How do I love thee, let me count the waves

Soul-less science uncovers the secret of love. Feh!
May 31, 2005



Instead of a Valentine, maybe you could send an EEG--You are sitting at a picnic table in the shade. You look up. There she is. You look at the blue eyes and womp! That's it. It's love. It's also, apparently brain waves. A bunch of scientists, who apparently have absolutely no soul or romance in them, have proven that love at first sight is a physiological phenomenon. You needed electronics to tell you that? The researchers reported in the Journal of Neurophysiology that brain scan images taken at that blissful, shattering moment when she —or he —arrives actually does weird things to the brain. No shit. In neurological profile it looks like hunger or thirst or the need for a good gin and tonic. As time goes (you must remember this), it settles deeper into the brain, finally arriving in the deepest part of the primitive brain. Or, as the researchers so poetically put it: "Early stage romantic love can induce euphoria, is a cross-cultural phenomenon, and is possibly a developed form of a mammalian drive to pursue preferred mates." I love it when you talk like that. This, the scientists claim, is much different from just good old fashioned lust. How did they know? They looked at 2,500 brain images from 17 college students in the first throes of love. How you can tell a college student in love from one in lust, I have no idea. All seemed the same to me. Oh, and the place in the brain where valentines grow? The right caudate nucleus, which does have a certain ring to it, doesn't it. Like cabernet sauvignon, candles, chocolate, hot tubs, back rubs. Rub my caudate for me won't you dear. The right side please. Ooooh!




Bloody bureaucrats cop a plea, or, when you can’t even trust the Red Cross —After years of chucking and jiving, the Canadian Red Cross finally fessed up to the fact that it let tainted blood get into the blood supply and that people died. In part of a plea bargain that kept them out of criminal court, the Red Cross publicly apologized (on tape, by the way), agreed to a whopping $5,000 fine and to the funding of two endowments for $1.5 million (Canadian). Tens of thousands of people were infected with blood containing hepatitis C, and more than 3,000 people died in what is considered the greatest public health disaster in Canadian history. In January, 1983, the American Red Cross issued a statement to blood donor clinics pointing out specific questions to be asked of donors to help screen out what would later become known as AIDS. This statement was adopted by the Canadian Red Cross but they did not enforce it. Also, in early 1985, HIV testing kits were approved in several countries but again, the Canadian Red Cross did nothing. The delay allowed tainted blood into the system. The organization denied responsibility for years. They are, fortunately, no longer in charge of the blood supply there. You can read their statement here.