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“The humans have discovered Octopolis. We must advance our timetable.” Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash
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This is why it is always good to order two hot dogs, just to be safe. Eating a Single Hot Dog May Take 36 Minutes Off Your Life, Study Says.
In any event you can counteract the hot dog with a PB&J sandwich: “And surprisingly, the study says a peanut butter and jelly sandwich actually adds 33 minutes and 6 seconds.”
“When it comes to the PB&J sandwich, it's the nut butter that prevails. It's got heart healthy fat, protein, fiber and it's totally delicious,” Bauer said.1
Also adding to your life: avocados and bananas.
Machiavelli for Women: 7 Power Strategies for the Workplace. Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the most unfairly malignd and widely misunderstood thinkers in history. The guy has gotten several hundred years of bad press simply because he described how power really works instead of how it ought to work or how we might like it to work. Machiavelli kept it real, and you can glean useful and important insights from his writings without going full Borgia on someone.2
I’m always fascinated by how people interpret and apply Machiavelli to contemporary environments. Here, Tim Ferriss has a guest blog post by Stacey Vanek Smith, author of the new book Machiavelli for Women: Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace
I haven’t read the book, but her blog post shows a good effort to translate Machiavelli’s counsel to Renaissance Italian princes into advice for women in the 21st century workplace. So if that’s you, it might be worth checking out.
A similar book, The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women, came out in 1998. Clearly, repackaging Machiavelli as career advice for women is a publishing niche with legs.
My advice, man or woman, is read The Prince and apply Nicky M’s insights and observations for yourself in accordance with your own principles. Machiavelli is for everyone!
News you can use (maybe): What is a hangover? And can you cure it? The science of hangovers is not at all settled, it seems:
For starters, science still doesn’t quite know what causes a hangover. Literature on the subject has identified three possible culprits: the direct effect of alcohol on the brain and other organs, the effects of alcohol withdrawal from these organs; and other non-alcoholic factors, such as the physiological effects of compounds created when the body processes alcohol, like methanol.
It’s also challenging to define what a hangover is. The definition researchers generally agree upon is that it’s a condition characterized by a feeling of misery that can last up to 24 hours after the amount of alcohol in your blood drops to zero. As anyone who’s ever experienced a hangover will tell you, symptoms can vary both in nature and intensity, going from headache, nausea, and fatigue, to muscle aches, vomiting, lack of concentration, and anxiety.
I’ll take their word for it. Read the rest for science-based advice on how to mitigate the ill effects of — though not, alas, cure — a hangover, should you find yourself in that situation. Most of which you’ve probably heard.
But the buried headline in this article is the possibility that scientists are engaged in a Hangover Conspiracy...3
I love stories about animals helping other animals. A family of wild boars organized a cage breakout of 2 piglets, demonstrating high levels of intelligence and empathy
A wild boar carried out a daring mission to free two piglets from a trap, demonstrating high levels of intelligence and empathy, a new paper published in Scientific Reports shows.
The incident, which occurred in January 2020, was documented by a team of scientists from the Czech University of Life Sciences at the Voděradské Bučiny National Nature Reserve.
The wild boar trap, which used corn as bait, had been set up to help researchers study prevention measures for African Swine Fever.
A camera captured images of two juvenile boars becoming entrapped together for two hours and 30 minutes.
A group of around eight wild boars eventually arrived at the site of the trap, led by one fully grown female boar.
In an attempt to free the trapped boars, the female boar charged at strategic points where wooden logs were blocking the doors of the trap.
The report said the female boar's mane was visibly erect, known as piloerection, which scientists said is an indication of distress.
Researchers said that it appeared that the other boars were attempting to help the female with the rescue operation.
Within six minutes of beginning the rescue attempt, the female boar released the first log blocking the front of the trap.
Nature has the full after action report on this daring rescue.
That said, animals don’t always get along. Female octopuses throw things at males that are harassing them
An analysis of footage of octopuses off the coast of Australia “throwing” shells and silt suggests that they intentionally target – and often hit – other octopuses. In most cases, it is females that do the throwing, often at males that are harassing them.
In 2015, Peter Godfrey-Smith at the University of Sydney and his colleagues filmed several common Sydney octopuses (Octopus tetricus) interacting at a site in Jervis Bay dubbed “Octopolis”. It is one of the few places in the otherwise sandy sea bottom where octopuses can make dens, so there are an unusual number of the animals in a small area.
The buried headline here is that octopuses have an undersea city called Octopolis. But all is not well in Octopolis…
The octopuses hold silt, algae or objects such as shells under their bodies in their tentacles, then angle their siphons and shoot a jet of water at the projectiles, propelling them up to several body lengths.
… the videos also revealed many instances where octopuses hit other individuals with thrown objects.
Caught on camera! It’s like Cops, but underwater.
In 2016, for instance, one female octopus threw silt 10 times at a male from a nearby den who was attempting to mate with her. She hit him on five occasions. “That sequence was one of the ones that convinced me [it was intentional],” says Godfrey-Smith.
On four of these occasions, the male tried to “duck”, though he didn’t always succeed. In two cases, he anticipated the throws from the female’s movements and started dodging before the silt was propelled at him.
Dude, take the hint.
What’s more, some throws that happen after intense social interactions aren’t directed at another octopus but into empty space, suggesting the animals might be venting their frustration.
In one case, after a male’s advances to a female were rejected, he threw a shell in a random direction and changed colour.
Some behaviors are found in many species.
Anyway, clearly the female octopi of the underwater city-state of Octopolis have read their Machiavelli and have things well in tentacle.
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I skip the sugary jelly and sprinkle some raisins on the peanut instead. Also — toasted peanut butter sandwich. Highly underrated.
Never go full Borgia.
The article raises the possibility that scientists are judging you and therefore holding out on finding a cure for hangovers: “A possible explanation for the lack of scientific interest is that many physicians and researchers regard the alcohol hangover as an adequate punishment for unwanted behavior,” Utrecht University researchers Joris C. Verster and Renske Penning wrote in their 2010 paper Treatment and Prevention of Alcohol Hangover.
According to them, it is possible that part of the scientific community may not want to find a cure for hangovers because doing so would make binge drinking that much easier.”
How dare they.