sickness, emotions and a battle for Hamlet

Another amazing article from Malcom Gladwell describes the skill behind those natural lie-detecters found starring in cops shows nationwide. The ability to read emotions requires keen attention to the smallest details of muscle movements that may not even last more than a fraction of a second. Researchers have been playing with different facial expressions and the effect they have not only on how other people precieve you, but how you feel yourself. In one such test, group A wore thin lips, tightened eyebrows and narrowed eyes, like they had just been force-fed a mug of green tea. Group B wore a smile, raised eyebrows and open eyes, like a refreshing hot cocoa on a cold day. the subjects had their pulses taken, blood tested or whatever it is you do to medically determine someone's mood. Lo and behold, group A was a little less friendly than group B.
So yes, as much as most people hate it, that @*$^%!! that tells you to smile when you want them to die, actually does have a point.

The cold germ is a fascinating little jumble of cells.
It is, as most things are, most easily passed to people who havent built up a natural immunity to it. Hence, so many American Indians died of the diseases unknowingly brought over from Europe. And there's always that common cold epidemic as soon as school starts. Nothing like one sneezing child on a playground to make Robitussin's stocks soar. It may aslo be of interest that cold germs are actually spread by (for lack of better words) snot, not slobber. And as it turns out, body temperature has absolutely nothing to do with how easily one can catch a cold. So next time your mother says "You'll catch a cold out there, running around without a sweater!" tell her its all in the immune system and how much hot chocolate you've had lately. But don't be surprised when she brings you a cup of green tea instead.

Thus Diest Thou...
Did Shakespeare Revise

So much thought and scholarship has been put into answering the simplest questions about one man's life. William Shakespeare, although a wonderous playwright/poet, is not a god. He was a writer. Revision is part of the writing process, maybe a soliloque was cut for the performance, maybe an actor improvised on a line or two, adding his own flourish to Hamlet's dying breaths, an extra "oh, sweet juliet" in the famous balcony scene. A play is not a static thing. It moves through time changing little by little as it does. Evolving into a new work of art. Maybe the origional text of Hamlet was lost, maybe someone has it hidden away. Nothing will ever get accomplished by arguing over whose translation is right, just accept that they are two different views of a play that has been re-played and re-written so many times, theatre students everywhere can't look a human skull without the overpowering urge to comment about Yorrick.