Forward

I’m having birthday cake for breakfast (HEY. It’s got carrots in it so it’s healthy! Also, I’m old, I get to do what I want now!) and reading about day one of the Democratic National Convention. Sounds like it was a real barn burner. Maybe I should’ve had a cup of joe and stayed up to watch it on YouTube, eh?

From Jasmine Crockett, the Word Queen:
The question before us is, will a vindictive, vile villain violate voters' visions for a better America or not? I hear alliteration is back in style.

Tonight, both Barack and Michele Obama will speak. Undoubtedly they’ll be on after my bedtime but I’ll catch them on YouTube Wednesday morning.

In other news perusals:

I just found this hilarious post from 2017

Mars missions may be all-female to avoid astronauts having sex during 1.5-year journey

First, was the author unaware that women can get their groove on without male involvement? Oh wait, apparently the biggest fear was that, if two het astronauts were to get it on sans both control and buns in ovens resulted, what might the result be? Marvin the Martian maybe?

Another reason for the all woman team was that “women work better as a team, and are less likely than men to fight over who is the leader.” Insert eyeball here. Are adult, male astronauts known for fighting like drunk frat boys at a kegger? Inquiring minds and shit...

A space.com column from last year brought up another reason for an all woman crew.

Numerous studies since the 1950s have found that women occupy less space and consume lower amounts of life-support resources — like oxygen, water and food — than men do.

New calculations support that idea. In a paper published in April in the journal Scientific Reports, a team of researchers found that, on a 1,080-day mission, a four-member, all-female crew would need 3,736 pounds (1,695 kilograms) less food than an all-male crew would, amounting to a savings of $158 million.  (source)

So, we’re smaller, weigh less (because we only eat salads, protein shakes and fruit?) and, maybe, we breathe less too? Also...

A major study into the impact of spaceflight suggests women may be more resilient than men to the stresses of space, and recover more quickly when they return to Earth.

“Males appear to be more affected by spaceflight for almost all cell types and metrics,” scientists write in a Nature Communications paper that examines the effects of space travel on the human immune system. (source)

Could this be at all related to the different ways that men and women, generally, handle stress? Would women be more accepting, even nurturing, of of Marvin or H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds's invaders?

Studies on gender and stress have discovered that during prolonged stress, men experience the “fight or flight” mechanism, while women typically tend towards “treat and nurture.” Gila Brunner, certified sex therapist at the Center for Sexual Medicine at Sheba Medical Center, explains that regardless of the source of stress – be it the COVID-19 pandemic, war, chronic illness, or severe economic conditions – clear differences between the common effects on men and women have been identified. These variations occur even though men and women both have the stress hormone cortisol. (source)

I suppose we won’t know if a mixed gender versus an all women crew would be best until we go.