24th Mar 2012 What Price A Woman's Brain

In East Windsor Hospital in Connecticut, USA, the relatives gathered in the waiting room as their family member lay gravely ill. 

Finally, the doctor came in looking tired and sombre. 'I'm afraid I am the bearer of bad news,' he said as he surveyed the worried faces, 'The only hope left for your loved one at this time is a brain transplant. It's an experimental procedure, semi-risky, and you will have to pay for the brain yourselves.'

The family members sat silently as they absorbed the news. After a few minutes, one asked, 'Well, how much does a brain cost?' 

The doctor responded quickly, '$50,000 for a male brain, and $2,000 for a female brain.'

The moment turned awkward. The men in the room tried not to smile, avoiding eye contact with the women, but some actually smirked. One man, unable to control his curiosity, blurted out the question everyone wanted to ask, 'Why is the male brain so much more than the female brain?' 

The doctor smiled at the childish innocence and then replied to the entire group, 'It's just standard pricing procedure. We have to mark down the price of the female brains, because they've been used.'

Tags: woman, man, brain

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24th Mar 2012 Language Study - Based On Genes?

The Spanish Education Ministry had been pushing the study of English gradually over the past years, and now it had become obligatory subject in schools as a foreign language instead of French as it had done all along until recently. Yet just now, as result of an investigation on bio-science, it was disclosed that a great part of the Spanish population is genetically programmed not able to ever speak English properly. (Not ever??)

But many can read better (that I can well understand), as Barcelona is pronounced Barcelona, and Gaudi, Gaudi. As to why London is Londres in Spanish quite baffles me as the most unnecessary change when the end part 'don' presents absolutely no difficulty to pronounce for the Spanish, but presents difficulty internationally, with people having to remember which is which, as many country or place names are erased altogether substituted by words entirely different. But that's another subject.

Scientifically speaking, I can't figure out about the gene-based inability to speak English, although, I did noticed right from the start when I first settled in Spain some years back, that most well educated Spanish, university graduates, business people even in international trade, can't speak English well at all; those who can and correctly in grammatical construction of sentences, and speaking fluently, simply can't manage to pronounce words properly. But I never knew that it had to do with preconditioned genes that are the culprits. Their accent is nearly always wrong.

I can easily distinguish by the way people of different countries speaking English whether they are say, German, French, Singapore, HK, Shanghai, India ... and some other countries. I am curious if this concerns just English, or any other foreign languages other than their own, that the genes are playing tricks on. The investigation only told the result, not the Why & How.

Wonder whether there is any antidote or remedy that could prevent the correct learning of a language? Don't they experiment a lot re. changing, altering and replacing genes already?

 

Tags: languagelearning, genes

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24th Mar 2012 Differences Between Men & Women

The difference between men and women is not only physiological; there are many other gender differences and some of them are amusing. I say, 'Long live the differences'

1) Nicknames:
If Claire, Louise and Hannah go out for lunch, they will call each other Claire, Louise and Hannah.

If Russell, John and Trevor go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Jackson, Parrot-face and TC (Top Cat – from the 1970’s television cartoon series)

2) Eating out:

When the bill arrives, Russell, John and Trevor will each throw in £20, even though it's only for £32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.

When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

3) Bathrooms:

A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from Tesco.

The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

4) Arguments:

A woman has the last word in any argument.

Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

5) Cats:

Women love cats.

Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

6) Success:

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.

A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

7) Marriage:

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.

A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.

8) Dressing Up:

A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the bins, answer the phone, read a book, and get the post.

A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

9) Offspring:

Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dental appointments and romances, best friends, favourite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.

A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

10) Memory:

Men forget everything; women remember everything. That's why men need instant replays in sports because they've already forgotten what happened. That's why too it's not important that a married man forgets his mistakes, the woman would always remind him however long ago the mistake was made.

Tags: differences, women, men

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