Phat or Fat?

Primitive peoples of the Andes can't find a nice ass with both hands.

So saith a letter in the "Scientific Correspondence" section of Nature, which section's last big media play was telling us all that Thomas Jefferson may have gotten farther with Sally Hemmings than Bill Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky (I personally typed that one into MEDLINE). Continuing research into the same general theme expounded upon earlier by writers in the research section of The Lancet, these researchers, one from the UK and one from (get ready to laugh) UC Berkeley, firstly note that women with high waist-hip ratios (WHRs) are more susceptible to health disorders such as diabetes and infertility, which would presumably put the evolutionary kibosh on them in terms of ability to reproduce. Thus the Western world has preferred women with low WHRs even before Calvin Klein and the modern mass media turned this preference into a command to modern women. This can be seen in studies assessing several locations and times, say the researchers, although who really knows what these references are, since they don't include titles and I have never seen any of these journals. My guess is they just made them up.

In any case, the researchers then put on their pith helmets and Banana Republic clothing and descended into a valley full of culturally indigenous people who have been almost completely isolated from the outside world, apparently to ensure that they die of cholera before age thirty. They can, by some miraculous undivulged process, conduct interviews with Westerners. The researchers were interested to assess whether these people, deprived of Cosmopolitan magazine and "Baywatch," still liked women who look like Pamela Anderson Lee. But the isolated people like women with high WHRs. The higher the better, in fact. The researchers publish the little drawings of fake women that they had the indigenous persons rate, and the woman who rated most highly to Western eyes was described by one preternaturally articulate indigenous person as having "had fever, lost weight, especially in the waist." The figure that most closely resembles Kate Moss, you will be happy to note, is described as "pale, almost dead," which summarizes my feelings about Kate Moss nicely.

"But," says the discriminating reader, "you said in the third paragraph that women with low WHRs are better from an evolutionary perspective! Are you saying that these people, because they have different tastes from us, have neglected to evolve? And isn't that pretty damn rude?" In response to this criticism there is some beautiful ass-covering in the last paragraph where they say everything except that, positing that since these people all know each other they know who will be susceptible to illness, etc. Yes, but they did not know the figures personally, guys, and yet one of them has "had diarrhoea a few days ago" according to one indigenous person. This seems to me like a PC copout, but there you go. I say, everybody do your own thing, and don't tell me who's probably going to have chronic disease when I select a mate.

Perhaps the Berkeley author was trying to preserve his good sensitive scientist standing for the opening of the new Scripps Research Institute, reported in that same week's issue of Nature Medicine. The distinctive feature of this new branch of Scripps is that it has been financed mostly by the sale of the owner of the San Diego Padres's collection of vintage cars: a cool $53 million. Now, fans of baseball among you may know that the San Diego Padres had also been until recently trying to sign their best pitcher from last season, Kevin Brown, who recently inked a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers that is worth $105 million (still less than what the striking NBA player Kevin Garnett makes, but a fair chunk of change). The Padres pulled out of the bidding war with their geographic rivals, saying the price had gotten too steep.

Let me see here: you're willing to sell a bunch of cool cars to build a new branch of the Scripps Research Institute, but not to sign Kevin Brown? Where are your priorities here? Which is more important, a National League pennant or curing a bunch of loser diseases? I think this is a sad commentary on our national lack of perspective.

At least, according to Nature Medicine, "uniquely, the institute will not only house laboratories for 25 research groups but will also contain a museum for vintage cars." I can see it now: "I'm tired of immunohistochemical assay after immnohistochemical assay! I want to play ‘62 Grand Prix at Monaco again!"

Of course, if this was being financed by the National Institutes of Health, the scientists might engage in even more useless activities. The NIH, some of you will recall, has financed a study where the scientists proved that drunk mice have more difficulty completing a maze than sober mice, which it seems to me they could have discovered in one night at a frat party for much less money. Now NIH has financed a study where the scientists have proven "a geographic relation between alcohol availability and gonorrhea rates," as reported in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The scientists seem somehow surprised by this result, and state that "these results cannot be interpreted causally," as if the prime location for liquor stores just happens coincidentally to be near sleazy bordellos. They at least selected the proper site for the study: New Orleans, Louisiana. (Really.) All together now: does alcohol help people engage in stupid and unnecessarily risky activities? Again, they could have proved this at any kind of decent frat party.

It seems NIH's understanding of alcohol is far below that of most laymen. Perhaps this is because there are no good bars near NIH. I think this is one case where we could rely on the opinion of the indigenous people, one of whom has to have gotten drunk before marriage (like Dennis Rodman) and married a Kate Moss-lookalike. In any case, further investigation is undoubtedly needed, although I sincerely hope, for my reproductive organs' sake, that I won't be drafted to do it.

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