Insights Museum

One night my wife was working on some research papers for her MA classes.  She was printing numerous pages the whole night and ended up running out of ink.  Of course I immediately opened the drawer and took out one of our spare printer cartridges.  After unwrapping the cartridge I lifted the cover of my printer and was ready to put in the replacement.  I was surprised  to find one of Walt Disney’s inspiration for one of their most popular cartoon characters of all time.

Squeek squeek.  Yes you are seeing a mouse stuck between the printer cartridge, and it does not look like it wanted to be in that situation.  I also did not want it to be in the printer because it could end up getting squished and dead or end up damaging the printer.  If that happens I have to buy another printer which I definitely did not want to happen.  So I had to think of a way to get the poor little thing out of the jam it is in before things get worse.

It did not take long to get the mouse out of the printer cartridge and I think it got out by itself cause of fear.  It probably thought that I was gonna eat, kill, smash it or start printing something.  I would also like to think that I was able to help it out by fiddling around and trying to loosen the parts of the cartridge that I believe it was stuck in between.

So after all the chaos of having a mouse jammed in the printer we had some coffee and got back to work.  Now wondering what attracted the mouse into the printer: there was no food in there or any signs or other living things that it could prey on for a meal.  For now I am doing research on this matter cause it seems like it has happened to others as well where people have mice inside their printers.  It could be that the scent from ink is luring them inside or they wanna sniff it like paint and get a high.  For now it is still a mystery and I am determined to find out the reason backed up with scientific facts.

I like to write about science and medicine in a way that you can use it for ordinary conversations and here is one short piece that you can use.

Nail biting is a very common medical condition and is called Onychophagia.  But do not worry it is something that you can grow out of.  Now that you know it is not just a habit let us know more about it so you can talk about it with someone when you run out of topics.

People from 10-18 are the most likely to be affected by this condition and there are more men than women who suffer from it.  To make things more interesting let us put Britney Spears, Eva Mendes, Phil Collins on this list.  Yes they have Onychophagia.

Biting your nails can cause irreparable damage to cuticles, harm teeth, and a really excellent way to transfer bacteria around.  So if you do not wash your hands often then do some nail biting, imagine all the types of worms that you could be spreading into your mouth.  A little disgusting if you think about it right?  Plus it can also affect your work by decreasing your productivity or even self-esteem and social life.

Luckily we now live in a modern world and there are a lot of treatments available.  Aversion therapy has been recommended to help you stop chomping away at your fingers.  This is done by using really bad tasting nail polish so that you discourage yourself from putting your nails even close to your mouth.

I have also discovered that a man from the Netherlands invented a mouth guard to help  onychophagists.  For the price of only $670 you can have a very fashionable mouth guard to help you with your medical condition.  Personally I would stick with the nail polish cause it is less obvious.

Some doctors have suggested behavioral therapy to reverse the habit of biting your nails and doing something more constructive instead. Methods such as eating candies or snapping your fingers or even snapping a rubber band on your wrist (kinda like self punishment) when you attempt to have a go at your finger nails.

When you hear someone say roadrunner, you will most likely think of a tall, skinny bird that runs like a blur, goes “beep beep” and always able to outwit the coyote.  Although cartoons are not accurate sources of information Warner Brothers Studio did get some details correct.

The roadrunner that almost everyone knows is about 5 feet tall.  In reality roadrunners are about 18 to 24 inches long from beak to tail.  The roadrunner is almost a pure carnivore and does not like to eat wimpy things (but can if have no option) like fruit and seeds.  This bird is killer, and has been the same even before it became one of Warner Bros’ popular characters.

When a person sees a snake their usual reaction is scream, jump up, climb something, run away, or all at the same time.  When a roadrunner sees a rattlesnake it sees a free gourmet meal and ready to sink it’s beak into it.  Believe me the rattlesnake is more afraid of this bird when they encounter each other.  And most of the time the encounter will be the last for the rattlesnake.

The roadrunner attacks a rattlesnake in such fearless manner that you would think it is a completely different animal and not the cute cartoon bird we all know.  Once it grabs hold of it’s prey the roadrunner will bash and smash it until it is lifeless and tender enough to swallow in a single serving.

So the coyote is very lucky that Warner Bros did not make the roadrunner more scientifically realistic in their cartoon series together otherwise it would be a very bloody and painful situation for him.

Kevin Warick is a cyborg.  You read it correctly and I am not joking he is a cybernetic organism and it is in a cool way.  He has a chip implanted in his arm that allows him to control devices in his home.  So does that make him lazy cause he invented a remote and had it installed in his arm?  Or is it just plain crazy to have even thought up of such and idea.  By the way this man is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics. Look him up if you think it is too crazy.

One man actually studied how sex affects the weather and his name is Wilhelm Reich. Believe it or not he and Albert Einstein (known by many and idolized by countless scientists) spent some time together on research.  I don’t know what Albert was thinking at that time, but I guess he was just trying to help a friend out.

Duncan MacDougall had a theory about how something that cannot be seen weighed. In the early 20th century he theorized that the human soul weighed 21 grams.  He did this by placing patients near death from tubercolosis on a scale that was sensitive up to the gram.  He averaged the weight of six patients loss of weight when they died.  He also conducted tests on dogs.

Thomas Midgley Jr.  was someone who could have killed millions and in fact still affecting us in many ways.  Thomas was responsible for the development of leaded gasoline which was very poisonous.  By the time it was banned it had already killed thousands of people and damaged millions more.  But that was not enough for Mr. Thomas because he was also the man who invented chlorinated fluorocarbons or better known as CFCs.  Skin cancer, a hole in the ozonelayer, global warming, we are still feeling the effects of this man and not in a good way.

Are you a techie?  Do you know how to work how to work a computer?  Do you like to watch science fiction movies where you see all the amazing computers, flying cars, and robots?  Ever watched the movie terminator and  see Arnold Schwarzenegger chasing a woman named “Sarah Connor” and try to kill her cause she is going to be the savior of mankind in the year 2029.

Well here are some examples that the future is already upon us and all we need to do is open our eyes and look around.  Although some of these examples are not gonna be something that can be purchased by the public now.

If you had one of the really big motorola phones back in the late 1990s and now have an iphone then you would most definitely agree with the title of this article.  (I am writing this article cause  I am venting about how my colleague always uses the phrase “I wish in the future”)  Remember how you had to clutch that huge phone in your armpit or dedicate either your entire arm just to carry one of those big old dinosaur phones?

Next example:

Anyone even recall having one of those old IBM computers with the huge monochrome screen that I dont even remember the specs.

Yup I had one of these when I was yound and enjoyed playing Prince of Persia and Indiana Jones and ping pong on it.  I also had to use DOS commands on it which was a real pain.  Having one in your home increased the electric bill cause it consumed so much power.

Now you can easily walk into an Officeworks or whichever store you buy from one of these nice little machines that you can carry around with you unlike those old big computers.

Not even gonna bother with the specs of this baby cause I don’t have anything to wipe the saliva that I will unconciously produce just by imagining having one right now.  So Charlie, I hope that after reading this you will stop saying “I wish in the future” then just ranting about what your phone does not have.  The future is now…