Links - 20th April 2010

"Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful." - Kurt Vonnegut

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Thinner girls more at risk of breast cancer - "Girls who are thin at the age of seven are at higher risk of breast cancer after menopause than chubbier counterparts and more vulnerable to a worse type of tumour, according to a Swedish study published on Wednesday. The surprising conclusion is made by Karolinska Institutet researchers who looked at data from 2,818 Swedish breast cancer patients and 3,111 healthy counterparts. “Large body type at age seven years was associated with a decreased risk of post-menopausal breast cancer,” said lead researcher Jingmei Li"
Good luck to Singaporean girls

Cambridge Union pole dancing class - "We are of the opinion that classes like these are a way of empowering women, as well as being a fantastic way to exercise and have fun together with other women. If an intelligent, independent woman wishes to learn a particular form of dance in respectable surroundings, we see nothing degrading in that"

Save money by changing your printer font - "Because different fonts require different amounts of ink to print, you could be buying new printer cartridges less often if you wrote in, say, Century Gothic rather than Arial... some fonts that use less ink, including Century Gothic, are also wider... ink comprises the main cost of a printout, but the environmental costs of paper are probably higher"

14-year-old blind kid, angry and alone, discovered that he possessed a superpower — one that put him in the cross hairs of the FBI - "Telephone phreaking isn’t new: The practice, which dates back half a century, was the forerunner of computer hacking. In 1957, a blind eight-year-old named Joe Engressia accidentally discovered that he could whistle at the precise frequency — 2,600 hertz — used to control phone networks. A pioneering phreak named John Draper later realized that the free whistles given out in Cap’n Crunch cereal boxes also replicated the exact same tone. Kids with a mischievous streak and too much free time were soon competing to see who could achieve the most elaborate phone hack. A tech-savvy student named Steve Wozniak, who would soon invent something called Apple with his friend Steve Jobs, once used a series of high-pitched whistles to make a free international call to the Vatican to prank the pope."

Elderly Gay Couple Forcibly Separated, Abused, Robbed By County Officials in California
Golden indeed

The paradoxical nature of hunter-gatherer diets: meat-based, yet non-atherogenic. - "Field studies of twentieth century hunter-gathers (HG) showed them to be generally free of the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease (CVD)... Based upon limited ethnographic data (n=58 HG societies) and a single quantitative dietary study, it has been commonly inferred that gathered plant foods provided the dominant energy source in HG diets... In this review we have analyzed the 13 known quantitative dietary studies of HG and demonstrate that animal food actually provided the dominant (65%) energy source, while gathered plant foods comprised the remainder (35%). This data is consistent with a more recent, comprehensive review of the entire ethnographic data (n=229 HG societies) that showed the mean subsistence dependence upon gathered plant foods was 32%, whereas it was 68% for animal foods... The high reliance upon animal-based foods would not have necessarily elicited unfavorable blood lipid profiles because of the hypolipidemic effects of high dietary protein (19-35% energy) and the relatively low level of dietary carbohydrate (22-40% energy). Although fat intake (28-58% energy) would have been similar to or higher than that found in Western diets, it is likely that important qualitative differences in fat intake, including relatively high levels of MUFA and PUFA and a lower omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio, would have served to inhibit the development of CVD. Other dietary characteristics including high intakes of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and phytochemicals along with a low salt intake may have operated synergistically with lifestyle characteristics (more exercise, less stress and no smoking) to further deter the development of CVD."
So much for triumphant feminist crowing dissing ""scientific" narratives"

Smelly litter box mistaken for meth lab, neighborhood evacuated - "Hazmat teams tested a Westland, Michigan home after the landlord said she thought the former tenants were running a methamphetamine lab inside"

Nintendo Wii made me nympho! - "A WOMAN has gone from Nintendo to nympho after a fall from her Wii Fit board turned her into a sex addict. Randy Amanda Flowers needs 10 sex sessions a day after the slip-up... Single Amanda, 24, from Harpurhey, Manchester, said: “With no cure I just have to try to control my passion by breathing deeply. Hopefully one day I’ll find a superstud who can satisfy me”"

KittehRoulette - refresh for random kittehs of the internet

Students swayed by high uni fees - "She has nothing but praise for the inner-city bordello where she has worked as a well paid prostitute for the past year. "It is clean and safe, my customers are real gentlemen and the brothel operator treats me very well... The hours fit in very well with my heavy student workload"... A confidential State Government report has found up to 25 per cent of the prostitutes working in Victoria's brothel industry are students. "Overall, students found sex work an effective mechanism to manage study, work and finances," the report said. The report revealed one international student got a shock when her university tutor arrived as a client at the legal brothel she was working in, as did he... male international students were working as managers within the industry"

The shape of things: women's cups runneth over - "As a nation we are getting bigger all over, but the number of ''average-sized'' women with above average bust lines has ballooned, with the most common bra cup size increasing from a B to a DD in the past 50 years. Women's health experts blame a range of environmental and hormonal factors, while lingerie specialists say some women have realised they have been wearing the wrong bra size for years... Ms Ferlito says she can spot a breast enlargement a mile away. ''They're difficult to fit, not a natural shape. The breast doesn't fall naturally into the bra''"
My favourite line from the video: "Remember, girls, a great-fitting bra is the foundation to any outfit"