On Tuesday night a couple of friends and I went to see the Body World 2 exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Beforehand one of my companions put me on the phone with his Catholic girlfriend who expressed how distasteful she found the entire concept. I admitted that when I first heard about it, I had had doubts, but that after thinking it over I decided that such an exhibit was not simply gratuitous spectacle, but educational and in a way that could not be readily duplicated with anatomical models. Given that, I have no objections to the bodies being displayed in poses that have artistic merit.

Her objection centered around the “sacredness” of the human body after death. Knowing that I’m an atheist she chose to deny that this position had anything to do with her beliefs, and noted that the human body after death was also held to be sacred by the pagan Greeks and ancient Egyptians. It was interesting and telling that even when trying to think outside of her own religious beliefs, she still defaulted to some form of religion. Recognizing that it would be hard to argue the issue with someone who couldn’t zero out belief in the supernatural, I chose not to pursue the matter and essentially agreed to disagree. She said that she didn’t want to ruin the exhibit for me, which left me thinking that she felt she had won a point in this debate, but I chose to avoid conflict rather than pointedly saying that she hadn’t said anything to ruin it because the argument that a corpse is sacred in other religions too does not address a nonreligious point of view.

She then asked, twice, if it was just out of curiosity that I wanted to attend such an exhibition. This made me think that my friend was laying more responsibility on me than was strictly accurate for this outing, but perhaps he did not want to argue the matter with a scandalized Catholic any more than I did. She was giving me an out, but the fact is to take the out of “mere curiosity” would bring me back into conflict with some of my previous apprehensions about this show in the first place. I again said that it was educational and then repeated myself the second time. I was then able to steer the conversation onto other topics.

It should be noted that if I had any doubts about the consent of the donors or the origins of the bodies, I would strongly object to such an exhibit. As it is, no substantiated allegations have been made against Dr. von Hagens.

Daniel directed my attention to this video:

I had no idea water moved that way.

This story by the San Francisco Chronicle concerns the the water quality at a Superfund site near Redding, California. It documents that the water at this location can eat a hole through a pair of blue jeans and that a pen dropped into the water will soon be covered in copper. (I’m not sure what a pen becoming coated in copper means scientifically, but it can’t be good. I do know I would not be retrieving said pen from the aforementioned fluid; it can keep my pen.) But is it really water that is dissolving the stitching in boots? Surely this particular feat is to be attributed to something in the water. I tend to think that once water is described as being “much like battery acid” it is sort of disingenuous to continue calling it “water”. In any case, don’t drink it.

I drove home through some weird weather this morning. Rain is not so strange in Spring, but the clouds were patchy with big fat drops and I could see snippets of blue sky, but also lightning flashes in the distance. In the last few minutes the storm has become a full blown thunderstorm. After my years in the Midwest I’m not sure I will ever be used to thunderstorms in the morning.

Tomorrow night I am going to the Franklin Institute to attend an event celebrating 400 years since the invention of the telescope. There is to be a documentary about the history of the telescope shown as well as one of Galileo’s original telescopes on exhibit (for the first time outside of Italy, apparently). I’m pretty excited.

And just that fast the thunderstorm has moved on.

I have just found out, thanks to this study of nearly 1,000 brands of sunscreen which found that four out five sunscreens actually cause skin damage, that the Neutrogena SPF 70 sunscreen that I use is 6% Oxybenzone — a compound which breaks down in the sun (!) and damages DNA which leads to cancer.

As a matter of fact, some smaller studies have found “an increased risk of malignant melanoma, by far the deadliest form of skin cancer, among regular users of sunscreens“. It just so turns out the Aveeno SPF 30 moisturizer I use on my face every single day all year long isn’t much better, and contains the same compound only in a smaller amount. I am indescribably angry at the moment. These are two companies that I trusted and I will never buy another product from either Neutrogena or Aveeno again.

As an alternative I’m looking at Keys as they got very high marks in the aforementioned study, but they are far more expensive and more difficult to find. There is a branch of the grocery store I shop at listed as a place to buy them in Pennsylvania so I may try to get my local store to pick up the line.

According to some research that is to be published next month, looking at the Macintosh Apple logo makes individuals think further out of the box than staring at the IBM logo. This same study also showed individuals answered true and false questions more candidly after looking at the Disney logo than the E! television network logo. It would suggest that the subliminal associations which people make with various companies can impact their creativity and honesty. Some are saying that this lends credibility to the previously discounted work of James Vicary.

In the 1950s, Vicary quickly flashed messages on movie screens such as “Drink Coca Cola” and “Eat Popcorn”. He claimed that even though the messages appeared too briefly for the audience to notice, sales of these concessions increased. He later admitted that the sample was too small for the data to be conclusive and referred to the study as “a gimmick”.

Clearly people do associate brands with certain attributes. Corporations pay advertising companies huge sums of money to create these positive associations. They do this to impact consumer’s behavior (i.e., encourage them to buy their product by showing them what they could be or do with it); which is just to say, the idea that corporate logos can change behavior isn’t really all that far-fetched. It is still a far cry from the subconscious mind recognizing a message that goes “unseen” and causing one to crave popcorn.

But I am getting kind of thirsty …