h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

YAY! I like this man..... Chocolate, and bananas all together in an yummy pancake...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 's off to make some.

THe replacement plasma thing is a good idea...and it don't taste too bad if you do it in OJ rather than just water. Those annoying and expensive sports drinks would most likely do the job too........?

Actually, that's the entire purpose of isotonic drinks (any idea what isotonic means? Naah, me either) so yes.

Also I mostly got my idea from a New Scientist issue on alcohol for the millennium, which had the best hangover cures in ... same concept in a lot of ways.

Quick straw poll for the women (be honest!)

Does dieting make you more irritable etc.?

Those who do not diet -- tell me about your friends who do

Well...yes...it dones/will. Mainly because 'dieting' is completly unnatural....(and no, that's NOT just my attitude towards it )

You are cutting out certain things which are really required for life, in small doses. You need carbohydrates and fat to keep your energy up and also to ensure myelination of your neurones.

Also, most diets restrict you vitamin and mineral intake. All of these things can completely screw up your hormone levels and ability to control your emotions.

If you feel the need to lose weight, then the only way to do it, long term, is a change in lifestyle, where you eat healthy and excercise regularly. You cannot lose weight effectivly by eating only bananas or whatever a fad diet requires.

The newer diets instillied by Weight Watcher etc are better I suppose, in that they are encouraging a change in lifestyle rather than making you starve to death...but regimentation is not for me..

*gets off soap box and puts it away for another time*



*the above statements ae not neceserally held by all the personalities contained within this body..... *

> Well...yes...it dones/will. Mainly because 'dieting' is completly unnatural

That was more or less the reason why I asked, yes. But I wanted people to think about it and conclude for themselves.

[suddenly realises in horror that the whole post is completely visible, hides behind male fertility symbol carried for that purpose]

Apparently dietetics is the least widely understood branch of medicine (this is among doctors) -- a while ago a survey showed that fewer than half of all doctors knew what the primary source of vitamin C in human diet is (potatoes, which are just so cool they rock my world).

And isn't dietetics a silly word ....

This post has been removed.

Oh, yes, it's a real word alright. It just sounds daft. It's the field of study of the dietician (also a real word) and it's about diet in the original sense of what you eat.

Mmm. Lunch time.

Warm cheese sammich for me Nodnol is TOO HOT!

Glad you got there before I gotted moderated...

I think you quoted the OED ... that's all I remember.

Anyway, it turns out dietetics is a word, sho'nuff:

[Unsuitable link removed by Moderator]

Hope this is allowed!

Ain't the English language a perculiar thing> But great fun too. (oh, ok, so it may be sad...but I love the OED online....it gives you a word a day Tis cool (or at least a better option than working fo ra living.. )

WORK?

AAAAAAUUUUUUGH!

[runs screaming from the building]

Hey, I just found out men's hormone levels fluctuate wildly too, but on an unknown timebase and without physical symptoms, so nobody ever gets to hear about it! Crazy, huh?

I actually *had* banana and chocolate pancakes at the weekend. Rock, roll and rattle.

Hate you hate you hate you...S'too hot to eat anything but icecream at the moment (at least if I have to make it it is!)

You been reading the Guy's convo then? It makes sense....all things in the body have posivie and negative regulators, and as such environment etc are going to affect the levels and so cause regular (but unpredictable) fluctuations....And if you also think about the fact that mena nd women are only one chromosome apart (and it's the men that get the extra stuff...remember one of the womans X chromosomes is inactive from just after fertilization)

Ooops, sorry. That's the work talking. Shall go and have to stop it!

I didn't know it was extra stuff we got. But I suppose we are the ones with two different chromosomes ... if they worked in pairs like ordinary ones we'd have a hell of a time of it.

puzzling though ... how come haemophilia can be carried by women but only had by men? Unless there is something in the X chromosome which is activated by there being a Y chromosome, that couldn't happen (since women don't have Y chromosomes) -- I'm confuuuused ....

Hmmm... are you sure about that one X chromosome being inactivated thing? If dominant genes exist and are expressed regardless of which chromosome they come from I don't see how that can be true.

I'm sure i read somewhere that haemophiliac females are possible but are rarely carried to term.

k trying to remember back to her A-levels

But even if they are both used the X and Y pair must be expressed according to some different set of rules, otherwise the longer chromosome would automatically dominate in all the non-shared patches and there'd be no men (I can assure you from here that this is not the case ... yep, still male).

Oop. Nearly home time -- the turbines are starting up.

Right...I apologise in advance. Please remember that I am a Genetics PhD student and may well get carried away (Or not, considering that the STILL haven't fixed the ventilation and it's 30 degrees at half eight in the morning)

Wimmin have 2 X chromosomes. One of these chromosomes is ALWAYS inactivated in a normal human. Basically, both X chromosomes send out stuff to 'cover' the other and make it inviable. The one which does it first is the one to 'survive'. This is done in a mosaic fashion so that in one woman ther is usually about 50:50 of cells with maternal X and paternal X.

Men have only one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. MEn are not the default gender...wimen are! To be a man you must have the Y chromosome, as it provides the one essential for differentiation into male sexual organs...This is not testosterone as wimmen have that (in limited amounts) and I cannot remember exactly what it is...sorry.

AS for haemophilia. I'll get back to you on that one. It's not as simple as it seems...if I remember correctly. I do cancer stuff so it's not at the top of my mind. But looking this stuff up is WAY better than actually doing any real work..!

Sorry for boring you

I knew that women, wimmin or wimen were the default gender (by the way -- doesn't "wimen" rather miss the point of misspelling the word? And this from a woman who links to the OED too -- shame. "human" of course derives from the Latin for "man", while "person" derives from the Latin for "mask". Isn't linguistics a wonderful thing?) -- but I didn't know the mechanism.

FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE
So women are the original version and men are the sequel.

CHAUVINIST PERSPECTIVE
So men are upgraded women.

(It's all in the interpretation)

The "covering" effect I didn't know about. Weird. Is this the same expression-supppression mechanism that makes for recessive and dominant genes, i.e. whatever the suppressor is, dominant genes send it out and recessive ones don't? Just guessing, but I've always wondered (it would also sort of explain codominance in terms of your mosaic effect thingy).

What causes the thing where someone is anatomically female but genetically male? Does the Y chromosome get ignored? Does it ever happen arsewise, which according to this theory would be impossible?

Will think of more questions soon

(By the way, why is the OED an unsuitable link? I can't think of a better website. Particularly since dietetics is scarcely a swearword. Which reminds me: A753527 the system!)

chawwklitt

Yea! Best spelling of chocolate I've ever come across....chawwklitt says it all ... yum...

Back to dieting...

The holistic perspective on why you feel like **** is that emotions are stored in fat cells...and if you diet and set the cell loose on the body, the emotion comes out too.

As the theory goes that you eat too much because you are not entirely happy, it would follow that the emotions released when dieting are miserable little sods too.

I'm on a diet at the moment, but luckily it's the sex and rock and roll diet which is so much fun that you don't have time to be depressed.

I've heard a lot of talk about the goodness of chocolate, but I've always found that chocolate makes me way worse. I'll crave it like mad throughout my period, but when I eat it I'll wind up curled in a little ball of pain.
speaking of chocolate....*wanders over to frig*

I don't think that last sentence was precisely what you meant ....

Chocolate simply contains lots of nice fats and stuff. It's nothing special, except for the taste ... and the texture. Bananas, though, are something special. Banana smoothies. Yeah, baby!