By: Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo

Cut your losses and don’t waste your time .  Why stay in some weird dating limbo when you can move on to what will surely be better territory? Don’t want to hear it?  Fine.  Here’s the answer you’re looking for, “Hang in there, baby.  He’s not the loser everybody’s telling you he is.  If you wait and keep your mouth shut and call at exactly the right time and anticipate his moods and have no expectations about communication or your own sexual needs, you can have him!”  But please don’t be surprised if he dumps you or continues to drag you through a completely unsatisfying relationship.

He is a man made up entirely of your excuses.  And the minute you stop making excuses for him, he will completely disappear from your life.

Men, for the most part, like to pursue women.  We (men) like not knowing if we can catch you.  We feel rewarded when we do.

Don’t let the “honeys” and the “babys” fool you.  His sweet nothings are exactly that.  They are much easier to say than “I’m just not that into you.”  Remember, actions speak louder than, “There’s no cell reception where I am right now.”

Calling when you say you’re going to call is the very first brick in the house you are building of love and trust.  If he can’t lay this one stupid brick down, you ain’t never gonna have a house, baby.  And it’s cold outside.

He will always be able to play the “friend” card on you.  He only  has to be responsible for the expectations of a friend, rather than the the far greater expectations of a boyfriend.  He’s got the ultimate situation: a great friend with all the benefits of a girlfriend, whom he can see or not see whenever he wants to.  He may be one of your closest friends, but I’m sorry to say … as a boyfriend, he’s just not that into you.

Beware of the word “friend”.  It can often be used by men or the women that love them to excuse the most unfriendly behavior.  Personally, when I’m picking friends, I like the ones who don’t make me cry myself to sleep.

I don’t want to be “sort of dating” someone.  I don’t want to be “kinda hanging out” with someone.  I don’t want to spend a lot of energy suppressing my feelings so I appear uninvolved.  I want to be involved.  I want to be sleeping with someone I know I’ll see again because they’ve already demonstarted to me that they’re trustworthy and honorable — and into me.

You can’t blame a guy for having feelings.  You love someone, you break up, you still have feeling.  Thank God for that really.  But having feelings don’t mean you have to have sex.

Every man you have ever dated who has said he doesn’t want to get married or doesn’t believe in marriage, or has “issues” with marriage, will … rest assured … someday be married.  It just will never be with you.

Everyone wants to be loved and needed, particularly by the person who just broke up with us.  I understand.  What could be better than hearing from the man who just told you he didn’t want you in his life anymore … his sad, wistful, “I miss you so much” voice on the other end of the phone?  It’s validating.  It’s exciting.  It’s irresistible.  But resist you must.

My friends all say I should stop talking to him, but I think he misses me, and I like that.  I miss him.  I feel if I stay in touch with him, it will remind him of how great I am, and eventually he will realize that we should be together again.

A man who wants to make a relationship work will move mountains to keep the woman he loves.  If he’s not calling you to tell you he loves you and wants you back, it should only be because he’s showing up at your new residence to do it in person … if he’s not doing any of that, he may love you, he may miss you, but ultimately he’s just not that into you.  Stop taking his calls and let him know what it’s like to live without you.

Don’t be flattered that he misses you.  He  should miss you.  You’re deeply missable.  However, he’s still the same person who just broke up with you.  Remember, the only reason he can miss you is because he’s choosing, every day, not to be with you.

I was seeing a guy for about a month.  He broke up with me, saying that he didn’t feel like it could be something serious.  I understood and took it well.  He wanted to know if we could still hang out as friends.  I said sure.  Now we get together and go out and then come back to his place and have sex, just like we did before.  (But now, we’re “broken up.”)  He’s really, really cute and I love having sex with him.  I also think he must like me if he can’t stop being around me.  And I think it’s kinda cool — all pressure’s off and we’re having a great time together.  I’ve decided that I think it’s fine and I’m not going to call his attention for the fact that we’re actually dating.  Except for the fact that we broke up.

This guy is brilliant. He goes out with you, dates you, breaks up with you, then continues to sleep with you, which basically absolves him of all responsibility toward your feelings.  After all, you’re not going out anymore.  It’s genius!  It’s diabolical!  He should be writing a book!  In fact, I bet this guy could get his own little cult going if he wanted to.  And let me guess, you’d be happy to sign up for that as well.  For the record, this guy doesn’t “like you so much that he can’t stop being around you.”  Because here’s what guys don’t do if they can’t live without you: they don’t break up with you.  This guy is seriously not into you, it’s crazy.  The only way you’re going to figure out how into you you are … is how fast you get rid of him.

It’s very tempting when you really want to be with someone to settle for much, much less — even a vague pathetic facsimile of less — than you would have ever imagined.  Remember always what you set out to get and please don’t settle for less.  These guys exist because there are a lot of women out there who allow them to.

Hey girl.  Put down the penis, put your clothes back on, and go directly to your best friend’s house.  Do not find an excuse to stay.  Do not think that because of all the crazy hotness of it all, it now means that you’re meant to be together.  Yes, break up sex does seem like a good idea, because hey, it’s nice to have sex with someone you have these dramatic feelings about.  It makes it all, well, dramatic.  But now you know.  It confuses everything and makes you separate sex and emotions.  So now you don’t ever have to make that mistake again.  Got it?  He’s into the very-bad-idea-that-masquerades-as-a-good-idea, breakup sex.  Over and out.

Don’t underestimate the power of sex, even with someone you’ve been doing it with for a very long time.  Especially with someone you’ve been doing it with for a very long time.  Breaking up means not seeing them again, which also implies not seeing them naked again.  It might be tempting to forget this pearl of wisdom, but just remember, it’s still called breakup sex.  No one has yet to rename it oh-my-god-the-sex-was-so-good-we-got-back-together-again-and-lived-happily-ever-after sex.

He’s sniffing for something better, and when he doesn’t find it, he gets lonely and comes “home.”  It’s not that he’s so into you.  It’s that he’s so not into being alone.  Don’t give him the chance to break up with you for the fourth time.  (Even the idea of it sounds beneath you, doesn’t it?)  Reset your breakup maximum to one and move on.

Deciding to get back together with someone is a complicated and difficult decision.  Just remember that the person you are getting back together with is the same person who, not long before, looked you in your beautiful face, took full stock of you and all your qualities, and told you that he was no longer in need of your company.

Don’t confuse being classy with being a doormat.  Classy is walking away with your head held high, graciously, and with all dignity.  Being a doormat is offering to drive him to the dentist for his root canal.

Breakups, I’ve heard, are supposed to be just that.  Breaks.  Hard, clean breaks.  No talking, no seeing, no touching … keep your hands to yourself.  The relationship is over.  Half the people I know move after a huge breakup, and frankly that makes perfect sense to me.  You’re not supposed to sleep with the guy who just broke your heart a week ago.  Fine.  Next time I’m in this situation I’ll cry.  Stay in bed and wail.  Go to the gym if I can.  Call all my friends and burden them with my misery.  Sleep too much.  Cry some more.  See my therapist more often.  Get a puppy.  Do whatever I have to so eventually I can move on.

Breakup sex still means you’re broken up.

Cut him off.  Let him miss you.

He doesn’t need to be reminded that you’re great.

There’s a guy out there who’s going to be really happy that  you didn’t get back together with your crappy ex-boyfriend.

The reason it’s so painful when someone disappears is you have to face the fact that the person you loved had probably left you a long time before he grabbed his coat and scrammed.  The part part is realizing that he was lying to you, in some way, before the moment of vanishing.

Don’t give him the chance to reject you again.

No matter how powerful and real your feelings may be for someone, if that person cannot fully and honestly return them and therefore actively love you back, these feelings mean nothing.

Being lonely … being alone … for many people … sucks.  I get it, I get it, I get it.  But still I have to say that yes, my belief is that being with somebody who makes you feel shitty or doesn’t honor the person you are is worse.

Life is hard enough as it is without choosing someone difficult to share it with.

You deserve to be with someone who is nice to you all the time.

Name Date of Peak Moon Phase
Quadrantids January 3, morning First quarter
Lyrids night of April 21/22 near new Moon
Eta Aquarids May 5 Sets around 4 a.m.
Perseids August 12, morning/evening Rises around midnight
Orionids October 21, morning Near new Moon
Leonids night of November 17/18, morning New Moon
Geminids night of December 13/14 Near new Moon

Blondes may have more fun but redheads have more sex, according to new research in Germany.

The study by Hamburg Sex Researcher Professor Dr Werner Habermehl looked at the sex lives of hundreds of German women and compared them with their hair colour.

He said: “The sex lives of women with red hair were clearly more active than those with other hair colour, with more partners and having sex more often than the average. The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation.”

He added that women who dyed their hair red from another colour were signalling they were looking for a partner, and added: “Even women in a fixed relationship are letting their partners know they are unhappy if they dye their hair red. They are saying that they are looking for something better.”

Psychologist Christine Baumanns said however that it may not be the women who were to blame for the better sex lives of redheads.

She said: “Red stands for passion and when a man sees a redhead he will think he is dealing with a woman who won’t mess around, and gets straight to the point when it comes to sex.”

By: CNN

Skin Cancer. Red hair often means light eyes, pale skin, and freckles—plus sunburns and a high incidence of skin cancer. Chemistry professor John Simon and his colleagues at Duke University believe that melanin, the pigment responsible for darkening skin in the baking sun, is more likely to kick-start DNA damage—and therefore cancer—in redheads than it is in black-haired people. The researchers compared the reaction of melanin in red hair and black hair to various wavelengths of ultraviolet light. They found that pigment isolated from red hair requires less energy to undergo the chemical reaction that produces the unstable, DNA-damaging free radicals linked to cancer. The melanin in black hair needs more energy to produce free radicals, reducing their damaging effects under normal atmospheric conditions.

Pain. Natural redheads have a higher pain threshold than others, says geneticist Jeffrey Mogil of McGill University’s pain laboratory. Men and women with naturally red hair can withstand 25 percent more electric shock than non-redheads. And painkillers used in childbirth work three times better on red-haired women than on others. Mogil and his team found that the mutant gene that causes red hair, melanocortin-1 (MC1R), also affects how redheads (including mice) react to pain. Now geneticist Ian Jackson of the United Kingdom Medical Research Council plans to study redheads in the hope of developing new painkillers. Connecting the gene to pain was surprising and exciting, Jackson says. “We thought that MC1R was involved only in hair color.”

Many people, in heeding the guidance of their souls, find themselves contemplating goals that seem outrageous or unattainable. In the mind’s eye, these individuals stand at the edge of a precipice and look out over the abyss at the fruit of their ambition. Some resist the urge to jump, paralyzed by the gap between their current circumstances and the life of their dreams. Others make a leap of faith into the unknown, unsure of what they will encounter but certain that they will gain more in their attempts than they would bowing to self-protective instincts. This leap can be exceedingly difficult for individuals with control issues because the act of embracing uncertainty requires them to trust that surrender will net them the rewards they seek. Yet when you make a leap of faith, believing without a doubt that you will land safely on the other side, you can accomplish almost anything you set out to do. There have no doubt been times in your life when you chose to go where the universal flow took you. Yet you may encounter instances in which your objectives require you to step outside of the boundaries of your established comfort zone so that you may freely and actively jettison yourself into a new phase of your life. While you may fear what seems to be the inevitable fall, consider that in all likelihood you will find yourself flying. A successful leap of faith requires your attention, as it is the quiet and often indistinct voice of your inner self that will point you toward your ultimate destination. Understand that the leap across the chasm of ambiguity may challenge you in unforeseen ways but you will make it across if you trust yourself. If your mind and heart resist, you can dampen this resistance by building a bridge of knowledge. The more you know about the leap you are poised to take, the smaller the gap between “here” and “there” will appear to be. Your courageous leap of faith can lead you into uncharted territory, enabling you to build a new, more adventurous life. Though you may anticipate that fear will be your guide on your journey across the abyss, you will likely discover that exhilaration is your constant companion

Experiment after experiment confirms that a diet on the brink of starvation expands lifespan in mice and many other species. But the molecular mechanism that links nutrition and survival is still poorly understood. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a pivotal role for two enzymes that work together to determine the health benefits of diet restriction.

When lacking one enzyme or the other, roundworms kept on a severely calorie-restricted diet no longer live past their normal lifespan, they report in the June 24, 2009, advance online edition of the journal Nature.

“The only other known factor regulating longevity in response to diet restriction operates at the very end of the signaling cascade,” said Howard Hughes Medical Investigator and senior author Andrew Dillin, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory. “These two enzymes are further up the ladder, bringing us closer to the receptor that receives the signal for throwing the switch to promote a healthy lifespan.”

Identifying the receptor may allow researchers to design drugs that mimic the signal and could lead to new treatments for age-related diseases. This could enable us to reap the health benefits of calorie restriction without adhering to extreme diets in which the satisfying feel of a full stomach is strictly off limits.

Although lifestyle factors such as obesity clearly influence life expectancy, genetic factors are considered central to the process of aging. To date, there are only three known genetic networks that ensure youthfulness when manipulated. One centers on the insulin/insulin growth factor-1, which regulates metabolism and growth; the second is driven by mitochondria, the cell’s power plants; and the third is linked to diet restriction.

But first author Andrea C. Carrano, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in American Cancer Society Professor Tony Hunter’s laboratory, hadn’t set out to unravel the molecular connection between dietary restriction and increased lifespan when she started to investigate the role of the mammalian enzyme WWP-1. “I only knew that WWP-1 was a ubiquitin ligase and that mammalian cells contain three copies, which would make it difficult to study its function.”

Ubiquitin ligases work in tandem with so called ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes to attach a chain of ubiquitin molecules to other proteins. This process, called ubiquitination, flags protein substrates for destruction but can also serve as a regulatory signal.

Since the laboratory roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans only contains one copy, Carrano teamed up with Salk researcher Dillin, who studies aging and longevity in C. elegans. Initial experiments revealed that worms without the WWP-1 gene seemed normal but were more susceptible to various forms of stress. “This finding was the first hint that WWP-1 might play a role in the aging process since mutations that affect stress very often correlate with longevity,” she says.

Prompted by the findings, Carrano’s next set of experiments focused on WWP-1’s potential role in the regulation of lifespan. When she genetically engineered worms to overexpress WWP-1, well-fed worms lived on average 20 percent longer. Deleting PHA-4, which was discovered in Dillin’s lab and so far is the only gene known to be essential for lifespan extension in response to diet restriction, abolished the life-extending effects of additional WWP-1 placing the ubiquitin ligase as a central rung on the same genetic ladder as PHA-4. Without WWP-1, cutting down on calories no longer staved off death.

When a study by others found that UBC-18 interacts with WWP-1, Carrano wondered whether it could play a role in diet-restriction-induced longevity as well. She first confirmed that the UBC-18 functions as an ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme and gives WWP-1 a hand. She then tested whether it played a role in lifespan regulation. “Overexpression of UBC-18 was not enough to extend the lifespan of worms but depleting it negated the effects of caloric restriction,” says Carrano, who is busy looking for potential substrates of the UBC-18-WWP-1 ubiquitination complex.

“The WWP-1 pathway is highly conserved between worms and mammals and could play a role in the human aging process,” says senior author Tony Hunter, Ph.D., a professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory. “We didn’t expect that this protein would be involved in the regulation of lifespan but it is very exciting when experiments lead you in a surprising direction.”

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Ellison Medical and Glenn Medical Foundations, the American Cancer Society and the Rossi Endowment.

ScienceDaily (June 28, 2009)

Seriously, if you play god, god will play in return!

ICD-9

Pseudorabies Virus = 078.89

Influenza Epidemic = 487.1

Influence Due to Identified Avian Influenza Virus = 488

Terrorism Involving Biological Weapons = E979.6

Swine influenza is a respiratory disease normally found in pigs but human cases can and do happen.

The current human cases were first reported in Southern California and Texas. Cases of swine influenza have now been confirmed in several countries including Mexico, US, Canada, Spain and the United Kingdom.

This strain of swine influenza contains a combination of genetic material typical to avian, swine and human flu viruses. Transmission of this new swine influenza virus is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu. Antiviral drugs are available which can effectively prevent and treat the infection, most reported cases of this infection outside of Mexico have recovered fully without the need for medical attention or antivirals.

~HPA

As Swine Flu Scare Unfolds, Virologist Underscores Need For Research On Animal Pathogens

ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2009) — The rapidly developing swine flu scare has activated a global response from the public health community and alarmed hundreds of millions of people, but there are a number of reasons why people should remain realistic and calm concerning the scope of the problem, according to Dr. X. J. Meng, a virologist who is on faculty in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech.

For one thing, according to Meng, who is considered one of the world’s leading experts on swine viruses, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the World Health Organization in Geneva have spent the past several years creating management protocols designed to deal with a global pandemic that might be caused by Avian Influenza H5N1, or “Bird Flu.” Pharmaceuticals have been stockpiled, and outbreak management and risk communication plans have been developed to minimize transmission patterns and contain the scope of a potential outbreak.

“Mortality from flu is generally not considered very high considering the high number of people who are being infected every year,” said Meng, although he does believe that it could spread quickly since it appears to be a novel virus and human-to-human transmission is occurring. “But it does look like one of those bugs that has the potential of leading to a pandemic.”

Meng suggested that possible reasons for the increased mortality rate associated with the Mexican cases as opposed to the American cases could be attributed to differences in the sophistication of the two healthcare systems, it could be the result of “other co-infecting or underlying diseases” that remain unclear at this time or it could be due to the very small number of cases that have been currently diagnosed in the United States.

“We have much to learn about this specific virus,” said Meng, who has a medical doctorate and a Ph.D virologist who frequently works with the National Institutes of Health and other organizations on infectious disease research and containment programs. “But then again, we have much to learn about many other zoonotic disease viruses.”

From SARS to Bird Flu, most of the emerging diseases affecting people today come from pathogens most often associated with animals, according to Meng, who is among a growing legion of scientists trying to convince the federal government to invest more money in studying animal pathogens as part of an overall effort to protect humans from disease. According to a recent article published in Science, Meng said, only $32 million of the $88 billion U.S. Department of Agriculture 2007 budget was allocated for farm animal disease research.

“If we can understand more about these viruses, their transmission behavior, and the mechanism of cross-species infection among animal and human populations, then we can better prepare ourselves for protecting human populations,” said Meng, who recently participated in a National Institutes of Health sponsored expert workshop entitled “Cross Species Infection Workshop” in Washington D.C. that summarized the dangers and called for the need to study the animal viruses in animals such as pigs before they jump species and infect humans.

“It will likely be several days before the virus is fully characterized in the laboratory,” he said. “Once that work is finished, we’ll know a lot more about how to proceed with the management of this situation.”

Meng said that one of the major factors that might minimize the scope of the outbreak and the spread of the virus could be related to the timing of this outbreak. Influenza viruses are “envelope viruses” that can be more efficiently transmitted in cold winter conditions that facilitate the survival of the virus, Meng said, and they typically do not do well in hot summer temperatures. “That is something that may limit the spread of this new virus,” he said.

The strain of swine virus H1N1 responsible for the emerging epidemic does not normally infect people and there are only a few cases of swine flu infections in humans each year in the United States, according to Meng. Because pigs have receptors for human, avian and pig viruses, they serve as a “mixing vessel” for new viruses, he said. This particular strain is believed to include components from pig, bird and human viruses that have been combined through a process known as genetic re-assortment. Humans are likely immunologically naïve to the new virus that has been created, which is why the danger for a potential global pandemic does exist.
~ScienceDaily.com

The most important relationship we have in our lives is with our selves. And even though we are the only ones who are present at every moment of our lives—from birth onward—this relationship can be the most difficult one to cultivate. This may be because society places such emphasis on the importance of being in a romantic partnership, even teaching us to set aside our own needs for the needs of another. Until we know ourselves, however, we cannot possibly choose the right relationship to support our mutual growth toward our highest potential. By allowing ourselves to be comfortable with being alone, we can become the people with whom we want to have a relationship.

Perhaps at no other time in history has it been possible for people to survive, and even thrive, while living alone. We can now support ourselves financially, socially, and emotionally without needing a spouse for survival in any of these realms. With this freedom, we can pursue our own interests and create fulfilling partnerships with friends, business partners, creative cohorts, and neighbors. Once we’ve satisfied our needs and created our support system, a mate then becomes someone with whom we can share the bounty of all we’ve created and the beauty we’ve discovered within ourselves.

As we move away from tradition and fall into more natural cycles of being in the world today, we may find that there are times where being alone nourishes us and other periods in which a partnership is best for our growth. We may need to learn to create spaces to be alone within relationships. When we can shift our expectations of our relationships with ourselves and others to opportunities for discovery, we open ourselves to forge new paths and encounter uncharted territory. Being willing to know and love ourselves, and to find what truly makes us feel deeply and strongly, gives us the advantage of being able to attract and choose the right people with whom to share ourselves, whether those relationships fall into recognizable roles or not. Choosing to enjoy being alone allows us to fully explore our most important relationship—the one with our true selves.