March 19, 2006

Mind-opening lectures on the physiology of stress. The work of Robert Sapolsky.
posted by homunculus 18 years ago
  • All this clicking stresses my wrist.
  • It's not the clicking doing that.
  • zing!
  • All monkeys should have a soft spot for Sapolsky. He loves his baboons, and his writing is fantastic. A Primate's Memoir is particularly good. ...Suddenly, I get this giddy desire to shock these guys a little. I continue, "These baboons really are our relatives. In fact, this baboon is my cousin." And with that I lean over and give [the baboon] Daniel a loud messy kiss on his big ol' nose. I get more of a response than I bargained for. The Masai freak and suddenly are waving their spears real close to my face, like they mean it. One is yelling, "He is not your cousin, he is not your cousin! A baboon cannot even cook ugali!" (Ugali is the ubiquitous and repulsive maize meal that everyone eats here. I almost respond that I don't really know how to cook the stuff either, but decide to show some prudence at last.) "He is not your cousin!"
  • Fine links, homunculus! That growth in over-stressed children is halted really makes me curious: several of the kittens I've rescued over the years never grew very large, despite eating like oxen after their rescue. Wondering if the pattern of no-growth due to stress has been observed in species other than human?
  • Sapolsky was on Inside the Animal Mind tonight.