The Drake and Zeke Collection
Updated February 26, 2004
E-mails sent to Drake and Zeke of WEGR-FM (102.7) by Dr. Stan

February 2, 2004
Dear Drake and Zeke,

Although I've been a biology professor for 25 years and have become fairly desensitized to gross stuff, I have to admit that THIS IS DISGUSTING:

From: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4096586/

TAIPEI - Residents of Tainan learned a lesson in whale biology after the decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours.

The 56-foot-long whale had been on a truck headed for a necropsy by researchers, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode in the southern city of Tainan.

Residents and shop owners wore masks while trying to clean up the spilt blood and entrails.

"What a stinking mess. This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful," a BBC News report quoted one Tainan resident as saying.

The sperm whale was being carried by truck through Tainan.

The whale had died on Jan. 17 after it beached itself on the southwestern coast of the island.

Researchers at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan said enough of the whale remained to allow for an examination by marine biologists.

Once moved to a nearby nature preserve, the male specimen -- the largest whale ever recorded in Taiwan -- drew the attention of locals because of its large penis, measured at some five feet, the Taipei Times reported.

"More than 100 Tainan city residents, mostly men, have reportedly gone to see the corpse to 'experience' the size of its penis," the newspaper reported.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

This article appeared in the 21 November 2003 issue of Science, THE MOST prestigious weekly science journal in the United States. HONEST!!

It's a little boy's dream: talking through farting. But it may be a part of everyday life for herring. A new study finds that the fish may communicate by squeezing noisy bubbles out of their backsides.

Herring make various sounds and have unusually good hearing. Scientists discovered earlier this year that the fish often release bubbles from their tails during ascent or descent. To see if these bubbles might be a form of herring talk, marine scientist Ben Wilson of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, set up fish tanks in the lab. His group videotaped the fish and discovered that the bubble blowing correlated with sounds they dubbed fast repetitive ticks (FRTs). (GET IT? FRT'S??)

The scientists noted that the herring need to gulp air at the surface continued FRTs. They ALSO observed that the fish make this particular noise at dusk, when they are in the habit of clustering together. That suggests that FRT-ing has a social function, Wilson and colleagues reported.

Although related fish have been caught rumbling from their bums, herring FRTs are streams of distinct pulses, says acoustic biologist Michael Fine of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond: "They're really cool signals. The question is whether the sound has a function."

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

Dear Drake and Zeke,

Here's something else to worry about:

Bryan Brooks, a researcher at Baylor University, has found traces of the anti-depressant Prozac in the tissues of bluegill sunfish, also known as bream, in a Denton County creek, near the Baylor University campus. The active ingredient, fluoxetine, likely came from residues of pills taken by patients who excreted minute amounts in their urine and which passed through, unaltered, through the Denton wastewater treatment plant.

Wastewater plants, as you may surmise, are not designed to filter out pharmaceuticals. The concern is the active ingredient in Prozac pills will affect fish much like it does people.

This same researcher has also found measurable amounts of estrogen in male bluegill sunfish from the same stream. The estrogen came from prescription drugs used for birth control or for hormone therapy, and these males have developed female characteristics. This accumulation of female hormones may reduce fish populations by rendering affected males unable to breed.

Great. So now we have confused (but happy -- don't forget that they're all on Prozac) feminized male bluegill sunfish prancing around their nests, trying to mate with any other bluegill sunfish who happen to be prancing nearby.

I think I'll become a vegetarian.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

Dear Drake and Zeke:

I am pleased to announce that Monday is Trichomonas vaginalis Day. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this organism, here is what good Drs. Schmidt and Roberts, authors of the classic Foundations of Parasitology, have to say about Trichomonas vaginalis:

"Most strains are of such low pathogenicity that the infected person is virtually asymptomatic. However, some strains cause an intense inflammation, with itching and a copious white discharge that is swarming with trichomonads. They feed on bacteria, leukocytes, and cell exudates and are themselves ingested by monocytes.

A few days after infection there is a degeneration of the vaginal epithelium followed by leukocytic infiltration. The vaginal secretions become abundant and white or greenish, and the tissues become intensely inflamed." (P.S. I've seen photographs of this -- it looks sorta like green beer.)

Hence the custom of wearing something greenish on Trichomonas vaginalis Day, which, this year, is Monday, October 13.

Yay!

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

Dear Drake and Zeke,

This appeared in today's In the News, a daily science digest from Sigma Xi:

FOSSILS OF BUFFALO-SIZED RODENT FOUND

from The San Francisco Chronicle

Eight million years ago, a giant relative of today's pet guinea pigs

wallowed in the coastal marshes and lagoons of northwestern Venezuela -- a

buffalo-size beast that scientists say is by far the biggest rodent that

ever lived. (DAMN!)

Now, the fossil remains of two of the mysterious creatures have been

unearthed from what has become a dry and scrubby semidesert, and the

discovery is fascinating scientists who puzzle over the evolutionary

lineage of animals that were once so big and are now mostly so small.

The scientific name of the long-vanished rodent is Phoberomys pattersoni.

Man, you could have a whole luau with one of them guys!

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

Dear Drake and Zeke,

Alligators have the fiercest bite, according to researchers who found the

reptiles have more clamping power in their jaws than hyenas, lions or the

dusky shark.

Three researchers found a 12-footer at a St. Augustine alligator farm

biting down with the weight of a "small sedan," or 2,125 pounds.

A larger gator chomped down much harder, with a bite force of 2,960 pounds,

said Kent Vliet, a University of Florida zoologist and the author of a

recent Journal of Zoology paper on the subject.

<http://www.newsday.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-alligator-jaws,0,2036620.story>

(Please note: They have alligator farms? WHAT ARE THEY THINKING??)

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

September 8, 2003
Dear Drake and Zeke,

Sacculina sp. is a genus of barnacle which is parasitic among blue crabs. The Sacculina female preferentially burrows into and consumes the gonads of its host. When the host is a male, the male becomes sterile, and as the infected male host molts into adulthood, it acquires the external characteristics and morphology of a female. This phenomenon, in which a parasite induces sterility and feminizes its host is called parasitic castration.


Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

August 27, 2003
Dear Drake and Zeke,

The average human penis is approximately 6 inches. If you assume that the average American male is 6 feet in length, that means that his penis is a mere 8% of body length.

But consider the barnacle. Although larval barnacles can swim, once they molt into adults, they are PERMANENTLY attached to the rocks of the ocean shoreline, and they are unable to move.

This poses a problem of sperm transfer when it's that time of year, when it's breeding time. These hermaphroditic creatures have solved the problem by possessing a "probosciform" penis, which can extend out of the top of the barnacle and penetrate neighboring barnacles. According to good Dr. R.S. Fox of Lander University, "An 8 millimeter barnacle can extend its penis 50 millimeters.(!)". Scaling up to human terms, that means that the typical human male, again 6 feet in height, would have a penis that is 37 and a half feet in length.

Hell, with a dong like that, you could keep cars from colliding with passing trains at a railroad crossing.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

August 13, 2003
Dear Drake and Zeke,

The following factoid comes from Scott Freeman's classic "Biologic Science":

"When Australian redback spiders mate, the male does a somersault after inserting his penis-like intromittent organ. The somersault behavior places his dorsal surface in front of the female's mouthparts. The female than eats the male. Experiments have shown that suicidal males copulate longer and fertilize more eggs than males that survive copulation, probably because sperm transfer continues until the meal is over."

I wonder whether she burps after copulating.

Sincerely,

Dr. Stan

August 5, 2003
From the August 4, 2003 edition of the Baltimore Sun
Why does this tree swallow cheat on its mate? Scientists say animals who fool around may be preserving the species.
By Dennis O'Brien Sun Staff

WHY DO SOME marriages work while others fall apart? What makes some birds cheat on their partners
and others remain faithful? How do some monkeys shut down their sex drive?

Cornell University researchers confirmed last month what marriage counselors have advised for years:
When it comes to a mate, it's safest to pick someone like yourself. The study, the result of questionnaires distributed to 978 college-age adults in Ithaca, N.Y., found that wealthy men who seek "quality partners" (a scientific term for good-looking women) are more likely to be disappointed than those who seek mates with interests close to their own.

"Our results suggest that individuals seeking stable, long-term relationships should not seek the highest quality partner available, but should simply look for partners who are similar to themselves," said the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By contrast, if you're a bird, having a lot in common is no guarantee of faithfulness. Avian experts say that birds with mates that share similar genetic material are more likely to cheat and bear "illegitimate" offspring than birds who search far and wide for a nesting partner.

In a study published last fall in Nature, researchers took blood samples of plovers, sandpipers and their offspring to determine the fidelity of nesting partners. Among Swedish sandpipers, who tend to pick genetically similar mates, 20 percent of the chicks were of mixed paternity. Among plovers in Turkey, who don't care much about genetics, only 5 percent were mixed. By contrast, the most promiscuous bird in North America is the tree swallow, with 50 percent to 60 percent of offspring produced by "extramarital" relationships, said Peter Dunn, a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Dunn said the American bird's promiscuity is surpassed worldwide only by Australia's fairy-wren. (It's surprising that anything with "fairy" in its name would do that, don't you think?") About 75 percent of the wren's offspring are the result of extra-pair matings - often after a seduction ritual in which a male lures a female away from her mate by bringing her an acacia petal in his beak.

Thus enticed, the female sneaks off early in the morning for a quick liaison with the outsider, then returns to the nest to join her mate and care for their young, Dunn said. Many birds' mating habits have only been documented in the past two decades thanks to the same DNA fingerprinting techniques that police use on criminals.

"For hundreds of years we didn't know we had all this fooling around going on," Dunn said. "Now we do." But don't blame the birds. Scientists say they cheat for a reason - it spawns genetic diversity that will ensure healthy offspring. "What they're trying to do is avoid inbreeding depression," said Brent K. Sandercock, an avian ecologist at Kansas State University and an author of the plover and sandpiper study. He said how birds sense genetic similarities and differences among themselves remains a mystery. Birds have a poor sense of smell and their calls don't vary much within a species. "It's one of the real puzzles, how are they able to recognize their kin," Sandercock said.

 Sincerely yours,

 Dr. Stan 

April 2, 2003
Dear Drake and Zeke,

As you may know, pandas eat ONLY bamboo. Any nutritionist will tell you that getting sufficient ROUGHAGE from a diet JUST of bamboo is NOT a problem, but getting sufficient protein and vitamins is a BIG problem. In fact, these pandas, which can reach weights of 330 pounds, have to eat more than 80 pounds PER DAY! As Sir Isaac Newton once said, what goes in must come out, so we're talking 160 pounds of ka-ka from Ya Ya and Le Le EVERY DAY!!

By the way, in order to eat 80 pounds of bamboo every day, they have to eat 16 hours per day. So, the daily routine of these pandas will be to eat, poop, sleep - eat, poop, sleep. You know, when my kids were babies, they used to do the same damn thing.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

November 14, 2002
Dear Drake and Zeke,

Last weekend, we had our annual trip to the Gulf Coast Research Lab near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where we learned a lot about the courtship and mating habits of blue crabs.

Apparently, shortly before the female will undergo her final molt into sexual maturity, she emits a pheremone, (a fragrance, if you will), which will attract mature males. As she is molting, one of the males will cover her with his claws, presumably to protect her from predators and from other males. As you may surmise, as SOON as she's finished molting into sexual maturity, this particular male is RIGHT THERE to "lay her right down and knock her off her feet", as Alvin Lee of Ten Years After would say.

This pheremone, this fragrance, that she emits, is strong stuff. When you put one of these pre-molting females into a tank with males, they will start looking for the female. If you then REMOVE the female from the tank, her fragrance will persist, and the males will try to mount each other. (This is one of those things that scientists, who don't have enough work to do, will do for entertainment.) As you may surmise, there is a lot of aggressive behavior among these males who are looking for the mystery female at the same time that they're defending themselves against horny males who are trying to mount them.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

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October 10, 2002
Dear Drake and Zeke,

Due to security reasons, our Biology Honor Society will not be permitted to tour the Regional Forensics Center (i.e. the morgue) on Madison Avenue. As a replacement, could we visit your studio? We figured that it would be just about as dead at your studio as it is in the morgue.

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely yours,

May 3, 2002
STUDY FINDS FEMALE CHICKADEES FICKLE from The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The love life of a female chickadee could make a country music classic: "If your song don't pass muster, buster, I'm gone."

The lady chickadee has a cheatin' heart, quick to find another lover if her mate fails to win his daily song contests with rivals. In effect, she decides that if her mate is a loser, he won't be the only papa in her nest, say researchers at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Daniel Mennill, co-author of a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, said mates of high-ranking male black-capped chickadees are more likely to be unfaithful than are the mates of lower-ranked males.
<http://www.latimes.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-cheatin-chickadees0502may02.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dscience%2Dheadlines>

 Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

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April 29, 2002
OK, OK, if you INSIST on using cocaine, AT LEAST DON'T INJECT IT INTO YOUR GENITALS!

Confirmed true by www.darwinawards.com:

Priapism Takes a Penis: 1988 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

Doctors warn of a dangerous new method of cocaine abuse: injecting the drug directly into the urinary tract. Physicians from New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center reported the case of a 34-year-old man who suffered severe bleeding under the skin after pumping cocaine into his urethra. It led to complications that destroyed his penis, nine fingers, and parts of his legs. "They fill an eye dropper or a syringe with a cocaine solution and inject it into the penis," said Dr. Samuel Perry, a professor of clinical psychiatry.

The man had injected cocaine before intercourse in an effort to enhance sexual performance. He was admitted to the hospital because his penis had remained erect for three days, resulting in a painful inability to urinate. The medical term for a prolonged erection is "priapism." On his third day in the hospital, the man's erection suddenly subsided. Over the next 12 hours, blood leaked into the tissues of his feet, hands, genitals, back and chest. Blood coagulation caused tissues to die over large areas of the patient's body, and he was transferred to the burn unit of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

Doctors there were forced to amputate the man's legs above the knee and all but one of his fingers to stop the spread of gangrene. The patient's penis fell off by itself. The man is currently recovering in a rehabilitation facility.

Men who inject cocaine into the penis report that it gives them a sexual high. Drug abuse treatment experts have previously reported external use of cocaine as a sexual stimulant. Cocaine powder is rubbed onto the surface of the genital organs by both men and women in an effort to halt premature ejaculation or improve sexual sensations.

"We report this case to alert clinicians to this new method of cocaine abuse and to describe its rare and previously unreported complications," the doctors concluded.

 Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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March 11, 2002
Dear Drake and Zeke,

As I was driving home last Friday, I could have sworn that you aired an audio clip with Rick Chetter saying, "This portion of the Drake and Zeke program is brought to you by Shit on a Stick."

FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION THAT! Drs. Larry Roberts and Gerald Schmidt, authors of the CLASSIC textbook, Foundations of Parasitology, mention, "Some tribes of Kenya, for instance, are said to relish dog intestine roasted on a stick over a campfire. Because cleaning of the intestine may involve nothing more than squeezing out its contents, and cooking may entail nothing more than external scorching, these people probably have the highest rate of infection with the tapeworm Echinococcus granulosus in the world."

Hey, anybody can roast a hot dog, but NOW you can have a DOG dog!

Good Drs. Robert and Schmidt continue their narrative about this tapeworm with the following: "A different set of circumstances leads to infection in tanners in Lebanon, where dog feces are used as an ingredient of a solution for tanning leather. Scats picked off the street are added to the vats, and any eggs present may contaminate their handler."

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan
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Dear Drake and Zeke,

One of the types of bacteria that normally lives in the human vagina is Lactobacillus acidophilus. If the name of that species sounds familiar, you may want to visit the dairy section of your supermarket -- you'll find that Lactobacillus is responsible for curdling milk into yogurt.

It makes ya wonder where Dannon and TCBY get their cultures, doesn't it?

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan
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Dear Drake and Zeke,

If you ever go exploring the coral reefs near Belize, you may find these creatures:

JELLYFISH AND CORALS

Scientific Name: Briareum asbestinum
Common Name: Dead man's fingers

Scientific Name: Diploria strigosa
Common Name: Common Brain

Scientific Name: Diploria labyrinthiformis
Common Name: Depressed Brain

FISH

Scientific Name: Sparisoma viride
Common Name: Stoplight

Scientific Name: Halichoeres radiatus
Common Name: Puddingwife

STARFISH, SEA URCHINS AND THEIR TYPES

Scientific Name: Holothuria mexicana
Common Name: Donkey Dung sea cucumber

BUT THE ONE CREATURE THAT REALLY INTRIGUES ME IS, THEY TELL ME, A KIND OF SEA URCHIN:

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Meoma ventricosa
COMMON NAME: Sea pussy

(Say, wasn't that Marky B in the background who just said, "Hey, I want one of those!"?)

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan
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June 20, 2001
And the author of this article sez that it is likely that females hold many of the answers:

YOU WOULD THINK that male gorillas, which weigh in at 350-450 pounds would have the largest testicles, humans which weigh an average of 150-200 pounds would have intermediate-sized testicles, while male chimpanzees, weighing in at only 100 pounds, would have the smallest testicles.

AU CONTRAIRE, my friends. The testicles of those 350-450 pound gorillas weigh, together, only about an ounce, while the testicles of humans weigh 1.5 ounces, and the testicles of chimpanzees weigh a relatively HUMONGOUS 4 ounces.

Why the difference? The answer has something to do with a phenomenon called SPERM COMPETITION.

Imagine that sperm cells are lottery tickets in the game of life. Large testicles allow a male to enter more tickets (sperm cells) into the lottery and therefore give him a better crack at the prize.

Gorillas, however, live in cohesive groups usually consisting of one fully adult male, two to three adult females and their offspring. When a gorilla female is ready to mate, normally only one adult male is there as a partner. The 400-pound male gorilla can therefore afford to have relatively tiny testes (relative to his body size) because the only sperm racing for the female's ovum will be his own.

Chimpanzees, on the other hand, live in loosely structured multi-male, multi-female communities. When a female chimpanzee comes into estrus, she is often attended by a host of males, many or most of whom will mate with her on the same day. That means lots of sperm from different individuals all competing to be the first one to reach the egg. The male with the

biggest testicles will produce the most sperm. He has 'bought the most lottery tickets'. And so he is most likely to fertilize the female.

And the situation with humans? I know what you're wondering, and the answer is: humans fall right on the line, suggesting that sperm competition has played a minor role in the evolution of our sexual anatomy and behavior.

One of the things that scientists DON'T understand is how the size and shape of the PENIS relate to mating systems. AND FOR THAT, the author sez "It is likely that females hold many of the answers, says Professor Harcourt."

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

P.S. Maybe you should have "Big Balls" by AC/DC playing in the background when you read this letter.
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Love that dirty water, Woo-Woo, Boston, you're my home...

From Today's Netscape News: Capital Offers Toilets to Go

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's first public toilets have debuted in Phnom Penh, a move by the city's governor to discourage residents from defecating on sidewalks and in parks.

The mobile toilets, which are free, began roaming the city about two weeks ago, and 18 more will be mobilized before the annual water festival in November.

Each day they make conveniently scheduled stops at the city's busiest districts, stay a while and then move on.

Governor Chea Sophara launched a campaign to clean up the Cambodian capital two years ago, rehabilitating the popular riverfront, landscaping public parks and ordering crumbling buildings to be repaired and repainted.

"People normally urinate and defecate in the parks because there are no toilets for them," Chea Sophara told Reuters by telephone.

"Now we have two mobile toilets -- two trucks we made ourselves -- for the people because we don't want our beautiful city to smell."

Tens of thousands of Cambodians travel to Phnom Penh, home to more than a million people, for the annual boat races every year.

After last year's three-day festival, which takes place on the riverfront across from the royal palace where King Norodom Sihanouk lives, city residents complained that the area smelled of human excrement.

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Dear Drake and Zeke,

Can a non-human earn the title of "Dumbass of the Day?" I'm referring to a bull that was once owned by the family of my secretary. Apparently, they started noticing that the bull, named Beauregard, was acting terribly distraught and agitated, so they called in a veterinarian. The veterinarian determined that (and this is the dumbass part) Beauregard had stepped on his own penis, (or "Mr. Happy", as my secretary calls it,) causing an incurable infection that was so bad that the bull couldn't urinate. As you may surmise, a bull whose penis is so mangled and swollen that it can't piss won't listen to reason, so the family had to do the next best thing, and that is to blow its brains out with a shotgun. My secretary sez that she thinks there is still about 100 pounds of Beauregard in the freezer at home.

Sincerely yours,

In the March 15, 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, British researchers report a series of experiments which demonstrate a successful treatment for reducing offensive rectal gases, specifically hydrogen sulfide, from dogs. The treatment involves a mixture of activated charcoal, which sequesters the offending gas in its nooks and crannies; zinc acetate, which binds the gas; and an extract of the yucca plant, which "already enjoys a reputation for quenching the odor of pig and poultry feces."

The participants in this study included one golden retriever, five Labradors, and two English mastiffs. For five hours, for five consecutive days, each animal wore a jacket that held a perforated tube over the anus. The jacket also held a pump containing a sensor that measured the concentration of hydrogen sulfide every 20 seconds. With this apparatus, the scientists were able to measure the number of gas-emitting episodes, their frequency, and the concentration of hydrogen sulfide. To assess frequency, the researchers calculated the mean interval free time (MIFT), with frequency defined as any "flatulence-free interval" exceeding 20 seconds.

MORE THAN THAT, the researchers collected dog feces within 15 minutes of defecation, weighed it, and added the experimental mixture in a liquid buffer. The resulting slurry was added to bottles, and then tested to determine the pressure of emitted gas.

If you're REALLY interested in finding out more, the article is entitled, "Administration of charcoal, Yucca schidigera, and zinc acetate to reduce malodorous flatulence in dogs", written by C.J. Giffard.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan
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(Maybe you ought to play Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools" as you read this one...)

Hermaphroditic animals are those which have BOTH male and female reproductive systems. In MOST cases, two individuals, will, um, face each other and cross-fertilize each other.

NOT SO WITH THE SEA HARE, Aplysia brasiliana. Each sea hare bears a penis at the right side of the head and a vaginal opening posteriorly, making it really easy to form chains of copulating individuals. The sea hare at one end will be doing the male thing only, the sea hare at the other end will be doing the female thing only, AND EVERYBODY IN THE MIDDLE will be functioning as a male AND a female SIMULTANEOUSLY. These chains often involve 4 to 6 individuals.

Sincerely yours,

I'm proctoring an exam in one of the lecture rooms in the Science Building at CBU, and I look up and I see, hanging on the wall, a Periodic Table, a chart showing all the elements of matter known in the universe. I discover that Element #67, Holmium, has the chemical symbol of "Ho". So we have an element in our universe known as "Ho." Makes ya wonder what properties THAT element has.

Sincerely yours,

Dear Drake and Zeke,

According to the book, Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico, the most common inshore member of the genus Halichoeres in the northern Gulf is Halichoeres bivittatus. Common name? Slippery dick. Adult slippery dicks reach a length of 9 inches. (Did I just hear Brigitte in the background say, "I want one of those?")

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan

Dear Drake and Zeke,

I just wanted you to know that the gas station next to the Gold Club at the corner of Summer and White Station has changed names. It USED to be a Texaco service station. NOW, it's the "In and Out Service Center."

Makes ya wonder, doesn't it?

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan
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January 2, 2001

I received this in my e-mail today. I'm sure you can do something with it...

The famous castrato singer Farinelli (1705-1782) received praise and adoration from women who wrote him erotic love poems and tried to seduce him. After certain of his performances, audiences would roar, "Long live the knife." Legend has it that King Philip V of Spain was saved from a terrible debilitating depression by one song from the beloved Farinelli, whose high and powerful voice deeply moved the monarch. The wild popularity of castrato singers in general during the 17th and 18th had an enormous influence on Italian opera during this period.

Beginning in the middle of the 1500s, young boys who had particularly beautiful voices were taken at around 6 or 8 years of age and castrated, thereby preserving their high, pre-pubescent voices. Such was the public's love of the castrato's rare voice that the leading Italian opera composers of the day were virtually at the singers' mercy. Up to the last minute, composers would have to make substantial changes to their music in order to accommodate the whims of a primo uomo (castrato). A singer might demand more music to sing or more elaborate music to show off his vocal abilities.

The castrato's voice combined the high notes of a boy or female soprano with the power, volume, and lung capacity of a grown male. Some castrati were able to hold a single note for over a minute. Vocal virtuosity was at that time equated with strength and power, which is why Handel preferred a castrato for heroic characters such as Julius Caesar.

The last known castrato was Alessandro Moreschi, who sang at the funerals of Kings Humbert I and Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. He is the only castrato whose voice was recorded. In 1902, accompanied by the Chorus of the Sistine Chapel and the Roman Choristers, Moreschi filled the Vatican with Mozart's "Ave Verum" and Bach's "Ave Maria." The recording, though technically primitive, is an historically significant testament to a unique era in opera.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan

P.S. There ain't enough money in the world for me to do this.
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December 26, 2000

From last Friday's Ann Landers:

Police say that a 24-year-old shoplifter was leaving a Bristol, England, supermarket when he removed 2 lobsters from their tank and shoved them in his trousers. (I think you can tell where we're going with this story already.) The man sprinted past stunned check-out girls, but came to a screeching halt when he felt the lobsters clutching on his manhood.

The thorny creatures were finally removed when emergency medics pried them loose with pliers. Doctors say the thief will fully recover from his frightening tangle with the lobsters, but he will never be a daddy.

"Basically, it was a do-it-yourself vasectomy," said the doctor. "The patient's sexual abilities will be restored in time, but he will not be able to father children."

The thief's painful prank landed him in the hospital, where he is expected to remain for three or four weeks. But thanks to a kindhearted supermarket manager, he will not be charged with any crime.

"The guy's gone through enough pain," said the store manager." I think he has learned his lesson. I doubt if he'll ever steal again."

 Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
(Sorta brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?)
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It's Final Exam Week here at CBU, and usually I would be in a TERRIBLY crabby mood, because I would be sitting in my office reading the DRIVEL some students call their TERM PAPERS. However, this year is different. I'm learning a lot from these term papers, and I would like to share with this Crown Jewel of Insight:

Astonishing, isn't it?

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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Dear Drake and Zeke,

You guys really need to enlist the services of a urologist and a proctologist for your pee-hole and butthole features, because the truth really is stranger than fiction.

An acquaintance of mine is a urology intern at a local hospital, and she tells me that she had to make a presentation at one of the weekly grand rounds seminars for urology interns, in which she discussed a case involving a patient who shoved a decapitated snake head up his pee-hole. She did not mention to me the type of snake head, nor did she mention the man's motivation for shoving a decapitated snake head up his pee-hole. It seems to me, though, that the head from a baby garter snake would not be a big deal, but the head of an anaconda, whose body can reach a circumference of 35 inches, COULD cause some serious urinary retention problems...and necessitate letting out the inseam of this guy's trousers.

(I can just imagine what his girlfriend might say, "Is that a snake head in your pocket, or are you glad to see me?")

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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Dear Drake and Zeke,

Have you considered the possibility that there might be some people out there who are going to TRY shoving the items listed in this new feature because they haven't thought of it before? There just might be some people who NEVER would have thought of shoving a LAVA LAMP up their butt, until they heard the suggestion from you?!!?

Anyway, I suggest that people NOT shove a COPROLITE up their butt. Coprolites are fossilized fecal masses from animals which lived any time between 50,000 to 2 million years ago. IN FACT, rather than waste valuable time digging around your own backyard, you can BUY Montana Fossil coprolites from Buck and Allie Garrahan at http://www.hi-line.net/~boucher/montanaf/montanaf.htm. (They even accept Visa and Master Card!!) These fossilized turds, which sorta look like lumpy sweet potatoes (only they're hard, like rocks), range in size from 1 1/2" to 18".(!) They cost from a mere $5.00 to $300.00.

JUST THE THING for people who have oosic knife handles.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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Dear Drake and Zeke,

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I am sending this note to you in honor of all the women who will participate in the Race for the Cure this Saturday.

Several months ago, my wife and I went to a local supermarket to go shopping for groceries. She went on ahead, while I got a shopping cart. From a distance, I saw my wife meet a friend of hers whom she hadn't seen in a long while, they hugged, and then they got into a conversation. I finally caught up to hear the following:

Her Friend: I had a Port-aCath put in. Did you? (A port-a-cath is a device placed underneath the skin, near the collar bone, to infuse chemotherapy drugs into the circulatory system. These drugs are really hard on veins.)

My wife: Yes, they did.

Her Friend: Those things are GREAT! You know, with just one of those, you can handle 2,000 pricks.

(With that I gasped. TWO THOUSAND PRICKS?? So many pricks, SO LITTLE TIME!! Where would you start?)

My wife's friend then continued: But fortunately, I only had to deal with 12.

(I FELT SOOOOOOOO RELIEVED!! Twelve pricks is so much easier to handle than 2,000, don't you think?)

My wife and I have met quite a few women who refuse to get a mammogram because they're afraid of what the doctor will tell them. This is one case where what you don't know CAN kill you. Get a mammogram.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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It must be very, VERY difficult, ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE, to impress a woman astronaut. After all, when a Saturn V rocket is launching a space shuttle into orbit, the passengers in the cabin are experiencing 7.5 MILLION pounds of thrust. (DAMN!!)

If 7.5 million pounds of thrust between your loins doesn't give you a thrill, I don't know what will.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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September 29, 2000

Dear Drake and Zeke,

One of the things that I find absolutely fascinating is the ability of some insects to mate, in copula, while in flight, ESPECIALLY when they're pointed in opposite directions. Actually, I guess that can be a metaphor for life itself -- although it may LOOK like you're going through all the right motions, you are actually clueless as to where you've been or where you're going, and you don't especially care for whom you're with, either.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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During the 1850's, the two theories of how evolution worked were Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" and Lamarck's "Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics". Darwin would explain the long necks of giraffes as the result of natural selection, in which only those giraffes whose necks were long enough for them to reach the leaves of tall trees would survive long enough to reproduce. Lamarck would explain the long necks of giraffes as the result of the short-necked ancestors stretching their necks just a little bit to reach the higher leaves while the lower leaves were depleted. The ability to produce a slightly longer necks would be transmitted to the offspring, and this transmission of the trait for ever-longer necks would continue over many generations, resulting in present-day giraffes with very long necks.

Although Lamarck's theory seemed plausible at the time, it was refuted, in part, by scientists taking account of the Jewish custom of circumcision. According to Lamarck's theory, if the only thing that's going to happen to a foreskin on a Jewish male is that it is going to be cut off when he's 8 days old, then eventually, Jewish males would evolve so they wouldn't develop foreskins in the first place. THIS HASN'T HAPPENED YET, so Lamarck's theory is not true.

Even though I am a Jew, PLEASE do not ask me to explain the logic of this custom. When you look at the rites of passage of most tribes, they'll wait until a young lad is 12 or 14 before they start poking around with his personal property, but NOOOOOOOO, we take this 8 day-old boy from warmth and security of his momma's arms, cut off his foreskin so that he blanks out from the pain, AND THEN WE HAVE A PARTY!! (Mazal Tov! [Congratulations!] Here, have some schnopps!!)

Dr. (shorta than he oughta be) Stan
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September 21, 2000

As you know, one of the many, many synonyms for the word "erection" is "boner". That's not so far from the truth when you consider that most mammals, (but not humans) have penile bones, called an os penis or a baculum. These bones help support the penis during copulation, and are characteristic of males who can completely retract their penis into their bodies (unlike humans, who just go limp). Usually, these bones are quite small, no longer than a few centimeters. (After all, how big can a raccoon dick be?) However, some of these penile bones can be quite long, as in the walrus, which can reach lengths of 3 or 4 feet.(!) The penile bone of a walrus, called an oosic, has the look and feel of ivory.

I find it rather sad to note that these oosics are often carved to make handles for decorative knives, so if you're the kind of guy who just can't live without an ornamental knife in your collection, I suggest that the next time you pick up and get a grip on the oosic handle of that knife, that you pause and reflect on where that oosic might have been in the past and what our walrus compadre could be doing with that oosic RIGHT NOW if you weren't CRASS enough to take it away from him.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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Hermaphroditic organisms, which have complete male and female reproductive systems, usually engage in an equal and amicable exchange of, um, yak, after which they both go about the business of nurturing their fertilized eggs.

NOT SO WITH Pseudoceros bifurcus, a flatworm, 2 to 3 inches long, found on the Great Barrier Reef at depths of around 15-20 meters. (There's your connection with the Sydney Olympics.) These guys are caught up in an evolutionary mindgame in which it is better to produce as many descendants (to yak) rather than be burdened with producing eggs (to be yakked).

How do these hermaphroditic creatures yak their partner without being yakked? Well, these guys square off and engage in a behavior called "penis fencing", in which they square off and start striking and parrying with their sharp, everted little weenies (which are located at the tops of their heads), trying to yak their partner without being yakked. These bouts of penis fencing can last from 20 to 60 minutes, with the winner (the worm that manages to inject its sperm) becoming the male for that particular mating. The loser has to repair all this damage caused by the stabbing of the winner AND gets the added burden of fertilized eggs to care for. (DAMN!!)

Dr. Stan
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August 29, 2000

"Be glad, be VERY glad you're not a female buffalo."

Buffalos live in family units in which there is a dominant (alpha) male and several females. When the dominant male has decided that he's "in the mood", he will select one of the females in his harem and "attend" her. "Attending" means that he will stand near her and follow her as she's grazing for 2 to 4 days. During this period of time when he is "attending" her, he will occasionally urinate on his own "beard" (also called a pantaloon) and then stand upwind of her, presumably to get her attention.

If she allows him to mount her (maybe just to get rid of Mr. Latrine-scent), he is FINISHED within 4 to 6 SECONDS. If I were a female buffalo (buffalette?), I'd be very, VERY disappointed. (IS THAT ALL THERE IS?)

Dr. Stan
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August 25, 2000

"I don't care how full your bladder is, do not EVER pee into the Amazon River!"

Lurking in the waters of the Amazon River is a slender catfish, 3 to 4 inches in length, whose common name is Candiru. It has the evil habit of entering the urethra (pee-hole) of men and vulva of women bathers, particularly if they urinate while in the water. (Hence, their scientific name, Urinophilus, which means "urine-lover".) Once they enter the urinary ducts and bladder, the catfish expands its pectoral fins (remember, catfish have SPINES) making removal nearly impossible without surgery.

But don't my word for it. Read Eugene Grudger's book "The Candiru" for vivid case histories.

Ouch.

Dr. Stan
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August 21, 2000

"Be glad, be VERY glad you're not a male praying mantis"

As you know, it is the MALE of the species who usually initiates courtship and mating. Not so with the praying mantis. The male praying mantis is not especially assertive. In fact, one might even say he is somewhat inhibited. So what's a female to do when she's "in the mood"? Why, she bites the male's head off, thereby removing the part of his brain that is inhibiting the rest of his body. Our friend, now headless, becomes a veritable SEX MACHINE, attempting to copulate with ANYTHING that is the right size. (Even pieces of blackboard chalk will suffice.)

Female black widow spiders aren't much better. After doing what NATURE INTENDED HIM TO DO, the male had better run like hell, because the female, now perceiving the (spent) male as just another source of protein for nourishing her babies, will HUNT HIM DOWN and EAT HIM if he DOESN'T RUN LIKE HELL.

A guy does what nature intended him to do, and this is the thanks that he gets? HOW ABOUT A LITTLE GRATITUDE AROUND HERE, EH?

Dr. Stan
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There are some species of insects in which the females mate only once in their lives. Some of these species are serious agricultural pests, so the best control method for these pest species is to raise the flies in the laboratory, sterilize the males with radiation (so that they're shooting with blanks, y'know?), and then releasing these sterile males into the environment, thus increasing the likelihood of a female mating with a sterile male.

In the southeastern United States, this method of control has been extremely successful in eradicating Cochliomyia hominivorax, also known as the primary screw-worm.

By the way, even experienced entomologists have difficulty distinguishing C. hominivorax from C. macellaria, the lesser screw-worm, which is NOT a serious-causing pest.

Dr. Stan
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August 6, 2000

I am sure that there are male listeners of your radio program who are extremely proud of the sexual prowess and endurance, but I think a certain amount of humility and modesty is appropriate when you consider the following:

1) Fleas can remain coupled, /in copula/, for 24 hours.(!)

2) Even more startling, blood flukes of the genus Schistosoma, remain /in copula/ for LIFE, and that can be 15 to 20 years!! In fact, female blood flukes don't reach full maturity UNTIL they are mated to a male. (Who says a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle?) You may think it doesn't get any better than this, but I would imagine that it might get a little awkward when it's time to go shopping for groceries...or to church.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Stan
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Recently you guys started a feature regarding all things penile. I thought you might be interested in the following bit of information regarding the term "cirrus". As you know, the Chrysler Corporation sells a mid-sized car called the "Cirrus", named presumably for the small, wispy clouds that are found at very high elevation. However, the term "cirrus" has a biological definition, as explained in the glossary of Schmidt & Roberts' Foundations of Parasitology, sixth edition, where you will see that the term "cirrus" is used to describe the penis or copulatory organ of a flatworm.

We already knew that cars are phallic symbols, but you would think that car manufacturers would be a little more subtle with the names they create.

If you would like more interesting trivia for your "All Things Penile" from the wonderful world of zoology, please let me know.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Stan