The 4 Kinds of Drunks
By Heath Shive

Ian Fleming wrote a short story collection of James Bond adventures entitled Octopussy and the Living Daylights. According to one line from the book, there are 4 kinds of drunks:

1. Sanguine: the happy and social drunk
2. Phlegmatic: the sad and pitiful drunk
3. Melancholic: the pensive and brooding drunk
4. Choleric: the angry or violent drunk

You can be any one style of drunk.  Or you can be a different drunk at different times.

But why?

To the science!

This Is Your Brain on Booze
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Alcohol is absorbed into your bloodstream.  Eventually the alcohol will reach your brain, where it gets absorbed by your cerebral cortex – the outer layer of the brain that processes sensory data, motor functions, and your perceptual experience of the world.

This is where the trouble begins.  Since alcohol is a depressant, it impairs the synaptic functions between the nerves in your brain.   

If you keep drinking, the alcohol begins to work through the cerebral cortex and into your limbic system. 

The limbic system of your brain is where all your emotions are!  

In the limbic system, the alcohol starts impairing the synapses – which in turn makes it harder for you to process and control your emotions!

As Kevin Kampwirth writes in his Mental Floss article: “The limbic system, which would typically keep our emotions in check, now subjects us to mood swings and exaggerated states.” 

According to Fleming, these “exaggerated states” are classified as sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, or choleric.

But they all end in hangovers.

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Everyone on Earth Is Your Cousin?
By Heath Shive

I was watching an episode of the TV show 30 Rock.  On the episode “The Head and the Hair,” Liz Lemon meets a handsome man…only to find out that they are distant cousins.  Lemon promptly breaks up with him. 

But here’s something weird someone told me.  

Technically, everyone on Earth is your cousin – your 30th cousin at least. 

To the logic!

Cousins by Number

Imagine this.  Your mom takes you to see your grandmother.  While she’s there, your mom meets her sister.  Your mother’s sister is your aunt, of course.  Your aunt’s children are your 1st cousins.  You are “1st” cousins because only 1 generation separates you and your cousins from your common ancestor (your grandmother in this scenario).

This is the cousin system of degree and removal.

Your children and your cousin’s children will be 2nd cousins, because 2 generations will separate them from a common ancestor.

(Incidentally, your 1st cousin’s children would be your 1st cousins-once-removed.)

Cousins to the Nth Power!

Every human on Earth needs 2 biological parents.  That means every human has 4 biological grandparents, and 8 great-grandparents, and so on.  

Follow the math?  2 times 2 times 2…

If you want to go back 30 generations, then you have to figure out the math of 2 taken to the 30th power. 

If 2 is taken to the 30th power, then the number is 1,073,741,824.

That’s over 1 billion people! 

But here’s the problem: 1 billion people did not exist 30 generations ago!

It has been estimated that the world human population did not reach 1 billion until around the year 1804. 

So that means, sooner or later, everyone on Earth must share at least 1 common ancestor in the last 30 generations!

By this logic, everyone on Earth is at least a 30th cousin!

We Are Family

It hard to believe that you are a cousin to Oprah Winfrey, Jackie Chan, and Emilia Clarke.  And you are a cousin to Presidents Barack Obama…and Donald Trump!

But, of course, that doesn’t mean that every marriage is an act of incest.  Genetic variation distances our bloodlines pretty quickly!

So, for example, there’s no reason Emilia Clarke and I cannot get married (and I wonder if that’s why she’s not returning my phone calls).

But the human family is more well-connected than we like to think.

And doesn’t this put war in a weird perspective?

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Why Are They Still Together?  Psychology and the Need for Consistency
By Heath Shive

Toxic relationships – whether with your spouse, friends, or political party – may be connected to the brain’s compulsion for consistency. 

Back in the 1960s, psychologists R. E. Knox and J. A. Inkster performed a study at a horse track.  They found that people were more confident about their bet after they made their wager than right before they had made their bets. 

There was no change in facts.  The horses, the track, and the weather were all the same.  But 30 seconds after they made their bet, they were more confident of winning. 

Why?

As Robert Cialdini described it in his book Influence, “Once we have made a choice…we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.” 

Our brains are programmed for consistency.  Staying with an earlier decision is usually a good thing - it's promotes stability, facilitates future decisions, and saves time.   

Consistency also makes us easier to control. 

 The More Public the Choice, the More Stubborn We Are

Social psychologists M. Deutsch and H. Gerard performed a study on 3 different groups of college students.  The students had to estimate the lengths of some lines. 

The first group had to write down their estimates, sign the paper, and hand these papers to the experimenter. 

The second group wrote their estimates on an old-time Magic Pad – a pad with a plastic film on the front.  When you lifted the plastic, the writing would disappear.  The second group guessed, wrote, and lifted their writing away without anyone seeing their guesses.

The third group only had to guess mentally – no writing, no public commitment.

Then evidence for the true lengths of the lines was introduced.  The third group was the most pliable – changing their estimates as more information was revealed.  The second group (who written their guesses privately) were much more reluctant to change their minds.

But the most stubborn group was the first.  Those who had written, signed, and publicly announced their decisions were the most reluctant to change their minds in the face of new data. 

Ever See This?

Have you ever had a boss make you sign a paper that acknowledged an agreement to change?

Ever hear of a "straight ticket" voter?

Have you ever seen a relationship that was so toxic, so dysfunctional, and yet it lasted for years?

These are just examples of the “consistency principle” at work.

Imagine a couple about to marry.  First, they publicly announce their intention.  Next, they commit to plans.  Then, they sign official paperwork.  Finally, they declare themselves publicly in front of friends and family. 

Are wedding traditions geared to hyper-enforce commitment? 

Some long-term relationships are successful!

And some relationships just die hard.   
     
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Sources:

Deutsch, M., and H. B. Gerard. “A Study of Normative and Informational Social Influences upon Individual Judgment.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51 (1955): 629-36.

Knox, R. E., and J. A. Inkster.  “Postdecisional Dissonance at Post Time.”  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(1968): 319-323. 

The Moldy Melon That Saved the World! (And the Woman Who Found It)
By Heath Shive

Before the Second World War, millions died from bacterial infections.  Global war only increased the death toll of these infections.  And the world was saved by a rotten melon found by a woman named “Moldy Mary”!

Penicillin’s Pioneers

Science credits Alexander Fleming with discovering penicillin.  And he did!  But the development of penicillin into a viable and mass-produced medicine was spearheaded by Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, and Norman Heatley. 

Fleming, Florey, and Chain all shared a Nobel Prize for penicillin.  Heatley’s contribution was ignored.  It was Heatley who performed the actual testing and refinement of penicillin, but he was pushed out by Florey and Chain (both were kind of prima donnas).

During World War II, the development for mass-production of penicillin was performed in Peoria, Illinois.  Heatley contributed greatly to the mass-production process.  Dr. A. J. Moyer took all credit for himself, so he could have sole patents on the process – making him a fortune. 

However, many people contributed to the success and development of penicillin, and all their names go unsung.

Today we sing to one more name – Mary Hunt. 

And we sing to her magic melon too.

The Holy Grail…of Fungus

Penicillin is derived primarily from the mold called Penicillium notatum chrysogenum.

The biggest problem with penicillin was that it was very difficult to mass-produce.  So scientists began to look for a miracle strain of P. chrysogenum that reproduced at a high rate. 

Soil samples were sent to Peoria from around the world by military personnel.  All without success. 

"Moldy Mary"

The mycologist Kenneth Raper thought that local sources should be searched too. Raper sent Mary Hunt to search the local grocery stores for rotten fruit. 

Mary Hunt brought back so much slimy fruit that they gave her the nickname “Moldy Mary” – proof that smart-asses can exist anywhere at any time.    

While Peoria scientists were searching soil samples from around the world, Mary Hunt found a moldy cantaloupe – but her melon had a strain of P. chrysogenum that reproduced madly!

As one commentator wrote, that strain of P. chyrysogenum “became the primogenitor of most of the penicillin produced in the world.”

Mary Hunt was as lucky to find that moldy cantaloupe as Alexander Fleming was to find P. chrysogenum in the first place!

You Never Know When You Could Change the World

Mohammed Ali once said: “If they can make penicillin from moldy bread, they can sure make something of you!”

But penicillin doesn’t come from moldy bread. 

Penicillin came from a rotten cantaloupe that somebody threw away as trash – but which Mary Hunt found...and changed the world forever.   

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Sources:
Lax, Eric.  The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle.  Henry Holt and Company, 2004.