A Virtual Fantasia of Lurid Intestinal Animation
The other day we spent a few hours surfing the Net in our quest to learn more about health and the human body. First, we visited an exciting-sounding Web site--the “Wonderful Multicoloured Intestine Creator!”--and painted a “medically correct” image of the human bowel. (If you’ve ever wondered what an undulating colon looks like in fuchsia or turquoise, then https://www.urban75.com/Mag/shock1.html is the site for you.
OK, so we didn’t learn much here. But we soldiered on--and landed next at https://www.battlebacteria.com, a site that makes one think “Patton,” richly decorated as it is with military camouflage and flickering battle flames.
Our mission, says battlebacteria, “is to destroy all infectious bacteria”--which sounds like a tall order given that there are more than 2000 types of salmonella alone (named things like Albany all the way through to Zanzibar, after the places they were found)--and that one drop of water, we’re informed, can contain up to 30 billion little bugs.
Clicking on words like “the enemy,” “body invasion” and “weapons,” we read about the bacteria that lurk in ponds, dirt, locker rooms, under fingernails, just waiting to infect ears, eyes, throats, guts and other body parts. (As the distinguished ‘40s German bacteriologist Fritz J. Kauffmann used to say, as he politely shook hands with people, “Shall we exchange enteric flora?”)
We would like to thank the site for its pictures of a boil and a gaping mouth infected with strep throat. After reading the section about staphylococcus, klebsiella and haemophilus in the bathroom, and listeria, E. coli and Salmonella in the kitchen, I’m afraid to go indoors any more. Or would be, if outdoors wasn’t so grubby.
Masters of the Obvious
Elsewhere, we stumbled upon this Old Millennium leftover: a news release from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, telling us that a Wilkes sociologist “has found that the greater the number of people who go out drinking on New Year’s Eve, the more likely the highway death toll will climb.” (Surely not.)
Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville are less bold than our sociologist, favoring the empirical approach in their study of food preferences in children. They’ve tracked the diets of 72 preschoolers since the kids were just a few months old. This just in: The youngsters like pizza, chicken and macaroni and cheese more than green beans, peas, tomatoes and casseroles.
Turning to the Annals of Improbable Research, a tongue-in-cheek mag we’ve enjoyed in the past, and an article titled “No, really?” in New Scientist, a British magazine, we learn of more surprising findings from published studies in science and social science. You may be taken aback to learn that:
* Frat boys and athletes drink more alcohol than other students.
* Women are more likely than men to cry at sad movies.
* The more thought a person puts into a purchase, the less they are likely to be influenced by sales gimmicks.
* People are much less likely to yell at their bosses than at members of their families. (This study involved 100 students wearing blood pressure cuffs and keeping detailed notes for a week.)
* Forgiving those with whom you’ve fought “causes restorations in relationship closeness.”
What surprises, we wonder, await us in the New Millennium?
A phrase, by the way, we promise never again to use in this column.
