How many fingers am I holding up?

Concussion science has come a long way since the bad old days when head injuries were diagnosed by finger-counting. But a new study finds that minor league hockey players have trouble identifying basic concussion symptoms and don't know when its safe to get back out on the ice after a knock to the head.

That's a sobering thought to anyone who watched Chicago Blackhawk Martin Havlat lying glassy-eyed on the ice after taking a major thump during one of last week's NHL playoff games. Okay, maybe not so many people watched that (except for Canadians, Chicagoans, and Detroiters like me), but here's the kicker: Two days later, Havlat was back in the game. Not for long, though: After taking a fresh hit, he made his way off the ice and didn't come back.

Concussions aren't harmless, especially they come in pairs. NOVA scienceNOW talked about the long-lasting and frustratingly nebulous symptoms of concussion in a story story that aired last year. Even more disturbing are results from the Boston University School of Medicine, where researchers are studying the brain tissue of deceased NFL players. Many of these players were in their 30s and 40s when they died, but their brains were mottled with the same tangles neuropathologists expect to see in elderly dementia patients.

Before they died, the players had reported crippling depression, memory problems, uncontrollable emotions, and debilitating headaches. Is this what we envision for our sports heroes' golden years?

-KB

The Science of Orgasms

It's not often you find the label 'Viewer discretion advised' accompanying a science talk. But that is what this Ted Talk by author Mary Roach warns. And for good reason. In her talk, Roach, bestselling author of 'Stiff' and 'Bonk,' shows a highly disturbing movie of a pig farmer inseminating and 'manually stimulating' a female pig to improve its litter numbers.

Aside from the cringe-worthy film, the talk is actually quite interesting. But for all the crazy experiments that have been done over the years to examine orgasms, we still have no clue what evolutionary purpose the behavior serves in us. So although I'm still not sure why it's 'good for me,' I do know why it's good for a pig.

Rocking the boat

Like music? Hate invasive species? Bret Shaw has some tunes for you.

Shaw, an environmental communication specialist, teamed up with three singer/songwriters to make rockin' instructional music about preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species. (Invasive species can travel from lake to lake on contaminated boats, bait, and bilge. I don't know what bilge is but it definitely sounds like something that should be properly drained.)

There's The Ballad of Aquatic Invasive Species, the rockabilly-inspired Clean Boats, Clean Waters, and my personal favorite, One Bait, One Lake.

Take a listen...and then take comfort knowing that, when they're not singing about draining bilge tanks and Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia, these guys all have day jobs.

Stephen Cobert immortalized as beetle

If you've been following this blog religiously (as I'm sure you have been), you may have read one of our previous posts about naming a fungus after President Obama, or the one about the attempt to name a piece of the space station after Stephen Colbert.

Well it looks like Colbert will finally get his name claim to fame and - it could be argued - that it's way cooler than a presidential fungus.

Two entomologists took on Colbert's challenge to the science community to "name something cooler than a spider" after him to honor him. So the scientists named a beetle after him. And to let Colbert know about it, they sent him a picture of the bug along with a birthday card asking 'What has six legs and is way cooler than a spider?' The answer, of course is the newly discovered diving beetle from Venezuela, Agaporomorphus colberti.

It's nice to see scientists with a sense of humor similar to Stephen Colbert's.

What We're Reading: Dread

Okay, college students, here's a simple way to freak out all of your classmates:

1. Buy a label-maker
2. Print out a bunch of labels that say "GERMS"
3. Stick them on every door handle on campus

I don't suggest you actually try this (unless, say, you own stock in antibacterial soap), and I can't take credit for the idea, either: I was actually a victim of this stunt back in my Bright College Years. I don't think I've ever washed my hands so many times in a 24-hour period.

Until last week, that is, when swine flu put its germy paws on every newspaper, Twitter feed, and Facebook page in the land. I washed my hands before getting to work and on the way out the door; after touching the elevator buttons and after picking up the telephone. I started wondering, hey, aren't there germs on the water cooler spigots and the mini-fridge door? And what about the communal sponge in the communal sink? And why is everyone around me suddenly coughing and sneezing? Is that a tickle in my throat? Are my eyes looking a little red? How long has it been since I last washed my hands?

Now that H1N2 seems to be milder than we thought, it all seems a little silly, but XXX's note below is a reminder that I wasn't the only one in the throes of swine-flu freak-out. In his new book Dread, Philip Alcabes says this kind of panic is totally normal--and totally irrational. Epidemics (a class now so broadly defined that it includes everything from obesity to "affluenza") resonate with deep human fears about everything from sex to strangers. Fears of death and illness are just convenient covers for our more nebulous nightmares, Alcabes argues, and that fact has been exploited by those who aim to fuel intolerance (of the poor, of immigrants, of Jews, of Muslims) for their own political gain.

Is that reading too much into my fixation with sudsing? Was the label-maker guy making a statement about the political uses of fear? I'll have to think about it. But first, maybe I should go wash up.