Ethic Soup

Hip, Hip, It's Pi Day! Have Some Pi-Pie

 
 

Happy Pi Day! Today's date is March 14, or 3.14, the first three digits of pi, and that's equal to the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

This is a special day for math geeks to revel in the glory of pi. Ain't it grand? And to celebrate Albert Einstein, whose birthday is today too.

Celebrations for the enigmatic number -- which never ends and never repeats -- are many and usually pie-related events including: pie-throwing contests, pie-eating contests and pie-give-aways.

Feeling No Pain? You Must Be In Love -- No Drugs Needed

 It's true! If you're in the first stages of new and passionate love, you literally do not feel as much physical pain.

IN LOVE BRAIN CHANGES

New research suggests that falling in love has amazing effects on the brain. It not only mutes the intensity of pain impulses; but, love feelings travel the same neural pathways as do powerful drugs. So watch out -- Like morphine, passion can be addictive.

Holy Heil! Adolph Hitler's Family DNA Suggests Jewish and African Relatives

The mere sight of Hitler's image in an old photograph makes their skin crawl for so many. What do you suppose Hitler thought his heritage would be? Grandiose, no doubt.

OSS PROFILE OF HITLER

In fact, a 'Psychological Profile of Hitler,' part of The Nizkor Project,  prepared during WWII by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), said of Hitler: "He will go down in history as the most worshiped and the most despised man the world has ever known."

Hitler's "belief in his own power actually borders on a feeling of omnipotence," said the report.

HOLY HEIL! 

What would he have done had he known the DNA of his relatives would 'out' him as having both Jewish and African kin folk?  Holy Heil! He might have committed suicide earlier and saved many thousands of lives. Didn't he have some psychics or astrologers around? Well, if they wanted to keep living, they would never have told him that news, should they have glimpsed it in the stars. 

E-Cigarette Smokers Are Suckers: Must Inhale Aerosol More Deeply into Lungs, Questionable Health Effects

 

SUCK AGAIN -- HARDER, HARDER

New research on electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) finds possible adverse effects on human health. It's not the first research to suggest damage to smokers of e-cigarettes, marketed as tobacco-free nicotine delivery systems. It's just the latest and shows that e-cigarettes may be less healthy than had previously been thought.

What exactly is the possible danger of e-cigarettes?

CAN WE PROFIT IF WE ADMIT TO CARCINOGENS?

Although manufacturers of the e-cigarettes (almost all of which are made in China) say that the devices "smoke" like a conventional cigarette, but contain none of the hazardous carcinogens found in a conventional  cigarette, the FDA disagrees and warns of hazards.

Over a year ago, in July 2009, the Food and Drug Administration released an analysis of 19 varieties of electronic cigarettes that said half of them contained nitrosamines (the same carcinogen found in real cigarettes) and many contained diethylene glycol, the poisonous ingredient in antifreeze. (Read Ethic Soup post about FDA warning.)

WHAT EXACTLY ARE THEY?

Electronic-cigarettes are becoming increasingly popular, but if you've been under a cloud of smoke, you may not know about them.

A recent Los Angeles Times description of e-cigarettes (which are gaining a lot of popularity) is: "They use a cartridge containing nicotine dissolved in a solvent, such as propylene glycol. When the user inhales through the device, it activates a battery that makes the tip glow red like a real cigarette and a small heater vaporizes some of the contents, which can then be inhaled."

STUDY SUGGESTS DANGERS

New research finds that e-cigarettes require stronger inhalation than conventional cigarettes, say researchers.  

Reported last month in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, the research was led by cell biologist Prue Talbot(pictured both above and below, right), University of California - Riverside, where she is also the director of the UCR Stem Cell Center (read 'real smart'). 

The Oil Spill and Morality: Where Are We Going as a Species?

 

This is a NASA image of oil slick from the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, taken May 10 off Louisiana coast.

You've gotta read Physicist Marcelo Gleiser's post "A Tear At The Heart Of Creation: It's Time We Reinvent Ourselves"  at a National Public Radio blog. This is the first time in Ethic Soup's history that we've published a post that is only about another blog's post and its author. We respect it that much.

 

 

THE BLEEDING WON'T STOP

In his NPR post, Gleiser references the "unstoppable gushing of oil" from the BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill and warns:

"We have torn the Earth open, disturbing what has laid dormant for millions of years. And now, as if the planet turned hemophilic, the bleeding won't stop."

Alcor Cryogenics Wins: Iowa Court Says Dig Up Body to Cut Off & Freeze Head

IT'S NOT A PRETTY PICTURE

It's as if buzzards were waiting up in a tree to swoop down and pick apart a dead body.

But it's not buzzards or vultures -- literally. It's Alcor Life Extension Foundation that filed a lawsuit seeking to exhume the body of Orville Richardson.

Two weeks ago the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Alcor and ordered Richardson's body dug up, his head cut off and frozen, according to the Des Moines Register.

SIX FEET UNDER FOR A YEAR

A former pharmacist, Richardson died at 81, more than a year ago. But before he died, back in 2004 he signed a contract with Alcor and paid $53,500 so his head could be cut off, cryogenically frozen, and hang in suspension when he died -- until sometime, years later, when a cure is found, maybe, for whatever killed him.

Cigarette Smoking Robots: They're Lungless -- How Can They Test for Lung Disease?

IT'S A CIGARETTE SMOKING MACHINE -- A ROBOT. It is used by cigarette manufacturers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Why, I don't know. I don't really see the purpose of utilizing these robots that can inhale two packs an hour.

QUESTIONABLE SCIENCE

Some may consider the homemade pipe (left), being utilized at a religious festival in India, a smoking machine, just more religious than scientific.

What it has in common with the robotic smoking machines our government uses is its questionable 'scientificness.'

You can have scientific machines, with measurements which are scientifically obtained and yet -- mean nothing.

Who's Your Daddy? Drinking A Lot of Cola and Caffeine Lowers Sperm Count

WANNA COLA, DUDE? WHOA! DON'T WANNA LOWER YOUR SPERM COUNT! If you're like most guys, having plenty of sperm is important to you. 

Significant is the fact that a reduced sperm count increases the risk of eventually becoming infertile -- no future "Got any money Dad?" or "Come watch me quarterback the big game Pop."

REAL MEN

Real men may not care much for quiche, nor can many spell it; but, real men have lots of fertile sperm and hairy chests. One you can see without a microscope and one you can't. That's why men describe a manly man as having big balls. Balls, of course, are testicles; and, testicles are where the sperm reside.

Everyone knows that you don't mess around with  Mother Nature because it can mess up your sperm, like taking a bunch of steroids so you can have bigger, stronger muscles. That's a case of 'What you see is NOT what you get.'

WHAT LOWERS SPERM COUNT?

Men who smoke have a 13-17 percent lower sperm count than those who do not smoke. High alcohol intake can significantly reduce the sperm count and motility. Tight fitting clothes and prolonged periods of sitting can lead to a reduction in sperm count through excessive heating of the testes. So, switch to wearing boxer shorts.

Cannabis, cocaine and anabolic steroids all reduce the sperm count, affect motility and number of normal sperm. And now there's cola.

Cryogenics Tell-All Book: Ted William's Head Repeatedly Abused

To say that Ted Williams would not be happy is an understatement. To say that anyone who finds out what happened to his remains will not be upset and bothered will surely be wrong. I'm so sorry Slugger, our Splendid Splinter, our Red Sox Hall-of-Fame legend.

You certainly did not deserve this treatment. Hopefully, karma will get the creeps who used your frozen head for batting practice.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

But your body, albeit magnificent, is just the earthly shell you use when alive. It's meaning now is symbolic. Even so, most of us in America try to treat human remains respectfully.

Although this summer, we had hundreds of grave desecrations. In Chicago, at the African American Burr Oak Cemetery,  bodies were dug up and thrown in a huge mass grave, so burial plots could be resold. There were hundreds more desecrations in Los Angeles at the Jewish cemetery Eden Memorial Park.(At Ethic Soup, we anticipate many more desecrations will be discovered in the future at cemeteries across the country and Canada.)

CRYONICS SCAM

Mr. Williams, you got caught in a scam with your son's wish to have your body frozen and saved cryogenically so that he could sell your DNA -- even though your wish was to be cremated with your ashes sprinkled over the Florida Keys. After you died, your three children fought over your body and eventually bought into the Alcor scam -- a real beaut. Apparently you and your three kids made a pact together that you would all be frozen, says one of your daughters.

DISGUSTING PEOPLE

How much did Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz. get you to pay them to safely save your body -- in the name of science and the future --  and then beat and abuse it? Disgusting people. 

Cryonics isn't cheap. It can cost up to $150,000 to have your whole body preserved. Then there is the monthly fee of around $400 -- for a long, long time. Several generations is one estimate, for science to catch up.

Be Still My Heart: Defibrillate! Defibrillate! Before It's Too Late

  

CHANCES ARE you will not be in a hospital operating room, with its cool green lights as pictured above, should you have a sudden cardiac arrest and need defibrillation. Chances aren't so good that the paddles which can deliver electrical shock to get your heart to beating again will be close at hand.

That's why the appropriate placement of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) is critical to optimize their use in public places, say two studies just published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

AEDs are computerized devices that are now about the size of a laptop computer.(The first out-of-hospital defibrillation device weighed 110 pounds, while today they weigh less than 8 pounds). They can be used by healthcare providers, such as Emergency Medical Response providers, and by lay rescuers. They are attached to victims who are thought to be in cardiac arrest, and they provide voice and visual prompts to lead rescuers through the steps of operation. AEDs analyze the victim's heart rhythm, determine if a defibrillation shock is needed, then prompt the rescuer to "clear" the victim and deliver a shock. 

DON'T FORGET DEFIBRILLATION

This article is a follow-up to Ethic Soup's post "Kids Can Save Lives: Even The Young Should Learn CPR," which tells how recent studies have shown that children as young as 9 years old can learn and perform CPR correctly --  even four months after training. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation are often needed at the same time.

Without immediate bystander CPR, brain death and permanent death start to happen in just four to six minutes after someone has a cardiac arrest. It can be reversed by immediate bystander CPR and treatment within a few minutes with an electric shock to allow the heart to restore a normal heartbeat.

WE NEED MORE GOOD NEWS -- LOTS MORE

The bad news -- 92 percent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims do not survive to hospital discharge. Better news -- in cities where bystander CPR and defibrillation is provided within 5 to 7 minutes, the survival rate from out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest is as high as 30 to 45 percent, according to the American Heart Association. It's not great, but is a whole lot better.

In one study, researchers found that school-based AED programs have a high rate of survival for students and others on school grounds.