Miscellaneous Beautiful, Blonde, Bugs

Just a few random articles that got my attention.

Beauty Is Hardwired in the Brain
Italian researchers showed test subjects both normal and slightly distorted images of sculptures and measured brain activity. What I found interesting was that the images considered to be more appealing were the unaltered ones which were in proportion to the Golden Ratio, 1.618 (followed by a long string of numbers), which was determined geometrically by Euclid but turns up everywhere in nature, art and architecture from ancient times to the present. Everything from the spirals of hurricanes and mollusk shells to the pyramids (in Egypt and Central America) and the Parthenon to the human face and body to the seed arrangement on a sunflower exhibit geometric proportions that equal this number. Fascinating stuff.

Men Act Dumber Around Blond Women
Well duh. While I doubt there's anyone that would question this finding I do disagree with their explanation. They seem to think the cause is due to, for lack of a better term, prejudice. That men have been conditioned to buy into the image of the "dumb blond" and that they therefore act dumber in the presence of a blond. Personally I think it's physiological. The guy becomes dumber because his brain isn't functioning at peak efficiency due to decreased blood flow. Blood is being diverted from the big head to the little head and that's where the "thinking" is taking place. The researchers unfortunately did not design the experiment to measure the correlation between dumbness and erectile activity. That's another study all together. In any case, my wife is a beautiful and extremely intelligent blond (support for MY hypothesis) and in light of the findings of this research I'd like to say in my defense...See honey, it's not my fault!

Biggest Bug Ever
Of the three Indiana Jones movies I could easily do the snake scene from the first and the rat scene from the third. The bug scene in the second however has an extraordinarily high squirm factor for me. I don't particularly care for bugs and I really, really hate BIG bugs. You know, the ones that are big enough to look in their eyes. Those are big enough but this prehistoric scorpion was EIGHT FEET LONG!!! Holy shit. You'd have to buy Raid by the tanker load.