Brain Biology

While few people would seriously argue that one sex is more intelligent, researchers have found that the brains of men and women do differ physically.

• Brain Size: Men have larger brains than women by about 8-10%.
• Corpus Callosum Size: Many researchers believe that a woman's brain has a larger corpus callosum, which is the pathway connecting the right and left cerebral hemispheres. Some researchers claim this larger size enables women to process information more quickly than men between the two sides of the brain.
• Cortical Thickness and Density: Women’s brains possess more folding. Some researchers speculate this is why women’s brains are smaller overall.

Forgiveness

Someone defined forgiveness as the state of realization that things could not be different than they were are that time. I like this meaning of forgiveness because it provides a reasoning for moving on with other things in life. Being prone to progress and prosperity also facilitates forgiveness. I suppose women have this natural instinct of being prone to progress; except that woman I saw smoking a cigarette in her car, with her beautiful child in the rear seat; but, what do I know about her?

Exceptions to this concept may be those instances where one person has inflicted serious harm on the other. What is serious harm could vary from person to person. It could also include emotional crimes such as inflicting humiliation, taking away someone's dignity.

The cliche forget and forgive does not make sense, unless forget does not mean to unlearn the lessons of the experience.

Tips for Increasing Your Website Ranking

1. Title Tag: Use about six most important potential keywords that describe your site in the title tag. This is what appears in the top blue area in the window.
   
2. Links: Use keywords in the links to other pages on your main page, for example the index.html page.
3. Headings: Again use about important words that describe each page particularly in the H1 tag. Do not use the same keywords for each page unless there is a need to do so.
4. Alt Tags: Use keywords in the ALT tags for your images.
5. Do not use too many graphics. Of course, this cannot be avoided in a photography or a model's website. When using images, do not use images larger than 60 kilobytes in size. Use an application like Irfan View to reduce their byte size.
   
6. As a general rule, HTML is better than graphics because search engines can read HTML but not the graphics.
   
7. Use smartly written keyword and description metatags.
8. Basic website design ain't "rocket surgery" (to quote Jessica Simpson, I believe). Almost anyone including Jessica Simpson can built and monitor a website using yahoo domains and Frontpage.
   
9. Have an update date on the main page and provide good and dynamic page contents.
10. Do not use identical description and keyword meta tags for every page.
11. Don't forget the robot tag.
    

If you have questions email me and I would be happy to attempt to help you.

Gotta Love New York

How can one not love New York, right now, for being the first city in our country to ban trans fat? Sure there will be issues like government interference, enforcement etc., but its a step in the right direction.

You see Chinese restaurants using absence of MSG as a selling feature for their food. How come no restaurant has not yet used absence of trans fat in their dishes as a selling feature.

Its estimated that we eat about 4.5 pounds of trans fat every year. Of course, folks in the food serving business love trans fat because of its long shelf life.

Hats off to New York, for now.

Beware of local delicacies

An tourist in Spain stopped at a local restaurant following a day of sightseeing. While sipping his sangria, (The blood-red color of this beverage inspired its name, which is derived from the Spanish word for "blood." Sangría is made with red wine, fruit juices, soda water, fruit and sometimes brandy and cognac) he noticed a sizzling, scrumptious looking platter being served at the next table. Not only did it look good, the smell was wonderful. He asked the waiter, "What is that you just served?" The waiter replied, " Ah senor, you have excellent taste! Those are bulls testicles from the bull fight this morning. A delicacy!"

The tourist, though momentarily daunted, said, "What the hell, I'm on vacation! Bring me an order!" The waiter replied, "I am so sorry senor. There is only one serving per day because there is only one bull fight each morning. If you come early tomorrow and place your order, we will be sure to save you this delicacy!"

The next morning, the tourist returned, placed his order, and then that evening he was served the one and only special delicacy of the day. After inspecting the contents of his platter, he called to the waiter and said, "These are delicious, but they are much, much smaller than the ones I saw you serve yesterday!"

The waiter shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Si senor. Sometimes the bull wins."

Chief Justice John Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts was on ABC news today. He referred to Oliver Wendell Holmes's quote "Certitude is not a test of certainty." He went on to elaborate that having strong belief in something ain't enough (certainty), you gotta be able to explain why something is the way it is.

Now, applying this theory, there ought to be a reason for everything; love, hate, ego, power, money.....

God is excluded from this process, this is where faith comes in, I suppose.

Co-action effects

Research on "co-action effects," has found that eating and drinking behavior is greatly influenced by the actions of others, though few people seem to notice the effect. Keeping up with the Joneses syndrome comes to mind.

Example 1: Men taking part in a beer taste-test drank twice as much on average when paired with a heavy drinker versus a buddy who was not imbibing at all. Seen this at the 2006 Oktoberfest.

Example 2: When smokers see other folks smoking or smell cigarette smoke, they feel the urge to smoke themselves. But this might be, in part, related to natural lowering of nicotine levels?

I saw this subject in an article written by Laura Rowley. Laura is a columnist on Yahoo Finance.

Genetics and Personality Relationship

I believed from experience and observations that genetics played a big factor in determining personality. A study indicates that I was wrong about this but not entirely.

Research findings at Centre for Statistical Genetics at University of Michigan indicate that genetics account for:

• 51% of height, weight and overall body shape.
• 25% of heart function
• 40% of blood features such as sugar and cholesterol
• ONLY 19% of personality traits such as extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

December 27, 2006: I don't think the results of this study are written in stone