Yesterday, Valentine’s Day. This month, Love Month. Gaaawd, it’s mating season once again.

My supposedly 1.5-hour travel time from Makati to Lemery, Batangas became 4.5 hours last night! I was stuck in traffic in Tagaytay for more than three fuckin’ hours! And when I say fuckin’ hours, I mean fuckin’ hours. There are too many people celebrating the Love Day in Tagaytay last night. Damn you lustful people, damn you.

So let’s talk about sex. Aah, sex. Sex — everybody loves sex. Ask your parents, your grandparents or even random strangers on the streets (especially the streets of Tagaytay last night) and they’ll be lying if they tell you they don’t enjoy sex. Admit it, even you enjoy sex as much as everyone does. There’s nothing wrong with it. Everyone does it. Birds do it. Bees do it. Even worms do it. But do you have any idea how exactly animals do it?

You’ll be surprised by how strange the mating rituals of some animals can get. If you think your foot fetish or fascination to bondage and leather is weird enough, take a good look at how our friendly neighborhood animals fulfill their duty to reproduce. Prepare yourself to be blown away by some of the most bizarre mating rituals in the animal kingdom.

10. Tasmanian Devils

Of course, sex is not just about orgasms and all the other heavenly feelings that come with it. Pain is almost always a part of the entire sexual experience. And if there is one animal that knows this fact of life very well, it has to be the Tasmanian devil. If you want to move to Tasmania, expect hearing shrieks from the devils from late February to mid-March, their breeding season. Their mating ritual can be described as a very violent affair. These sadomasochist marsupials engage in ritualized combats. Female devils solicit the males and choose their mates according to physical strength and experience. In other words, they beat up each other, which often results in injuries to the head, rump and neck. Tough love, huh?

9. Pandas

If you think only human beings can appreciate porn, think again. To some pandas, porn is not a stranger. More interestingly, they are not forbidden to watch porn. In fact, they are encouraged to view taped hot, steamy panda-to-panda action by researchers. This is because for quite a while, zookeepers had a hard time getting pandas to breed. They showed very little interest in sex until someone from Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base in China decided to show them panda porn!

Although this habit is somewhat forced to them by humans, you cannot deny that their increased interest in making love is enough to make our heads spin. Porn-watching is encouraged today in order to enhance their sexual ability, increase their reproductive capacity and make their population bigger. Thank God for porn!

8. Clownfish

“Finding Nemo” may have taught you a number of facts about the ocean and marine life but there’s something the filmmakers forgot to tell you — Nemo can switch genders. It doesn’t mean that Nemo is gay (But who knows? Haha). It’s just that clownfish, in general, can really switch genders. These lovely bright orange-colored wonders of the sea live in a group which consist of a breeding couple of male and female together with some non-breeding males. The hierarchy is strictly based on size: the biggest is the female, the next biggest is the male. But in the event that the female gets fished or dies for any reason, the breeding male will change his sex and become the female. Then, the largest of the non-breeding clownfish will be promoted to become the breeding male.

(more…)

When I decided I would write about this several months ago, I did some research. Apparently, several other websites have similar lists. So I compiled what I found very interesting. Hmmm. Anyway, let me still post my version.

Dreams always catch the attention of experts. It is the subject of many studies, trying to uncover everything about it. However, no matter how much they try, they can only give us so much information about dreams. They are still poorly understood, making them intriguing and fascinating. Although we are yet to learn more about dreams, here are ten interesting facts about them that the experts have uncovered.

10. Dreams are symbolic.

Most often, dreaming about a certain subject doesn’t mean that the dream is about that. For example, if you dream about a particular chicken your neighbour takes care of, how likely is it that the dream you just had is about that chicken? You can’t be in love with that chicken, can you? Dreams use a very symbolic language that can be very difficult to comprehend. This is because the unconscious mind attempts to compare the dream to something similar.

If you dream of something that bothers you, don’t expect anyone else to interpret it but you. Only you can decipher the code that your dreams give you. The things we dream about are often symbols for objects, places, people and experiences we have encountered or emotions we have felt. Dream dictionaries may help you but the meaning is specific to an individual.

9. Things around us while we sleep become part of our dreams.

Scientifically called “dream incorporation,” our mind interprets the external stimuli that our senses are bombarded with when we are asleep and make them a part of our dreams. This means that sometimes, in our dreams, we hear a sound from reality and incorporate it in a way.

For example, you may have heard a fire alarm in your dream, when in reality, your alarm clock just went off. Sometimes, what our bodies feel is also incorporated. For instance, you may have dreamt that you were drowning when in fact, you were just thirsty and your body desperately needs water.

8. Dreams prevent you from losing your mind.

Dreaming is not just a free movie your brain gives you after a long tiring day. It is actually essential for mental health. Believe it or not, dreams can prevent psychosis and schizophrenia. In a sleep study, students awakened at the beginning of a dream but still allowed to get eight hours of sleep suffered from irritability, lack of concentration, hallucinations and signs of psychosis after three days. Finally, when they are allowed their REM sleep, their brains increased the percentage of REM sleep tremendously. Having inadequate dream activity is also a sign of protein deficiency and a personality problem.

(more…)

Men and women have different biological structures and needs. Hence, they need different food to keep them healthy. The truth is, men know exactly which foods to eat and which ones to avoid. The only problem is that temptation is too delicious to resist.

However, if you can’t help eating, then at least, eat right. You’ll be surprised that some of the most healthful foods for men are readily available. Here are ten of them.

10. Tomato Sauce

If you love eating tomatoes, tomato sauce or pizza covered with lots of it, you may be doing yourself a favour. Harvard researchers who studied the eating habits of over 47,000 male health professionals found that men who ate tomato sauce up to four times a week has 35 percent lower risk of getting prostate cancer than those who ate none. This is said to be caused by lycopene, a carotenoid that tomatoes have in abundance. However, it must be noted that lycopene is best absorbed when cooked. Thus, eating pizza might be healthier than gorging on fresh tomatoes after all.

9. Berries and Cherries

Berries and cherries are not just delicious; they are healthy, too, especially the blue, violet and red ones. These little tastebud-pleasers contain a truckload of anthocyanin, a health-protecting flavonoid. You will be surprised to know that these little wonders do not just contain vitamin C but also more than 4,000 different compounds that all have antioxidant properties.

Aside from fighting diseases, they may even slow down the decline in some of brain functions that accompany aging. In fact, they can even enhance brain function and keep it healthy. There is also no need to be worried about your weight because these are low-calorie fruits. So make sure you have strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and cherries in your diet.

8. Bananas

Yes, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! If you want a great source of energy, bananas are what you need. Aside from that, bananas can help your body regulate heartbeat, nerves and above all, blood pressure because of their high potassium content. Potassium-rich diets can reduce the risk of stroke.

Not only that, the mighty banana is also a rich source of vitamin B-6, just what you need to aid your immune system, maintain your nervous system, assist protein metabolism and form red blood cells. From now on, make sure you get to have one banana a day to keep health problems away.

(more…)

Everybody knows the story of how Archimedes accidentally realised how to measure the volume of irregularly-shaped objects just by soaking himself in a tub. The story of how Alexander Fleming unintentionally discovered the bacteria-fighting properties of a certain mould, which would later inspire the invention of penicillin, is being taught in schools. These are just two of the most amazing accidental discoveries that most people are aware of. If you are blown away by how chance played a huge role in many accidental discoveries, you’ll be more whacked out by some of the greatest and funniest accidental inventions.

Whether it is an experiment that went utterly wrong but produced unsolicited results or a simple situation that squeezed the creative juices out of people, an accidental invention is surely something that never fails to introduce our jaws to the floor. Here is a list of the ten greatest accidental inventions in the past that caught mankind off-guard.

10. Ice Cream Cones

If you don’t believe in fate, ice cream cones will make you. Ice cream cones are a worldwide sensation today. Who would have thought that fate had a lot to do with its advent. The humble beginnings of these yummy cones can be traced back to 1904 at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. Prior to that time, ice cream was served on bowls.

But on one particularly sweltering day, two stores were standing near each other. One was selling ice cream while the other was selling zalabia, a kind of Persian wafer thin waffle. While the latter was not doing good business, ice cream was a hit at the fair. Then, the ice cream store ran out of dishes. Instead of panicking, the store owner came up with an excellent idea of buying zalabia from the other store, rolling them into cones and popping the ice cream on top. The rest is delicious history.

9. Potato Chips

If creativity is the root of all ice cream cones, annoyance is to blame for the creation of the good ol’ potato chips. In 1853, George Crum, a chef in Saratoga, New York, had a very hard-to-please customer. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a railway magnate, refused eating the fries that the chef served him. He repeatedly sent them back, demanding that the fries be sliced a bit thinner. The miffed Crum finally reached the boiling point so he sliced the potatoes so thin and fried them so that his fussy customer couldn’t eat them with a fork. The comedy is that Vanderbilt actually liked it. Soon, all the guests at the resort were craving for the crisp potatoes. Later, it officially became part of the menu as Saratoga Chips.

8. Post-it notes

In 1968, Spencer Silver, a 3M scientist was trying to improve adhesive tape. Unfortunately, he only managed to produce semi-sticky adhesive that is not even suitable for tape. Despite being so frustrated about the failure, he decided to set aside his invention, hoping that it could be of great use in the future but he didn’t know what.

Four years later, another 3M researcher, while singing with his church choir, needed something to keep his marker from falling out of his hymnal. Chewing gum would prove to be a little messy, so what he needed was something that would not stick permanently. Then, he finally saw the light when he remembered the weak glue that his co-worker invented a few years back. It was the beginning of the ubiquitous post-it note, which would later be created in 1980.

(more…)

When the human body is broken down into its chemical components — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. — it is only worth $23.80.
— National Geographic Channel FAQS

They say that the human soul weighs 21 grams. I wonder how much it costs. Hmmm. I guess the human soul is priceless.