INTERESTING TIMES

"While we are quick to judge the human rights record of every other country on earth, it is we civilized Americans whose murder rate is ten times that of other Western nations, we civilized Americans who kill women and children with the most alarming frequency.  In (sad) fact, if a full jumbo jet crashed into a mountain killing everyone on board, and if that happened every month, month in and month out, the number of people killed still wouldn't equal the number of women murdered by their husbands and boyfriends each year."
-p7 in The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker 

This is silly---but impressive.
https://vimeo.com/43427906

Market traders make more money on days when their morning testosterone is higher. A great article entitled "What Traders’ Testosterone Tells Us About Markets" explains the details, or you can scan my notes behind the cut.

Market participants aren’t the rational automatons of most financial theory. They are biological organisms responding with a neural and physiological apparatus designed millions of years ago. If what happens in markets affects hormones, these in turn alter behavior and feed back into the markets.

( notes on the article )

Don't forget to breathe while watching this. I would have passed out if I didn't remind myself to take a deep breath every now and then. THIS is why the ocean frightens me. Big water on the river is still itty bitty teeny weenie compared to this.

Wikipedia: It was only in 1998, at the Gotcha Tahiti Pro, that Teahupo'o became widely recognized as having some of the heaviest waves in the world. ...Teahupo'o translates roughly to "place of skulls" or "to sever the head". It is a shallow reef break located in the South Pacific, off the southwest coast of Tahiti in French Polynesia.
( Text from youtube )

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/745359?src=mp&spon=34
is a review on this study:

Wilson KM, Kasperzyk JL, Rider JR, et al. Coffee consumption and prostate cancer risk and progression in the health professionals follow-up study. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2011;103:876-884. Epub 2011 May 17.

but this study
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/50/21/6836.short
found no correlation at least for survival of fatal prostate cancer, between coffee drinkers or not.

( ...and... coffee drinkers have higher testosterone! text here. video at link above. )

They don't mention the fact that adipose tissue actually MAKES estrogen. Grow a gut and the moobs are soon to come.
( article )

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/52768/FDA+Approves+Abbott's+AndroGel
It's supposedly for hypogonadal adult males but we shall see who gets scripts.

A new study shows that testosterone is more increased after the match in the winners. The sample was an "elite collegiate wrestling team". So both winners and losers experience an increase, it's just a bigger increase in the winners. The article refers to an acute testosterone response that I know nothing about, but I have ideas. Cortisol and epinephrine did not significantly differ between winners and losers.

This effect of winning reminds me of a report I heard on NPR this morning about Obama's new slogan: Win the Future. I agree, as they said, that "it's got teeth". There's a lot of unpacking to do in that slogan. And collectively, we may increase our testosterone yet.

SOURCES

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/fitness/Winners-have-higher-testosterone-levels/articleshow/7366420.cms

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/29/133311906/will-win-the-future-be-a-winner-for-obama

Here in the US we desperately need to get on the ball and pass a law by which same sex couples can have all the same legal rights as religiously married couples. Seriously now folks. It's not about HOMOSEXUALITY, and it's not about MARRIAGE. It's about human rights. Asexual, monosexual, bisexual, trisexual, whatever any kind of people, even a-religious people should be permitted to join their fates in a legal way with the person (or persons!) of their choosing. That person should be the one contacted first when there is a need. Everyone deserves to have someone at their back. Period. (Shut up you pervs.) It is a crime that as a society we disallow some people's families.

On the other hand, thinking about the military, I think it is reasonable to extend some of the requirements of DADT to all servicepeople. Lust of all kinds should be on the downlow while on duty. Military service is not about getting laid. I know that packs of high testosterone men are a sexual liability, so figure out somehow to manage it, eh? There must be a way to let these men have healthy outlets to prevent them from embarrassing themselves and from raping anybody's daughter.

DrWelch txs low T if pt has sx and levels below 3000
( notes from Miller's 2010 pharm class )