The End Could Still be Near
Well, we survived the Y2K changeover, whether we deserved to or not. Still, we can’t help but think that the end of the world must be near. Here are two of our most recent favorite signs:
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Martha Studies
In a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, a magazine that parses the meaning of what’s going on in the world of academia, there was an article on the burgeoning interest in scholarly studies of Martha Stewart. Yes, that Martha Stewart. In fact, at a recent American Studies Assn. meeting, five scholars conducted a panel on the uberfrau, debating whether she was the “Thomas Jefferson of our age” or more of a “Betty Crocker from hell.”
Karla Ann Marling, an art historian at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (presumably close to the Mall of the Americas), presented a paper titled “The Revenge of Mrs. Santa Claus, or Martha Stewart Does Christmas.”
“How people interact with their objects is one of the central questions of the study of material culture,” one participant noted. “There is something going on. Something about being aware of what’s in your own cupboard.”
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Science Marches On
Researchers have discovered that an experimental weight-loss hormone, leptin, apparently works by decreasing the pleasure of eating, according to an article this week in the journal Science.
According to Bloomberg News, researchers at Concordia University in Montreal say mice that had been placed on a restricted-calorie diet and mice that coupled the low-calorie diet with leptin injections were hooked up to a device that pleasurably stimulated specific regions of the brain when certain levers were pushed.
Mice on low-calorie diets were more inclined to enhance pleasure by pressing the lever associated with one specific brain region. Mice injected with leptin, however, pressed that lever less often. The researchers said this is an indication that leptin dulls the neurological “reward” of eating.
At the same time, though, mice injected with leptin were more likely than other hungry mice to press levers that stimulated parts of the brain that have nothing to do with hunger. The report did not elaborate.
