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From: Phil Taylor on 20 Apr 2010 06:32 In article <timstreater-3899B8.23202619042010(a)news.individual.net>, Tim Streater <timstreater(a)waitrose.com> wrote: > In article <190420102303320854%nothere(a)all.invalid>, > Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> wrote: > > > Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: > > > On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:15:04 +0100, Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> > > > wrote: > > > > > > >or if she's living in close proximity with another woman and their > > > >cycles become synchronised. > > > > > > This is apparently a myth, btw. > > > > > > > No, a myth is a fictional story with an element of essential truth > > about human nature buried in it. This was just an experiment with too > > few experimental subjects for the conclusions to be deemed significant. > > It doesn't mean that the conclusions were wrong, just that somebody > > needs to do it again. The observation that women who live in close > > proximity tend to have synchronous cycles is hardly unexpected, as that > > situation is common in other social animals (our two bitches have just > > come off heat together, as they always do). It would not be surprising > > if there were traces of that mechanism still hanging around from human > > evolutionary history. > > Why should there only be traces, anyway. It's not as if Man isn't still > just another animal (and always will be, unless we go bionic). Machinery which no longer has a function tends to be eliminated in the evolutionary process. In wild dogs, there is a very good reason for the females to synchronise; only the alpha female of the pack gets mated, and some of the others become pseudo-pregnant, so they lactate and can wet-nurse the pups. It's possible that some ancestor of ours may have handled reproduction in a similar way, otherwise why do women occasionally become pseudo-pregnant? The full mechanism isn't even there today in domestic dogs. If I had let my dog outside in the kennels with his mother and sister he would have cheerfully shagged them both, and I might have ended up bottle feeding 20 pups. Who needs a canine wet-nurse when you have human owners who are too soft hearted to cull ill-bred puppies? Phil Taylor
From: Phil Taylor on 20 Apr 2010 06:34 In article <t1ops5l2fecc0m2oj7msvp54lndnf8huca(a)4ax.com>, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: > On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:30:04 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh > <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: > > >On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:03:32 +0100, Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> > >wrote: > > > >> > >> > >>Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: > >>> On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:15:04 +0100, Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>> >or if she's living in close proximity with another woman and their > >>> >cycles become synchronised. > >>> > >>> This is apparently a myth, btw. > >> > >>No, a myth is a fictional story with an element of essential truth > >>about human nature buried in it. > > > >Your pedantry is appreciated. Thanks! > > Ooh, hang on, your pedant points are in the balance: the OED2 says - Surely one loses pedant points for consulting a dictionary? Phil Taylor
From: Jaimie Vandenbergh on 20 Apr 2010 06:36 On Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:34:51 +0100, Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> wrote: >In article <t1ops5l2fecc0m2oj7msvp54lndnf8huca(a)4ax.com>, Jaimie >Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: > >> On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:30:04 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh >> <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: >> >> >On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:03:32 +0100, Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> >> >wrote: >> > >> >> >> >> >> >>Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie(a)sometimes.sessile.org> wrote: >> >>> On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:15:04 +0100, Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> >> >>> wrote: >> >>> >> >>> >or if she's living in close proximity with another woman and their >> >>> >cycles become synchronised. >> >>> >> >>> This is apparently a myth, btw. >> >> >> >>No, a myth is a fictional story with an element of essential truth >> >>about human nature buried in it. >> > >> >Your pedantry is appreciated. Thanks! >> >> Ooh, hang on, your pedant points are in the balance: the OED2 says - > >Surely one loses pedant points for consulting a dictionary? Yep, nil points for me. Cheers - Jaimie -- It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 'Epistles'
From: Pd on 20 Apr 2010 07:17 Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Pd <peterd.news(a)gmail.invalid> wrote: > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > Cornwall and Bermuda are both a lot further away from civilization - > > > > there's a whole Atlantic ocean between Bermuda and the civilized, > > > > developed world, and some astonishingly twisty roads cutting off > > > > Cornwall. > > > > > > Cornwall has great roads to get to it. They are completely over spoiled > > > with them. We have just got over the trans-somerset highway opening > > > again. > > > > One of the people I follow on Twitter was oh-so-proud of driving from > > Newquay to Guildford in 2:39, including 2 stops. Fair enough, nice > > drive, but boasting about it in a public forum seemed a bit blythe. > > Personally I would never have admitted to going to guilford! > > Were the two stops by the police? > > Personally I would be doubfull if someone told me that, unless it was in > the middle of the night on a low traffic day (ie wednesday), and he was > damn lucky (as both wiltshire and hampshire have unmarked cars now) It was in the middle of the night, she says she knows where all the cameras and speed traps are, and her new Audi "loves the speed". It was actually a comment on how nifty the new A30 A303 route is, but I suggested that shouting about averaging over 100mph on British roads over the Easter weekend wasn't clever. -- Pd
From: Pd on 20 Apr 2010 07:18
D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: > Everything I read about Twitter makes it sound like a magnificent > contribution to civilisation's achievements. You have no idea. -- Pd |