#risky behaviour

[readyforit]

I wore a rainbow shirt all day today and now I’m in a rainbow dress 😬

[uglybeautifulcreatures-blog]

this is old art of a Velociraptor near a fire...

[untitledsocialexperiment]

PLAYLIST: What’s New On The New Music Express?

“Remember the days when the only way we discovered new music through magazines and newspapers? Times have changed and although we do love a bit of nostalgia here at Talk About Pop Music we mo…

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[stag28]

"It’s no secret that mortality due to accidents and risky behavior is much higher in young men, particularly those in their late teenage years and early 20s. This, by the way, is not news to insurance companies. It’s also true that men die earlier than women, regardless of their environment or lifestyle, and are often more susceptible to some cancers and heart disease at an earlier age. In fact, men are at a higher risk than women when it comes to most of the top 15 contributing sources of mortality in the United States—which account for nearly 80 percent of all deaths. [..] As it turns out, shorter lifespans and higher male mortality risk are quite common in many species. Natural selection doesn’t necessarily favor traits commonly associated with health, vigor, and longevity. Instead, it promotes characteristics that provide greater lifetime reproductive success, or in the parlance of evolutionary biology, fitness. If the benefits of increased fitness are greater than the cost of a shorter lifespan or poor health, biology will prioritize those traits. In essence, sex trumps birthday candles. This tradeoff between longevity and reproduction takes an obvious form in women: Pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation are all physically taxing and energetically costly. [..] Although more research needs to be done, it would seem that reproductive effort can literally take years off your life. [..] what about men? While they obviously don’t bear the costs of pregnancy, they do still allocate a great deal of energy—also to their own detriment later in life—to improve their chances of reproduction. This “reproductive effort” takes place through engagement in riskier behavior and the accumulation of greater body mass, particularly sexually dimorphic skeletal muscle mass, the extra male-specific muscle in the shoulders, back, and arms. The metabolic costs of maintaining this muscle in men over a lifetime are comparable to the energy expenditure women experience during pregnancy and breast-feeding, but they and their associated health challenges are somewhat manageable. After all, it would be a good idea to evolve physiological mechanisms to manage the tradeoffs that result from the often conflicting needs of body functions. Hormones are one of the most vital agents in managing these tradeoffs. In men, testosterone regulates investment in muscle and reproductive behavior. But like everything else, it, too, has its price. [..] testosterone is an important anabolic hormone that has a significant impact on the energetic costs in men. That is, it promotes anabolism, or muscle-building, and increases metabolism, the rate at which that muscle burns calories. Testosterone also promotes the burning of fat tissue. And yes, it can also boost libido and mood. So testosterone does a lot of things that sound healthy—but it can be a double-edged sword. Burning fat may make you look better in the mirror, for instance, but in the wild, less fat makes you more vulnerable to food shortfalls and infection. This is apparent in many organisms, whose acute rises in testosterone signal an increase in reproductive effort, only to cause challenges to other physiological demands related to well-being. [..] While testosterone-supplemented male birds had greater reproductive fitness, they also exhibited compromised survivorship. Supplemented males put on less fat and had a harder time making it through the breeding season. [..] Testosterone doesn’t just cause metabolic changes: It’s also responsible for significant immunological effects during a man’s lifetime. In the words of Yale evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns, “Macho makes you sick.” Indeed, men often have a harder time than women fighting off infections. [..] Testosterone suppresses immune function, while estradiol, the primary sex steroid in women, bolsters immune function."

[robthepensioner]

Fleetwood Lifeboat Station.

As well as the large boat, there are a couple of smaller ones for people who wander out onto sandbanks at low tide, then find themselves surrounded by sea, or think it is a good idea to float on the sea on a li-lo.

[penelopeforevr]

BMW

Eric: Why won't you go out with me?

Shawn: I'm a little bit country, you're a little bit rock 'n' roll.

[boysandpoems]

checklist of dumb things

i've gotten into a car of a boy i don't know; this is two weeks after getting into a bar with a man i don't know; this is a year after running at 1 am through ubc forests i don't know. my intuition says, then, "it's ok" and my intuition now says, it's getting time to stop this nonsense. but there is a phone call i am curious about, biceps i am curious about hands around my soft skin thin neck i am curious about; there were drinks i was curious about, conversation i was curious about an edge of lost direction i was curious about; there was an unwalked trail i was curious about, dark tall trees i was curious about and shadows and a sense of danger i wanted to crush beneath my pride.

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This is how things were on April 4th, 2009.