California ground squirrels and rock squirrels chew up rattlesnake skin and smear it on their fur to mask their scent from predators, according to a new study by researchers at UC Davis. Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in animal behavior at UC Davis, observed ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) and rock squirrels (Spermophilus variegates) applying snake scent to themselves by picking up pieces of shed snakeskin, chewing it and then licking their fur. Adult female squirrels and juveniles apply snake scent more often than adult males, which are less vulnerable to predation by snakes, Clucas said. The scent probably helps to mask the squirrel's own scent, especially when the animals are asleep in their burrows at night, or to persuade a snake that another snake is in the burrow. full story

These squirrels are amazing: hot tails and perfume!

Researchers have discovered a subtle new difference between men and women -- this one occurring in the realm of eating. Kristen Harrison, a professor of speech communication, has found gender differences related to eating and body image. In the new study of observed eating behavior in a social setting, young men and women who perceived their bodies as being less than "ideal" ate differing amounts of food after they were shown images of "ideal-bodied" people of their own gender. Lead researcher Kristen Harrison found that "in the presence of same-gender peers, certain women eat less and certain men eat more following exposure to ideal-body images -- 'certain' in this case referring to women and men who have discrepancies between their actual body and the kind of body they think their peers idealize," Harrison said. "In a nutshell," Harrison said, "we found that, following exposure to ideal-body images, men who are insecure about their bodies eat more in front of other men, while women who are insecure about their bodies eat less in front of other women." ... The 30 images for the female groups were drawn from fashion, lifestyle and fitness magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Vogue, Shape and Elle. The images for the male groups were from magazines such as Men's Health, Men's Fitness and Muscle & Fitness. ... For example, "If a woman is a regular user of ideal-body media such as fitness and fashion magazines, not to mention television programming featuring advertisements for diet foods and products, she may be moved to abstain from eating several times a day -- even when she is hungry -- resulting in significant weight loss over time." Harrison noted that people thinking about the national obesity epidemic might respond to such abstinence with, "Good! This is what should happen." "But the fact that this happens even to skinny women means that such weight loss could be unhealthy," Harrison said. "Similarly, a man who is vulnerable to ideal-male images due to the presence of an actual body vs. ideal body self-discrepancy may be moved to eat even when he is not hungry, just to reassure himself and other men that he is sufficiently masculine." full article

Shock of shocks!!! You show women images of starving waifs as ideal, they eat less. You show men images of musclebound behemoths as ideal, they eat more. Who pays for this crap? Oh yeah, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

New analysis of the language and gesture of South America's indigenous Aymara people indicates a reverse concept of time. Contrary to what had been thought a cognitive universal among humans – a spatial metaphor for chronology, based partly on our bodies' orientation and locomotion, that places the future ahead of oneself and the past behind – the Amerindian group locates this imaginary abstraction the other way around: with the past ahead and the future behind. Appearing in the current issue of the journal Cognitive Science, the study is coauthored, with Berkeley linguistics professor Eve Sweetser, by Rafael Nunez, associate professor of cognitive science and director of the Embodied Cognition Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. "Until now, all the studied cultures and languages of the world – from European and Polynesian to Chinese, Japanese, Bantu and so on – have not only characterized time with properties of space, but also have all mapped the future as if it were in front of ego and the past in back. The Aymara case is the first documented to depart from the standard model," said Nunez. full article

Time is subjective.

The [rhythm] method relies on abstinence during the most fertile period of a woman's menstrual cycle. For a woman who has regular 28 day cycles, this is around days 10 to 17 of the cycle. It is the only method of birth control condoned by the Catholic Church, because it doesn't interfere with conception, so allowing nature to take its course. It is believed that the method works because it prevents conception from occurring. But says Professor Bovens, it may owe much of its success to the fact that embryos conceived on the fringes of the fertile period are less viable than those conceived towards the middle. We don't know how much lower embryo viability is outside this fertile period, contends Professor Bovens, but we can calculate that two to three embryos will have died every time the rhythm method results in a pregnancy. ... Professor Bovens cites Randy Alcorn, a US pro-life campaigner, who has equated global oral contraceptive use to chemical abortion that is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of embryos, or unborn children, every year. ... Regular condom users, whose choice of contraception is deemed to be 95% effective in preventing pregnancy, would "cause less embryonic deaths than the rhythm method," he says. full article

This is more to do with the anti-contraception movement than it does with the pro-life movement, as there are plenty of pro-contraception pro-lifers. But this really does make the anti-contraception camp, and especially the Catholic Church, look a bit more ridiculous (as if that really needed to be done anyway).

Of course, we all know that the best form of birth control is homosexuality.