08.12.08
Got the hiccups? Then ya must be a fish…
Chicago anatomist Neil Shubin has revealed and amazing explanation for one of mankind’s great mysteries: why-oh-why d we sometimes get the hiccups? In his book Your Inner Fish he writes that the hiccups are caused by an ancient trigger in our brainstem. Something that evolution hasn’t completely polished away. apparently our brainstems are inherited by prehistoric amphibians and they still, once in every while, give us some weird signals that cause us to get the hiccups. Apparently these signals are comparable to the gill breathing of fish.
I guess this would explain why the chances of getting the hiccups increase when you’ve been drinking too much…
The hiccups are a case of atavism; evolutionary throwback. And as soon as your brain discovers that, surprise surprise, you actually have not had gills for millions of years because you have evolved into this fine human being, you will stop having the hiccups.
So, as a remedy for the hiccups; reading a book on philosophy would help loads better than drinking a glass of water upside down… with the water; it will take your brain a lot longer to be convinced that you actually are not a fish…
08.07.08
Olympic village
One good thing that comes form having the Olympics in China is that we hear a lot more about China these days. Not only the ‘bad’ things concerning the political, press and human rights situation, but also the good things, like their ancient culture. Nonetheless, it’s a quite meagre result. Looking at the reports coming out of China, not many ‘real’ changes have taken place.
Sports itself should not be political. And the sportsjournalists I see, hear and read from certainly agree on that. They focus on the athletes and leave the stuff that ‘really matters’ to others. Which is a good thing, in general. However, last week I saw a television interview by one of those sportsjournalists that left a nasty taste. The item focussed on the ‘Olympic Village’, which is the area where all the olympic athletes live. Apparantly this olympic vilage is the most beautiful olympic village ever, filled with all sorts of luxury for the olympic teams. This, in the eyes of the reporter and the interviewed athletes was a real good thing and showed what great organisers the Chinese are.
Sports itself should not be political. On the other hand, it should also not be completely stupid and ignorant of the world around you. I am very happy for the athletes that they’ll be living in such wonderful conditions during the three to four weeks they’ll be staying in Beijing. I would however have expected them to have shown some sympathy for the thousands of Chinese people that have been evicted from their homes, seen their neighbourhoods teared down and are in many cases now living on the streets just so you can have that airconditioned appartment. For three to four weeks.
The Olympics can never be a non-political event, no matter how hard you try.
08.03.08
Wikipedia is fucking with my head
Wikipedia wants to persuade me that the letter ‘A’ originated from a picture of an Ox head.
I mindlessly stared at the images that seem to serve as evidence for this… but I don’t see it.
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Fortunately there’s also a whole lot of information there. None of which is very convincing either. On the bright side, all the surplus text looks very intimidating and confusing. In fact, there is so much ‘beside the point’ information that it managed to distract me from the claim this whole page started with (the letter ‘A’ can be traced to a ‘pictogram’ of an ox head). I noticed the following mindshoft taking pkace inside my brain: “.. uhhhh… since they managed to write all that extra stuff and used words like ‘Etruscan’, ‘glottal stop’ and ‘hebrew alpeh’ that initial claim must be true… what was it again”. so now I believe that the letter ‘A’ is actually a simplified ox head picture, even though I can no longer recall why…
Convincing and easy to understand evidence is overrated anyway.
