And a birdbeak stereo . . .

I don't understand why, with all our scientific advancements in cloning, etc., we can't develop animals to do our household chores for us.

For instance, I would happily house an anteater-like creature that would hoover up my carpets. I'm tired of pushing around a loud piece of machinery that breaks if it picks up a crumb. No, don't try to sell me a better vacuum or a Roomba or whatever. I want a critter that feeds on dust.

Haven't these scientists ever seen "The Flintstones?"

PS: Birdbeak Stereo would be a good name for a band.

Litterbugs and housewreckers

Ever notice how dirty dishes multiply? Or the way one wayward sock on the floor soon results in a room’s total disarray?

Dutch scientists have proven the civic equivalent. A messy neighborhood, they found, led to an overall decline in behavior.

Lead author Kees Keizer of the University of Groningen reported in the journal “Science” that most people act appropriately to the circumstances, but some act lazy or selfish. When their actions are allowed to stand, others soon follow suit.

This is related to what law enforcement officials have long called the “broken window theory,” which says that signs of urban decay -- broken windows, graffiti, litter -- encourage petty crime.
Keizer told The Associated Press that while the researchers weren’t surprised that the theory held up, “we were, however, surprised by the size of the effect.”

For example, the scientists found an alley in a Dutch shopping area where people parked their bicycles. A “no littering” sign was on the wall. The researchers attached store flyers to the handlebars of the bikes, then watched to see what happened.

They found that 33 percent of the riders littered the alley with the flyers. But after the researchers sprayed the alley wall with graffiti, the number who littered jumped to 69 percent.

While such tests no doubt provided special insight into human behavior, the Dutch scientists could’ve skipped all that work. They could’ve simply asked those of us who are responsible for housework. We’re quite familiar with the broken window syndrome.

Take your kitchen, for example. If it’s clean and tidy, most people who use it are more likely to keep it that way. They’ll pick up after themselves, put their dishes in the dishwasher and mop up spluts on the countertops.

But leave your coffee spoon sitting out on the counter and see what happens. Within minutes, dishes and greasy utensils litter every surface, the sink is full and the floor’s freckled with sticky spots.

Say you move into the living room for some televised sports viewing. It’s lovely in there. The furniture gleams and the carpet is clean. But maybe it’s a little warm. So you remove your socks and set them in a tidy pile by your bare feet. Aah, that’s better.

By halftime, every horizontal surface is covered by open bags of pork rinds and pretzels, spilled salsa, random peanuts. The coffee table has more rings on it than the Olympic Games symbol. The carpet bears a fine coating of orange Cheetos dust. Perfect strangers have wandered into the room and are drinking your beer.

One little slip leads to a little mess, which results in ever-bigger messes until finally someone calls the Health Department and you have to move.

The slippery slope is steeper if there are children or teen-agers in the household. They go from “broken window” to complete slum faster than you can say “Pick that up!” One toy hits the floor, and the house soon looks like Santa’s sleigh blew up. Allow one stray sneaker and you’ll come back to a room that looks as if it’s been ransacked by looters.

Next thing you know, the children are engaged in petty crime. Then they’ll really be in Dutch.

Think yourself fat

It’s not chocolate and booze that are making me fat, it’s all the thinking.

A study in Canada has found that the more you work your brain, the more you want to eat. This is extremely bad news for a large segment of the New Internet Economy -- people who sit at computers all day, thinking about stuff. It’s not bad enough that we lead such a sedentary lifestyle. Now it turns out that the stress of mental work makes us want more food.

Researchers at Laval University reported the study in a recent issue of “Psychosomatic Medicine Journal.” (Don’t you love that there’s a publication called “Psychosomatic Medicine Journal?” I used to subscribe to it, but I thought it was making me sick.)

The researchers measured food consumption after subjects did reading/writing tasks or performed computerized tests. The study was done on 14 students (the white lab rats of humanity), who were turned loose on an all-you-can-eat buffet after performing the 45-minute tests.

Students who read a document and wrote a summary of it ate 24 percent more than students who simply rested in a sitting position during the test period. Students who did the computer test activity ate 29 percent more than those who rested.

“Those who had a more demanding mental task were more stressed and ate more,” said researcher Angelo Tremblay and, yes, that’s his real name.

Tremblay and his fellow researchers found that stress from mental work increased the hormone cortisol and also affected glucose levels, both of which can stimulate appetite.

Unfortunately, other studies have found that brainwork does nothing to burn calories. That seems unfair. Sure, our brains will spur us to visit the buffet again and again, but when it comes time to get rid of those accumulated calories, the brain can’t be bothered. It’s too busy pondering the infield fly rule or trying to remember the name of that cross-eyed kid we knew in third grade.

So what’s to be done? You already know the answer: physical exercise. Most of us don’t do enough manual labor to burn up the calories we consume; we’re too busy sitting at computers, playing Spider Solitaire. Since our brains won’t help burn calories, the only solution is to make our bodies do it through regular workouts, the researchers said.

They did find one glimmer of hope for the exercise-phobic, though that wasn’t their intention.
Because brain chemistry apparently can make us overeat, “mental work is a worse activity than simply doing nothing,” Tremblay said.

So there’s your answer. Stop using your brain so much, and maybe you’ll eat less. If you can stand to sit and stare into space without fidgeting or thinking, you’re all set.

This doesn’t explain why you run into so many stupid people who are also fat. But perhaps even a little bit of thinking is harder work for such mouth-breathers and therefore more stressful.

You’ll notice one important omission in the Canadian study: Television. Sitting and staring at TV is completely passive, but it clearly stimulates those same brain chemicals because nothing makes us want snacks more than televised sporting events. If sitting at a computer and thinking about stuff makes us fat, then sitting in front of a TV should make us HUGE. I know it’s working for me.

Anyway, that’s my theory about this new obesity study. I put a lot of thought into it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go eat. I’m starving.

Calling Dr. Poolman

Nothing says "summer" like the sting of chlorinated water in your eyes.

Swimming seems a great way to "beat the heat," which is why so many people make the mistake of putting swimming pools right in their own yards.

Pools have become commonplace in warmer climes. Fly over any Sun Belt city, and you'll be astounded by the number of pools you see in the yards below. It's as if our cities have broken out in bright blue freckles.

But those freckles are not the pristine bodies of water that they seem. Instead, they're vats of chemical soup, a mix of chlorine and pH balancer and algacide and clarifier and -- my personal favorite -- "flocculant." Oh, and some water, if there's any room left.

Who do we put in charge of such hazardous chemicals? The local fire department's "hazmat" team? The Environmental Protection Agency? No, we leave it to the homeowners. We give them little kits with test tubes and dyes and potions, and easy access to all the chemicals needed to purify their pools. (Available right in the supermarket! Near the food!) As for training, pool owners are given a hearty, "You're on your own." Then they're qualified to play Dr. Poolman the Chemist.

It's a wonder we haven't all bleached ourselves to death.

This is not what homeowners have in mind when they decide to take the plunge (har!) into pool ownership. They picture themselves blissfully floating on an air mattress, holding a drink with an umbrella in it, while grateful children paddle around, shouting hosannas about parents who know how to have "fun."

Hahaha on that. I've been a pool owner for years now (since we moved into a home that came with one already in place), and I can tell you that idyllic summer moment happens, um, never.

Yes, the pool's right outside. Yes, it looks enticing. And, OK, yeah, the children do seem to enjoy jumping into it over and over, a jillion times, until all the water has splashed out and killed the lawn. But then there are the negatives:

1) The water is co-o-o-old.

2) The children are never grateful. They don't think we're "fun" parents because we supply an oversized bathtub out back. To them, parents have one role where the pool is concerned: We are targets for "cannonballs."

3) Swimming seems like good exercise until you try it in your average residential pool. You can't swim in a pool that size. All you can do is turn around. Stroke, stroke, TURN. Stroke, stroke, TURN. You'll get dizzy before you burn any calories.

4) There's all that maintenance, including the cleaning of filters and the monitoring of electronic equipment (Water and electricity together. Shocking!) and the handling of chemicals labeled with more warnings than your standard package of bubonic plague virus.

It's so easy to make a mistake.

Not enough chemicals and cleaning, and your pool quickly turns into a green breeding ground for the Swamp Thing. Too much, and the children run round red-eyed and squawling while their hair falls out. Such alarm can make a parent spill his drink.

Let the chemistry get far enough out of balance, and the toxic stew can eat the concrete and leave a headline-grabbing sinkhole.

Then, next time you're on a plane, you can point with pride: "My house? Why, it's right there. The one with the big brown freckle."

Everybody panic (or not)

If you pay attention to health news, then you know that most everything is bad for us and we’ll all soon die.

Scientists tell us our air, food, water, clothes and homes are full of germs, viruses, bacteria, pollen, pollution, radiation, industrial toxins, hazardous chemicals, deadly diseases, dust mites, insect parts, cholesterol and cooties.

Selfless medical researchers work around the clock to provide us with fresh scares. Every day, it seems, there’s a new study about some health risk we’d never even considered before. Every week brings word of some newly imported tropical disease. It’s a great time to be a hypochondriac.

Most of us read health news, process the information, then go on about our lives exactly as before. Why? Because we know there’ll be another study along soon that will cancel out the one in the news.

It works like this: One group of researchers will find, say, that coffee causes human spleens to explode. Another group (funded by coffee companies) will quickly release a study that shows that not only does coffee NOT cause exploding spleens, but it builds strong bones, makes you taller and was the original fluid at the Fountain of Youth. Later, a third study will find that neither of the above was correct. These impartial scientists will say coffee is OK, as long as you practice moderation, exercise and keep an eye on your overall spleen health. Then another lab will find a link between coffee and some other ailment, and we’re off and running again.

There’s no way to follow that cycle and maintain your sanity. You’d end up changing all your health and eating habits every few weeks. Better to wait it out, keep a watchful eye, wait for the pendulum to swing the other way.

(I, personally, am waiting for the day they announce that tofu causes cancer. I’m one carnivore with a mean streak.)

If you wait long enough, the tide turns against most everything, even medicines.

Remember the stories about Ambien and Lunesta? Those two prescription sleep aids, the most
heavily advertised drugs in America, were found to cause bizarre behavior in some people. The Food and Drug Administration announced that users walked in their sleep, prepared and ate food in their sleep, even went “sleep-driving.” None had any memory of the activities the next morning.

The entire country has been consumed by obesity and its dire effects on the national health. What if it turned out that we’re getting fat because we’re up every night, sleep-eating?

Another recent study found that obese men are 42 percent less likely to commit suicide than thin men. Scientists analyzed statistics from 45,000 men, and found that suicide rates fell as body-mass indexes rose. The researchers theorized that heavier men might have higher levels of mood-regulating brain chemicals.

So, the findings would seem to indicate, obesity will kill you slowly, but it might keep you from killing yourself. Next week, no doubt, scientists will find that obesity causes exploding spleens.

In the meantime, I’m one fat boy who will revel in some good news for a change, while also protecting myself against suicide. I’m going to lay out a big spread of yummy, fattening food, take an Ambien or a Lunesta, and engage in some serious sleep-eating. Maybe go for a nice drive afterward, burping and snoozing my way across the countryside.

What could go wrong? I’m sure some health researchers are doing a government-funded study to find out.

We've all got crystal balls

According to a new scientific theory, humans can see one-tenth of a second into the future.

Humans have evolved that ability to make up for "neural lag," the time between light hitting the retina and the brain registering what's being seen. This allows you to catch a baseball, or duck out of the way before you've fully recognized that a brick is speeding toward your head.

The down side? This anticipatory ability also makes us susceptible to optical illusions, including sensing movement where there is none.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

In other news...

Scientists have found evidence that Tyrannosaurus Rex tasted like chicken.