Politics and Manhood

A study, based on saliva samples taken during Election Night 2008, reveals that testosterone levels of male John McCain supporters dropped dramatically. Male supporters of President Obama’s candidacy had no corresponding boost in testosterone levels, and women’s hormone levels remained steady. Surveys also revealed that McCain supporters felt submissive, controlled, and unhappy. The findings prove that politics can affect males in the same way that physical contests do.

What is Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

In 1933, Fritz Zwicky averaged the mass of certain galaxies and obtained a value far greater than expected - he determined there was an unseen "dark matter" that allowed for the discrepancy. Dark Matter was determined to be a directly undetectable state of matter with powerful gravitational effects.

But in 1998 an even more shocking discovery revealed that despite this 'dark' matter pulling galaxies together, the universe itself was expanding ... and at an increasing speed. While dark matter was keeping everything together, a stronger force was pushing everything apart! Moreover, galaxies were not being stretched ... instead, more space was being created. The same amount of acceleration of this expansion was observed irrespective of position.

This means that "dark energy" is uniform and also much stronger than dark matter.

It doesn't stop there ... the visible matter, as immense as it is, comprises only 4% of all the matter in the universe - dark matter is believed to take up 21% of the pie, with dark energy taking up an unbelievable 75% of distribution in the universe!

Here's an easy to understand documentary explaining the phenomenon.

The 'Location' behind Perfect Pitch

Perfect pitch (PP) was considered a genetic anomaly - identical twins are far more likely than fraternal twins to have PP, and ~50% of people with PP have relatives who also have it. New studies, however, reveal that PP is far more common form of "speech" which can be learned.

In the study, English speakers read the same list of words on different days and their pitch for any given word varied by as much as 2 notes. But speakers of tonal languages (e.g. Vietnamese, Mandarin) hit the exact pitch, day after day, and an unusual number had PP. In Mandarin, depending on pitch, 'ma' can mean "mother," "horse," "hemp," or "to scold."

Pitch range was tied to geography so much that researchers guessed where subjects or their parents grew up. Range predictability suggests pitch recognition develops early on, perhaps in the womb.

Moreover, researchers recommend giving children musical instruments, preferably with labeled notes (e.g. a color-coded xylophone) as PP people have a higher rate of synesthesia - seeing a color when hearing a sound.

Cultural Diversity - Its Pathological Roots

Researchers at University of New Mexico and the University of British Columbia have argued in a series of published papers that disease determines much of our behavior.

Where diseases are common, people are less open to new experiences, more xenophobic and mean to strangers to avoid new diseases. When people avoid strangers, communication breaks down which creates different cultures and languages over the long run. For example: Sweden has few diseases and 15 languages vs. Ghana's (of similar size) many diseases and 89 languages.

We even saw this trend with the outbreak of swine flu - some started shaking hands less, wearing masks, even PDA declined - "Handshakes were skipped at college commencements. Mexicans were urged to not kiss on the cheek. Churches stopped having parishioners drink out of a common, holy cup."

It will be a long time before mainstream science accepts the research as truth, but it is food for thought.

Bombing the Moon ... for Science

Scientists crashed a booster rocket and its mother craft near the moon's south pole to discover what lies beneath. Results were inconclusive, but enough data was gathered to tell if the crater contains frozen water.

Results will be published soon.

Breakthrough in Human's Evolutionary History

Science has published a 17-year study of the oldest known skeleton of a putative human ancestor, widening the evolutionary gap between humans and chimps.

40+ researchers from 11 countries studied Ardipithecus ramidus, and discovered it had a brain and body like a chimpanzee, had hands much more like a human than a chimp or ape, and walked upright. The find is incredible as scientists had anticipated the ancestors of humans to be an intermediary between a chimp (man's closest genetic cousin) and man. This means that as of now, science believes man and chimps common ancestor was neither human, nor chimpanzee, but a distinct, separate species from which apes, chimps, and humans evolved.

Here's NBC Nightly News video.