'SEX' CAUSES PREGNANCY? "Teenagers who watch Sex in the City, Friends and other TV shows featuring sex scenes and discussions of sex are far more likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant than their peers, a new study has found. The study, which tracked more than 700 sexually active teenagers aged between 12 and 17 for three years, discovered that those who viewed the most sexual content were almost twice as likely to get pregnant or get their girlfriend pregnant as those who saw the least explicit TV."
A QUICK SCIENCE BRIEFING "Obese people expect to enjoy food more than lean people do, but when they eat, they enjoy it less, a brain study shows. And that's a problem. To make up for the missing enjoyment, obese people eat more high-calorie food. Overeating further dulls food enjoyment and locks people in a vicious circle. The finding comes from real-time brain-imaging studies in obese and lean women by Eric Stice, PhD, of the Oregon Research Institute, and colleagues. 'We originally thought obese people would experience more reward from food. But we see obese people only anticipate more reward; they get less reward. It is an ironic process,' Stice tells WebMD."
WHY THE INTERNETS EXIST "… how can we possibly explain the seemingly useless interest that we have in the lives of reality-show contestants, movie stars and public figures of all kinds? One possible explanation may be found in the fact that celebrities are a recent occurrence, evolutionarily speaking. In our ancestral environment, any person about whom we knew intimate details of his or her private life was, by definition, a socially important member of the in-group. Barkow has pointed out that evolution did not prepare us to distinguish among members of our community who have genuine effects on our life and the images and voices that we are bombarded with by the entertainment industry. Thus, the intense familiarity with celebrities provided by the modern media trips the same gossip mechanisms that have evolved to keep up with the affairs of in-group members. … Research published in 2007 by Charlotte J. S. De Backer, a Belgian psychologist now at the University of Leicester in England, finds that young people even look to celebrities and popular culture for learning life strategies that would have been learned from role models within one’s tribe in the old days. Teenagers in particular seem to be prone to learning how to dress, how to manage relationships and how to be socially successful in general by tuning in to popular culture."
MACHO, MACHO MEN "The guitar riffs of songs such as the Rolling Stones’ ‘Street Fighting Man’ and heavy basslines of hip-hop tracks are most likely to incite punch-ups in Britain’s pubs and nightclubs, says a new research. … Glasgow University researchers have discovered why music can turn a night out violent. … The research team, who monitored the playlists and outbreaks of fighting at eight pubs and bars in Glasgow city centre, found that loud rock and rap music encouraged customers to drink more, increasing loutish behaviour that often spilt over into violence. The pounding rhythms also made it difficult for customers to hear one another, causing misunderstandings. Songs such as ‘I’ve Had The Time of My Life’ from the ‘Dirty Dancing’ film were found to encourage provocative dancing by women, which led to confrontations when they were propositioned by men. Rock music such as AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ and the Rolling Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’ was found to encourage macho posturing and aggressive behaviour among male customers."
Do you do drugs? If so, you probably also like rap music. How did I know that? Because, according to new research, all rap musicians do is glamorize drugs!
Rap music has increasingly glamorized the use of illegal drugs, portraying marijuana, crack and cocaine as symbols of wealth and status, according to a new study by the journal Addiction Research & Theory.
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After sampling 341 lyrics from rap music's most popular hits between 1979 and 1997, the researchers found references to drugs had increased six-fold over that period.
Um, OK: Besides being useless, old news, this study is also wrong, as anyone who has listened to rap between 1979 and 1997 can tell you. If those researchers can show me a verse in any of the study's 341 "popular hits" that glamorizes the use of crack, I will gladly relinquish my Hip Hop Head card. (Selling crack, yes — which, admittedly, is reprehensibly selfish — but using?) And then there's this: "'Fat sacks' and 'strapped horns' refer to cocaine smoking pipes, according to the study." Ha! "Fat sacks" means crack pipe!!??!?!?!?! What kind of rap are these people listening to, and why the hell are they allowed to be authorities on hip hop culture? Is it any wonder worried parents in the suburbs can't understand "these kids and their rap hop"?
Editor
