science

Why lemon gin won’t quench your thirst (YOUR thirst)

How many of you are furry all over?

If your ass looks like this in a thong, today’s heat probably felt at least 10° higher than actual temperature.

I love summer, but not because it’s hot. I love the summer drinks, and today I’m thinking gin-and-lemonade—Gin-Ade (Gin-Aid, if you ever consider sponsoring a charity show to raise money for the LBHQ gin supply). Surely Gin-Ade will supply all the refreshment and hydration a hairy bear needs.

But apparently doctors say not.

According to Robert H. Shmerling, who has considerably more letters after his name than yours truly, even though a cold alcoholic bevy may sound refreshing, it’s not the wisest choice to quench thirst.

OMG, why??!

When you’re active in on a hot day, you lose water and salt, which has side effects*:

  • Lowered blood pressure
  • Muscle cramps
  • Dizziness
  • Tiredness
  • Lowered muscle function

For bears like me, no problemo. Bring on the gin. But for you guys these things can be bad, especially if you lose more water than salt. This makes blood vessels constrict, increasing cramps and prompting the brain to send a chemical messenger (anti-diuretic hormone, or ADH) instructing the kidneys to conserve water.

In tandem with this, the brain’s thirst center kicks in, so you drink more. If you’re sensible, you reach for some H2O. If you’re a hirsute, thong-wearing bear, you belly up to the bar for another Gin-Ade.

So…good, right? Either way, you’re taking in fluids and therefore rehydrating. Wrong, according to Dr. Shrmerling. Those smart ADH instructions your brain sent to your kidneys to conserve water—well, alcohol inhibits those instructions. Your kidneys release water instead of holding onto it, and next thing you know you’re taking six consecutive trips to the pissoir where you crack comments like, “You can only rent a beer—*hic*.”

So your poor dehydrated body can’t hang on to the water it needs. And get you—you’re so pissed that not only does your ADH turn off; so does your judgment, and you order another round. And when you’re fully pissed, you have no idea how thirsty you are.

Throughout all this, of course, you feel increasingly clever and attractive and generally scintillating to everyone. If no one disabuses you of these notions (and perhaps if they do), you drink more, chasing the dragon that is your own magical charisma. You’ve screwed up, friend, and you won’t realize it till tomorrow, when you wake up dry-mouthed with a thong on your head.

Drinking on a hot day can start a spiral into dangerous dehydration. If you’re lucky and you don’t venture into epic excess, you’ll just end up with a wicked hangover. But keep an eye on those dehydration symptoms, or your Gin-Ade bender could eventuate in much worse.

As for Gin-Aid, let’s make it happen! Watch this space for more info.

* Luckily I don’t have blood, muscles, brains, etc. Not even genitals, I suspect.

 

 

Magic underwear, magical thinking

Okay, so you guys know I’m a Canadian bear, but I still like to keep an eye on Mitt Romney and other nutty characters with grandiose visions of themselves in government. You don’t want to mess with magic underpants, especially when they exhibit skid marks. Speaking in Virginia yesterday, Romney revealed just such a brown stain when he said that students should get “as much education as they can afford.”

This while Romney:

  • supports cuts to grant money for education
  • supports undoing student loan reforms
  • takes heavy campaign donations from profiteering colleges
  • advises students to simply borrow money from their parents, “shop around” for education, or join the military if they can’t pay for college

Here’s another suggestion—one that might warm Romney’s cockles:

Get a free education from a creationist college.

Yes! If you’re willing to hunker down for some oxymoronic tutelage, you too can emerge from your years of schooling with something almost like a degree. In what, you ask? Well, read on:

How about Christian Ethics? (Note that these differ from non-Christian ethics, which endorse rape, pillage, murder, etc.)

How about Mind Manipulation? Learn the dangers of exposing yourself to outside information such as science. Manipulators are everywhere! Says the online brochure from Trinity Graduate School of Theology:

“Methods of desensitization are used in repeated exposure of immorality through television programs and commercials. Repeated lies are being told to convince Christians that those things that are right are now to be perceive as wrong and what is wrong should be accepted, by shifting values.”

I didn’t want to be a dick and edit the typos. This is, after all, a site of higher learning, so who am I to correct it? But doesn’t the program sound appealing? Wouldn’t you like to learn how to navigate through hazardous modern temptations?

And, for those returning to school after having families, there’s Parenting. Here’s a snippet from the curriculum:

“The internet is another source that teaches pornography, teaching of the suicide, drug addicts’ etc. parents could ask computer specialists who could help to hide sites on the internet not to be viewed by children or avoid them from being downloaded.”

I love that this college is savvy about porn (and really, what religious nutjob isn’t?). Too bad the college can’t seem to hire an editor…but that would cost money, and then it probably couldn’t afford to give away free education.

Now, this is all very well, but what if you want to study science? Creationist schools have that covered. AiG, for example, “teaches that ‘facts’ don’t speak for themselves, but must be interpreted…the Bible offers the best explanation of the world’s geology, anthropology, and astronomy.” Thus, the Grand Canyon’s many strata do not represent long time periods but rather extremely (!) accelerated periods of celestially assisted erosion. Likewise, a satisfactory wealth of transitional fossils will never be found, even while evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins wave them in the faces of creationists who insist they do not exist (“la, la, la, I can’t hear you!”).  And finally, the astronomy section’s large FAQ section explains why the earth is indeed truly the “spiritual center of the universe.”

Sounds good to me. Creationist colleges everywhere offer great deals ranging from free to cheap. Even those that charge a bundle are a bargain compared to most mainstream colleges. Sure, you’ll get spat out without a chance of competing against Ivy Leaguers in the work force. But at least you won’t go to hell.*

*Hell might very well be a place on earth. On this, Day Five of the Involuntary Dry-Out, I begin to understand it a little.

Why the world’s first human-to-animal hand transplant hasn’t happened yet

My Fellow Inebriates,

None of the Opposably Thumbed had time (they said) to do my typing yesterday, hence the drunken photos. This got me thinking about hand transplants. Has anyone ever grafted a human hand onto an animal’s wrist? There must be a doctor somewhere out who’s done it.

Jean-Michel Dubernard led the international team of physicians who performed the world’s first hand transplant in September 1998 on New Zealander Clint Hallam, who’d lost his hand years before in a sawing accident. The procedure gained popularity and next thing you know, people all over the world were getting new hands. And although Hallam ended up having his new hand amputated because of rejection issues, other patients have since received successful transplantations.

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.”

—Bruce Feirstein

Who wouldn’t want a face transplant?

My parents do their best not to be superstitious, but when I told my mum I was going to contact Dr. Dubernard about getting me some opposable thumbs, she said I was tempting fate. She said I should have some sensitivity about the seriousness of being without hands instead of pestering professionals who would never respond anyway.

She may be right. For one thing, Dubernard’s probably retired by now. For another, he’s had his share of past controversy. He weathered a shitstorm after it emerged that Clint Hallam was an ex-con who’d lost his hand in prison, and again when he was accused of performing a face transplant without following proper ethical and legal guidelines just because he wanted to be the first dude to do the procedure.

“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good.”

—E.B. White

And would I even fit the criteria?

  • Patients must undergo an evaluation and be approved by a committee. OMG! How would I hold up under such scrutiny? I’ve never even had a job interview.
  • Patients must be 18-65. I’m 6, but in bear years. Maybe they would waive this requirement.
  • Patients must be in good health. OMG! Maybe they won’t look at my liver.
  • Patients must have already amputated their hands below the elbow. OMFG! You mean I have to do this myself? Or get a friend to do it? OMG, who would do it for me? Maybe Scarybear.
  • Patients must understand the risks involved. Well, isn’t that what this post is all about?

A Scarybear face transplant. Who wouldn’t want that?

And what about the donor? I hadn’t really thought about where my new hands might come from.

  • The donor has to be brain-dead.
  • The donor’s family has to give consent. That might be tricky.
  • The donor has to match the recipient’s gender, blood type, and viral status. OMG! Probably species, too, although the criteria don’t say so particularly.

Reading this sort of freaked me out, people. It seems like a pretty drastic way to get myself some thumbs. And then—here’s the part I hadn’t thought about—the hands don’t even work that well anyway! At least not right away. They need to be rehabbed; the recipient has to do physio and take anti-rejection drugs, like, forever, which was poor old Clint’s falling-down—apparently he didn’t keep up with the meds.

“Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora.”

—David Brin

After reading all this stuff, I needed a drink. But nobody would open a bottle. So I tweeted everybody I thought might have booze, thinking that if a new, exotic elixir arrived at LBHQ then my parents would feel compelled to crack it open ASAP.

But apparently the world is a much crueler place than I ever knew.