Thanks for inviting me, the couch is comfy. Seriously though, is there someone here that actually "gets it" and can explain it to us clueless folk?

Oh come on, if you die tragically at 30 with two small children and your parents still alive I'm sure there will be a lot more mourning than celebration. In fact, I'm sure they'll be zero celebration, unless you're just a unbearable bastard, then they might celebrate anyways.

I guess I'm a pop-culture dolt, but what is the big deal with Ann Curry leaving the Today show? People come and go in business all the time.

If I'm 87 years old and croak on a cruise ship I'd want my kid to finish up the trip too. It's not like I'm in the prime of my life. At that point it should be a celebration not a time for mourning.

Silly me, and I thought it was their encephalization quotient... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization

It's hard to remember alcohol during pregnancy is bad? What if your social life required you to do extreme sports? What if your social life required you to ride horses?

Oh dear god in heaven, this whole "you can't tell me what to do with my body" was old 20 years ago. Especially when this has nothing to do with public policy and everything to do with science. Additionally, I hate to break it to you, but once you decide to keep that baby, it's no longer just YOUR body. There's…

You heard it hear first ladies, as long as you only snort HALF a line of cocaine a week you're developing babies will be fine...

It's simple, and no stress required, don't take drugs during pregnancy unless necessary. If you have a chronic pain condition that requires you to take vicodin, nobody has a right to judge you. If you're so sad you can't skip a glass of wine for 9 months, well sorry, no pity here.

No, "no significant effect" means no SIGNIFICANT effect, there's an adjective there for a reason. So it's you who fails at reading comprehension.

Did you really need to post a question about my clarification?

And if you couldn't infer by my previous comment, the cheetah would start out with a big lead, but would "run out of gas" well before the finish line.

Not much. What this article fails to point out is endurance. Dogs are, by nature, endurance runners while cheetahs are sprinters. This is the most likely reason for their different gates.

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Just because you start with a far higher aptitude doesn't mean you haven't gotten stupider over time. He's the exception not the rule. Weed makes you stupid, especially a lot of it.

Well, you would be dumb as a rock after smoking weed every day for 10 years, but yes, you could restrain from blowing old dudes for a joint.

Nobodies arguing the physics and chemistry element, it's the unknown part, the human brain that "reads" the signals that is in question. We all know the wavelength's of light but we don't know how each person's brain sees it the same. Your red could be my green and we'd never know. It's actually impossible to know.

That isn't progress. Progress is girls being happy with who they are and boys being happy with who they are. Simply shifting gender envy from one sex to the other isn't progress, it's just making the other side feel better for all those millenia of repression.

As a heterosexual male, ummm, no. I like Meloni because he's a good actor. I disliked Meloni in True Blood because no amount of acting chops could fix that atrocious script writing. It was so awkward to watch.

I wish the "About the author" were at the beginning. I had to reread it because as I was skimming it I was thinking, "what makes you an expert on sword fighting mr. io9 blogger."