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Trash-lovin’ bears, much like their human counterparts, are often merely aping the naughty behavior of what’s scientifically known as “Bad Influence Bears.” 

The bears’ mothers, much like their human counterparts, were previously blamed for their offsprings’ unseemly behavior. 

A report can be found here.  

Habits. I’ve lovingly nurtured many a noxious, toxic habit involving animals, vegetables, minerals, others. I’ve ditched most of my naughty ones: now I practice yoga, walk and run to distract the shadowy black dog that likes to curl up between my feet and toss those damn screechy monkeys off my back.

But do one’s habits reflect who a person essentially is … and if you change a habit do you change who you are?

I know when I was chain-smoking, I was going through the most wildly insecure period of my life (it lasted a long time!) and I used cigarettes to shield myself in social situations. I’d build a smokescreen and only people who passed muster would be allowed through the billowing lungful long enough to even see me clearly, never mind actually converse with me. Tough moment at work? Boyfriend wants to have a talk? Friends pissing me off? Nothing a swiftly sucked down three-cigarette marathon couldn’t temporarily solve.

And when I was drinking WAY too much coffee? That was when I didn’t feel like I was up to the task of handling my (I thought at the time) extremely demanding, competitive job at newspaper, staffed (in reality) by a Lilliputian team of brilliant, capricious, wildly ambitious and all-too-often bat-shit men and women. I figured if I couldn’t hack it, I’d fail to hack it in the most alert, bug-eyed and frantically over-eager manner possible.

Does that mean I’m a reticent, frantically over-eager, bug-eyed issue-ditcher? Perhaps. Since I tossed the cancer sticks and most of the coffee grounds to the curb, has who I am essentially changed? Dunno.

If you ask my father, he’d say “no.” One of his favorite relationship tips for me growing up (he thought I had Florence Nightingale syndrome, and perhaps he was right) was roughly: “You can’t change people. They are who they are.” The man was nature all the way.

If you ask my husband, he’d say “yes.” One of his favorite tips for me in the past, present and probably the future (he thinks I’m too hard on myself, and maybe he’s right) is roughly: “You can change. If you do – or abstain from doing – something enough times, you can change that behavior permanently.” Nurture man.

And he wasn’t just referring to coffee and cigarettes – in fact, he was primarily referring to toxic interpersonal habits I’d guarded as closely as I would a winning lotto ticket.

Both were filtering their advice through their conservative and liberal (respectively) paradigms … and both were trying to help and protect me. So who’s right?

It’s impossible to say, really, but for now at least – science is on Stephen’s side. According to The New York Times, “brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.”

And even though I dunno for sure, I’d say changing my habits has changed who I am, in a good way. But it took a really stubborn nature and a shitload of nurturing to get me to the semi-sane, almost in-control (ignore the white knuckles!), generally facial-tic lacking place I run in place in today.

This rather interesting fellow called Shailendra Roy has decided to follow up his recent hair-raising stunt of pulling a 35-ton train 10 meters with his foot-long ponytail by hanging from a flying helicopter by his locks (for an as-yet undetermined amount of time). BBC report here.

Beauty take-away: Roy says rubbing his hair with mustard oil keeps it strong!  

Whenever the subject of Viagra comes up I either find myself verbally browbeating the cantankerous in a bad way, fugly in a uniquely Republican way and decidedly unsexy in a creepy white man way Bob Dole for his infamous ED comment (ED Elizabeth Dole my wife is responsible for my ED Erectile Dysfunction har fun with acronyms) or bemoaning (moan hee) the fact that there isn’t really a female equivalent (and despite what Sex and the City’s Samantha would have credulous viewers believe, popping it doesn’t work for all women, don’t ask me how I know). But my snipping has been stymied by a wonderful, heart-warming piece of news: A working class suburb of Santiago, Chile is handing out Viagra to senior citizens!

Why? Because “an active sexuality improves the overall quality of life.”

Other programs in 34 other municipalities are planned. Yay for senior sex!

We’ve all heard about the studies that show that nursing your baby can pimp out the kid’s IQ, boost mom/baby bonding, increases the child’s immunity and decreases their chances of becoming a chunkarrific sociopath with an unironic faux hawk who gets his or her jollies out of arranging deadly duels between neighborhood squirrels.

And guess what? Women are listening! According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 3 out of 4 new moms are breast-feeding their babies — the highest rate in 20 years. AP report here. 

News like this is especially heartening after reading about the toxic chemicals in baby bottles that can leech into an infant’s system.

But wait: now it seems that women are so over-exposed to chemicals themselves, they’re passing on toxins to their wee ones through their breast milk.  

So which one’s worse? The jury’s out and the fact is, you could pump pure genius-infused ambrosia into baby’s head hole for two years straight and the environment, your poor parenting skills, the faltering education system, terrorists, that pesky Dennis the Menace, the voices in his/her head, will fuck little Bobby or Susie up anyway.

But let’s play along, shall we?

Bottles pass on Bisphenol-A (BPA). Basically, it’s a synthetic sex hormone that mimics estrogen. Studies link the chemical to early puberty in girls (speaking of boobs), obesity, diabetes, thyroid disease, increased chances of both breast and prostate cancer and more. 

Breast milk passes on nine different kinds Perflourinated Compounds (PFCs). PFCs are in everything that makes our lives fun and convenient (nonstick pans, pizza boxes, furniture, stain resistant fabrics, etc.) Studies link PFCs with liver-cell damage, suppressed immune functioning, thyroid cancer, pancreatic/testicular/mammary gland tumors, kidney damage and reproductive problems.

Bottom line: Maybe now everyone can shut their damn pie holes and stop debating this damn issue once and for all.

Per The New York Times:

It seems some want to get married!

Others don’t.

It doesn’t always work out!

Sometimes partners cheat.

Sometimes, they want to have kids!

They fight about housework!

Opinionated family members get involved.

They give up and get fat after getting hitched!

Phew. I was wondering!

Junk science alert: bringin’ back the halcyon days when Hank & Co. lopped off women’s heads for producing the girl childz…

Are you rexic? Skip breakfast? Related to satan? Like to dance naked in the moonlight with a rotting flamingo strapped to your head? Get ready for a booby prize girl!

Eat quality carbs? Got milk? That thing called vitamins? Brimming with sugar and spice? N all things nice?! You’re gonna have a your dream child boy!

The New York Times breathlessly reports today on a study from researchers at Oxford that links a child’s sex with the mother’s diet. The study does not go so far as to discount the ineluctable fact that a child’s sex is genetically determined by, ahem, SPERM, but it does say that a mother’s body can favor the “development of a male or female embryo.” Based on what she puts in her head hole. So cram it with walnuts bitches!!

Science says my constant Eeyore-like paradigm — as much fun as a freshly sharpened cheese-grater applied with gusto to freshly sunburned thighs to my family, friends, fellow subway riders, overly enthusiastic street buskers, slatternly Starbucks employees and all tenders of bars — is financially prudent.

It turns out that all those lectures about getting some sun goddamnit, getting my nose out them books, wearing pink once in a while it’s Easter goddamnit, removing the dusty whiskey bottles from under my bed, putting the sharp knife down, etc., are as foolish as I suspected they were.

Scientists at the University of Sydney have found that “looking on the bright side can lead to irresponsible behavior.”

Furthermore: “The tendency to segregate positive and negative events in a mixed-loss experience is based on the logic that remembering a large gain allows people to feel good even when the objective outcome was negative,” Elizabeth Cowley, author of “The Perils of Hedonic Editing,” in the Journal of Consumer Research said. Mmm hmmm…. 

That’s what I’M sayin’!