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THE EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK with WALTER NOWINSKI
table_ ____ n tnt A look at the big news events this week and how important they really are. Conveniently rated from one to10.
Wednesday, 200
ANSWERS WITHOUT QUES
Te pla nato
4B RUNNING FROM THE PAST
What cell phone cameras mean for your
political future.
6B LET'S MULTIPLY
The science behind what makes Valen-
tine's Day so good.
8B LEARNING TO BE GAY
Taking lesssons from one of the Universi-
ty's most controversial professors.
Magazine Editor:Anne VanderMey
Editor in Chief: Karl StampfI
ManagingEdit.,,JeffryBlomer
CAt: PetrSchoternlsd
Zachary Meisner
Photo Editor: Peter Schottenfels
Designers:BridgetO'Donnell
He"1( + CO(2x) py - 2
_________+ I2[(2a+x) +A4xj ] at
3cosx - atan2
a2+b2+ c3(2x +3)
CONT'd: Science of love
TAXING STUDENTS
What better way to finance higher education
than totaxthe studentsit'ssupposedto help?
Gov.Granholmannouncedplanstoraiseliquor
0 10 and cigarette taxes andlevy a2-percent tax on
services. Not only will LSAT courses be more
expensive, butsowill the champagne afterward.
At least student loans are still available.
CLIPPING PELOSI'S WINGS
New Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi had her
airborne ambitions curtailed this week when
the Pentagon refused to provide her with a
private jet. In response to this snub, Demo-
3 cratic Rep. John Murtha kindly reminded the
Pentagon bureaucrats that it is the speaker
herself who determines their budget.
2 10 that he is officiallyrunning for "
Discounts on short-term President.
health, renters
and auto insuranceT
from the Alumni 10.A .11
f t ALUMNIASSOCIATION
Association. UNIVERSITY OfMICHIGANzl Liaa I t
TALK ABOUT LIABILITY
Investigators still don't know what killedfor-
mer Playboy pin-up girl Anna NicoleSmith.
Early speculation centeredon herdiet andthe
10 numerous medicationsshe was taking.The
first autopsy was inconclusive, but it might
'not be a bad idea tosell those silicone stocks,
just in case.
HARVARD'S SURPISE
Harvard is on the rebound. After coming
underfirefor allegedly sexist questions raised
by its former President Larry Summers, the
University appointed Drew Faust as its first
10 female president. The decision didn't shock
many. After Summers' remarks, it's a wonder
they even let men apply.
RAPE ISN'T THAT FUNNY
Thestudent newspaper at Central
Connecticut State University
published an editorial titled "Rape
10 Only Hurts If You Fight It." Though
meant as a joke, the column
sparked intense campus backlash.
rule 16: Teeter-tot-
ters aren't an effective
Way to raise money.
rule 17: Only fresh-
men can get away
with walking in groups
of more than four peo-
ple on Saturday nights.
rule 18: You can't
both be an asshole to
pedestrians as a driver
and a hazard to cars
as a pedestrian. Pick
one.
- Email rule submissions to
TheStatement@umich.edu
if you could argue
with anyone on
campus, who
would it be?
henis aroomfull of dead
bodies not a morgue?
When it's a laboratory.
Dr. Ameed Raoof, the director
of the University's plastination lab,
spends a lot of his time in just such
a place.
The lab, the biggest of its kind in
the country, holds about 400 plasti-
nated human body parts. Plastina-
tion, the preservation of body parts
in plastic, was plagued with contro-
versy and outrage from its invention
in 1977. People inside and outside
the scientific community raised
moral questions when the inventor
of the method put hundreds of real
human bodies on public display in
the wildly popular museum exhibit
"Body Worlds." But scientists have
since adapted the technique to suit
less voyeuristic applications. At
the University, medical and dental
students study the bodies to better
learn anatomy.
Raoof - who keeps a cross sec-
tion of a brain by his desk that was
plastinated by Gunther von Hagens,
the inventor of the process - has
been asked to speak at the Detroit
Science Center, where the exhibit
"Our Body: The Universe With-
in" opened recently. He politely
declined, dedicating his time to
using plastinated bodies purely for
education instead.
Here are his takes on the contro-
versy, the University's lab and the
future of his own body:
The first time I saw a plastinated people actually cont
cadaver was in 1987. Our lab got their bodies exhibit
these two specimens that I really
liked. I thought of it as a very useful (Donating my owi
tool for teaching anatomy. is not only my dE
it's related to my fat
Originally, I'm from Iraq. My sib- well. But the idea is;
lings are all over the place: Libya, idea. Why not?
Abu Dhabi, Warsaw. That's the way,
I think, that most Iraqi families are I had a ticket
now. to ("Our Body;
the Universe
Plastination starts with the idea Within"), but
that if you want to preserve a piece I gave itto our
of tissue, even during the times of secretary. I
Egyptians, you take all the water see a lot of
out. There have been different plastinated
methods, they use chemicals now cadavers.
- Acetone. After using that, we put
the specimen in a pressurized sili- The cadav-
cone chamber. The acetone bubbles ers are the
out and then your tissue is ready to students'
dry. firstpatients.
As such, they
You dissect as you need to. You are treated with
clean the tissue, of course; you immense respect.
bleach it to remove any stains or Over the decades,
clots. You can dissect afterwards, we've been able
but initially when the tissue's still to build a trusting
soft, it's much better. relationship with
donors.
The controversy is there. It
started a long time ago actually. - As told to
Von Haggens himself started using Anne VanderMey
sented to having
ed.
m body)
lecision,
mrily as
a good P
these cadavers for exhibition. The
question initially was where the
cadavers came from and whether
jects' interactions with strangers.
Oxytocin is also released during
orgasm in both sexes, induces labor,
and precipitatesbreastfeeding.
"It facilitates social memory,"
said Stephanie Brown, a social
psychologist in the Evolution and
Human Adaptation Program. Close
relationships form the cornerstone
of Brown's Selective Investment
Theory.
"The theory suggests thatour
feelings of being close to people
we love are actually designed
to suppress our self interest,"
Brown said. It eschews the tra-
ditional view of social relation-
ships as helping us to get more
of our needs met than we could
alone.
The social bonds facilitated
by oxytocin may have "evolved
to counteract more primitive
feelings of self-preservation,"
Brown said.
Many of the behaviors of love
can be described as costly to the self
and beneficial to another, all in the
name of attachment. But it's a short
leap from there to dysfunctional
behavior.
"These kinds of attachments
have something to do with behav-
iors that we consider insane such
as homicide or sexual jealousy,
or even something like terrorist
attacks," Brown said. "We found
the same motivational architec-
ture that gets you to care for a
newborn is at play in people ready
to kill themselves."
So we pick and choose; we invest
our energy in a select few people
and even then in moderation. But
if it so happens that we lose control
- if we throw caution to the wind
- the results can be intoxicating,
disorienting and even dangerous.
It's in these circumstances that we
may have the great luck and ensu-
ing woe of being in the thralls of
that most perfect insanity.
But love also redeems. The evi-
dence shows that love pulls us out-
side of our meager selves. We didn't
need a scientist to tell us that.
Inspiraton* Explotion* E4talo
FcI- J flyI ,LINFLL.?/yai y
Visualizing
Black Culture,
1850 to the Present
UmVnESITY Of M4IC N
Lecture by Deborah Wi
Thursday, February 15, 4 pm
Anderson Room, Michigan Union
o
116 Intro Geology: 6 credito Gao-41 Ecosystem ocience: 5 credits
ection re e 2-J0,5 22 E y Jene 22-Jdy 23,2007
neoc I:oJ i 3Au o5207 anyletro1emCcouwse
AmClt-301 /Eg-317 History and Uternture
of the ockies: 3 credits
June 22-,Jisy1t, 2007
w+eolsamamick
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