Category Archives: Science And Society

Science And Society, Weird

The Ideal B00B

14 Comments

Nice work, if you can get it:

Though it would be easy for cynics to assume otherwise, this was a serious study based on a series of scientific measurements and not on the opinions of Mallucci.

‘We used computer measuring tools to examine the dimensions and proportions of each pair of breasts, identifying four features common to all of them,’ he explains.

The features analysed were the dimensions of the upper and lower pole, medical terms that describe the areas above and below the nipple; plus the angle at which the nipple points and the slope of the upper pole.

‘The study revealed that in all cases the nipple ‘‘meridian’’ – the horizontal line drawn at the level of the nipple – lay at a point where, on average, the proportion of the breast above it represented 45 per cent of overall volume of the breast and below it 55 per cent.

‘In the majority of cases the upper pole was either straight or concave, and the nipple was pointing skywards at an average angle of 20 degrees. In all cases the breasts demonstrated a tight convex lower pole – a neat but voluminous curve.

The science is settled.

Science And Society, Space, Space Science

A Hypernova?

21 Comments

Eta Carinae could kill us all next year. I hate when that happens:

Mario Livio, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland warns that Eta Carinae could be “seen to explode at any time.” [BBC News]

Esteemed NASA scientist Stefan Immler at the Goddard Space Flight Center thinks Eta Carinae could very well explode in our lifetime, or even in the next few years.

Well, maybe Earth has a little more time, right? Well, maybe not.

Some astrophysicists at the European Space Agency have suggested it’s quite possible, based on observational analysis, that the killer star has already gone hypernova thousands of years ago and the speeding death rays could inundate Earth in as little as a year.

How exciting. Of course, that something is “possible” is not to say that it is likely. The problem with this kind of event is that getting off the planet is no protection, per se, though if we were spacefaring, we could at least have shelters ready, and put out pickets in the outer solar system to give us some warning, since there’s some evidence that gamma rays are subluminal.

Science And Society, Social Commentary

Are Most Women Bisexual?

35 Comments

Wouldn’t shock me.

I think another factor is that while men tend to compete on power and money, rather than looks, women primarily compete on appearance, so they have to be more naturally attuned to what makes women attractive. But I think that a lot of men are bis3xual, too. Anyone who really believes that sexuality is a “choice” has to be, logically, and it would explain the behavior of a lot of sailors and prisoners. But the only way I’d do it with a guy would be if I were raped.