Author: Dotan Dimet

(This post’s title is a tribute to what is probably the best-named Spaghetti Western of all time.)
Shiffer‘s comment on the Superbaby post (personal correspondance, as they say in the science journals when they don’t have a citation to offer) emphasized how I am a victim of my sources: I post links to stuff I see on other blogs, like most other bloggers do, thus perpetuating an incestious cycle.
So, I’m going to post a bunch of links that I found on other blogs, or on other sites with RSS feeds. This is sort of a linkdump, which I might make a habit of doing (instead of having massive pages with just one half sentence of content). So:
Apparently , the mother-child bond is an addiction or something:

Pleasure receptors best known for helping the body respond to morphine and opium may also hold the key to mother-child bonding, scientists reported on Thursday.
Mice pups genetically engineered to lack these receptors — doorways into cells — were unable to properly bond to their mothers and did not show the natural distress when separated from her, the researchers said.

Next, virtual reality can function as an anesthetic: a study case involving applying heaters to people’s feet while immersing them in a VR of an icy canyon populated by penguins and snowmen shows that not only does this distract them from the pain, it apparently makes them feel it less.
If that was a personalized link for Israel, in that I only posted it because he reads this blog, here’s one for Ijon, from boingboing. Check out the moose on that Canada Day coin.
I’ve still got some science links, one about glassy steel (adding rare elements to iron, researchers made amorphous, non-crystaline steel, that’s lighter and stronger, as well as non-magnetic), and other one’s about bees, a study showing how genetic diversity helps honeybees regulate the temperature of their hives: The new work shows that bees with different fathers start fanning at slightly different temperatures. This stops sudden colony-wide shifts between warming and cooling behaviours, and keeps the temperature in the nest more constant..
Last, a link to Jay Pinkerton’s blog, mentioned by a commentator on this boingboing item. He writes funny shit (if you would have felt more comfortable if I’d written “funny stuff, it’s probably not your cup of tea), and has helpfully made a best hits list of his favorite articles, but browse the blog archives for parody art and such.