From the Guardian:

“Tim Spector of St Thomas’s hospital in London, who led the research, said: ‘The theory is that the orgasm is an evolutionary way of seeing if men can prove themselves to be likely good providers or dependable, patient and caring enough to look after the kids.’

Women who orgasm very easily may be more likely to be satisfied with poor quality men.

‘Perhaps women who had orgasms too easily weren’t very good selectors,’ Professor Spector said. ‘It paid women to be more fussy and this is one way of doing it. The simple fact is that it takes women on average 12 minutes and men two and a half minutes to reach orgasm. Adjusting to that imbalance is a test.’

His team used a national register of twins to ask 4,037 women, aged 19 to 83, about their sex lives and to compare their DNA. About half were identical twins, who share all their genes. The others were non-identical twins, who do not. Assuming twins are brought up in similar environments allows scientists to tease out the differences that are down to genes.”

From Killing the Buddha:

You can gain tremendous success in life, raise a big family, have an exciting job, develop a rich spiritual life, spend your time helping others—life offers lots of opportunities for the time we’re here. But no matter how much you achieve, aging, sickness, and mortality are working away, whittling you down to size until the day they finally win for good. Like circling sharks they are always hounding us, harrying even the happiest of lives.

Perhaps the persistent tendency to harden insight into unquestioned doctrine arises from our need to feel secure, to gain a hold on our situation and stave off the fear that things are dangerous and beyond our control. It’s an attitude that naturally appears when dealing with illness, aging, and mortality, the greatest of fears; and the fact that we really aren’t in control, that we can’t wield power over such awesome eventualities, just makes us crave answers and solutions all the more.  In a similar way, the modern formulation of the stages of grief popularized by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross offers a guidepost on the way of loss for the bereft, yet if taken literally, it denies how we revolve continuously in these mental states.

A famous Buddhist story tells of Kisa Gotami, a young mother from the Buddha’s clan whose baby boy died suddenly. Grief-stricken, she carried his corpse with her everywhere, wailing and wondering aloud why her child had left her. People pitied her, and eventually she was told to go to the Buddha for advice. When she reached his retreat, she demanded that the Buddha bring her boy back to life. Somewhat surprisingly, the Buddha agreed to do so, but first asked Gotami to do something. “Anything, anything,” she cried in desperate hope. The Buddha told her to go into the village and bring back a mustard seed from a house which had never known death.

More here.

From Ms. Magazine:

What motivated Margaret Sanger and Estelle Griswold was more than a simple desire for freedom in this most private of matters — the decision of whether or not to bear a child. These pioneers of modern feminism also understood that the ability to plan and space one’s family is a necessary condition for women to achieve equality in all walks of life.
So much is at stake. Before birth control and abortion were legally and readily available, the average woman would become pregnant between 12 and 15 times in her lifetime. Even today in the United States, nearly half of all pregnancies remain unintended, and nearly half of those result in abortion. This is why polls show that the vast majority of Americans reject the extremism of a determined minority and do not want the Supreme Court decisions that protect their private decisions to be overturned. Doctrines of privacy and equality for women are simply not separable: Eroding one imperils the other.

And all this rests on the shoulders of just one new justice.

More here.

From BBC News:

Two species of octopus have been observed moving in an upright bipedal stride since the discovery was announced in March this year. And scientists at the University of California at Berkeley believe they can develop artificial muscles for use in a new field of soft robotics using the studies of the octopus’s movement. “Each arm rolls along the suckers and pushes the animal back, and then the other arm touches down, rolls along the suckers, and pushes the animal back again,” biologist Chrissy Hufford explained to BBC World Service’s Science In Action programme.

“That’s why it was such a surprise to see – because every other example of bipedal locomotion before had involved the support of a rigid skeleton,” Dr Hufford added. “As we know, octopi and other cephalopods don’t have anything rigid in their arms – they are supported by bands of muscle… that allows them flexibility, but also some support.” This extreme flexibility and strength is of great interest to biologist Bob Full, who believes the octopus is an excellent model for how robots that move might be built without hard parts.

More here.

From “On the Asymmetry of Creation and Appreciation,” an essay by Rochelle Gurstein in The New Republic:

[Matthew] Arnold, even though he is ignorantly dismissed today as an “elitist,” had the “democratic insight,” as Trilling put it, that “a human value exists in the degree that it is shared, that a truth may exist but be unalive until it receives assent, that a good may have meaning but no reality until it is participated in.” As I finished reading these sentences to my husband, I felt myself returned to our walk through the garden earlier that day, to all those occasions where complete strangers, enchanted by the beauty all around them, felt compelled to seek our assent, the way their pleasure increased our own and ours theirs, and how, in that moment, we created a shared world between us, but also with Victor and Madame Lemoine, and with all the unnamed gardeners who have tended and continue to tend the lilacs in Brooklyn.

Read the whole article here.

There’s one last thing from NOVEL that I must post as it represents something of a little internal spat between different factions at the NY Times. Julie Salamon, who wrote the rather friendly piece at the beginning of the show, writes a summation that takes issue with the rather hostile op-ed that appeared three weeks ago.

“Only a handful of people dropped by daytimes, but the readings drew audiences of a few dozen. There was much press coverage, including an editorial in The New York Times saying “The installation trivializes the nature of writing.”

The writers said they were undeterred by the criticism. “The time pressure and unexpected attention were incentives,” said Mr. Sidhu, interviewed a few hours before the experiment was over. “People were expecting you to finish a book, something you weren’t utterly embarrassed by.” Readers can judge from excerpts Mr. Sidhu and the others posted on blogs at fluxfactory.org/otr/fluxnovelproject.htm.”

Harry Kreisler’s Conversations with History is a valuable site.  Here is an hour-long conversation with Amartya Sen on “the interplay of economic theory and political philosophy in his work on public choice, development, and freedom. Sen recalls his own intellectual odyssey, commenting on some of the factors that shaped his thinking.”

It wont be long now before Gordon Brown steps into Tony Blair’s shoes. As such, he’s already taking steps to develop his international policy. Putting Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa in the spotlight is a nice start. Mr. Brown pens a column in The Observer on precisely this matter.

But with only 440,000 people with HIV receiving treatment in 2004 – just 250,000 in sub-Saharan Africa – much more finance will be needed to meet the World Health Organisation target of three million people on anti-retroviral therapy. Hilary Benn has already promised that Britain will increase resources to develop healthcare systems with well-trained staff and equipment and fund stronger anti-poverty strategies.
Globally, tackling the world’s deadliest diseases and halving world poverty will require the overall doubling of aid recommended by the Commission for Africa. Which is why additional resources need to be agreed at Gleneagles and why it is critical that all wealthy countries, including the richer oil-producing states, join in.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

Come summer, we escape Cambridge for points East and despite our poverty, find ourselves in Italy. Here, we do as the Romans do: during the day, we sprawl at piazzas in the shadows of mighty edifices, and at night, prowl the streets, like the progeny of the wolf-suckled. And soon, we will meander through the undulating gold and olive hued Tuscan countryside, drunk on fresh warm Chianti from roadside enotecas, and on the periphery of Montepulciano, will find our kinsman’s villa where we will drink more, eat more and revel for a fortnight. Then we will head further east on a cheap ticket that includes a long layover in Amman, before arriving at our final destination, Karachi.

Sipping wine in the shadow of the edifice of history, we have mused that the next leg of the journey, from Italy to Jordan, recalls another made a millennium ago by the Franks of Italy who swept south circa 1097. Let by Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, David Koresh-like figures, the First Crusade began with an attack on the Jewish communities across the Italian coast and ended at the gates of Nicaea where they were wiped out by the young Turkoman leader Arslan. Subsequently, one Bohemond of southern Italy, along with a French contingent comprising Raymond St. Gilles and the Brothers Bouillon, led another effort that succeeded in taking Jerusalem. Carnage followed the fall of the city: Muslims, Jews and Christians alike were slaughtered.  Soon, a tenuous Frankish empire comprising the principalities if Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli was established, one that relied on the Genoa and Venice for naval support.

The attack stirred a period of introspection amongst the disparate Muslim nations of the region: the Fatamids of Egypt, the Seljuk Abbasids in Baghdad and the Turkomans of “Rum.” Ultimately, because of the attacks, the Muslims were able to summon a coherent response: Salahuddin. Salahuddin expelled the Crusaders circa 1290. There were other Crusades, the most unfortunate being  what has come to be known as the Children’s Crusade (when bands of children were sold into prostitution before they left the continent.)

Although we don’t like reading too much into history, today, when the horrid specter of jihad looms, the Crusades seem strangely relevant. Moreover, the quest for Jerusalem seems to be a powerful historical dynamic. Of course, the Crusades summon different memories for different peoples. Here in Italy, the Crusaders are lionized while in the Middle East they are remembered as the defeated. Of course, history like literature, is simply an exercise in perspective.

Ridley Scott’s perspective on the Crusades makes for a mildly interesting spectacle (although Orland Bloom is an unfortunate casting decision). Amin Malouf’s the Crusades Through Arab Eyes is a novel variety of historiography. P.M. Holt’s unembellished version appeals to our sensibilities. It is, of course, the ascendant civilization that canonizes collective memory and defines discourse.

We remember things differently and different times (and like to think of different things altogether) but then we’ve had too much to drink. And we believe, “It’s not where you’re from/ It’s where you’re at.”

From The New Scientist:

By simply baking peanuts with a harmless fungus, researchers can dramatically decrease their “allergenicity”. The process could one day allow millions of peanut allergy sufferers to enjoy nutty foods without fear of a lethal reaction, they suggest.

“This is a simple biological method that is safe, edible and won’t add too much to costs. If the process is adopted by industry we think it could really help to reduce allergies,” says Mohamed Ahmedna at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro, US, one of the team.

Peanuts cause the most severe food-induced allergic reactions. An estimated 1.1% of the US population is allergic to peanuts and each year approximately 100 people die from food-related allergic reactions, many provoked by peanuts or tree nuts.

More here.

From BBC News:

In June 1855, Darwin began a study of the local plants, which supported his theories on evolution and was mentioned in his book On the Origin of Species. Now, three generations of the Darwin family – aged from 21 months to 78 years – have begun a repeat survey. It should show how flowering plants have changed over the past 150 years. The descendants are Erasmus Darwin (great grandson), Randal Keynes (great, great grandson), Sarah Darwin (great, great granddaughter), Chris Darwin (great, great grandson), Allegra Darwin (great, great, great, granddaughter) and Leo Darwin Vogel (great, great, great grandson).

“It was in this field that Darwin went with the governess – the children’s governess – and simply counted the number of different kinds of plant that were growing in the field. “And he realised that the number and the pattern made a very important point about how species diverge as they evolve; and this is the key to the modern idea of biodiversity.”

More here.

Reflections on flying by David Sedaris in The New Yorker:

On the flight to Raleigh, I sneezed, and the cough drop I’d been sucking on shot from my mouth, ricocheted off my folded tray table, and landed, as I remember it, in the lap of the woman beside me, who was asleep and had her arms folded across her chest. I’m surprised that the force didn’t wake her—that’s how hard it hit—but all she did was flutter her eyelids and let out a tiny sigh, the kind you might hear from a baby.

Under normal circumstances, I’d have had three choices, the first being to do nothing. The woman would wake up in her own time, and notice what looked like a shiny new button sewn to the crotch of her jeans. This was a small plane, with one seat per row on Aisle A, and two seats per row on Aisle B. We were on B, so should she go searching for answers I would be the first person on her list. “Is this yours?” she’d ask, and I’d look dumbly into her lap.

“Is what mine?”

More here.

Jed Perl in The New Republic:

Nobody knows painting better than painters. So it’s not surprising that they produce some of the finest writing on the subject. But much of this writing remains scattered–in back issues of magazines or in letters and journals that rarely if ever see the light of day. When such work gets into print there’s cause for celebration. And that’s true right now. For new collections of writing by two important twentieth-century American painters, Fairfield Porter and Myron Stout, have just appeared.

Material Witness: The Selected Letters of Fairfield Porter and Selections from the Journals of Myron Stout are terrific books. They’re suffused with the questing, restless, daring intellectual rhythms of a painter’s life.

More here.

Michael Schirber at Space.com:

Two dense stars whipping around each other at breakneck speed may be the strongest known source of Einstein’s space-trembling gravity waves.

The double star – called RX J0806 – was discovered in 1994 in X-rays. Later shown to be blinking on and off every 5.4 minutes, the two-star setup is believed to be a pair of white dwarfs – the dense ashes of burnt-out stars – rotating around each other.

The implied separation is just 50,000 miles – a mere one-fifth the distance between the Earth and the Moon, making this the closest stellar pair ever observed. The tangled duo should be booming out gravity waves – undulations in the fabric of space and time predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

More here.

David Kravets of the AP:

Q: What was the case decided by the Supreme Court?

A: The justices overruled an injunction against federal prosecution of two California women with doctor’s recommendations for marijuana use. The decision clarifies that the federal government can prosecute violators of federal drug laws, even when people are following state law.

Q: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state allow patients with a doctor’s recommendation to smoke and grow marijuana, or to have it grown for them. Should medical marijuana users in these states now fear federal prosecution?

A: Federal authorities have already made more than 60 medical marijuana arrests in the last five years nationally, almost all of them in California. But such raids remain relatively uncommon. The Justice Department declined to discuss its strategy, but “people shouldn’t panic,” California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said.

Q: What have the 10 states done in reaction to Monday’s ruling?

A: Oregon tentatively stopped issuing medical marijuana identification cards to new patients, but it was business as usual in the other states.

More here.  [Thanks to Winfield J. Abbe.]

Jonathan Raban in the New York Review of Books:

Robert Lowell’s star has waned very considerably since his death in 1977, when his obituarists treated him, along with Yeats, Eliot, Auden, and Wallace Stevens, as one of the handful of unquestionably great twentieth-century poets. The publication two years ago of Frank Bidart and David Gewanter’s massive edition of the Collected Poems did much to restore his work to public and critical view, but even now Lowell’s poems are, I would guess, less widely read, taught, and anthologized than those of his two friends and contemporaries Elizabeth Bishop and John Berryman—a judgment, if that is what it is, that would have astonished serious readers of poetry between the 1950s and the 1970s.

More here.

Rossella Lorenzi at Discovery:

A life-sized statue of the 13th Dynasty Pharaoh Neferhotep I has emerged from the ruins of ancient Thebes in Luxor, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Saturday.

Buried for almost 3,600 years, the six-foot limestone statue shows the “beautiful and good” pharaoh — this is what Neferhotep means — wearing the royal head cloth.

The forehead bears the emblem of a cobra, which pharaohs wore on the crown as a protective symbol: they believed that the cobra would spit fire at enemies.

More here.

Steven Morris in The Guardian:

A British explorer has discovered an abandoned 19th-century submarine which may have been the inspiration for Captain Nemo’s vessel Nautilus in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Colonel John Blashford-Snell found the cast-iron submarine, named Explorer, half-submerged in three metres of water off the coast of Panama.

Like Nautilus, the craft is cigar-shaped and has a lock-out system, which allows submariners to leave, collect items from the seabed and then return to the vessel.

It was built in 1864, five years before Verne’s classic adventure story was published, and it is thought that the French writer would have read about the sub’s specifications.

More here.

Cornelia Dean in the New York Times:

When people think about natural hazards, they usually think about tornadoes or hurricanes or earthquakes. But there is another natural hazard that takes more lives in an average year in the United States than any of those – rip currents.

Each year in American waters, rip currents pull about 100 panicked swimmers to their deaths. According to the United States Lifesaving Association, lifeguards pull out at least 70,000 Americans from the surf each year, 80 percent from rip currents.

Because these drownings and near drownings occur one by one, year-round, up and down the coasts, few people recognize rip currents as a major hazard. Only in recent years have meteorologists and coastal geologists begun to measure rip currents precisely in the field and model them in detail in laboratory wave tanks.

More here.

From The London Times:

A heavy snowstorm shrouded London on December 28, 1598. Through it a group of men bristling with swords and axes closed in on a building in the city’s northern suburbs. The building was The Theatre — London’s oldest playhouse, once the scene of full-blooded dramas by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, but empty for the past two years since the Chamberlain’s Men whose base it was had quarrelled with their cantankerous landlord, Giles Allen. Now, while Allen unsuspectingly spent Christmas in the country, members of the troupe gathered to dismantle the playhouse which (unlike the leased land it stood upon) technically belonged to them. Carted away and ferried across the Thames, its timbers would be re-erected as a new theatre, The Globe. Among those taking part in this rushed and risky act of reclamation were the company’s star tragedian Richard Burbage, its celebrity-comic Will Kemp and its 35-year-old resident playwright William Shakespeare.

For Shakespeare the next 12 months would be momentous. 1599, James Shapiro compellingly displays, was his annus mirabilis: the year that, deepening and complicating his imagination, took him from outstanding accomplishment to unsurpassed genius. That genius, romantically disposed commentators such as Coleridge have maintained, was “of no age” but arose from “the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind”. Shapiro, who can be breathtakingly acute at fathoming Shakespeare’s mind, couldn’t disagree more. Shakespeare’s creativity, he contends, was decisively fuelled and fired by contemporary events — and never more so than in his four great artistic undertakings of 1599: the completing of Henry V, the writing of Julius Caesar and As You Like It, and the drafting of Hamlet.

More here.