Are High Heels Really Worth It?

I think we need to draw a line between cosmetic surgery and ridiculous nonsense that puts people in danger without any real benefits. It looks like The American Orthopaedic Food and Ankle Society agrees with me. They think that you should avoid cosmetic foot surgery.

I think it's worth noting, that of the three surgeries given as examples of unnecessary "foot facelifts," two of them had to do with wearing high heels (making feet narrower and changing the shape of the little toe, if you were curious). Is a fashion accessory really something worth risking permanent physical damage over?

Note that I said fashion accessory. This is about changing the look of your feet to fit into shoes. Getting a nip, tuck, or liposuction for a bathing suit is about an article of clothing, and the subject of a completely separate post. Still, when you are risking (and here we'll quote Dr. Michael Pinzur of Loyola University Health System) "infections, pain, scarring and nerve damage," you might want to ask yourself if the surgery is really necessary.

Pinheads Multitasking

I hate mosquitoes. I don't know why, but I always have the worst reaction to their bites, and I never notice them landing on me. They always manage to dodge me at the last second when I try to swat them, too.

I just don't get how something so small can be so crafty. I mean, I've got fingernail trimmings that are bigger than their brains, and yet they still get the job done, sneaking in, drinking up, and getting away clear. (I wish I could pull that trick at bars!)

University of Adelaide is thinking about bug brains, too. Professor David O'Carroll has been looking at the way that insects are able to judge motion and speed. It turns out that some parts of their brain pull double duty--their vision center also takes into account different light patterns and uses that to judge speed. O'Carroll points out that insects can have as much as 30% of their brain devoted to the visual system, which is more than other animals, so it makes sense that they'd apply it to different tasks in order to get the most efficient usage of space.

Beating Dead Horses and What People Want

So I guess that Indiana University got the rights to some video clips of speed dating in Germany, and they are mining that data just as hard as they possibly can.

As previously reported, Indiana University combed through the footage trying to figure out if speed daters who appeared interested in their partner would indicate genuine interest when they filled out the card at the end of the date. The findings announced that women were tricky and men were easy to read, (but this may only apply in Germany). Building on that dramatic breakthrough, Indiana University looked at the footage again.

Their shocking new finding? You will look to the opinions of others to determine whether or not someone is hot. I'll give you a moment to collect yourself. After all, who would have thought that things are more attractive when it looks like someone else wants them?

To summarize: research subjects found people more attractive if they watched a video of someone else finding them attractive first. That, and Indiana University needs to do something besides watching old clips of German speed-dating sessions.

Oh, Missouri

Why are your kids so filthy? And I ask because I care, not because I want to pass judgment on you or anything. Seriously, your school kids need serious help.

I'm talking about treatment-resistant ringworm. It's a fungus, not a worm, but the fact remains: 7% of your elementary school children are covered in drug-resistant fungus. That's just nasty.

Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics has issued a press release about it, and hopefully people will pay attention. Sharing hats, combs, anything that touches your head? Knock that crap off right away.

How come rich people get all the safety?

It must be nice to be able to afford not to die in a car accident. Actual science from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences shows that car safety features do a better job of protecting rich people. (And by "do a better job of," I actually mean "are present to.")

For their study, they went around and compared vehicle safety features like crash test ratings, air bags, etc. They cross-checked this information with ZIP codes, and compared how much money people were earning in that ZIP code (median income) to how safe their cars were. Care to guess the results?

That's right, the rich people had the safer cars. The researchers point out that usually the cutting-edge safety features are installed as optional (and pricey!) components on high-end cars. Later, as their effectiveness has been proven, it eventually "trickles down" and becomes standard features in all cars, regarless of their price point.

Still, it must be nice to be able to afford better protection against injuries from car accidents.

Your Love of Crabs Will Kill Us All

Congratulations, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Your research into blue crabs is going to poison the environment and kill us all. Sorry, what I meant to say was that UAB has made an exciting new discovery about a potential food source, and I'm sure that nothing could possibly go wrong!

People eat blue crabs. People only eat blue crabs when they're molting. Molting season happens only the spring and early summer. UAB scientists want to make blue crabs molt on demand so that they can be eaten year round.

I see their point. You can start setting up blue crab operations all along the coast and it will create jobs and make more food available. But is it really a good idea to force those kinds of changes? Especially when you consider that factory farms raising salmon are little more than floating ocean pens; how do you keep this chemical you're giving to the blue crabs from getting into the ocean at large? And then what happens once it starts affecting organisms in the wild?

Oh, I'm sure it'll be nothing to worry about.

Hey, Doctors! Time to Feng Shui it Up!

So, the Mayo Clinic conducted a study to see how patients were affected by the rooms where they met with their doctors. (Not the exam rooms where they run all the tests on you, the rooms where you actually sit and talk with your doctor about what's wrong with you and what might go wrong with you.)

It was an okay test, I suppose. It turns out that in "experimental" setups where patients sat next to their doctor and looked at the same computer screen during the consultation, patients were more engaged in their treatement and received a better quality of care. That seems like kind of a no-brainer; if you give patients a chance to get involved with their own treatment, they will. (I imagine that this new setup for doctors is a pain in the ass, though.)

I don't think that the study went far enough. Sure, patients and doctors do well when side by side facing a computer screen. What about on roller skates and facing a computer screen? Or when suspended over a shark tank and facing a computer screen? What if the computer screen is replaced with a medical textbook? An informational documentary on molluscs? An angry badger with a toothache? Inquiring minds want to know! For Science!