http://www.ted.com Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt...

Very interesting.

YouTube - How it feels to have a stroke

Around the corner is more important than the pssssshhhhhh.

YouTube - Grandma LOVES Chuck Norris: goes INSANE

Back up. We've got pot growing out of our skin?

Essentially, yes. The skin has joined the growing club of organs that is known to produce "endocannabinoids" — the body's own reefer. The biggest producer of endogenous pot is the brain.

Significantly, the new study pins down long-suspected connections between brain and skin and between stress and zits.

Your Skin Produces Marijuana-Like Substance | LiveScience

This is great.

YouTube - JEDI GYM

Twenty-five years ago, when I was a junior reporter and stringer for the San Francisco bureau of Time magazine, I came across the greatest story I never wrote, which was actually a pretty smart decision at the time, given that the story had no ending, I didn’t know how to write such a story then, and even if I had written it, Time wouldn’t have run it. It wasn’t merely that the story was too bizarre. Time was a news magazine, and this wasn’t news. It was, rather, a glimpse into the darker corners of the human spirit, the kind of thing you naturally gravitate to late in the evening, when, tired of films and politics, you’d say to your friends, "Do you want to hear something really sick?" And there’d be a silent, collective "ahhh," like that of children snuggling in for a bedtime story, knowing they were about to hear what they’d been waiting for all night.

I first came across the name John Ronald Brown in the late fall of 1973 in the San Francisco Chronicle when I saw an item in Herb Caen’s column about a doctor down on Lombard Street who was "lopping" people’s penises off. As it was my (self-appointed) job for Time in those days to cover the more raggedy edges of the ongoing paradigm shift, I called up the clinic and found myself talking to Brown’s partner at the time, Dr. James Spence, who, despite some reservations, invited me to see him.

An old story, but still interesting. About the infamous "Table-Top" brown

LA Weekly - News - Why Did He Cut Off That Man's Leg? - Paul Ciotti - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

Watermelon may be a natural Viagra, says a researcher. That's because the popular summer fruit is richer than experts believed in an amino acid called citrulline. (CBS/AP)

I have a feeling half of Japan just got a nose bleed.

Is Watermelon A Natural Viagra?, Researcher Says Popular Summer Fruit May Have Viagra-Like Effect On Blood Vessels - CBS News

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Thinking about your own death can make you reach for the cookie jar, with an international study finding that morbid thoughts tend to whet the appetite.

mmmm... death cookies.

Morbid thoughts make you reach for the cookies | Health & Fitness | Reuters

Gay men tended to have brains that were more like those of straight women than of straight men -- the right and left sides were about the same size, the researchers found. Gay women's brains tended to be more like those of straight men than of straight women -- the right side tended to be slightly larger than the left.

Next, the researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to examine how a part of the brain involved in processing emotions -- the amygdala -- was connected to other brain regions. Again they found that gay men tended to be more like straight women, with a stronger link between the amygdala and regions involved in emotions. Gay women tended to be more like straight men, with stronger connections to motor functions.

Brain Study Shows Differences Between Gays, Straights - washingtonpost.com

Its mysterious power may be a clue to a new theory about brains and bodies.

Annals of Medicine: The Itch

I don’t have any beliefs or allegiances. I don’t believe in this country, I don’t believe in religion, or a god, and I don’t believe in all these man-made institutional ideas

Comedian George Carlin dies at 71 - Celebrities- msnbc.com