Ha! Both my brother and I were born in January. My parents planned for both of us, my mom went off birth control on in January, and apparently like clockwork they conceived in March. She claimed that this was perfect, because being heavily pregnant in the winter meant she could just curl up by the fire and snuggle…

Oh, that I'm aware of. I was under the impression that you're exempted any income that you've paid taxes on already—so, if you have Canadian income and you've already paid Canadian taxes, you're not also expected to pay U.S. taxes on that income—as well as vice versa. It's definitely a lot of complicated paper work,…

Just checked the law—apparently a U.S. passport suffices in Kansas. So never mind. :)

Something I've been wondering about for awhile now: this isn't an issue this election, but I'm hoping to stay in Canada for the next few years. If I stay, I'll get a driver's license here, meaning I'll have to give up my old one, which happens to be from a state that's passed a Voter ID law. Last year I voted…

I feel like Kansas did something similar in spirit—attempting to get fathers to pay their child support....pretty sure it denied men hunting licenses until they were up to date on their child support payments. I found this policy extremely hilarious, mostly because it sounded like it had a reasonable chance of…

Ha, yeah. I can empathize with your boyfriend a bit, but that certainly doesn't make his communication strategies useful or right. I think the point I was trying to make is: sometimes it's a cultural thing, and sometimes I'm just being an asshole. It sounds like you've got the right idea, which is to be patient…

I've experienced that style issue sooooooo frequently. I'm from a rural part of the midwest, and I tend to 1) talk very slowly and 2) tell long stories with a lot of digressions and exposition. People honestly can't seem to stand it when I talk, so I get interrupted a LOT. I usually just wait patiently and remember…

Rhyming "warm" with "arm" makes me think of the BC Okanagan accent one of my friends has. It's something to do with the "a" vowel occurring in front of "r". So if you're from Seattle, that's not terribly surprising. We also tend to pronounce "a" like in "cat" to sound more like "ah" as in "caught/cot" (depending on…

From what I understand, the rapists' deal was entitlement. When someone, such as one of the hockey players charged with sexual assault, assumes that because some women want to sleep with him, all women do, then it's not inconceivable that he might force a woman who does not want to screw him to do so anyway, without…

I feel you there. The guy I was seeing for awhile frequently wakes me up to fool around. Because I sleep really lightly when I'm with him, I've always woken up before any penetration has occurred, so I'm cognizant enough to consent.

At least in terms of the auditory cortex, it looks like behavior actually influences development. There were several papers out of Northwestern that showed that musicians are better at hearing speech in noise (which I think in part was tested using auditory brainstem responses, basically eliciting responses that…

I watched the movie Timer awhile back, and really loved how it went into how complicated the whole "soul mates" concept could actually be. The main character is extremely anxious, because her Timer (the indicator of when precisely she'll meet her soulmate) hasn't even started ticking yet. Not everyone in the movie…

You're right, I'm confusing rBGH with other hormones. Offhand, do you know what the levels of hormones are in the water supplies of countries that do and do not allow use of hormones in the cattle industry?

Actually, cows are sometimes fed synthetic estrogens in order to increase milk production, so ostensibly it's quite similar to the synthetic hormones in birth control pills.

I would guess it's more likely related to synthetic growth hormones used in agriculture, which are probably released into the environment at much higher levels than what's in birth control pills.

My power couple: Helen Mirren as the Doctor, Benedict Cumberbatch as companion. Although I thought most of the buzz surrounding B.C. and Doctor Who had money on him playing the Master at some point?

What's the standard sample size for studies like this? I know in a some fields, a sample larger than 32 is considered over-powered and doesn't produce reliable results, because a large sample size renders even very, very small effects statistically significant. For instance, a study with a sample size of 100,000…

Soooo true. Reading over it, I thought, "This is pretty much exactly how I've dealt with all the angry men in my life, ha." My dad does a lot of mediating and is the go-to man whenever one of his organizations needs a negotiator, and a lot of these tips are things he's taught me and my younger brother. It's like…

Ha! I bought some on the cheap, recently, and I have to say, I much prefer the $6 Sephora brand lip balm better. It actually *works*, and it smells vaguely like vanilla. Right up there with Hard Candy's Fiber Primer mascara (another $6 purchase, ha) in terms of cheap but awesome beauty buys.

I can understand *some* frustration...like, yeah, it's upsetting that people from Hong Kong (in particular, I guess) buy apartments here, then leave them vacant and drive up the price of housing here. But Seth Rogen sure as hell isn't living full-time in his apartment next to my friend's parents, and no one's…