I'm too tired to blog...here's some sexy pictures.

Wah wah, I know. We've all been here. Stupid work getting in the way of blog writing.

So just to keep things fresh and alive! I refer you to my style blog, Stylaholic, which I actually updated today.

Men, don't let the 'style' word scare you: the post is about Bardot. As in Brigitte. As in the First Mover of Hotness.

Enjoy, and I'll get back to my blathering about stuff like this and that, and sometimes even this (OMG, who could've seen it coming? Colour me shocked.), very soon.

Mwah mes cheries! Enjoy!

Best wishes for a happy mutation

“i miss you
but i haven't met you yet
so special
but it hasn't happened yet
you are gorgeous
but i haven't met you yet
i remember
but it hasn't happened yet”

-Bjork, “I Miss You”

Ladies and gentlemen, the Freaking Coolest Health Discovery of Our Lifetime has finally hit the newswires. That’s right, while you were laughing at Heather and Jessica’s witty lambaste of Beyonce’s bizarre Oprah show gown, people whose brains threaten to unbalance the polar axis were busy figuring out why you’re such a procrastinator.

Ah, there's nothing like a fresh new reason to abdicate personal responsibility. Epigenetics, people. Mark my words: it will change human life as we know it. Here's some reading material for you:

Laypeople

People comfortable with science and scientific terminology

Adult virgins who have developed their own coding language

Epigenetics really, really simplified

Your gassy digestive system? Blame it on your great-great-great grandfather-to-the-power-of-45 and his love of savana wheatsprouts. Your fear of kittens? Might be down to that time your great-great grandmother-to-the-power-of-38 moved the whole damn family to sabre-tooth tiger country. (What was she thinking?)

We all know that most of our physical traits are hardwired into us through our genes. Since the discovery of DNA, scientists have been looking at ‘inheritance’—how we inherit genetic traits from our parents—and how genes affect non-physical things like behaviour. It’s the old Psych 101 ‘nature versus nurture’ discussion.

Well, the braniacs have recently begun to understand that in fact nature and nurture are not mutually exclusive. There’s a meta-system, a chemical soup if you will, that switches genes off and on—not in the womb, but over the course of our lives. This is epigenetics. Epi: prefix, Greek, means "upon."

So?

This epigenetic system influences the very core of who you are, genetically. It decides to switch the genes you are made of on and off. If it switches off, say, your genetic predisposition to cancer…well, you’re laughing, aren’t you?

One of the coolest things about epigenetics is that it suggests that our day-to-day experience and living environment affect who we are at a genetic level, on an ongoing basis--not just when our parents were 'swapping chromosomes' thirty-some years ago (nudge nudge wink wink). Not only does it affect who we are genetically over time, but we then pass this genetic information on to our kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, etc, so they are literally genetic reflections of our lives and experiences.

Okay, maybe I'm taking this too far now, but consider this: Does a certain scent trigger an inexplicable sadness or joy in you? Maybe it’s the scent of the old country—a place you’ve never been and yet which your body remembers. Do particular sounds or images seem oddly familiar though you’ve never encountered them before? It’s not inconceivable that you are having a genetic memory of something that happened to somebody else. If true, that is freaking cool.

Healing, responsibility, blah, blah, blah

Epigenetics has the potential to completely change the way we treat disease. One Canadian researcher at the forefront of this branch of science started with the objective of understanding the genetic causes of cancer. God love CBC, they had a great radio spot on him this morning (The Currrent, with Anna Maria Tremonti). He talked about experiments he’s doing in the lab where he is successfully reversing cancer in rats. Reversing cancer.

If we understand the epigenetic system—the metadata and chemicals that switch genetic bits and bytes on or off—we have the potential to control our genome through drugs. (!) Behaviour modification for rapists, healing for the diseased: this could change everything. Of course, knowing humans, we’ll also be dealing with mail-order perfecto-babies and cloned soldier-slave drones, but silver linings, people, silver linings.

Ah but with deeper knowledge comes great responsibility, Danielsan. When we didn’t realize we had such a profound genetic impact on our great-great grandchildren, our guilt extended only to the trash-heap of a planet we’re leaving them. Now we know we’re also passing along our personal turmoil, suffering, and bad habits.

"This work is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in scientific thinking. It will change the way the causes of disease are viewed, as well as the importance of lifestyles and family relationships. What people do no longer just affects themselves, but can determine the health of their children and grandchildren in decades to come. "We are," as Marcus Pembrey says, "all guardians of our genome.""

Oh. My. God. I don't think I can handle that kind of pressure. And I don't even have kids yet.

But it also means that we make them better, healthier humans through our joys and our successes and our surprising capacity to be good to each other.

Ye Olde Me

Hey you.

That’s right you, ya little whippersnapper....

...Let me tell ya something about ageing:

You know how you thought you’d be young forever? First person to hit 85 without a single wrinkle? "Kids? I’ll have ‘em later." Don’t like yer job? "I’ll just go back to school."

Bah!

You thought ageing was all….gradual-like…didn’t ya? Like, ya get a little older every day so nobody’ll notice—least of all you? A frog doesn’t notice when it’s being boiled alive, eh?

Well that’s all lies. LIES!

Aging is…er…quantum-like. You know what I mean by quantum, dontcha? One day you’re walking around like a strutty little peacock. Next day you get up from your chair and WHAM! your goddam foot falls off. Shatters into a thousand different pieces. For no good reason other than quantum ageing.

Nope, ageing is not a gradual thing. You never know what part’s gonna fall off or flatten out next. Pffffft! There go your butt cheeks. Paaaaaaahhhhst! There goes your face. Swwwivvvvfff! Your chin just sprouted pubic hair. POP! Looks like somebody needs bifocals.

So enjoy it while you’ve got it, cuz one day you’ll wake up and find your legs don’t want to straighten out and that ‘crick’ in your neck is actually your spine, permanently locked at a 47-degree angle.

I’m off to take some nudie pictures. My boobs aren’t scheduled to fall until June.

(Now go have some fun! While you can.)

This Just In: Men and Women? Totally Different.

Ah those wacky gender biologists continue to issue forth new and exciting proclamations from betwixt their butt cheeks. Gems like this:

“Men need to take as good care of their bodies as they do of their cars and trucks, and they don’t.”

Got that, boys? Gotta get your sparkplugs jostled by your meat-cage technician once in a while. Open ‘er up, take a look under the hood. See if she needs a lighter-grade motor oil. That kinda thing.

According to the twelve thousandth NYTimes article on this topic, there's a big crisis now in men’s health. It's being ignored, you see. Cuz women are getting all the attention. Stoopid attention-stealing women.

That’s right: the mean fembot gender biologistas don’t want you to focus on men. NO. Don’t look over there. Don’t gaze at that male embryo and wonder why it’s much more likely to be miscarried. Eyes forward now. Stay focused on the pink ribbon.

And so the heroic men’s health researchers plod away in their secret laboratories, trying desperately to understand male health within the greater context of the overarching ‘norm’: women’s health.

Wait.

WTF?

Wasn’t it only 20 years ago that women’s health was a nonexistent research discipline? That women were diagnosed as an offshoot of exclusively male health research? And now we’ve gone so far over to the girl side that we can’t afford to care for the boys?

***

I don’t understand what the ‘issue’ is here. Is the NYTimes just obsessed with pitting the genders against each other, or is there a real problem?

More importantly, does this mean the future holds novels with titles like “How Archie Got His Moves Back” and “Grimey Secrets of the Ya-Ya Brotherhood”? I need to know: will this new matriarchy lead to phenomena like ‘dick lit?’ I need to know right now.

***

Of course we need to understand how to keep men alive longer. I mean, sometimes they give off odd odours, but we still love them after all.

But to understand how to keep them around, we need to understand why they die sooner and more easily:

“Even when men and women have the same disease, we often find that men are more likely to die..”

Now, what could be the reason that men die sooner? What. Ever. Could. It. Be? Could it be that they scoff when their wives try to get them to eat better? Drink their faces off with their playoff buddies? Throw themselves from airplanes for fun? Become stressed so easily that they’ve never put together a single IKEA item fully clothed?

“Behavior plays a role in some of the extra deaths and illnesses among men: they tend to be more aggressive than women and to take more risks. Men smoke at higher rates than women, drink more alcohol and are less likely to wear seat belts or use sunscreen. Men also suffer more accidental deaths and serious injuries and are more likely to die of injuries and car accidents. They are three times as likely to be victims of murder, four times as likely to commit suicide and, as teenagers, 11 times as likely to drown.”

Still…if only there was some way to figure out why men die earlier…

***

One of the things this new men’s health movement is focusing on is getting more men in the doctor’s office.

You men hate seeing doctors, don’t you? Which is why the secret men’s health researchers developed a Trojan horse of sorts:

“New drugs for erectile dysfunction have helped bring men into doctors’ offices in recent years, experts say…”

…But sadly, that hasn’t been enough. What could be the solution? A shift in perspective wherein men don’t favour their erections over, say, the pump that circulates blood through their body and brain so that they can continue to exist?

Nah. That’ll never work.

***

I don’t know what the solution is. Clearly, the psychologists aren’t going to be much help:

“Many psychologists think the problems are rooted in how boys are raised.”

Yawn. Call me when you are no longer a parody of yourself, psychological profession.

***

So what do you think the problem is? Why do men die earlier? Is it biology? Is it risk-taking?

Let me pre-empt one guaranteed response: We die earlier cuz we have to live with women. Guffaw guffaw.

But what will Rummy do next?

Still in celebratory mode here at Whyioughtta...

And yet there's a small circle of doubt besmirchifying the hoo-ha-ha.

You have to wonder: what will Rummy do now? Will he find himself guest-starring on The Surreal Life? Will he start a journal?

June 1, 2007: Invaded (sigh)...the fridge.

Seriously, do we want to let this force loose on civilian society? What if it turns out we were safer when he was under the watchful eye of the media? Has anyone thought this through???

Hey hey hey goodbye

Watch out...door don't...hitcha...ass...on way out...s'long...arrivaderchi...etc.

It's a good news kind of week.

Boo-yeah boo-hoo.

Buh-bye.