A behind the scenes, true account of events leading up to the

I remember in grade school, as the box of crayons expanded into the hundreds, a cool new color of pink was invented, called Tickle Me Pink – well, probably just the name was invented.  Maybe Crayola had more insight into science than I thought.  

Wohr and colleagues tickled some rats and found that tickling induces hippocampal cell proliferation in rats emitting appetitive 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations. Coincidentally that’s the name of this published paper. 

Amidst string theorist accompanied by strings, a one woman dramatic impersonation of E.O. Wilson and a journey of life through time, things have begun to turn around in good ole/new York.  

Lucky for me, the media company came through with tickets for all the events we wanted to attend, I received a room and the luggage was delivered to the hotel in time to get ready for the opening ceremony of the World Science Festival, after numerous conversations with United representatives and the lady at the front desk.  

Unlucky for me, Alan Alda would still rather be seen with Bloggy.  Not that I blame him.  

I consider myself a realist, and I also consider myself to have a positive outlook for the most part. Sometimes while watching those movies, you know the ones where a seemingly impossible slew of unfortunate events occur in a short time period to the main character, through which they learn something, have an enlightening moment, or what have you, I snicker. Most of the time I pair the movies with commentary such as, ‘yeah, what are the odds of that?’ or ‘like that would ever happen like that in real life’. But after the 24 hours from Tuesday through Wednesday of my life, I’ve come to realize that whoever wrote the script has probably had a day like mine.

I warn you this story is not for those with weak stomachs.

I keep seeing these ads for Acai pills that help you lose belly fat, supposedly used by Oprah.  Sometimes I’m slapped with these commercials saying that you have belly fat because you're very stressed and you should take their drugs, because, obviously, it’s the only solution.  Then I see articles about how there are these magical foods that burn belly fat. 

In a state of confusion and depression, I stumbled into Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford neuroscientist and author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers", giving a talk at UC Davis about stress and his work. 

After studying the baboons in Africa for about 30 years, he saw that some of the same social structures play a part in their lives.  Humans, and apes alike, are social beings.

In the great city of Sacramento (along with many other places around the country) a wonderful thing happens every month known as a Naturalization Ceremony.  After 18 years in this country, I finally received one of their coveted invites to become a US Citizen on April 22^nd.  

Since you are all inquisitive scientists, it is not a big surprise that sex is  a popular topic of study in the real world.  I attended a talk by Mary Roach, author of  “Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Science And Sex” , at UC Davis on Monday.  Aside from the series of thank-yous provided by the introducer that seemed more appropriate for an Academy Award than an author of a pop science book on sex, it got right to the meat and potatoes.