Gene hooks smokers at first puff

Puffing on a first cigarette is a rite of passage for many teenagers, but whether it is enjoyable may be partly down to genetics, researchers suggest.
University of Michigan scientists have identified a gene variant found more often in people who said their first cigarette produced a "buzz".
These people were much more likely to go on to become regular smokers, the journal Addiction reports. The researchers say the finding may help development of anti-smoking drugs. A person's decision to smoke for the first time, or carry on smoking, is not thought to be governed solely by his or her genes, but a mixture of genes, environmental factors and social pressures. However, scientists are hoping that by cracking the genetic secrets of nicotine addiction, they could make it easier for people to wean themselves off cigarettes, or even stop them taking up the habit in the first place.
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"One World One Dream"

This is the day!!! Go team PI!

"One World One Dream"
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Courtship, copulation, and other sexual acts in the animal kingdom: just save the pink

With most species of fish, there is little or no contact between the male and female. The male merely deposits the sperm over the eggs after they’ve been released by the female. After the brief interlude, the lovers may go their separate ways, never to meet again.

When the female elephant comes into estrus, she selects a mate. This marks the beginning of a very close, affectionate relationship. At first, she’s very coy and flirtatious, alternately inviting the bull’s advances and then running away from him. During the courtship of several months, they’re inseparable. Playing touching, stroking, petting and mooing. The male displays remarkable restraint and only at the end of the long courtship – and only at the female’s invitation – does he consummate the relationship in copulation.

The rank or pecking order is of great importance to the raven. When a dominant female, high in the ranking order of the group, pairs with a submissive low-ranking male, she will adopt male behavior – even taking the superior position during copulation. In such a relationship, the male accepts the submissive role along with other female behavior patterns.

The male snake first rapdly flicks out his tongue while following the female around and attempting to crawl ove her. The courtship behavior in many snakes is controlled by pheromones, produced by a specialized gland on the female’s back. By her odor, he knows whether or not she is the correct mate. Instead of having single penis fro injection, the male has two, one on either side of the tail. They are both fully potent and barbed; however, he does not put in both penises simultaneously.

Before he can woo a female sparrow, a male sparrow must have a nest. It does not matter if the nest is straggly and untidy, for later the two mates can clean it up and make it more presentable. The important thing is that the male have some sort of nest. Females will have nothing to do with male sparrows without property.

The polecat places his paws on the female’s shoulder and bites her neck, inducing for fifteen minutes a condition of muscular paralysis.

The tiny male spider approaches his relatively huge mate and begins to couple. The female devours him in act of copulatory cannibalism. She chews away the head, leaving the rest of the male’s body sexually functional, so his sperm can pass into her body. The male tarantula has a pair of curved appendages on his front legs with which he holds open the female’s jaws so that she cannot snap at him during mating.

The female bat, after copulation, emits a loud squeal which, it has been suggested, acts as a signal to other females to choose the same male for a mate.

Coffee Drinkers Have Slightly Lower Death Rates, Study Finds

Just wanna share with ya'a one goddiegood reason to stay HAPPY frappacapadoohdah addicts...

ScienceDaily (June 17, 2008) — A new study has good news for coffee drinkers: Regular coffee drinking (up to 6 cups per day) is not associated with increased deaths in either men or women. In fact, both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee consumption is associated with a somewhat smaller rate of death from heart disease.
"Coffee consumption has been linked to various beneficial and detrimental health effects, but data on its relation with death were lacking," says Esther Lopez-Garcia, PhD, the study's lead author. "Coffee consumption was not associated with a higher risk of mortality in middle-aged men and women. The possibility of a modest benefit of coffee consumption on heart disease, cancer, and other causes of death needs to be further investigated."
Women consuming two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day had a 25 percent lower risk of death from heart disease during the follow-up period (which lasted from 1980 to 2004 and involved 84,214 women) as compared with non-consumers, and an 18 percent lower risk of death caused by something other than cancer or heart disease as compared with non-consumers during follow-up. For men, this level of consumption was associated with neither a higher nor a lower risk of death during the follow-up period (which lasted from 1986 to 2004 and involved 41,736 men).
The researchers analyzed data of 84,214 women who had participated in the Nurses' Health Study and 41,736 men who had participated in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. To be in the current study, participants had to have been free of cancer and heart disease at the start of those larger studies.
The study participants completed questionnaires every two to four years that included questions about how frequently they drank coffee, other diet habits, smoking, and health conditions. The researchers then compared the frequency of death from any cause, death due to heart disease, and death due to cancer among people with different coffee-drinking habits.
Among women, 2,368 deaths were due to heart disease, 5,011 were due to cancer, and 3,716 were due to another cause. Among men, 2,049 deaths were due to heart disease, 2,491 were due to cancer, and 2,348 were due to another cause.
While accounting for other risk factors, such as body size, smoking, diet, and specific diseases, the researchers found that people who drank more coffee were less likely to die during the follow-up period. This was mainly because of lower risk for heart disease deaths among coffee drinkers.
The researchers found no association between coffee drinking and cancer deaths. These relationships did not seem to be related to caffeine because people who drank decaffeinated coffee also had lower death rates than people who did not drink coffee.
The editors of Annals of Internal Medicine caution that the design of the study does not make it certain that coffee decreases the chances of dying sooner than expected. Something else about coffee drinkers might be protecting them. And some measurement error in the assessment of coffee consumption is inevitable because estimated consumption came from self-reports.
This study was supported by National Institutes of Health research grants.

Dinner in the sky!!!

THIS IS AWESOME! To have a dinner in the sky is totally cool, new and terrific! What's the feeling at the height of 50 feet higher than the ground with the round table full of delicious delights rounding and swirling in the sky? Awesome!

sorry altophobics this one-of-a-kind invention isnt made for you!!!

for full story visit: http://www.dinnerinthesky.com/dinner.php

Do MOnkeys Pay for Sex?

while i was browsing the time mag site, 1 article on the HOT SPOT list has caught my eyes,whoaaa! i immediately clicked on the title..."Do MOnkeys Pay for sex?" jeez that's very interesting, pay for service...then i've realized that Prostitution is indeed the oldest profession,the most primitive, before the dawn of human civilization,lol...and maybe my last resort in case i run out of penny,lol...

for full article visit: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1700821,00.html