Can one love one's penis too much? (video)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; LiveScience.com; TheFinalMember.com

This optical illusion is caused by our brain's top down processing rather than being mindful of what's there or what psychologists refer to as bottom up processing -- perceiving based on data rather than interpretation. Instead, our minds constantly "construct" our reality. Send complaints care of CC Liu. Then fish your mind out of the gutter and look below:

(VICE) Can a man love the penis too much? Acclaimed at festivals worldwide including HotDocs, SilverDocs, and Fantastic Fest, "The Final Member" follows the aging curator of one of the world's only penis museum as he races against his own mortality to complete his comprehensive collection. Opens in theaters and VOD 4-18-14.

Female Penis, Male Vagina: First Case of Genital Reversal in Nature

Charles Q. Choi (livescience.com); Yoshizawa et. al (Neotrogla aurora in Current Biology)

Female penis structure of cave insect (CB)

Females with penislike genitals and males with vaginalike organs are cases of a new extreme reversal of sex roles researchers have discovered in little-known cave insects.

 

These are the first examples of animals with genitalia that reverse the traditional sex roles, and the discovery could shed light on the conflict between the sexes in the animal kingdom, investigators said.

 

Scientists analyzed four species of insects from extremely dry caves in Brazil. All four species belong to the genus Neotrogla, just as dogs, wolves, coyotes, and jackals belong to genus Canis. The first Neotrogla was discovered 18 years ago; adult Neotrogla range from about 2.7 to 3.7 millimeters (0.11 to 0.15 inches) long. More

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• PHOTOS: Genital-Reversed Cave Insects (Rated X-treme)

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What animals can teach us (audio)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Maria Armoudian (The Insighters, Scholars Circle, Pacifica, Jan. 26, 2014); Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Kathryn Bowers (Goodreads.com)

Don't look at me! You're just anthropomorphizing (ktla.com)

 

I am looking at you (Tess_athey/flickr).

Do animals get depressed? Overeat? Laugh? Feel feelings?

Inspired by an eye-opening consultation at the Los Angeles Zoo, Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D., a cardiologist, embarked upon a project that would reshape how she practiced medicine -- and how we all look at animals.
 

The consultation revealed that monkeys experience the same symptoms of heart failure as her human patients. Beginning with questions about what animals go through, Natterson-Horowitz began informally researching every affliction she encountered in humans to learn whether it happens in animals, too.

It does. Dinosaurs may have had brain cancer, koalas can catch chlamydia (the STD), reindeer seek mind expansion and/or escape by using hallucinogenic mushrooms, stallions self-mutilate, and gorillas experience clinical depression.

• LISTEN NOW: AUDIO (download)
  

Paying butchers is like paying hitmen to kill.

 

Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers have dubbed this pan-species approach to medicine zoobiquity (like ubiquity). Here, they present a revelatory understanding of what animals can teach us about the human body and mind, exploring how animal and human commonality can be used to diagnose, treat, and heal patients of all species.

What animals can teach us about being human

You don't buy bacon, do you? Don't tell me you buy bacon.

 

Concerns about the recent explosions of HIV, West Nile Virus, and other avian and swine flus that originate in animals have encouraged new efforts on a global scale to bridge the gap between animal and human medicine for the benefit of both. Zoobiquity is the first book to explore many of the overlapping human and animal health issues. It provides new insight into the treatment of diseases including diabetes (from the sugar and starch we eat), cancer (from the pollution), heart ailments (from stress), and mental illnesses (from all causes).

 

It is even bigger than health, however. It encompasses much more than our human diseases and how to cure them. It sheds light on the evolution of hierarchies and similarities between a tribe of apes and a Fortune 500 company. 

It suggests that the ways we run our political and justice systems may overlap with how animals protect and defend their territories -- and that examining this possibility in a scientifically credible way could help strengthen our institutions.

 

It dangles the possibility that human parenting could be informed by a greater knowledge and respect for how our animal cousins solve issues of childcare, sibling rivalry, and infertility. More