KSU does NOT have a gambling problem.

I repeat, KSU does NOT have a gambling problem. I cannot stress that enough. They're just really interested in sports odds.

In a study reminiscent of something from Guys and Dolls or any story that involves hustlers hanging around racetracks with "can't fail" systems, a Kansas State University professor says that there's a way to predict the outcome of some college football games. And it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Well, the contrast between humid and arid regions.

Apparently, this economics professor found that teams from humid regions end up getting their butts handed to them when they play in arid regions. Bookmakers take note. After all, the study was about ways to make the market for sports betting "more efficient," so I'm glad that someone gets to benefit from this state-funded research work, even if it's not starving orphans, cancer victims, or war amputees.

ATTENTION WORKFORCE:

You're screwed, for several reasons, according to the University of New Hampshire.

First, you've got to deal with a lot of punks joining the workforce. The recent crop of graduates is "entitlement minded," and I'm sure you can guess what that means. They think they deserve preferential treatement, are less likely to enjoy their job, and freely take credit for other people's successes while denying responsibility for any shortcomings. You know, kind of like the contributors to Brazen Careerist.

Once these entitlement-minded workers hit your workplace, they are going to be frustrated on the job and likely to abuse co-workers. That's right, if they don't have an objective view of their relative worth and their contributions, they end up feeling slighted on the job. Or, as Professor Paul Harvey puts it, they respond poorly to "perceived inequities in the rewards received by co-workers to whom psychologically entitled employees feel superior.” This surly attitude leads to lashing out, including workplace abuse like rumor mongering, ignoring promises, and slinging insults. So you've got that to look forward to.

The best part of all? When supervisors try to communicate with these entitled employees, the entitled workers end up feeling more frustrated, not less.

What I would like to see is how this study correlates with the one from University of Toronto that showed how women working for a female supervisor are more distressed. Does this have anything to do with the way that different genders view entitlement? I'm sure Penelope Trunk would have something to say about it.

Insomnia for Cancer

Staying up late slows the disease's progress.

I wish that was the case. It seems like the press release from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a bit of a tease in that respect. The title indicates that messing with your circadian clock can stop cancer growth.

It actually sounds kind of inconclusive to me. Original studies showed that nurses and flight attendants who messed up their circadian rhythm (the way their bodies tell night from day, usually because they were working through the night) ended up with higher rates of cancer. So scientists concluded that messing up your circadian clock by keeping odd hours gives you cancer.

Now it looks like actually messing with your genes, and restructuring the biological cells of your body to change the circadian clock can slow down cancer. They altered the genes of some mice and found that they lived longer. So staying up late is still a bad idea, cancer-wise, but they're trying to find better ways of altering the way your cells tell what time it is.

CEOs and Rockstars

Neither should have any expectation of privacy, says a professor at Neeley TCU School of Business.

It's the collision of two values that are important to me: A person's right to privacy, and a company's need for full disclosure. I think that company information like CEO salaries and expense reports should be available to the public. I also think that a person has a right to privacy, and that they shouldn't be forced to release their medical records.

Should the SEC be able to force CEOs to disclose information about any potentially life-threatening illnesses that they have? Why stop there? What if the CEO has a wife or child who is in the terminal stage of some sort of disease, wouldn't that be distracting? Should we require them to disclose that information?

Even when you look at celebrities, who the paparazzi claim are entitled to "no expectations of privacy," their medical records are still protected--people who sell their medical records to tabloids can be prosecuted for breaking the law. Why should someone have their medical history placed on display for all to see just because they're running a company?

The Real Reason You Smoke When You Drink

The risks cancel each other out.

Red wine prevents lung cancer. I don't think we need to elaborate on that point, but just in case, you may be interested in the study from the American Association for Cancer Research.

Sadly, it's only red wine, not beer, white wine, or liquor, but it could be worse. You average two percent less of a risk for lung cancer with each glass of red wine you consume per month. Booze hounds who sucked down one to two glasses of red wine per day reduced their risk of lung cancer by 60 percent. Of course, the scientists were quick to note that the most effective way to reduce lung cancer risk is not to smoke at all, but they're probably the same people who think that you should wear a helmet while riding a bicycle and wash your hands after going to the bathroom, afraid to live life on the edge.

There is one downside to this that I can think of. The French? Yeah, they're gonna be insufferable, all hanging around longer than ever in their cafes with their surly attitudes and refusing to get lung cancer. I guess it's good news for beret salesmen, though.

This Is Why I Don't Play Football

Not professionally, anyway. I totally have the skills, I just don't want to end up with lead poisoning.

It turns out that if the microscopic rubber particles from astroturf are ingested, some of their more harmful chemical components can be absorbed into the body. This includes lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (that's right, you heard me. Polycyclic hydrocarbons.) and zinc. The zinc means that astroturf isn't just going to kill us, it's going to take down non-human species in the environment as well.

All of our modern conveniences are going to kill us, one way or another.

Medicine That Will Kill You

Great. The internet is a hotbed of plagairism, theft, and now murder. Or at least criminal negligence that will get someone killed.

Over one-fifth of ayurvedic medicines purchased online contain lead, mercury, or arsenic. Worse yet, it was the medicines manufactured in the United States that were more likely to be tainted. Buying any kind of medicine online is sounding more and more like a terrible idea.

Cancer Lasers

As in, lasers that shoot at cancer cells to kill them, not lasers that shoot cancer cells at people, or give people cancer. Lord knows we have enough non-lasers giving people cancer that we don't need any other sources.

In what they're calling a "multimodal" (read: multi-step and wicked complicated) approach, the University of Virginia is working with semiconductor nanostructures called quantum dots.

First the patient takes a drug. Then they get bombarded with radiation. The radiation triggers the quantum dots, which start emitting light. The light increases the effectiveness of the drug, which kills the cancer. The tough part is calibrating these approaches so that none of them are harmful to the patient individually, while the lethal overlap occurs only in the cancerous areas.

I have to say that on a mollecular level, this looks a lot more cool than just boiling water.