Quakers and Shakers

You’re boyfriend is picture of Penn perfection: Pre-Med, tutors 4th graders in West Philly, takes you on beautifully thoughtful dates all over Philadelphia, said “I love you” first and throws it down in the bedroom.  For two years, you are “that perfect couple,” the Victoria and David Beckham of the University of Pennsylvania.  You get to sit in silence as your girlfriends complain about their trifling/cheating/gay/non-existent boyfriends, knowing that yours is DA BOMB. Until….BAM! You walk into his room and he’s boning your sorority sister.  And you thought he was the good guy.

This past semester, I have received many a tearful phone call from many a girlfriend, revealing the indiscretion that has ruined the “perfect” relationship with her “perfect” man. My friend, Claire, who goes to U. Arizona had been dating her “perfect” boyfriend, Benny, for a year and three months. On Valentine’s Day, after eating the delicious meal that Claire had prepared, Benny fell asleep on Claire’s couch as his iPhone lay on the table. Because it wouldn’t stop ringing, she went to switch it off, when a myriad of tawdry texts from “Koria”—pronounced “Korea.” Classy, right?—flashed on the screen. It was later revealed that Koria was indeed his mistress, a girl so trashy she should have been grinding the pole at that strip club under Chili’s. Read more…

Newsworthy, Uncategorized

Today, residents of Oakdale, California came together for a fabulous sit-down dinner to benefit the Oakland Cowboy Museum.  Though most $50, sit-down dinners allow you to make the sophisticated choice between steak and salmon, this fundraiser had only one delicacy. Mountain Oysters. Sound, appealing? Before you book your ticket to Oakdale, let me tell you that “Mountain Oyster” is a euphemism nickname for fried bull testicles.

Volunteers at the annual Testicle Festival—because testicles love a good party—fried up four hundred pounds of bulls’ balls to serve to guests at the event.  Last year, people travelled from all over California to get a taste of these balls, and the event raised $28,000.  Not only did these crazies eat balls, they ate four hundred pounds of them.  You couldn’t pay me $50 to munch on a plate full of animal genetalia, but clearly some people want to go “Balls to the Walls Bellies.”

Newsworthy, Uncategorized balls

Nature—The Museum of Victoria

I’ve been reading the journal Nature weekly since 2003 and occasionally skimming through Cosmopolitan’s website since about the same year. Almost invariably, the articles about sex in Nature are more interesting and relevant than those in Cosmo. This week is no exception.

This week’s Nature features fascinating research detailing the discovery of fossil embryos inside of 380 million-year-old fish. What this find suggests is that the origins of penetrative sex in vertebrates originated around the same time as the jaw bone (a date much earlier than previous estimates). Further fossil finds lead the researchers to believe that these placoderms may have mated in a manner similar to that used by sharks, with males inserting a long, articulated, cartilaginous organ into their female partners and internally fertilizing the female’s eggs.

Aussie PI John Long explains the finding: “We have an expression that humans like to get a leg over,” Long says. “But these placoderms actually like to get a leg in.”

More proof that Australians are just the hippest/flyest/coolest cats around.

Newsworthy arthrodire embryos, placodermi