invigilate such a test. Unfortunately, true to form, I completely forgot about it and thus failed to take reading material with me. I had walked briskly across campus, strolling nonchalantly past the students who were waiting outside the test venue (as their lecturer, you must maintain your coolness at all times). Once inside the large building, I realised that the test hadn’t even been set out, never mind ready for the students to write. I also discovered that the class, being in excess of 400 students, would be writing in two consecutive sessions.

Once the test was set out, the first batch of students came in to write. Time took on the consistency of syrup and my mind began to strain at the growing emptiness inside. When invigilating, I find that I tend to become pathologically eagre to do mundane tasks; things like collecting unused transcripts, counting the number of absentees, estimating the ages of students, counting how many students pick their noses thinking nobody is watching all become of the utmost importance. Occasionally a student will put up their hand for an extra sheet or to request an escort to the bathroom and your mind rejoices at the opportunity to do something.

After the first batch of students wrote and had been released, the second lot filed into their places and began to worry for my mental health. I still had another hour of waiting before my invigilating duties would come to an end. As the second lot started writing, time, having given a brief respite and returning to normal speed, resumed it’s passage at the speed of snot. I too resumed my seemingly critical tasks. It was during one such task, drifting down one of the aisles between desks, that I noticed something odd.

The test venue is a large hall, built to resemble an aircraft hanger. Whether this was intentional or merely my own perception, I cannot say. But one wall of the building is made mostly of one-way glass. Pacing inside the hall, I looked through the one-way glass to see a pair of girls outside, apparently in the throws of some sort of synchronised seizure or demonic possession. As I got closer to the window, I realised that the pair were actually practicing their synchronised dance moves, using the reflection off the glass to aid them.

While this in itself was amusing, what made it so much worse was the fact that the pair were, I assume, blissfully ignorant to the fact that there were over 200 students sitting inside the room, able to see them. At one stage one of the writing students stopped her test and watched over her shoulder for a good 5 min as the duo gyrated and stamped around outside. I too watched them as they flailed around, occasionally bursting into fits of laughter when one appeared to fail at twitching at the right time.

The responsibility of watching the students drew my mind back to the writing masses. Suddenly, a shriek was herd and I turned back to see what had happened. As I turned, it became clear that the pair outside were the noise. As I watched, the pair tore around the parking lot outside apparently being pursued by something small and white. I looked closer and realised that they were being chased around by a Maltese poodle and that the dog was determined to take them down, no matter the cost. One friend broke away, successfully evading the pooch while the second continued her rampage of shrieking. Eventually, she stopped, apparently exhausted from all the running and screaming, and the dog stopped to. The pair caught their breath and then resumed their chase.

Unfortunately, the test time was nearly up and I had to tear myself away from this very amusing episode. However, I think this has to have been one of the most exciting test invigilations I’ve ever done! It was awesome!

Engrish!

Some pictures from the ever-entertaining China-Mart!

The menus at the restaurant were princess themed...

Spiced Chemical Egg! My favourite!

Chicken omlettle! Another personal favourite!

Ever need to teach your children the meaning of contradiction? Why not buy them a 'grumpy-baby-with-smiley-face' doll?

Horrors! I've not posted in over two months! What has become of me!

Life just kinda caught up with me I guess. Things have been pretty hectic and as things stand at the moment, I'm in a rut...which is why I thought I should post some pictures of the...interesting...things I have spotted while out shopping lately. Enjoy!

What's wrong with this picture...?

They knew there was a double letter in there somewhere! Which one it was...merely a technicality!

Anyone looking for a 1/4 of a rabbit? I know where to go!

Oddly enough, not bought in a sex shop! Thailand actually!

You'd think that someone must have picked up on the double-entendre here before they printed the packaging...

Becasue Kate Moss and the History of Science have SO much in common...

Spelling isn't their strong point, is it? But at least we know their food is the 'nuggest' of them all!

Food of the Gods/Devil

Now that I have neglected my blog for a good month or so, I feel that I should write at least ONE post for February. For my fans, alas, I will probably be posting rarely this year as I have a lot of work to do for my PhD (HOORAY!!!) and so I probably won't have the time or inspiration to write. Unless you want to learn about how chimpanzees use space...

Following a post by Leia, I have been thinking about the whole chocolate-is-a-substitute-for-sex thing. And, following a rather fruitless rummage through a text book on biological psychology (What kind of decent text book on psychology doesn't have a section on chocolate?! I mean really...! ), I turned to the faithful Internet for the knowledge which I shall present to you here.



So Leia argued that she was not one to fit the stereotype of chocolate substituting sex. She then went on to describe how she ate chocolate all the time, so it couldn't possibly be related to her libido. As she put it, she ate chocolate whenever she felt, 'tired, frustrated, lonely, etc.'

While the motivation for eating the heavenly gifts of the cocoa plant may not be sexual, it is very interesting to look at the hormones that are released when one eats chocolate. First up, ENDORPHINS!

These are the bodies natural pain killers. According to these guys (they have references, so I am inclined to believe them) endorphins are produced by our body in a variety of circumstances, including pain experience, eating spicy foods, overexposure to light (I'm assuming that refers to sunburn...?), exercise, laughter, crying, stress, acupuncture, shower massagers, calming music, tickling, sex, stimulating the erogenous zones and eating sweet foods, including...drum roll please...chocolate! Interestingly, scalp massage made it's way in there too. That explains why some girls love having their hair washed so much...


Another important chemical is Phenylethylamine. There's an obligatory quiz on all the chemical names at the end of this post...I think I'll just call it 'P' for simplicity's sake. This chemical is naturally found in the brain and is associated with increasing activity in the pleasure centres of the brain by causing the release of dopamine (the happy chemical). This is also produced in relatively high levels during orgasm. They have a strong influence on our mood when found in the brain. However, according to these people, some suggest that chemicals such as P are metabolised long before they get near the brain when taken in through chocolate. It's also found in a number of other foods, including beer, wine and some cheeses.

Interestingly, chocolate also contains cannabinoids, similar chemicals to those found in weed. So, they have the effect of making one feel happy. However, one would have to consume ridiculous quantities of chocolate to get high. The cannabinoids in it are not nearly as strong as those found in cannabis. According to this abstract, some lawyer actually tried this once as a defence against his client dealing and using Mary-Jane. Sadly for him, his defence was shot down in flames...

A well known chemical in chocolate is the caffeine and similar non-caffeine chemicals. I'm not going to say any more apart from the fact that the chemicals occur in very low quantities in chocolate when compared to coffee. Here they claim that 50g of dark chocolate still contains less caffeine than 150ml of tea. Food for thought and whatnot...

So, while the sex-chocolate link isn't exactly gospel, you can still see that chocolate has come very interesting effects on the brain. On the plus side, it also tastes good!

PS. Picture credits; Here, here, here and here.

The car that gave birth to a kitten

Monday morning; I awoke at 05h45. Insane, I know. But I had to go to work out with my good pal, Dave. The two of us gym together regularly (or try to anyway...) as it forces both of us to do it and helps to keep us motivated. We work out early in the morning because, a) it offers a good excuse not to just sleep in every day and b) we go running in the evenings, so working out in the evening isn't really an option.

On this particular morning, I was unusually alert and managed to get out of bed, get dressed and out of the house in five minutes. To put this into perspective, I am usually so groggy and semi-comatose that it takes me a good 15 minutes to organise myself. So, ready and eager to get going after the Christmas hiatus I collected my car keys and started up my car.

I pulled out of the drive and began to putter along down my road. The crisp morning air was refreshing and humid, carrying the rain from last nights storms back to the clouds above. The roads were their usual desolate selves, unsurprising, given that it was so early. As I pulled into the road which joins one of the main roads in our suburb, I noticed a white Hyundai, perched on the crest of the speed hump in the middle of the road. The car was running, the occupants holding it there, waiting for something. I assumed that they were waiting for a colleague or friend to emerge from the house opposite.

As I got closer I noticed something dark attached to the undercarriage of the car. Now, understand, my knowledge of the anatomy of a car is horrific at best, but this still seemed out of place. I slowed behind the car, expecting them to pull off at any second. But they didn't budge.

However, the lump under the car did.

It wiggled a little and then landed on the tarmac lightly, only to tear across the road as a white, albeit fluffy, bolt of terror. As I watched, I realised that it was a tiny white kitten! My brain instinctively told me that it was way too early to be up anyway and so this probably hadn't really happened. But as I drove past, I realised that it was all real, the scared little cat glaring back at the car from the safety of the driveway.

The poor little thing probably climbed up into the engine of the car for warmth the night before and had not realised what was going on until it was out in the street already. The poor thing must have got such a fright! But it appeared to be okay, if not a little ticked off. The whole experience was very surreal to say the least!

Rodents!!

Prepare for the 'Awww!' moment.


These are some photos of the rodents that have graced our lab within the last two or three days. Naturally, they are all adorable and make you instinctively want to take them home with you.

Exhibit A:

These are a group of 6 baby dormice that were found in the field. Their mother had died and they were scuttling around on their lonesome. They are currently in the care of an individual from another lab.

One of the little ones up close.
Exhibit B:

This little critter was brought in with a group of gerbils (see below). It's a Mus minutoides or African pygmy mouse. You'll never guess why they chose that name...

In case you are struggling to see where the mouse is, here's an enlarged section of the above picture. To give you an idea of scale, that blue pipe in the back is approximately 5.5cm in diameter...

Exhibit C:

Gerbils...Some people think they are cute. I'm not a fan, but they did arrive recently so I have to include them.

Exhibit D:

Last but certainly not least, Rhabdomys babies! Leia's latest catch produced offspring over the last two weeks so now we have little striped mice! They are adorable!

Need some time off from work...?

I'll take number 9 any day!


http://www.topcultured.com/12-illnesses-that-are-way-worse-than-swine-flu/

The problem with the internet is that you can't broadcast smells...

Yesterday was a ridiculous day! It began with the introduction of coconuts to Tas and co. Midway through our munchings, we were interrupted by a student from one of the adjacent labs who had come to announce that the only freezer in our department which can be maintained at -80˚C had been off all weekend because the wall socket it had been plugged into had given up the ghost for no apparent reason. As a result, any material that we had stored in there was more than likely useless as it had probably decayed beyond all recognition.

As one does in our department, we shrugged it off and figured that there would be a few students who would be upset, but the world would continue to turn none-the-less. We were wrong...

As it turned out, the fridge was determined to go out with a bang and that bang was targeted at everyone who worked in our side of the building. The decaying material (which included cat-food - WHY?!) had, as decaying material does, produced the most noxious stench our building has ever smelled. The pong was also really sneaky...it remained out of smell for a good part of the day and then rushed at all of us will full smelly force just after lunch time.

In an effort to overcome the stench, one of the resident academics decided to try and burn some Helichrysum, which she had obtained from a local traditional healers market. The result was a combination of putrification with burning plants and a hint of marijuana (and not in a good way...).

It was around this time that Tas entered my lab and uttered the words, 'What died?!' which pretty much summed things up. We also came to the conclusion that our building has absolutely no fire/smoke alarms at all; a comforting thought...

As much as appreciated the attempt to improve the olfactory conditions of our labs, the smell became too much and we all decided that it was a good idea to go home. So, we all packed ourselves up and began walking out of the building. As we arrived at one of the staircases, we noticed that there was a small cascade of water pouring down the stairs into the passage. As it turned out, one of the pipes had burst on the third floor and the water was using the stairs, as any sensible sentient being would. We gave it some space as the water was slightly yellow and, being that it had come from one of the microbiology labs, you really never know what it could contain...

This morning, when I returned to my lab, the stench still remained and had yet to be exorcised from the building. Some kind soul had replaced the burning plants with incense sticks so instead of the smell of burning grass, we had a building that smelled like an ashram.

And people wonder why I enjoy the work I do...

Ode to the weekend and running!

I have managed to get through half of my marking for the weekend already! Yay! So, to celebrate, I'm going to go home and go for a run!

It's amazing to think that I, of all people, could possibly enjoy running that much, that I actually look forward to it! A year ago, I'd never have believed that I might get to this point of actually enjoying my running, and yet, here I am, loving it! It's quite bizarre...

Well, I really don't have anything more to say. It's a Friday. The day is almost nearly over and I feel a rewarding jog is in order. Cheerio! But before I go, the photos from our lab Halloween party:

Okay, this has nothing to do with the party, it's just a really cute forlorn-looking doggy... :)

Tas getting into the Halloween spirit.

One of our obese lab mice oggling us as we prepare food...

Our Halloween spiders! Made from scones, grated cheese, raisins and prezel sticks! Genius!

Making an army of cheese-covered spiders!

P.S. I really need a holiday...I keep dreaming I'm on holiday. It's really annoying!

What Fridays are all about

One of the massive perks to being part of our lab is that Fridays are generally accepted, here anyway, to be a complete write-off. We get absolutely nothing done on a Friday. Even my supervisor admits it! In our lab, this is what Fridays are all about:

Yes, that's it. Coffee and doughnuts. What more can you ask for?

Today was a prime example! I arrived late. I'm house sitting at the moment so I took a little longer to get in today. On my way up to my lab from parking, I picked up some doughnuts. The lady at the shop was very generous and gave us an extra doughnut (which I may have to take home as nobody seems to want to eat it...) and, after skipping the entire paying queue because of the bulk-order, I headed up to the lab. Once there, the 'meeting' began.

I say 'meeting' because we did have meetings on a Friday, but due to lack of attendance, they were discontinued.

We chatted, drank coffee, ate our glazed delights and all had a fantastic time. The rest of the day was occupied with an undergrad lecture on oestrogen mimics (disappointingly tame...) and moving animal test subjects around. That's ALL I DID TODAY!!! And, now I'm going home :)

All in the name of science...

Every two years, our department runs an undergraduate course on Reproductive Biology (coincidentally, the name of the course!). Students in general hate the course as the majority of it focuses on the reproduction of plants and fungi, but a small section of it relates to reproduction in animals. For this particular section, the amount of giggling and crude jokes that are made during the lectures of the students is, unsurprisingly, high.

For this section of the course, the practical that the students have to do is rather fun. No...it's not what you are thinking...but is instead an examination of the role of perfume in mate selection. It requires that the blindfolded students smell a selection of perfumes on male and female 'models' and state what they think of the perfumes. This year, Luke and Leia were the smell models.

For those that don't know me, I am closer to an ape than most people. In short, I have rather hairy forearms and this complicates matters when the students are not supposed to be able to distinguish the male and female models (shoving your nose into a hairy arm does kinda give away the sex of the model...). So, the solution?

SHAVING!!!

So, both Leia and I had to shave our arms for science! It was actually a fascinating experience! My arms are surprisingly smooth and I've discovered a whole bunch of scars that I had no idea I had, not to mention the shaving techniques that I learned which I can apply when and if I decide to do cycling competitively!

Here are the pics:

The shaving process at work: By shaving in one direction and then pushing the razor backward, it cleans the razor! Nifty hey?! :D

The process at work...Thank goodness we have sinks in the lab. The bathrooms would have been awkward to have to keep explaining to people what I was doing...

Before and After! Great insulation and comforting fluffiness converts to silky smooth and a map of past traumas!

Step aside Indy, this one's alive!

This was a conversation that I had with EEbEE earlier today. The paper that the exerpt came from is at the bottom of the page. Step aside Indiana Jones, this is how REAL monkeys do it!

Luke: A charming little exerpt I had to share with you: 'Most people with first hand experience of primates will be impressed by the animals' tolerance of injuries and their rapid healing. One example, observed in a large group of tufted capuchins (Cebus apella), concerned a young adult male with a head wound exposing several square centimetres of scalp. The wound was frequently groomed by other group members, who also dipped potatoes in it. Although we might expect that this would be a painful experience for the wounded individual, his behaviour appeared quite normal. In fact he appeared to enjoy attention from the others, and actively sought more of this treatment (see also Dittus & Ratnayeke1989). The wound eventually healed without any human intervention.'
It's from a paper I'm reading. It stopped me in my tracks...
Ebrahim: !!!
who'd have thought
didn't expect that at all
Luke: The mental image is very funny though, in a sick sorta way :)
Ebrahim: hehehe. i admit... i laughed when i read it
Luke: I was just so shocked! I actually jumped back and gasped! Lab-mates must think I'm insane...
Ebrahim: lol. i can't wait to attack my next first aid situation with a bit of potatoe
Luke: It's the ultimate first aid tool! Ambulances should be filled with bags of potatos!
Ebrahim: imagine the look on the face of the guy with a missing arm when the ambulance shows up :O "all you brought were some POTATOES!!!"
Luke: ROFL!!! Yes! I was also wondering what ambulance chase scenes in movies would be like if the vehicle kept shedding small tubers as it roared through the streets of downtown New York...

Chips and ketchup, anyone?