How to Eat Your Memories; Estrogen Makes Male Snakes Sex Crazy

How to Eat Your Memories; Estrogen Makes Male Snakes Sex Crazy

Discovered: What eating does to the brain, estrogen makes male snakes crazy, and nobody knows anything about kids' sleep, 

  • How to eat your memories away.  Another point against gluttony, on top of overeating leading to obesity and its many related health problems, big eaters now have to contend with possible dementia. Those who consume between 2,100 and 6,000 calories a day (that's around 4 to 11 Big Macs), double their risk of memory loss, finds research out of the Mayo Clinic. "We observed a dose-response pattern which simply means; the higher the amount of calories consumed each day, the higher the risk of MCI [mild cognitive impairment]," explained researcher Yonas E. Geda. Just a correlation, but maybe limit it to just 3 Big Macs per day? If possible, no pressure.  [American Academy of Neurology]

  • Estrogen makes male snakes sex crazed. Note to those trying to attract men, this worked for snakes. Injecting male snakes full of female levels of estrogen drove other male snakes sex crazy. "These snakes were trying to mate in a natural outdoor environment, in which the males were absolutely sure they had identified a female snake," said zoologist Robert Mason. Look, that's them doing the snake-nasty below. No evidence suggests this would work for humans. But perhaps a desperate lonely person on Valentine's Day looking for male companionship can give it a try for us, let us know! [Oregon State University]

  • Nobody knows anything about sleep. Science has no idea how much sleep kids need. Parsing 32 sets of sleep advice, researchers found one that provided any reasoning for its guidance. All the rest had no basis. "No matter how much sleep children are getting, it has always been assumed that they need more," the researchers explain. And, as children have "needed" more sleep, they've gotten fewer hours over the years. Have kids known all along that this "need sleep" thing is a crock? .   [Reuters]