Fish faking the big O

Apparently a female trout will act as though releasing eggs into the water (shaking her body vigorously) so that an undesirable male will ejeculate. He rolls over and goes to sleep, figuratively speaking, and she heads off and finds herself a more attractive trout to actually fertilise her eggs.

I suppose everyone wins.

Doesn't matter, had sex.

Misophonia

While I don't think I have better hearing than anyone else (well, maybe a bit, I certainly prefer the TV and music turned down lower than the rest of my family), I do find certain sounds very annoying. Doesn't everyone? Apparently not. My husband can sleep through a dripping tap, no problems, while I lie awake. Sniffing drives me crazy. But the worst is the sound of someone eating. It's ok if I am eating too because then I can only hear myself, which doesn't bother me. But other people! Yuck! The sound of the food smooshing around their mouth makes me feel ill. My husband usually gets home too late to have dinner with me and the kids, and I'm sure he would like me to sit with him to chat while he has his meal; but I just can't.

And there is a name for this ... disorder!

COSMOS magazine says that misophonia has been recognised in the last decade, and describes the inability to tolerate certain patterns of sound. And they quote someone saying: "I can't handle listening to people eat," he says. "It's the chomping and clicking sound - saliva getting sloshed around in there." (p43)

So, there is name for it!

Hair

Ever wondered how many hairs you have on your head? According to "The Doctors" on TV, everyone has about 100,000 hair follicles (I'm sure it varies a bit), of which 90% are in use at any given time.

So you have in the vicinity of 90,000 hairs. Quite a lot.

Fecal Transplants

If someone has persistant diarrhoea that doesn't respond to antibiotics, one solution of last resort is to give them a fecal transplant to replenish good bacteria in their intestine. Yes, that's right, they transfer someone else's poo into them.

Whose? Apparently someone they live with is best because this gives a match for the balance of bacteria creative by diet and environment. So generally a spouse or family member. I guess a flatmate would do. Kinda weird tho.

How? Well they used to do surgery on the colon to insert it, nowadays they find it is much quicker and less invasive to put a tube down your nostril. Yup, they pour poo down your nose. Someone else's poo. As a medical treatment.

We live in interesting times.

Luddite

While editing today I came across the term Luddite and didn't know what it meant, so looked it up on Wikipedia:

The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life. The movement was named after General Ned Ludd or King Ludd, a mythical figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest.[1]

The article was actually very interesting. In modern terms a Luddite is someone who is against technology; in the manuscript I was editing it was used to describe someone who didn't know how to use a computer for a particular task,

Bowers

According to my Macquarie Dictionary, the term bower (from card games like euchre and 500) for the jack is derived from the German Bauer meaning peasant.

And the joker is "often" called the "best bower" -- can't say I've heard that one.

Mosquitos and what a man is worth

Stephen Fry says that more than half of the people who have ever lived were killed by mosquitos.

And the ones that give you malaria don't hum.

And if we sold all our body parts a person would be worth more than 400,000 pounds -- but if broken down into component chemicals they would only be worth about 10 pounds, 50 pence of which would be from gold.