Results from the Page 17 test

As you may recall, I recently decided to do a test on a claim made by a screenwriter.  The man was writer-director Nathan Marshall, and these were his exact words:

Next time you watch a DVD, pause it 17 minutes into the film. Trust me—any film. What’s happening at that point in the story? Most likely, the essential character conflict has just been laid out.

This sounded like a really cool thing.  Go to the 16:00 marker in any movie, press PLAY, and watch the conflict established itself?  Cooool.  So, in the interest of great lulz, I selected twenty different DVDs, put them in the player, forwarded to “Page 17″, and recorded my results.

And here they go:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Right off the bat, I noticed that something was amiss.  There was no setup happening at all during Page 17.  The only thing that happened was that the previous scene, an action sequence, built to a climax and the main characters escaped.  Part of the character conflict – Indiana and the Russians – had been established much earlier, around the 5:00 mark.  The rest – Indiana, Marion, and Mutt – would not be established until much later.

Verdict: There was a plot point – the climax of the escape-from-the-warehouse scene – but it established nothing for the story to come.  Fail.

2. Left Behind II: Tribulation Force

Much better performance on the second go.  When we enter the scene at 16:00, we come into a discussion between two of the main characters.  It seems that Buck has just decided to meet with the Big Bad of the story.  Bruce tries to talk him out of it, but Buck is adamant.

Verdict: Not only does the scene climax, but a portion of the story is established.  Buck’s decision to meet with Carpathia will lead to a job offer, which will get him into several pivotal locations later in the story.  Pass.

3. The Day After Tomorrow

Page 17 puts us in space, where a group of astronauts in the orbiting space station look down on Earth.  They see, for the first time, the immense storms that have been building.  Cut to an airplane, which is beginning to experience turbulence.  The main character mentions his fear of flying.

Verdict: No character setup, but this is nonetheless a pivotal point of the film: the main antagonist (the storm) is introduced in full.  Pass.

(Incidentally, when the rating page for the movie came up, it read PG-13, for sequences of peril.  I misread it as “sequences of fail”.  Realistically, movies that fail as hard as The Day After Tomorrow should be given a warning.)

4. Dinotopia

This was to be my first length test.  Being a Hallmark miniseries, it runs somewhere around four hours long, and therefore wouldn’t have to conform to the rule.

Yet it did so, and effectively: Page 17 brings us to the main characters, two brothers, introducing themselves to an important female character.  The exchange that occurs hints at the rivalry between the two brothers, setting the stage for the heavy competition that will occur over the female character.

Verdict: While I wouldn’t say that the movie is about David and Karl’s competition over Marion, it is nonetheless a plot thread that will be revisited many times.  Pass.

5. National Treasure

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

When they said that, they were clearly talking about this movie.  When I hit PLAY at 16:00, it launched straight into Ben Gates’ big epiphany: that the map, which they would be following throughout the rest of the movie, was hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence.  You could not pick a more pivotal scene if you tried.

Verdict: While it didn’t establish any character conflict, it was THE turning point in the film.  Pass.

6. The Spy Who Loved Me

I will admit straight off that I haven’t seen this movie, so I was a little fuzzy as to what was actually going on, but the scene looked pretty good.  It opened up to the Big Bad talking to a couple of his associates, and revealing that one of his employees had betrayed him.  He then fed her to the sharks.

Verdict: For a series notorious for its vapid and superficial plots, the movie nonetheless delivered a scene which helped to establish one of its major characters.  Pass.

7. Peter Pan (Live-Action Version)

Wendy offers to sew Peter’s shadow back to his foot.  She spends the remainder of the minute completing this task.

Verdict: The infamous foot-sewing scene is a huge turning point in Wendy and Peter’s relationship, earning Peter’s respect for Wendy and inspiring his offer to take her to Neverland.  Pass with flying colors.

8. The Cat From Outer Space

Wouldn’t you know it – even old movies seem to follow this.  Page 17 of The Cat From Outer Space has the cat entering the main character’s laboratory, getting noticed by said character, and getting a name.

Verdict: Well, it didn’t introduce any conflict, but it brought the two characters together, which was pretty darned important.  Pass.

9. Logan’s Run

The main characters meet in the male character’s house.  He learns her name and that she is unhappy about her friend’s death on Carousel.  It seems largely unimportant now, but once he starts his mission he uses this information to find her and get help.  Pass.

10. The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns

Second length test, another Hallmark miniseries approximately four hours in length.  On page 17, one of the main characters is hanging out with his friends when a strange character appears.  They talk, and the characters (and audience) learn that the Grand Banshee has forbidden fighting between the faeries and leprechauns.  At the end of the minute, the characters have their first run-in with the MC’s arch-enemy.

Verdict: Not only did we introduce a huge plot point, but they even fit in an important antagonist.  Pass.

11. Westworld

Page 17: The main antagonist, who before now had been standing quietly at the bar, begins insulting the main character, looking to pick a fight.

Verdict: The antagonist has been introduced, and now we learn enough about his character to figure out what he’ll be doing for the remainder of the film.  Pass.

2. A Bug’s Life

When we cut to 16:00, we find that the ant council is in session, discussing what to do about the grasshopper problem.  The main character interrupts and proposes his idea, to which the council agrees.

Verdict: In only one minute, the remaining plot (aside from twists, of course) has been outlined and set into motion.  Pass.

13. The Munsters’ Revenge

Page 17 finds one of the main characters on a raging rampage throughout a police station, aggravated by a bug that crawled up his sleeve somewhat earlier.  He storms about, breaking furniture, for almost the entire minute before being pinned by police.  Shortly after the minute, he and the other main character are arrested.

Verdict: The remainder of the movie centers around the characters breaking out of jail and trying to clear their names.  Pass.

14. Ice Age

The sabretooths are in the midst of attacking the human village.  A human woman flees with her baby; one of the sabretooths chases after her.  He runs her to the edge of a cliff.  Seeing no other option, she jumps off; the baby will later be washed up and found by the main characters.  The sabretooth returns and reports that the baby has escaped; he will be assigned to retrieve it.

Verdict:  And that’s the plot of your movie right there.  Pass.

15. Batman & Robin

This is the movie that I just pulled off the top of the dresser and popped in.  The random selection did not go unrewarded: page 17 is utterly dull, following the female antagonist as she stalks about her laboratory talking into a recorder, then breaks into the laboratory of her rival scientist who is demonstrating his latest whackjob experiment.

Verdict: We already knew that these scientists were at odds, and Page 17 doesn’t do anything to expound on the matter.  Besides, only one of them will make it out alive.  Fail.

16. Arsenic and Old Lace

A really old one this time, just to see how far back the “rule” runs.  On Page 17 (assuming that page number was concurrent with time back then), the main character sends his new wife into her house to pack, then rushes to his own home to share the good news with his aunts.

Verdict: It could have been the body in the window seat.  It could have been the guy telling his wife he was going to be a bit longer than expected.  Instead, it was a small, lighthearted and ultimately trivial domestic matter.  Fail.

17. The Court Jester

And, putting the nail in the coffin for old movies, we have The Court Jester.  Page 17 puts us in the middle of a confrontation between the main character and a few minor antagonists.  The confrontation is resolved and the characters go on their way.

Verdict: The two set-up pieces – the guards meeting the MC for the first time, and the MC chatting with his love interest – happen before and after this point, respectively.  Nothing interesting occurs at 16:00.  Fail.

18. The Phantom of the Opera

And back to new movies.  At minute 16, we see the opera managers receiving their first message from the main antagonist, then learning the name of the protagonist.

Verdict: Two characters are made relevant in one minute.  Pass.

19: Lady and the Tramp

For the lulz, I dredged out an old animated classic.  And it performed pretty much as expected: at 16:00, we find the male protagonist seeking out lunch.  He finds it, takes it away to eat, and is interrupted by a dog-catcher’s van.

Verdict: It isn’t until 17:00 that the audience learns what the situation is, and it’s a minute too late.  Fail.

20: CSI, Episode “To Halve and to Hold”

I didn’t really think this one would work, but he did say every film, so I decided to be thorough about it.  Even knowing full well that the setup for these episodes happens before the credits, I went to Page 17 to check it out.  We have two of the main characters talking about some cells they’ve just discovered, then going to question the guest characters for the episode.  The guest characters bicker a bit when questioned.

Verdict: In a show where every other scene is some kind of brilliant revelation, this minute somehow failed to deliver any new information.  Fail.

In conclusion, it would appear that Marshall’s statement, while valid, was a bit hasty.  Older movies don’t experience this effect at all, and even newer productions have exceptions.  Page 17, while a popular turning point, is far from a magic number.

An interesting factoid about kittens…

(Oy!  This was supposed to be published days ago.  I have no idea why it didn’t, but here it goes now.)

Well, I had a good bit of fun yesterday.  The computer, lurching under the weight of two or three trojans, was on its last leg.  It crashed every 5-10 minutes, kept throwing random pop-up ads, and had decided that it could no longer read flash drives.

So I formatted the beastie.  It’s better now.

Another thing I did yesterday was hold one of the soft, fuzzy, adorable kittens that one of our cats has so generously bequeathed upon us.  They’re somewhere between a week and two weeks old, so naturally they are irresistible to humans.

Unfortunately, they are also cranky little fuzzbutts.  They all have a canary fit when you try to pick them up.  Two or three of them will continue to have said canary fit as long as you’re holding them, and will not shut up until you put them back in their box.

Fortunately for me, I managed to devise a solution.  I hit upon it rather by accident, really.  I was holding one of the kittens, stroking it, talking softly to it, trying to get the little cuss to quit meowing, at least for a few minutes.  I even tried imitating its mother – no dice.  (My momcat impression is terrible; this may have factored into it.)

So I tried singing.  Not any uber-fantabulous singing, mind – more like extended, quiet hooting.  Cooing, you might say.  The kind of thing that drives any human in a ten-foot radius absolutely bonkers.

And whaddya know?  The kitten shut up.

Not only did it stop crying, but the little fuzzball quit trying to escape.  Where before I had been dealing with a wigglewort kitten who probably would have jumped off my shoulder if I let it, now I had a quiet, complacent kitten snuggled into my arm, happy as a clam.  And it stayed there, as long as I kept singing.  Once I stopped it would get fussy again.

I have no idea why the kitten would respond to this.  I certainly didn’t sound anything like a mother cat.  I suspect vibrations had something to do with it; the kitten seemed to prefer when I hummed at a lower pitch.  Perhaps the longer wavelength was close enough to its mother’s purring that it soothed the little beastie.

Either way, it seems that kittens are much easier to please than infected computers.

Investigating the “Page 17″ rule

While perusing the “cameos” (advice from screenplay writers) on Script Frenzy, I came across an interesting piece of information.  According to Nathan Marshall, you can pause any DVD at the Page 17 mark – roughly sixteen minutes into the film – and something important will be happening.  You will find yourself witnessing a great turning point that will set the stage for the rest of the movie.

Well, it’s not that I don’t trust Mr. Marshall – as he is a screenwriter and I am not, I am sure he knows what he’s talking about – but in the interest of exploring this idea, I decided to test some of the DVD’s around the house.

So I grabbed a random selection.  First I rifled through the drawers where we keep the movies, picking on a whim and grabbing whatever popped up.  Then I stacked them on the dresser, discovered that there was another movie beneath the stack, and grabbed that one.  Then, since I discovered I had left a couple of demographics out, I grabbed another two movies, then one more for good measure.  I ended up with fifteen different titles, as follows:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. Left Behind II: Tribulation Force
3. The Day After Tomorrow
4. Dinotopia (to see if length affects the phenomenon)
5. National Treasure
6. The Spy Who Loved Me (had to include Bond, for fairness)
7. Peter Pan (newer, live-action version)
8. The Cat from Outer Space
9. Logan’s Run
10. The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns (another length test)
11. Westworld
12. A Bug’s Life (gratuitous Pixar inclusion)
13. The Munsters’ Revenge
14. Ice Age
15. Batman & Robin
16. Arsenic and Old Lace
17. The Court Jester
18. The Phantom of the Opera

I was still missing a couple of demographics, so I threw in 19. Lady and the Tramp and 20. Random episode of CSI, to be determined later.

Then I sat down with my notebook and DVD and got crackin’.  Once I’ve compiled the results, I’ll return with a follow-up post.

iApprove: Evolution of the Eye.

Remember that article I did a bit back on how the eye could have evolved?  Well, I found a vide0 on PBS that demonstrates the theoretical process.  It even provides examples of animals today that have partial eyes which enable them to see, albeit poorly.

Learn some stuff.  Nao.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html

A Quick Apology

It turns out that I misunderstood the creationist argument about the human eye.  In doing so, I accidentally created a “straw man” – a figure that resembles their actual argument, but is infinitely stupider and easier to knock down.  Their actual reason given for the eye’s un-evolvability was that each part is not useful without the other; in other words, a partial eye is useless, not partial eyesight. I apologize for misrepresenting this hypothesis.

However, there is still a certain amount of invalidity to this claim.  While it is true that certain parts of the eye – the lens, the iris, the optic nerve, etc. serve no purpose without the rest of the eye to function, other parts – the light-sensing cells in particular – could have developed on their own, as described in my (rather anachronistic) theoretical story in the previous article.  As time goes on, that patch of light-sensing cells changes – it develops a lens to help focus light, a curve to help it determine the direction of light, and other useful features.  These do not spring out fully-formed the way they appear in modern animals.  Instead, the eye structure changes gradually, developing only partial (vestigal) versions of each feature which grow more refined as time goes on, eventually learning to interact with each other in such a way as to become almost entirely co-dependent, like the eye we see today.

Given what we know about primitive animals, it is likely that eyes developed very early in the evolutionary chain – after these creatures had diverged from things like jellyfish and sponge ancestors, but before they had branched into most other species, such as the earliest armored beasties, primitive fish, and early cephalopods.  Even then, eyes were still fairly primitive, and in each kind of animal ended up changing into something very distinctive – from complex human eyes to the dual system used by arthropods to the simple photoreceptors of the vampire squid (if that isn’t a partial eye, I don’t know what is).

TL;DR: Unfortunately, your actual argument is equally as falsifiable as the strawman.

The Human Eye: Perfect Design or Marvel of Evolution?

I’ve heard it said both ways.  Well, no, not really.  I’ve never actually heard someone come out and say that the eye was the pinnacle of evolutionary genius.  But I have heard the claim from creationists: that the eye is perfectly designed, and that since partial eyesight is not helpful there is no way that eyes could have evolved over time.

Well, first I’d like to thank the creationist who said that for remembering how evolution works.  Many of them can’t get past the “lightning hit a mud puddle and life happened” model, which is a huge strawman of the actual theory of evolution.  Indeed, according to the best scientific evidence, evolution happens when an animal develops a small trait that makes it superior to its ancestors, and its descendants continue to make improvements on that trait over a lengthy period of time.  Applied to the eye, this implies that life-forms spent a large portion of time with only a small amount of eyesight as rudimentary eyes rapidly grew in complexity.  So is it true that an eye that only enables you to see a little bit is no improvement over no eyes at all:

There’s a swift and obvious answer to this: No.  Just no.  Normally I’d show off the evidence and then let you decide for yourselves, but come on, this one is obvious.

Picture this: You’re a little cluster of cells floating about in the ocean; a rudimentary worm, if you will.  You probably already have a small patch of cells somewhere on your body that are sensitive to the chemicals in the water around you, enabling you to smell.  This neat feature has been in the family for a few generations; the sensitivity it lends you to the environment has enabled you to locate food and avoid predators better than your non-smelling relatives, so you’ve survived and reproduced very nicely.

But there’s one feature that separates you even from these advanced relatives.  Another patch of cells, not too far from the first one, has become sensitive to light.  It’s not much, just a tiny nodule that tells you whether or not it’s dark in your area; at this point you can’t even see the way most people are familiar with.  You may have noticed that it gets light and dark in succession — the day and night cycle.  But you’ve probably noticed something else, too – sometimes, when it grows dark very suddenly, you can pick up the scent of a predator.  You’ve come to realize that darkness can mean danger.  Other times, darkness can mean safety, as you dart into the safe recesses of a tiny cave.

The ability to distinguish between light and dark might not seem that useful compared to your rudimentary sense of smell, but it becomes useful later.  When you flee a predator in a panicked state, it may take you a while to analyze a smell and figure out what it means, but light and darkness are recognized almost immediately.

This model may not be entirely accurate; for example, plants have rudimentary light-sensing abilities and no sense of smell, so it’s possible that sight came first – in which case the creatures that could see would have a huge advantage over their nonsighted relatives.  As demonstrated above, even the ability to distinguish between light and darkness aids the rudimentary worm as it learns to associate darkness with different things.  At night, when there’s not enough light to distinguish between high and low levels, you’re back on the same footing as your sightless family, but during the day that simple ability enables you to avoid certain threats and find safety.

Still not convinced?

Take a look at plants.  Plants require sunlight to survive.  In order to help them to locate that sunlight, their cells have light-detecting abilities – the basis of sight – to enable them to locate and move toward the best supply.  The movement of plants is somewhat ineffectual compared to ours, in that they must grow to reach wherever they’re going, but the ability to find and put themselves in the best sources of light enables them to get the energy they need to survive.

Then there are arthropods – more commonly known as insects, arachnids, and crustaceans.  Most arthropods come equipped with two kinds of eyes: the well-known compound eyes, which serve to make out complex shapes, and the lesser-known ocelli, very simple eyes that specialize in detecting light levels.  In other words, either type of eye performs only partial vision.  And here’s a shocker: after some experimentation, it was discovered that an arthropod can get on quite well with only one of these types of eyes.

I hope that whoever made this rather outrageous claim to begin with wasn’t legally blind, because there are also significant numbers of humans with only partial eyesight who still benefit.  Although they may not be able to see much – men may resemble trees, for a Biblical example – the ability to make out basic shapes is enough to prevent them from walking into lampposts, cars, or other people.  It would also enable them, in the wild, to detect the swift motion of an oncoming predator and escape before they are killed.  An individual who was completely blind may be able to hear the oncoming predator, but would have a difficult time finding a place to hide with no eyesight.

This is all lovely evidence that the eye is not irreducably complex, but it still doesn’t prove that complex eyes arose from simple ones.  But really, if you’re a die-hard creationist, nothing is going to prove that.  I could provide all the transitional fossils that have been found between simple eyes and more complex eyes, just as people have provided what seem to be transitional forms between apes and humans, and you still probably wouldn’t believe it.  And since the idea of a Creator God is non-falsifiable, there’s no way I can prove that one wasn’t involved in the creation of Earth.  What I can provide – the only thing I can provide – is the evidence which suggests that his Creation is not nearly as perfect as we first thought.

Being Green: Green Stain Removal

I’m hitting a bit of a dead end here.  According to recent studies (aka State-the-Obvious fests), chlorine bleach is harmful to humans and should be avoided whenever possible.  And while I’m not going to jump the gun and ditch all bleach entirely, knowing as I do the things bleach can do to the human body, I thought it might be nice to find a safer alternative that I can use to cut nasty counter stains.

I have yet to find one.

I started my search today by trying four different remedies popular in the green-cleaning community: baking soda, vinegar/lemon juice, baking soda & vinegar/lemon juice together, and hydrogen peroxide.  In the best scientific method, I tested their stain-removing ability by staining separate sections of the counter with Kool-Aid, then covering the stains with the bleaching solution and allowing them to sit for a few minutes.

The results: Not good.

Baking soda’s true power is in scrubbing, not soaking.  Even then, it only lightened the stains.  Vinegar, lemon juice, and hydrogen peroxide were equally as effective.  The best method was to sprinkle baking soda on the stain and add vinegar or lemon juice, but even this left much more color than desirable.

It becomes apparent that while most things in your life can – and should – be made greener, some things are a little more difficult.  So for now I’ll be sticking to bleach for stain removal.  If you’re concerned about getting chlorine into your system, a quick baking-soda flush will remove the chemical from your counter, leaving it clean and food-grade.

And if anyone figures out a green stain remover that comes anywhere close to the effectiveness of chlorine bleach, please let me know straight away.

GeriMorgan goes Toe-to-Toe with GoVeg.

Greetings, dear friends.  Today I am going to talk about vegetarianism.  Specifically, I am going to challenge GoVeg.com’s claim that humans are natural herbivores.  I will not be inserting my opinion into this article.  I will merely compare fact with fact.

So let’s just dive right in and get started, eh?

GoVeg says:

According to biologists and anthropologists who study our anatomy and our evolutionary history, humans are herbivores who are not well suited to eating meat.

Unlike natural carnivores, we are physically and psychologically unable to rip animals limb from limb and eat and digest their raw flesh.

Who-ho-hoa!  Second paragraph and they’ve already made a mistake.  While humans are incapable of tearing animals limb from limb, we are perfectly capable of digesting raw meat, as long as the meat has not been contaminated by dangerous bacteria. Such contamination is easily avoided by proper gutting and handling of the carcass.

Also, I don’t know if this was what they intended, but this statement claims that an animal must be capable of ripping another animal limb-from-limb to eat it.  But several wild predators, including owls, small cats, and chimpanzees, perform no such task.  Cats and owls are, of course, capable of easily killing an animal without the aid of tools, which does make them more natural-seeming predators than humans.

Even cooked meat is likely to cause human beings, but not natural carnivores, to suffer from food poisoning, heart disease, and other ailments.

Even before I checked out their links, I detected something fishy.  Food poisoning, which they claim is  a direct result of eating meat, comes from eating food that has been contaminated with certain bacteria – bacteria which can be and has been found on either meat or plants.

The claim that meat causes heart disease is also based on faulty evidence.  While it is true that the clogging of arteries and high cholesterol are directly related to heart disease, recent scientific studies have revealed that these problems are caused by consuming hydrogenated fats, or trans fats.  In fact, other studies suggest that a diet rich in meat can help to reduce the levels of dangerous cholesterol in your body.  (Not that a vegetarian lifestyle is incapable of having benefits, but they are not nearly as certain as GoVeg asserts.)

People who pride themselves on being part of the human hunter tradition should take a second look at the story of human evolution. Prehistoric evidence indicates that humans developed hunting skills relatively recently and that most of our short, meat-eating past was spent scavenging and eating almost anything in order to survive; even then, meat was a tiny part of our caloric intake.

I assume that GoVeg is referring to pre-Ice Age humans (and likely pre-human species) who, living in a warm and welcoming climate, found plenty of readily-available plant matter.  This is a correct statement.  However, the evidence found by archaeologists does not support their other claim, which is that these early humans ate nothing but plants.  In fact, our stone-wielding ancestors have included meat in their diet for the past two and a half million years.  After that long of a period of almost always eating some meat, they would certainly have evolved to support it, and the diet of their predecessors cannot be considered reliable evidence.  Using the same argument, one could declare that panda bears are not natural vegetarians, because although their bodies have changed to support their mostly-vegetarian diet, their ancestors (and closest relatives) are meat-eaters.

The other claim is that meat only comprised a tiny portion of the human diet, and this may be true.  But the extension claim – that if you only eat a small amount, you don’t need to eat it at all – is most certainly not true.  Many animals eat a mostly-vegetarian diet, limiting meat to the rare times that they can get it or the few times that they need it (such as when pregnant or nursing).  While GoVeg would quickly paint them with a vegetarian brush, these quantities of animal flesh are significant and necessary to the animal’s welfare.  Animals will not typically continue to eat a food unless their body expresses a need for it.

During the worst of the Ice Age, of course, most northern humans ate large quantities of meat, as the frigid weather made plants scarce.

Humans lack both the physical characteristics of carnivores and the instinct that drives them to kill animals and devour their raw carcasses.

The validity of this statement is entirely dependent on two things: the idea that an animal can only be a carnivore or an herbivore, and the belief that an animal must have a full mouth of sharp teeth or a set of deadly claws to be a carnivore.

Again, scientific study reveals that this is not the case.  Perhaps the best example would be PETA’s favorite intelligent animal: the omnivorous pig.

Pigs are already compared quite frequently to humans, likely because they have similar body mass.  They also have a few other interesting things in common.  Like humans, they have no killer claws; they tromp about on small hooves entirely unsuited to hunting.  Also like humans, they lack an entire mouthful of sharp teeth – the rear sets have become plant-crushing molars.  Bears, another well-known omnivore, have a similar dental structure.

Of course, unlike pigs and bears, the front teeth of humans are not as obviously carnivorous – unlike the meat-tearing beauties of other species, our canines and incisors are short and rather nondescript.  I will not discount the possibility that this is a reaction to a plant-based diet.  But the lack of fangs is not a certain indicator; humans also lack the large shovel-like incisors common to plant-eating animals such as rabbits and horses, while mostly-herbivorous animals such as pandas and chimpanzees – and some entirely-herbivorous species, such as the fruit bat – still have prominent canines. (On the other side of the spectrum, omnivorous rats have very similar teeth to rabbits.)

I might suggest that the shape of the teeth is not as important as whether or not we are able to use them on our diet of choice.  By developing tools that enabled them to remove the meat from the carcass and separate it into serving-sized chunks (or smaller), early humans would have relieved their canines of their main purpose for existence.  At the same time, humans were discovering another use for their teeth – complex speech, which promotes social cooperation and would have only been hindered by oversized fangs.

The first vegetarian who tells me that tools are not a natural way to get food is going to have to answer to crows, chimpanzees, and otters.  Humans are only one of a number of species who have used their intelligence to compensate for a lack of relevant features.

As to the instinct bit… well, I only ask that GoVeg explain to me why humans started eating meat in the first place.  It wasn’t because meat farmers were trying to make money.

Ask yourself: When you see dead animals on the side of the road, are you tempted to stop for a snack? Does the sight of a dead bird make you salivate? Do you daydream about killing cows with your bare hands and eating them raw?

All right.  At this point, all scientific arguments are off; this is a battle of sheer smart-aleck attitude, and I will meet the challenge accordingly.

Ask yourself: When you see someone’s lawn, are you tempted to stop for a snack?  Does the sight of a withered bunch of carrots make you salivate?  Do you daydream about picking rice with your bare hands and eating it raw?  If you answered “no” to all of these questions – congratulations, you’re a normal human carnivore, like it or not.  Humans were simply not designed to live on vegetables.  Or, more accurately, the three questions listed above do not pose accurate situations.  While most carnivores would certainly answer “yes” to #3, very few could agree with the first two statements.  Rotting flesh is not particularly popular in the gamekiller world.

By the way, GoVeg, I answered “yes” to your third question.  Raw beef is fantastic.

Learning new words: bane, or just a bit tricky?

I have problems learning certain words.  Specifically, foreign words over a couple of syllables, and scientific terminology of similar length.

I assume that this is because my mind has settled into its adult configuration.  It’s left the input-rich child phase in which the neurons fall into place; its layout is more or less static now, making it more difficult to retain information.

Not that it’s impossible.  In my adult life alone, I have had no problems learning “deoxyribonucleic acid” (genetic code!) “humuhumunukunukuapua’a” (snorting, leaping fish) and “Raxacoricofallapatorius” (a planet from Dr. Who).  So it is clear to me that the capability is in there somewhere; I just need to learn how to access it.

I was thinking about this today, and wondering – what did I do differently when learning these words – as well as several of the Japanese words I know, such as tsukinukete or mangekyou?  Then I remembered: syllablic memorization.

These words come with a double problem: not only are they foreign, but they are long and difficult to pronounce just by reading through them once or twice.  I was forced to pick through them syllable by syllable, then repeat them in the correct order until I could recite the entire word.  If the word wasn’t quite long enough to merit syllabic analysis (such as cotelydon), I could still remember it if the actual pronunciation of the word was significantly different from the way I pronounced it instinctually.

The words stuck with me that way.  And so did the meaning.

It seems, then, that all hope is not lost for our stagnant adult brains.  While it may be more difficult for us to retain the information (and this method does not work particularly well with Japanese words, where one character may represent several syllables), it is possible to burn the information into our brains one syllable at a time.

More on fat.

I’m in a mood now, so you get to read a rant, this time on fat.

As I said in my previous posts, I am fat.  This has had certain negative impacts on my life, mostly psychological, but is not an aspect of me that I find particularly controlling (except on a dietary level).  I will also volunteer that I am not perfectly peachy being as heavy as I am, BUT since I am not cripplingly overweight I do not consider it a pressing OMGISSUE!!!

Anyway, let me talk about fat.  Specifically, fat, obesity, the “Obesity Epidemic”, and type II diabetes.  And scientists.  Especially scientists.

Seriously.  Scientists have this nasty habit of saying things that make me want to hit my head on the desk.  You’d think for people who’ve been studying this as long as they have they would GET IT ALREADY, but apparently not.  I refer to the correlation between obesity and Type II diabetes.

According to (some) scientists, obesity raises your risk for getting Type II diabetes.  They’ve come to this conclusion because they have noticed a correlation between the people who are obese and the people who are diabetic.  Well, I give them props for figuring out the connection, but I’m afraid they’re still a bit far from the truth.

I would now like to take a moment to put in a good word for my (sadly deceased) “personal dietary instructor”, Dr. Robert Atkins.  The guy is well known for, of all things, suggesting a low-carbohydrate diet.  In the face of the low-fat, high-carb dogma most dietitians were pushing, this was both shocking and met (perhaps rightly) with great skepticism.

His diet proposed that it was not the consumption of fat that was causing weight gain, but the consumption of excessive carbohydrates.  And his reasoning was quite solidly based on the diabetes-obesity connection, believe it or not.  Yep, back in the 1970’s, he’d caught on to it.  Let me explain how it works – at least, for fat-retaining, diabetes-developing people.

Firstly, a look at the human digestive system.  Humans run on four different sources of energy: carbohydrates, protein, fat, and alcohol.  We get these all from the food we eat, and process them through digestion before we can use them to run our bodies.  Since each of these sources is made from different material, we process them in different ways, and some are easier to process than others.

You probably already know that carbohydrates are the quickest and easiest of our usual diet to digest, followed by protein and fat.  What you may not have learned is that carbohydrates, being made of significantly different material from the other two sources, are processed in rather a different manner.

Broken down into their simplest form, carbohydrates are known as glucose, or blood sugar.  This is extremely basic sugar that occupies your body until such time as you get around to metabolizing it (burning it for energy).  It’s a very nice energy source, but it’s dangerous to have too much in your body at once.  Enter the pancreas.

The pancreas has multiple functions, but the best-known is its ability to release insulin.  Insulin is the hormone that forces your body to take care of excess sugar.  Basically, it instructs your cells to take the excess glucose, change it into glycogen, and store it in your liver until it can be used later (something else that the pancreas causes).

For people like me, though, it’s not so easy.  I have a condition known as hypoglycemia – or, in layman’s terms, a hyperactive pancreas.  If I ingest too high a number of carbohydrates – or too simple of carbohydrates, which break down more rapidly – the resultant overload of sugar causes my pancreas to overreact.  It will produce much more insulin than usual, causing my cells to lock away nearly all of the glucose in my system, resulting in low blood sugar.

As if it wasn’t bad enough already, there’s another problem that results from this.  Your liver can only hold so much glycogen, and with my pancreas constantly locking away all the glucose in my system, it gets full in a huge hurry.  Once my liver is loaded, my cells have no choice but to move the glycogen to a secondary storage area: my fat cells.

Fat cells are a bit weird.  They don’t reproduce to expand, like other cells.  Instead, they feed on the glycogen and grow larger.  This is a useful system for animals such as bears, who must go for long periods without food and will metabolize the fat while they sleep.  Not so much for people like me, who have a ready supply of food.

This isn’t a problem for people with a normally-functioning pancreas.  Since most of the glucose they consume remains in their systems, they are able to digest it without a problem.  For the hypoglycemic, however, the sudden crash in glucose requires them to put a new energy source in their body immediately.  If I’m constantly adding new carbohydrates to my system, the resultant raise in insulin will prevent the deglycification process (glycogenolysis, in medical terminology), and my body will never get the chance to use the glucose stored in my liver – or to metabolize the fat reserves built up in my body.

Obesity isn’t the only result, though.  Repeated spazz attacks take their toll on the pancreas.  Eventually, it wears out and loses its ability to effectively produce insulin.  Without insulin to tell the body’s cells when to store glucose, blood sugar levels can raise dangerously.  This condition is normally referred to as Type II diabetes.

Not that every case of Type II diabetes – or even obesity – is caused solely by poor genetics.  Starvation early in life can lead to metabolic problems, as can other factors.  And now I’m going to annoy probably everyone, because I would like to shine some light on the real star of this story (at least here in America): processed flour and sugar.

They’ve become a staple in our diets.  They’re so light and fluffy or sweet and sticky.  We love the taste, the texture, everything about them.  And we’ve allowed them to become a regular part of our diets.

But all the processing they’ve gone through has done two things: broken them down, so that they digest faster, and removed extra material (such as fiber) that may have provided backup nutrition.  Even a healthy pancreas, when exposed to a shot of high-impact sugar, is forced to go into overdrive.  It may not produce enough insulin for a full-out hypoglycemic attack, but it will certainly end up locking away large quantities of glucose.  And once the liver gets full, you know what has to happen.

So why doesn’t a low-fat diet work?  After all, without fat particles to digest after the glucose runs out, your body should just switch to your internal sources and you should be good.  Well, it does, but since the only time this works is when you’re not busy digesting carbohydrates, your food is going to have worn out by the time you get around to raiding your fat cells.  Ever felt hungry all the time on a low-fat diet?  That’s why.