Lectures

[enismirdal]

Woohoo! I've just discovered I'm free for the rest of the day! Yay! Supervsions start next week, as do practicals. *bounce*

Today in lectures I learned:
1. Caffeine and Viagra are chemically identical except for where a single nitrogen is. I wonder if there's a way to turn coffee into Viagra?
2. I'm very immature. I sniggered all the way through him talking about the phyisiology of erections.
3. In America, adrenaline is called epinephine.
4. If you take a swab from the armpit of an ovulating woman and wipe it on the top lip of a woman who's just finished her period, she ovulates 2 days early.

Physiology this term looks to be riot!

Comments

[gyre.livejournal.com]

Lay people call it adrenaline still.

Peracetamol (sp?) vs. Acetometaphine (sp?) was a tougher one to follow.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

I sniggered all the way through him talking about the phyisiology of erections.

He's probably spent years training himself to talk about it with a straight face, and without breaking Entrancing Lecturer's Voice.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly - he very carefully avoided saying 'penis' or 'erection' until right at the end, simply explaining that 'this tissue can be stimulated to relax by being rubbed'. So you could tell who was actually using the handout cos they'd read ahead and were choking back giggles.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

this tissue can be stimulated to relax by being rubbed

Really? That seems... slightly backwards.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I think at that point the tissue he was referring to included the smooth muscle which normally constricts the blood vessels somewhat. When the muscle relaxes, the blood vessels dilate, and so it effectively...um...inflates.

[senji.livejournal.com]

1) I'd rather have coffee.
4) Why would you do that?

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

1) I'd be inclined to agree, except the marketing opportunities sound too good to resist
4) God only knows. Something to do with demonstrating pheromone activity (apparently everyone at Newnham should be in sync within 2 months of the start of term).

[senji.livejournal.com]

4) Are they?

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

4) At which point they'll all go home. ISTR the Navy tried an experiment with a ship crewed entirely by women. They all ended up in sync, and it got really quite hazardous every month.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

apparently everyone at Newnham should be in sync within 2 months of the start of term

Well, apart from those who are on the pill/depo shots/implant etc surely? And wouldn't they mess up the whole process anyway?

(Which I'd have thought was a rather large proportion...)

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Indeed...
He obviously believes that everyone at Newnham is sweet and innocent and chaste.
Or else was just looking for an excuse to put up a picture of it and say, "Women living together in houses or 'institutions'..."

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

And that he doesn't know that a large proportion of women would be using such medicine regardless of whether or not they were leading a chaste lifestyle?

Scientific Curiosity

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

4) I'd heard that one. But wouldn't it be more likely that after 2 months there would be groups of women in sync? People on the same staircase or various other cliques rather than the entire college. Or would some sort of small world effect kick in meaning that each woman was only a few degree of seperation away from most of the other women in college and in sufficiant contact with them so that she was in sync with the rest of the college as a whole?

Re: Scientific Curiosity

[naath.livejournal.com]

I think that we all in generall are sufficiently close that we would all be in sync were it not for a large % taking various hormonal things... because obviously you neither become in sync nor give off the apropriate pheremones on such things.

However, I'm not completely convinced. Especially since having gone to an all girls school and no, we weren't all in sync (since it was an escellent excuse not to go swimming you could generally tell).

I used to be completely in sync with my mother when I was living at home.

Re: Scientific Curiosity

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

having gone to an all girls school and no, we weren't all in sync (since it was an escellent excuse not to go swimming you could generally tell).
That's funny, cos I was talking to one of my friends who was at an all-girls boarding school, and she says /they/ were actually in sync to a large extent - certainly, all at the same end of the month, anyway.

Yeah, they used it as an excuse as well. Apparently at that time of month, /half/ the class would be unable to swim, and then two weeks later, /everyone/ would be swimming again.

Re: Scientific Curiosity

[naath.livejournal.com]

It wasn't boarding...

Allthough, I have to say that some people cunning 'had their period' on weeks where it would get them off the most swimming.

I liked swimming... I never did that.

Re: Scientific Curiosity

[chess]

It was discussed that one could claim to have their period every week and have been lying last week; after all, they couldn't exactly *check*. However, I was too honest to ever try this, although my parents said they were quite happy to be complicit in the deception should I wish to.