Why can’t cats resist thinking inside the box? – CWEB.com

Nicholas Dodman, Tufts University

Twitter’s been on fire with people amazed by cats that seem compelled to park themselves in squares of tape marked out on the floor. These felines appear powerless to resist the call of the #CatSquare.

This social media fascination is a variation on a question I heard over and over as a panelist on Animal Planet’s “America’s Cutest Pets” series. I was asked to watch video after video of cats climbing into cardboard boxes, suitcases, sinks, plastic storage bins, cupboards and even wide-necked flower vases.

“That’s so cute … but why do you think she does that?” was always the question. It was as if each climbing or squeezing incident had a completely different explanation.

It did not. It’s just a fact of life that cats like to squeeze into small spaces where they feel much safer and more secure. Instead of being exposed to the clamor and possible danger of wide open spaces, cats prefer to huddle in smaller, more clearly delineated areas.

When young, they used to snuggle with their mom and litter mates, feeling the warmth and soothing contact. Think of it as a kind of swaddling behavior. The close contact with the box’s interior, we believe, releases endorphins — nature’s own morphine-like substances — causing pleasure and reducing stress.

Along with Temple Grandin, I researched the comforting effect of “lateral side pressure.” We found that the drug naltrexone, which counteracts endorphins, reversed the soporific effect of gentle squeezing of pigs. Hugs, anyone?

Also remember that cats make nests — small, discrete areas where mother cats give birth and provide sanctuary for their kittens. Note that no behavior is entirely unique to any one particular sex, be they neutered or not. Small spaces are in cats’ behavioral repertoire and are generally good (except for the cat carrier, of course, which has negative connotations — like car rides or a visit to the vet).

One variation on this theme occurs when the box is so shallow that it does not provide all the creature comforts it might.

Or then again, the box may have no walls at all but simply be a representation of a box — say a taped-in square on the ground. This virtual box is not as good as the real thing but is at least a representation of what might be — if only there was a real square box to nestle in.

This virtual box may provide some misplaced sense of security and psychosomatic comfort.

The cats-in-boxes issue was put to the test by Dutch researchers who gave shelter cats boxes as retreats. According to the study, cats with boxes adapted to their new environment more quickly compared to a control group without boxes: The conclusion was that the cats with boxes were less stressed because they had a cardboard hidey-hole to hunker down in.

Let this be a lesson to all cat people — cats need boxes or other vessels for environmental enrichment purposes. Hidey-holes in elevated locations are even better: Being high up provides security and a birds’s-eye view of the world, so to speak.

Without a real box, a square on the ground may be the next best thing for a cat, though it’s a poor substitute for the real thing. Whether a shoe box, shopping bag or a square on the ground, it probably gives a cat a sense of security that open space just can’t provide.

Nicholas Dodman, Professor Emeritus of Behavioral Pharmacology and Animal Behavior, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation

The lies we tell on dating apps to find love – CWEB.com

David Markowitz, University of Oregon

Nearly one-fourth of young adults are looking for love through dating websites or apps.

This relatively new form of courtship can give you access to a large pool of potential partners. It also presents a unique set of challenges.

For example, you’ve probably heard about — or have personally experienced — a date that was planned online but didn’t go well for one of the following reasons: He was shorter than his profile said he was, she looked different in person than she did in her photos, or he was talkative over text but it was like pulling teeth at dinner.

In other words, a person’s profile — and the messages sent before a date — might not capture who a person really is.

In a recent paper, my colleague Jeff Hancock and I wondered: How often do people who use dating apps lie? What sort of things are they prone to lie about?

‘My phone died at the gym’

Our studies are some of the first to address these questions, but others have also examined deception in online dating.

Past research focused largely on the dating profile. Studies have found, for example, that men tend to overstate their height and lie about their occupation, while women understate their weight and tend to have less accurate photos than their counterparts.

But profiles are only one aspect of the online dating process. Only after messaging your match will you decide if you want to meet him or her.

To understand how often people lied to their partners and what they falsified, we evaluated hundreds of text messages exchanged after daters swiped right, but before they met — a period we call “the discovery phase.” We recruited an online sample of over 200 participants who provided us with their messages from a recent dating conversation and identified the lies, with some participants explaining why these messages were deceptive and not jokes.

We found that lies could be categorized into two main types. The first kind were lies related to self-presentation. If participants wanted to present themselves as more attractive, for example, they would lie about how often they went to the gym. Or if their match appeared to be religious, they might lie about how often they read the Bible to make it seem as if they had similar interests.

The second kind of lies were related to availability management, with daters describing why they couldn’t meet, or giving excuses for radio silence, like lying about their phone losing service.

These deceptions are called “butler lies” because they’re a relatively polite way to avoid communication without completely closing the door on the connection. If you’ve ever texted, “Sorry I went AWOL, my phone died,” when you just didn’t want to talk, you’ve told a butler lie.

Butler lies don’t make you a bad person. Instead, they can help you avoid dating pitfalls, such as appearing always available or desperate.

Purposeful or pervasive lies?

While deceptions over self-presentation and availability accounted for most lies, we observed that only 7 percent of all messages were rated as false in our sample.

Why such a low deception rate?

A robust finding across recent deception studies suggests that the majority of people are honest and that there are only a few prolific liars in our midst.

Lying to appear like a good match or lying about your whereabouts can be completely rational behaviors. In fact, most people online expect it. There’s also a benefit to lying just a little bit: It can make us stand out in the dating pool, while making us feel we’ve stayed true to who we are.

However, outright and pervasive lies — mentioning your love for dogs, but actually being allergic to them — can undermine trust. One too many big lies can be problematic for finding “the one.” There was another interesting result that speaks to the nature of deception during the discovery phase. In our studies, the number of lies told by a participant was positively associated with the number of lies they believed their partner told.

So if you’re honest and tell few lies, you think that others are being honest as well. If you’re looking for love but are lying to get it, there’s a good chance that you’ll perceive others are lying to you, too.

Therefore, telling little lies for love is normal, and we do it because it serves a purpose — not just because we can.

David Markowitz, Assistant Professor of Social Media Data Analytics, University of Oregon

This article is republished from The Conversation

Why you can smell rain – CWEB.com

Tim Logan, Texas A&M University

When those first fat drops of summer rain fall to the hot, dry ground, have you ever noticed a distinctive odor? I have childhood memories of family members who were farmers describing how they could always “smell rain” right before a storm.

Of course rain itself has no scent. But moments before a rain event, an “earthy” smell known as petrichor does permeate the air. People call it musky, fresh — generally pleasant.

This smell actually comes from the moistening of the ground. Australian scientists first documented the process of petrichor formation in 1964 and scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology further studied the mechanics of the process in the 2010s.

Petrichor is a combination of fragrant chemical compounds. Some are from oils made by plants. The main contributor to petrichor are actinobacteria. These tiny microorganisms can be found in rural and urban areas as well as in marine environments. They decompose dead or decaying organic matter into simple chemical compounds which can then become nutrients for developing plants and other organisms.

A byproduct of their activity is an organic compound called geosmin which contributes to the petrichor scent. Geosmin is a type of alcohol, like rubbing alcohol. Alcohol molecules tend to have a strong scent, but the complex chemical structure of geosmin makes it especially noticeable to people even at extremely low levels. Our noses can detect just a few parts of geosmin per trillion of air molecules.

During a prolonged period of dryness when it has not rained for several days, the decomposition activity rate of the actinobacteria slows down. Just before a rain event, the air becomes more humid and the ground begins to moisten. This process helps to speed up the activity of the actinobacteria and more geosmin is formed.

When raindrops fall on the ground, especially porous surfaces such as loose soil or rough concrete, they will splatter and eject tiny particles called aerosols. The geosmin and other petrichor compounds that may be present on the ground or dissolved within the raindrop are released in aerosol form and carried by the wind to surrounding areas. If the rainfall is heavy enough, the petrichor scent can travel rapidly downwind and alert people that rain is soon on the way.

The scent eventually goes away after the storm has passed and the ground begins to dry. This leaves the actinobacteria lying in wait — ready to help us know when it might rain again.

Tim Logan, Instructional Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University

This article was originally published on The Conversation

Target Expands Holiday Assortment to Offer More Than 2,500 New and Exclusive Toys – CWEB.com

MINNEAPOLIS,  Sept. 4, 2018  /PRNewswire/ — Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT)  today announced  Bullseye’s Top Toys of 2018. This year’s guide to the most-coveted toys includes something for every age and budget — from an even bigger L.O.L. Surprise! and a plush take on the Fingerling craze to the latest tech gear and more.

“This holiday season, we’re pulling out all the stops to make Target the ultimate destination for toys, and this curated list of top toys is just the beginning,” says  Mark Tritton, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer, Target. “We’re going bigger, offering guests thousands of toys, including more than 2,500 new and exclusive items — nearly double compared to last year — and creating even more engaging experiences in stores and online.”

New this year, to make shopping Bullseye’s Top Toys even more easy and fun, Target has created an  online experience  that showcases top toys by key trends of the season. The retailer also will soon unveil a digital spin on its annual kids gifting catalog. Additionally, with services like Order Pickup, Drive Up, same-day delivery shopped by Shipt and free, no-membership-required two-day shipping, Target offers more easy and convenient shopping options than other retailers. Plus, REDcard holders save an extra five percent every day and get free shipping on most items at Target.com.

Bullseye’s Top Toys for 2018 include:

The big reveal

• Pikmi Pops Unicorn Super Flip *Target exclusive
• Stay tuned for a fun surprise from Hatchimals *Target exclusive
• Crate Creatures Giant Creature Croak
• Party PopTeenies Mega Party Surprise Set  *Target exclusive
• L.O.L. Surprise! BIGGER Surprise

Feeling nostalgic

• Baby Alive Sweet Spoonfuls Baby Doll  *Target exclusive
• SkeeBall The Classic Arcade Game    *Target exclusive
• Cool Maker KumiKreator Friendship Bracelet Activity Kit
• Beyblade Ultimate Tournament Collection
• Barbie Dreamhouse
• Hot Wheels Ultimate Gator Car Wash

Ignite those imaginations

• Fisher-Price Think & Learn Rocktopus
• Tic Tac Tongue  *Target exclusive
• Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Smart Learning Home
• Our Generation School Room  *Target exclusive
• LEGO Unikitty Unikingdom Fairground Fun
• Melissa & Doug Deluxe Grocery Store *Target exclusive

Toying with tech

• Boxer Interactive A.I. Robot
• Fingerlings HUGS Interactive Plush Monkey
• furReal Rock-A-Too, the Show Bird  *Target exclusive
• Nintendo Switch with Gray Joy-Con
• Nerf Laser Ops Pro AlphaPoint 2-Pack
• Jetson Rogue Hoverboard *Target exclusive
• Viro Rides  550e Electric Scooter
• LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes App-Controlled Batmobile
• Really Rad Robots Mibro R/C Robot

Get into character

• Transformers Bumblebee Movie Power Charge Bumblebee
• Sesame Street Let’s Dance Elmo
• PAW Patrol  Ultimate Fire Truck
• Transforming  Princess Nella Knight Doll  *Target exclusive
• Lupita Doll  & Book Set *Target exclusive
• Fisher-Price Imaginext  Jurassic  World  Jurassic Rex

Shop these and thousands more toys and exclusives at Target and  Target.com.

About Target
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) serves guests at more than 1,800 stores and at Target.com. Since 1946, Target has given 5 percent of its profit to communities, which today equals millions of dollars a week. For the  latest store count  or more information, visit  Target.com/Pressroom. For a behind-the-scenes look at Target, visit  Target.com/abullseyeview  or follow  @TargetNews  on Twitter.

SOURCE Target Corporation

CONTACT: Lee Henderson, Target Communications, (612) 761-6804, OR Target Media Hotline, (612) 696-3400

RELATED LINKS
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How Aretha Franklin found her voice – CWEB.com

Adam Gustafson, Pennsylvania State University

Vocal juggernaut. Social activist. Artistic collaborator. Diva.

As Aretha Franklin is laid to rest, the Queen of Soul will deservedly be remembered in an array of tributes reflecting the immense legacy of her life and music.

Her voice is ingrained in the canon of American music, and she’s had a number of staggering accomplishments. But to me, one period of her career stands out as the most significant: the years after she left the world of gospel music.

Her jump to mainstream music meant a move into a segment of the industry that was dominated by men who had very specific assumptions about how a woman should sing — and what she should sing about.

Franklin’s ability to assert control over her career was a watershed moment for female artists seeking to find and maintain their own artistic voice.

Columbia tries to mold a starlet

Aretha Franklin began her career in Detroit singing gospel under the tutelage of her father, C.L. Franklin. As a teenage mother of two in the mid-1950s, sticking with gospel would have been a sensible path for the young singer.

During the 1950s, a number of gospel singers began successfully transitioning into secular music, including notables such as Sam Cooke and Willie Mae Thornton. The ambitious Franklin followed suit and left Detroit for New York City.

In 1960, Aretha Franklin signed a contract with Columbia Records after being pursued by John Hammond, a talent executive who, earlier in his career, had signed Billie Holiday.

At Columbia, Franklin recorded her first non-gospel album, “Aretha: With the Ray Bryant Combo,” which was released in February 1961. Reviews were mixed. It wasn’t so much the quality of the record as it was the hodgepodge nature of its tracks.

The album opens with “Won’t Be Long,” a song written by John Leslie McFarland, who penned a number of hits for 1950s rockers like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.

The track is a streamlined piece of R&B with a tinge of rock ‘n’ roll thrown in for good measure. Franklin’s role on the song — and the album — is entirely as a vocalist. The keyboard playing and song arrangements — two of Franklin’s particular strengths — were left to her male backing ensemble and production crew.

As much as the song rocks, it plays into the same male fantasy of girls pining away for boys who have run off.

“I get so lonesome since the man has been gone,” she sings, echoing a tired trope. Despite the message, it’s Franklin’s voice — jubilant and strong — that takes over. By the end, the meaning no longer matters. What’s left is Franklin, who clearly doesn’t seem all that bothered about the idea of her man staying or leaving.

After “Won’t Be Long,” things get truly odd. The energy of the opening fizzles as Franklin’s cover of “Over the Rainbow” begins. The juxtaposition of these two songs epitomizes the confusing nature of her first album. It’s almost as if the executives at Columbia couldn’t decide which silo of “feminine popular singer” Franklin should occupy, so they tried a bit of everything.

The rest of the album sustains the same random vibe; Franklin covers standards from Gershwin to Meredith Wilson, with an overdose of McFarland tunes in between.

The album didn’t generate much traction, and her career at Columbia can only be described as frustrating, with her artistic impulses continually suppressed by a company that seemingly wanted to mold a starlet rather than an artist.

Setting Franklin free

Franklin became exasperated with a label that didn’t understand or support the music she was trying to create. By 1966, after nine albums, Columbia and Aretha Franklin parted ways.

Enter Jerry Wexler, the R&B pioneer and Atlantic Records executive who’d been closely following Franklin’s career. Now free of Columbia, Franklin signed with Atlantic Records, which was known as one of the best R&B labels in America.

Wexler’s strategy with Franklin was simple. Rather than attempting to adhere to older standards — as Columbia’s producers were prone to do — Wexler would simply stay out of Franklin’s way, giving her a freedom that led to her creating some of the most exciting and forward-thinking soul music of the era.

A key moment came when Wexler arranged a recording session at the legendary FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

That session produced the song “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You,” which was recorded live at the studio. Thematically, “I Never Loved a Man” isn’t all that different from the Columbia release of “Won’t Be Long” — it essentially plays into same male fantasy trope.

But the music is clearly about Franklin.

Utilizing musicians from Muscle Shoals and Memphis’ Stax Records, the song contains a grit and energy that isn’t on the Columbia recordings. With punctuating horns and bluesy guitar fills, the band expertly supports Franklin without overstepping.

While “I Never Loved a Man” may have been the first song released and the title of the album, it was the album’s opening track that truly launched Franklin’s star.

Drop the needle on the album, and you’ll hear horns and a spunky guitar riff. As Franklin sets in to the opening lyric — “What you want, baby I got it” — her piano can be heard hitting like a second drum kit, adding a percussive boom to the entire song.

According to Wexler, the idea to cover “Respect” and the arrangement were Franklin’s. Upon hearing the song that many now herald as a feminist anthem — rather than a song about a relationship — Otis Redding, who wrote the tune, infamously told Jerry Wexler, “That little gal done took my song.”

The rest is history.

Adam Gustafson, Instructor in Music, Pennsylvania State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Want to live longer? Consider the ethics – CWEB.com

John K. Davis, California State University, Fullerton

Life extension — using science to slow or halt human aging so that people live far longer than they do naturally — may one day be possible.

Big business is taking this possibility seriously. In 2013 Google founded a company called Calico to develop life extension methods, and Silicon Valley billionaires Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have invested in Unity Biotechnology, which has a market cap of US$700 million. Unity Biotechnology focuses mainly on preventing age-related diseases, but its research could lead to methods for slowing or preventing aging itself.

From my perspective as a philosopher, this poses two ethical questions. First, is extended life good? Second, could extending life harm others?

Is living forever a good thing?

Not everyone is convinced that extending life would be good. In a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life project, some respondents worried that it might become boring, or that they would miss out on the benefits of growing old, such as gaining wisdom and learning to accept death.

Philosophers such as Bernard Williams have shared this concern. In 1973 Williams argued that immortality would become intolerably boring if one never changed. He also argued that, if people changed enough to avoid intolerable boredom, they would eventually change so much that they’d be entirely different people.

On the other hand, not everyone is persuaded that extended life would be a bad life. I’m not. But that’s not the point. No one is proposing to force anyone to use life extension, and — out of respect for liberty — no one should be prevented from using it.

Nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that society must respect individual liberty when it comes to deciding what’s good for us. In other words, it’s wrong to interfere with someone’s life choices even when he or she makes bad choices.

However, Mill also held that our liberty right is limited by the “harm principle.” The harm principle says that the right to individual liberty is limited by a duty not to harm others.

There are many possible harms: Dictators might live far too long, society might become too conservative and risk-averse and pensions might have to be limited, to name a few. One that stands out to me is the injustice of unequal access.

What does unequal access looks like when it comes to life extension?

Available only to the rich?

Many people, such as philosopher John Harris and those in the Pew Center survey, worry that life extension would be available only to the rich and make existing inequalities even worse.

Indeed, it is unjust when some people live longer than the poor because they have better health care. It would be far more unjust if the rich could live several decades or centuries longer than anyone else and gain more time to consolidate their advantages.

Some philosophers suggest that society should prevent inequality by banning life extension. This is equality by denial — if not everyone can get it, then no one gets it.

However, as philosopher Richard J. Arneson notes, “leveling-down” — achieving equality by making some people worse off without making anyone better off — is unjust.

Indeed, as I argue in my recent book on life extension ethics, most of us reject leveling-down in other situations. For example, there are not enough human organs for transplant, but no one thinks the answer is to ban organ transplants.

Moreover, banning or slowing down the development of life extension may simply delay a time when the technology gets cheap enough for everyone to have it. TV sets were once a toy for the wealthy; now even poor families have them. In time, this could happen with life extension.

Justice requires that society subsidize access to life extension to the extent it can afford to do so. However, justice does not require banning life extension just because it’s not possible to give it to everyone.

Overpopulation crisis?

Another possible harm is that the world will become overcrowded. Many people, including philosophers Peter Singer and Walter Glannon, are concerned that extending human life would cause severe overpopulation, pollution and resource shortages.

One way to prevent this harm, as some philosophers have proposed, is to limit the number of children after life extension.

This would be politically very difficult and very hard on those who want longer lives, but trying to ban life extension would be equally difficult, and denying people longer lives would be just as hard on them — if not more so. Limiting reproduction, as hard as that may be, is a better way to follow the harm principle.

Will death be worse?

Another possible harm is that widespread life extension might make death worse for some people.

All else being equal, it is better to die at 90 than nine. At 90 you’re not missing out on many years, but at nine you lose most of your potential life. As philosopher Jeff McMahan argues, death is worse the more years it takes from you.

Now imagine that people living in a far wealthier neighborhood don’t have to die at 90 or so. They can afford life extension, and will live to 190. You can’t afford it, and you are dying at 80. Is your death not so bad, for you’re losing only a few years, or is your death now far worse, because — if only you had life extension — you might live to 190? Are you losing 10 years, or are you losing 110 years?

In a world where some people get life extension and some don’t, what’s the right measure for how many years death takes from you?

Perhaps the right measure is how many years life extension would give you, multiplied by the odds of getting it. For example, if you have a 20 percent chance of getting 100 years, then your death is worse by however many years you’d get in a normal lifespan, plus 20 years.

If so, then the fact that some people can get life extension makes your death somewhat worse. This is a more subtle kind of harm than living in an overpopulated world, but it’s a harm all the same.

However, not just any harm is enough to outweigh liberty. After all, expensive new medical treatments can extend a normal lifespan, but even if that makes death slightly worse for those who can’t afford those treatments, no one thinks such treatments should be banned.

I believe that life extension is a good thing, but it does pose threats to society that must be taken seriously.

John K. Davis, Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Fullerton

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Should we scoff at the idea of love at first sight? – CWEB.com

James Kuzner, Brown University

For a lecture course I teach at Brown University called “Love Stories,” we begin at the beginning, with love at first sight.

To its detractors, love at first sight must be an illusion — the wrong term for what is simply infatuation, or a way to sugarcoat lust.

Buy into it, they say, and you’re a fool.

In my class, I point to an episode of “The Office,” in which Michael Scott, regional manager for Dunder Mifflin, is such a fool: He’s blown away by a model in an office furniture catalog. Michael vows to find her in the flesh, only to discover that the love of his life is no longer living. Despairing (but still determined), he visits her grave and sings to her a stirring requiem, set to the tune of “American Pie”:

    Bye, bye Ms. Chair Model Lady
    I dreamt we were married and you treated me nice
    We had lots of kids, drinking whiskey and rye
    Why’d you have to go off and die? 

This might as well be a funeral for love at first sight, since all of this comes at delusional Michael’s expense.

If you find yourself smitten with someone you’ve only just met, you’ll question whether you should give the feeling so much weight — and risk ending up like Michael.

Psychologists and neuroscientists have tried to find some answers. But I would argue that for the best guidance, don’t look there — look to Shakespeare.

Sifting through the science

Even in a class tailored to romantics, when I poll my students about whether they believe in love at first sight, around 90 percent of the 250 students indicate they don’t.

At least one study suggests that the rest of us agree with my students. Like them, participants in this study believe that love takes time. Two people meet and may or may not be infatuated upon first meeting. They gradually develop an intimate understanding of each other. And then, and only then, do they fall in love. That’s just how love works.

Then again, maybe we’re more like Michael Scott than we think. Other surveys suggest that most of us indeed do believe in love at first sight. Many of us say we’ve experienced it.

What does brain science say? Some studies claim that we can clearly distinguish what happens in our brains at the moment of initial attraction — when chemicals related to pleasure, excitement and anxiety predominate — from what happens in true romantic attachment, when attachment hormones like oxytocin take over.

But other studies don’t accept such a clean break between the chemistry of love at first sight and of “true” love, instead suggesting that what happens in the brain at first blush may resemble what happens later on.

Regardless of whether chemical reactions in love at first sight and longer-term romantic love are alike, the deeper question persists.

Does love at first sight deserve the name of love?

Shakespeare weighs in

While science and surveys can’t seem to settle on a definitive answer, Shakespeare can. Cited as an authority in nearly every recent book-length study of love, Shakespeare shows how love at first sight can be as true a love as there is.

Let’s look at how his lovers meet in “Romeo and Juliet.”

Romeo, besotted with Juliet at the Capulet ball, musters the courage to speak with her, even though he doesn’t know her name. When he does, she doesn’t just respond. Together, they speak a sonnet:

 Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
 This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
 My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
 To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

 Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
 Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
 For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
 And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

 Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

 Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

 Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
 They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

 Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

 Romeo: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Even though it’s their first encounter, the two converse dynamically and inventively — an intense back-and-forth that equates love with religion. Love poems typically are spoken by a lover to a beloved, as in many of Shakespeare’s own sonnets or Michael’s requiem. Generally, there’s one voice. Not in the case of Romeo and Juliet — and the energy between the two is as stunning as it is silly.

In the first four lines, Romeo privileges lips over hands, in a bid for a kiss. In the next four lines, Juliet disagrees with Romeo. She asserts that, actually, hands are better. Holding hands is its own kind of kiss.

Romeo keeps going, noting that saints and pilgrims have lips. Since they do, lips mustn’t be so bad. They should be used.

But again, Juliet answers Romeo readily: Lips are to be used, yes — but to pray, not to kiss. Romeo tries a third time to resolve the tension by saying that kissing, far from being opposed to prayer, is in fact a way of praying. And maybe kissing is like praying, like asking for a better world. Juliet at last agrees, and the two do kiss, after a couplet which suggests that they are in harmony.

Romeo and Juliet obviously have unrealistic ideas. But they connect in such a powerful way — right away — that it’s ungenerous to say that their religion of love is only silly. We can’t dismiss it in the same way we can mock Michael Scott. This is not a man with an office furniture catalog, or two revelers grinding at a club.

That two strangers can share a sonnet in speech means that they already share a deep connection — that they are incredibly responsive to each other.

What are we so afraid of?

Why would we want to dismiss Romeo and Juliet or those who claim to be like them?

We talk excitedly about meeting someone and how we “click” or “really hit it off” — how we feel intimately acquainted even though we’ve only just met. This is our way of believing in low-grade love at first sight, while still scorning its full-blown form.

Imagine if we did what Romeo and Juliet do. They show the signs that we tend to regard as hallmarks of “mature” love — profound passion, intimacy and commitment — right away. For Shakespeare, if you have this, you have love, whether it takes six months or six minutes.

It’s easy to say that people don’t love each other when they first meet because they don’t know each other and haven’t had a chance to form a true attachment. Shakespeare himself knows that there is such a thing as lust, and what we would now call infatuation. He’s no fool.

Still, he reminds us — as forcefully as we ever will be reminded — that some people, right away, do know each other deeply. Love gives them insight into each other. Love makes them pledge themselves to each other. Love makes them inventive. Yes, it also makes them ridiculous.

But that’s just another of love’s glories. It makes being ridiculous permissible.

James Kuzner, Associate Professor of English, Brown University

This article was originally published on The Conversation

Why synthetic marijuana is so risky – CWEB.com

C. Michael White, University of Connecticut

The Green, a gathering place in New Haven, Connecticut, near Yale University looked like a mass casualty zone, with 70 serious drug overdoses over a period spanning Aug. 15-16, 2018.

The cause: synthetic cannabinoids, also known as K2, Spice, or AK47, which induced retching, vomiting, loss of consciousness and trouble breathing. On July 19, 2018, the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers that another batch of synthetic marijuana had been laced with rat poison. In 10 states and the District of Columbia, hundreds of people were hospitalized with severe bleeding, and four people died.

Many parts of the country have seen episodic crises due to synthetic marijuana, the largest occurring in Mississippi, where 721 adverse events were logged between April 2-3, 2015.

Even with outbreaks aside, synthetic cannabinoids are 30 times more likely to harm you than regular marijuana. Even with these risks, 7 percent of high school seniors and approximately 17 percent of adults have tried synthetic cannabinoids. It is easy to understand why these synthetic substitutes are alluring. They are easy to purchase, relatively inexpensive, produce a more potent high and don’t emit the typical marijuana scent. And, they are much harder to detect in the urine or blood than marijuana.

As an intensive care pharmacist and clinical pharmacologist, I have been researching street drugs for over a decade to help emergency room, critical care and poison control clinicians treat overdosing patients.

Why is using synthetic marijuana risky?

When you open a packet of a synthetic cannabinoid like K2 or Spice and pour the dried vegetation into your hand, it looks like marijuana. These dried leaves and stems can be inert or come from psychoactive plants like Wild Dagga. Some of these plants are contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, mold or salmonella.

However, synthetic cannabinoids are anything but natural. They are mass-produced overseas and then shipped in bulk to the U.S., where they are dissolved and then mixed with dried vegetation, which absorbs the liquid. This process is very imprecise, so the dose in one packet can differ greatly within or between batches.

There are several hundred synthetic cannabinoids in existence, and they all stimulate cannabinoid type 1 receptors (CB1), just like the active component in natural marijuana, THC, that provides the high. But they do so with different intensities and for differing periods of time. Some incorporate the central ring structure of the THC molecule before laboratory modification, but many others do not. More problems arise because some of the synthetic cannabinoids stimulate non-cannabinoid receptors and can cause unanticipated effects as well. There is no way to know which synthetic cannabinoids are actually in the product you purchased.

Natural marijuana does not comprise only THC. The other constituents in natural marijuana such as cannabidiol actually help to temper the negative impact of THC but are absent in synthetic cannabinoids. In addition to these myriad risks, there is also a risk that synthetic cannabinoids can be adulterated with other chemicals, ranging from opioids to rat poison.

Synthetic cannabinoids were initially designed by legitimate researchers in the U.S. and around the world who were looking to explore the function and structure of cannabinoid receptors. They did not intend for illegal drug labs to use their recipe to mass-produce these synthetic cannabinoids.

What are the consequences of using these drugs?

In addition to giving the user a high, the primary psychological and neurological effects of synthetic cannabinoid use include anxiety, agitation and paranoia, although psychosis and seizures have also occurred. The anxiety and psychosis can cause the heart to beat fast and even trigger heart attacks or strokes when the body’s adrenaline gets flowing. Many people suffer upset stomach with synthetic cannabinoids, and vomiting is also common (which is paradoxical, since medical marijuana is used to prevent vomiting). Finally, there is a risk that synthetic cannabinoids can damage both the muscles and kidneys.

Rarely, people reported having trouble breathing, but in some cases this is due to adrenaline release. In other cases, the butane that was used to extract THC from marijuana before laboratory alteration was not removed. The butane ignites during smoking and damages the lungs. Early detection and aggressive treatment for all of these adverse events can help to prevent severe adverse events or death.

What can we do to protect ourselves?

Many of the risks of synthetic cannabinoids and other illegal drugs of abuse arise because of contamination, adulteration, substitution and inconsistent dosages. As long as people are able to manufacture, transport and sell these drugs secretly, there is no way to assure buyers of a consistent quality product. Public health personnel, teachers and parents need to educate adults and students alike about the inherent risks of the drugs in their pure form but should also include the risks associated with poor manufacturing practices.

People generally prefer natural marijuana to synthetic forms, but as long as natural marijuana remains illegal, highly desired, easily detected and periodically unavailable, the desire to purchase synthetic forms will persist.

Finally, synthetic cannabinoids are primarily manufactured overseas. Foreign governments, especially in Asia, need to crack down on illegal drug factories and better scan freight for illegal drugs. In addition, all shipping companies need to do more to detect the illegal transport of drugs into the United States. There are hand-held detectors that can help identify some but not most synthetic cannabinoids. However, detection will still be painstakingly slow.

C. Michael White, Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut

This article was originally published on The Conversation