Michael Grisafe

Was It Good for You?

December 7, 2012

Hello, reader. How’re ya’ doing? Comfortable? Sitting down? Good. So, we’ve been together for ten weeks now. When we first met everything was a haze of mind numbing euphoria, and I have to admit, the attraction was so intense that the smell of sex seemed to hang in the air (despite the fact that some of [...]

Read the full article →

“So, How’d You Do?” A Look at the Unhealthy Grade Game of Higher Education

November 30, 2012

Several weeks ago I sat looking at my grades for two classes. In one class I knew the material backwards and forwards, while in the other I knew next to nothing. Yet when I looked at my grades for these classes, the one in which I was laughably ignorant had given me the highest marks [...]

Read the full article →

Just Like the First Time: Keeping Your Thanksgiving Leftovers Fresh and Tasty

November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving’s done, every college football game on the planet has been watched, the screaming kids have gone home, and copious quantities of turkey, cranberry, mashed potatoes, and mysterious green JELL-O have been consumed. Now you’re left with, well, leftovers. So how should you store your leftovers, and how long can you keep them before they get [...]

Read the full article →

Can Culture Create Mental Disease? The Rise of “Hikikomori” in the Wake of Economic Downturn in Japan

November 16, 2012

What happens when a society’s cultural demands can no longer keep pace with the economic reality of the world? Who bears the strain and what happens when the burden becomes too much? A new disorder called “hikikomori” has emerged in Japan over the past ten years which may provide some of the answers. The word [...]

Read the full article →

Divide and Conquer: The Human Body as the Battlefront in the War on Malaria

November 9, 2012

Across the globe there is a battle going on in the war against malaria. Over the years malaria has rallied and shown increased resistance to drug treatment, leaving researchers rushing to find the next best treatment option as their stock of effective drugs dwindles. By many accounts, time is running out.

Read the full article →

This Post Will Not Cause a Seizure

November 2, 2012

I promise. After my last post a reader informed me that an animated graphic included in my blog may have the potential to cause seizures. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t like people to have seizures as a consequence of reading my blogs. I’m just old-fashioned that way. The offending blog contained a poorly [...]

Read the full article →

Pumpkin Pie and Mighty Mice: How Your Jack O’ Lantern Might Hold the Key to Increasing Endurance

October 26, 2012

Just in time for Halloween, researchers have discovered that mice fed pumpkin extract have more endurance, energy, and are generally more bad-ass than other mice.1 On an unrelated side note, Lance Armstrong has purportedly ordered twelve pumpkin pies in the wake of this discovery.

Read the full article →

Up in Smoke: The Myth of the Healthy Hookah

October 19, 2012

“Narghile.” “Hubble-bubble.” “Shisha.” All names for what is commonly known in the United States as “Hookah.” A hookah is a type of water pipe in which users inhale flavored tobacco smoke through a long, hose-like stem after it passes through a basin of water. Hookah smoking has been around in the Middle East for over [...]

Read the full article →

A Turn Off For Teens: When Sexual Health Websites Stop Being Nice and Start to Get “Real”

October 12, 2012

So you’re at a party and there’s that guy. Not the Creepster. Not Mr. Suave. Not even Mr. Know-it-all. It’s the worst one of all: Mr. Wannabe. Why is he the worst? Because he has no core. He tries to imitate everyone he meets to fit-in, but always misses the mark by just enough to render [...]

Read the full article →

Does Sex Have a Smell?

October 5, 2012

And no, I don’t mean that disturbing musky scent you vaguely remember upon arriving home too early as a child (but just in time for years of therapy to block out the visions that followed). I mean pheromones. A pheromone is a fairly broad class of chemicals that signal information from one member of a [...]

Read the full article →

Just Thinking About a Woman Can Make Men Temporarily Stupid

September 28, 2012

A blind date can be a frightening thing for a man: your pulse increases, your palms sweat, and your mind becomes a jumbled mess of “what-do-I-say?” and “what-does-she-look-like?” You generally become a ball of controlled confusion. In short, you’re temporarily stupid. Researchers in the The Netherlands confirm this in a recently published experiment which suggests that [...]

Read the full article →