TheVat

Venodilation relaxes the smooth muscle in venous walls, which makes them enlarge and act as larger reservoirs. It's not a matter of reduced resistance, it's that the volume of blood now returning to the heart is LESS, because more blood is being held in "reserve" in veins. When venodilation decreases, it essentially means that the smooth muscles in vein walls are tightening and engaging as secondary pumps -- which steps up venous return. You may be interested to know (or already know) that an extra liter of blood is in the veins, which means that rapid venoconstriction can add that extra blood to the circulation in the case of an emergency, i. e. sudden blood loss and bp drop.

I really hope we can get a fairly objective, and agreed upon, definition of torture before we start calling conscientious parents torturers! LoL! I fear that equating hand slaps, or maybe large servings of Brussels Sprouts, with torture, might somewhat erode the actual meaning of the word in the context of criminal law and penology.

Transgender seems to be something that can be honored, not disparaged, as something unusual and having unique attributes. Trans-women and cis-women are not the same. They do share something, in terms of a culturally-mediated femaleness, but I see no reason they couldn't recognize and respect each other's differences while still having solidarity on some matters. It's odd to live in a society that spends so much time declaring the virtues of diversity, yet at the same time wants to stuff everyone into two simplistic categories. Of course, few people really want true diversity. They want a world where everyone is conservative or liberal, Dem or Repub, gay or straight, elite or common, etc. Saves time and brain-strain. Humans have a positive fetish for dichotomies and saying faux-pearls of wisdom that start with "there are two kinds of people in the world." I suspect that is why some people go for the SA surgery, because they know being a chick with a dick will be too weird for their peer group. If we were really open to diverse forms of sexuality, then being a chick with dick would be cool and identity wouldn't have to be so firmly attached to particular anatomy. Gender dysphoria can be addressed, but it shouldn't be addressed with physical alterations until the person is grown. Before you all jump on that: 1. Just my opinion. I'm not declaring any final or scientific insight here. What I do know is that decisions made during the turbulence of adolescence are not always great decisions. 2. Also the opinion of mental health professionals I've known and respected in my work, and I will add quite progressive in their views on other matters. So, no, being opposed to 14 year olds getting a sex change is in no way being opposed to sex change or thinking it's ungodly. Disclaimer: this is, for me, a very rough and off-the-cuff post, so take this as coming from someone still trying out all the concepts and having reached no solid answers on the sports league/division questions. (I doubt there are enough trans people at most high schools to form a separate league, though...)

Torture dehumanizes both torturer and torturee. What kind of society do we become if we ask people to perform such a brutalizing (and likely psychologically damaging) occupation on our supposed behalf? This is aside from the obvious hypocrisy -- hello, we're going to teach the wrongness of harming others by, um, harming someone. The idea is cruel, sadistic, and I know of no evidence that it would actually deter those most likely to commit crimes of serious harm.

Seems to be another potential for positive feedback from recent thaws in Siberia.... https://www.pnas.org/content/118/32/e2107632118 The Washington Post has summarized the findings here.... https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/02/climate-change-heat-wave-unleashes-methane-from-prehistoric-siberian-rock/ This really needs watching because of methane being such a potent GHG compared to others.

If I don't have dependents who are still placing trust in me to give care and protection, and I feel that I'm at the end of my life and no further interventions can give any quality of life or respite from pain, then it's no one's business what measures I take so long as they are not hazardous to others (nothing that starts a fire, or exposes other tenants to gas fumes, etc.). As Zapatos (haven't figured out how to tag names here, yet) noted, there are incurable conditions that ravage any quality of life and are definitely not temporary. For those whose spiritual practice is set against suicide, I think that's cool and I have no problem with their choice to take what they see as a spiritual path of suffering. However, to impose that spiritual practice on others is something that would tend to lead towards totalitarian authority and theocracy, which is contrary to principles of freedom that I hold dear. One small dent in freedom I would suggest: if you plan to self-euthanize, be responsible and make sure someone knows in a timely fashion. Years ago, we had a neighbor who did so, and they didn't have a lot of connections of the type who would check in on you. (we were a couple houses down, and didn't know her well, and wished later we had reached out more) So it was almost a week post mortem before the police showed up, when the adjacent neighbor noticed both the absence and a smell coming from the house. There is diminished dignity in such a situation, and it is pretty horrific for those who have to deal with the remains. (there was another case, not local, where someone did that, but let their dog out first, apparently knowing she would raise a ruckus pretty quickly. In that incident, the decedent was found right away)

Yes, most research I've seen points more to differences between party members and how they respond to strangers, or to new ideas and situations. There does seem to be a correlation between being Republican, for example, and having a larger amydala and a stronger reaction (pupillary dilation, BP, respiration, adrenaline) to unfamiliar faces and situations. (not going to dig it up, but googling "amygdala republican" or similar should get it) As a common sense observation, I think many of us notice that personalities that value status quo and traditional approaches tend to register more anxiety about change and innovative ideas. An official who steps up and says "Let's make things more like 1953" often gets a warmer reception from that personality. Unless, of course, the person was in a group that had to ride in the back of the bus and stay out of certain neighborhoods in 1953. I would say, as a personal observation, that it seems to me that empathy and social IQ do positively correlate. And I do have my own opinion as to where the main locus of empathy is found on the political spectrum, but will keep that out of this chat.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/first-time-crystal-built-using-googles-quantum-computer-20210730/ Getting around the second law of thermo is pretty cool.

If I put each member of a pair of gloves in boxes, and mail them to opposite sides of the earth, I should not be surprised that by looking inside one box I can determine (in the sense of know) the handedness of the glove in the other. Nothing is being determined, in any sense of causal action or superluminal data transfer, it's just a matter of our knowledge at that moment. It's more as if the way I open the one box will be a method that gives me handedness, and sort of brings that property into reality. Once I know one member of the pair is left-hand then I instantly know the other is right-hand. If this is wrong or simplistic, someone LMK.

Great song. A friend of mine had a major role for many years in the off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks. It was the perfect intro song, in the musical.

I believe you're stupid and ugly. Share that with the neighbor, y/n? So, point is, no need to overshare opinions of a subjective nature, which offer nothing constructive. Broadly speaking, however, human relationships thrive on trust, and lying can destroy trust. If the ugly neighbor has been tossing cigarette butts on your driveway, then it's worth saying you don't like it. This establishes an honest relationship where you aren't holding secret resentment and you are defining real boundaries. Another way to look at harsher truths, and if they should be shared, is to consider if they describe something fixable and if that fix would be of mutual benefit and not impose a terrible burden on the person. And there's also diplomacy. I. e. delivering honest comments in a form that somewhat softens their abrasive exterior.

Carl Jung was Swiss, so there's that. And the watches are topnotch. I think Belgium would provide some challenge to your chocolatey hegemony, however, M. Neu. And I have to question putting holes in cheese. Two considerations on that - one, you get slightly less cheese in a given volume - two, generally when food has holes in it (the doughnut excepted), there is cause for concern as to what might have created those cavities. In any case, following M. Neu's example of scientific sampling, I shall base all my judgments of Switzerland on the cross-section I found when I spent a day (more like an afternoon, really) in Geneva and the five Swiss I met there.

Fun (and a bit Darwinian) ! We call them soap box cars in the States.

https://youtu.be/FebgVrBTaPw Johnny English: Dear god let me not die at the hands of the Swiss!

https://www.theonion.com/fun-toy-banned-because-of-three-stupid-dead-kids-1819565691

It's hard for me to picture how that conversation would happen. So, Ted, I notice you've never cheated on Carol. Was that because you jerked off? Anyway, thanks for making this thread which was already amusing even more so! Well put. And my guess would be that "counter proposal" is closer to the reality of what happens when relationships fade.

What's that old social science joke...research shows that 90 % of men masturbate, and 10% of men lie on questionnaires.

1. Overwhelming support is irrelevant to the biology question - it's a sociological factoid that has zero bearing on any data that may confirm or disconfirm a significant difference in physiological capacity between trans and cis players. Thousands of athletes could support having trained poodles on stilts in the NBA -- that wouldn't be a compelling scientific case for poodle/human parity under the hoop. 2. "Minuscule advantage" assumes facts not in evidence and yet to be determined. It is sophistry. So are emotionally loaded phrases like the snarky "do-gooders." 3. There is no equivalence (or "similar in spirit") to the hideous stain of American slavery and subsequent Jim Crow regime to be found here. Millions of people will not find themselves in shackles, beaten, tortured, worked to early death, and hunted down by dogs, if it turns out that a few women with male skeletons and fast-twitch muscle fibers and lungs find themselves in a different league than they hoped for. These sorts of "similar" comments that bring in MLK and 400 years of brutal oppression are a bit insulting to people of color, IMHO. I welcome replies, but am basically done here.

I really wanted to click upvote more than once for that comment, Joigus. While I don't disagree with the many posts lauding teamwork and discipline and camaraderie, I live in a land of many couch potatoes who might do well to find some unity and rewarding discipline in the Using Your Own Legs as Transport Freestyle event. Instead we seem to have a nation of people passively waiting for electric cars, or whatever tech they think will fix everything.

Hint : Measure in June, then in December, then consider a triangle.... Hint 2: Hipparchus did it first, albeit sloppily.

As my nom de forum indicates, I have some knowledge of the giant bourbon project. Your Canuck spelling is so quaint! Joking aside, you did con me into several minutes of dull reading on cold-water aquaculture. You may believe you've said too much, but rest assured I remain in the dark as to how an ugly freshwater cod is being deployed for border interdiction.

Well, the BBB is an epithelial layer in capillaries, basically, that is semipermeable. So, there's two ways across. Passive diffusion, which just means small thing work their way through. The other way is active transport, where special molecules help stuff like glucose and amino acids get across. I'm assuming the nanoparticles get through the first way, by diffusion. The epithelial cells have pretty tight junctions between them, and are very selective as to what they will let through, so your nanoparticles have to be small and inoffensive (e.g. they can't be pathogens that would endanger the neurons). It seems highly probable these devices would be injected, given the rigors of going through the stomach and so on.

No, you shouldn't stop, I agree. My POV was more that it might be useful to move on to how data might be gathered (this is a biology forum, my keen powers of observation disclosed to me this morning) that would address the question I have yet to see really answered here: if a man transforms into a woman, retaining deep lungs, heavy bones, and more fast-twitch explosive strength, will her new set of capacities be those of a very gifted woman (well and good) or will they be they be off the charts WRT to cis-women? Rather than just having the chat keep derailing as people strive to signal their goodness and empathy and progressive values, it would be nice to have some actual facts in hand to address the physiology part of the question. Not everyone who wants a straight answer to this has an Agenda. Sexual reassignment treatment/surgery is still a fairly new phenomenon on this planet, and curious people want to, for whatever reason, (sometimes it's just curiosity) have answers to such questions. If you traveled to another planet, where you had no stake whatsoever in their cultural beliefs, and were informed that some members of that society chopped off body parts and altered body chemistry in order to feel more truly themselves, I imagine that you would, without much guilt or deep self-reflection, want to know what was behind that practice. We can't any of us be that impartial, in this matter, because we live here on Earth and grew up with deeply acculturated assumptions about our bodies and what we do with them. I would wager that NOT ONE PERSON HERE, on first encountering the concept of sexual reassignment, before they had time to carefully compose their attitudes, was not knocked a bit off balance and perhaps even shocked. Acceptance of trans people will come when there's honest conversation about this and any question can be asked. JMO.