Fun_People Archive
8 Nov
WhiteBoardness - 11/8/95

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 95 23:21:58 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - 11/8/95

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for November 08, 1995


Palo Alto, California:

Barbie has been a glamour girl, stewardess, businesswoman, astronaut and
even royalty.  Soon, she may be homeless.

The Barbie Doll Hall of Fame, which boasts more than 20,000 exhibits, is
being evicted so the new owner of its building can open a restaurant.

"It's a sob story you hear a lot today, but if we're forced out of here, we
have no place to go but the street," said Evelyn Burkhalter, who owns the
museum.

Burkhalter is fighting an eviction lawsuit filed by her new landlord,
restaurateur Rowena Wu.
==========

"I tell people I'm a travel agent.  One trip, but its a biggie."

	-- Marj McClure, Dean of Students, San Francisco College of
	   Mortuary Science, explaining how she sometimes resorts to
	   humor to explain her profession.
==========

Durham, North Carolina:

The molecules the nose uses to pick up the scent of cologne have also been
found on sperm, suggesting that a microscopic courtship takes place in which
sperm make their way by following the sweet perfume of human eggs.

The discovery suggests that a drug that blocks the sperm's ability to sense
that enticing aroma could be used as a male contraceptive, Dr. Robert
Lefkowitz of Duke University said.

"Such a drug could be the ideal contraceptive," Lefkowitz said.  The
contraceptive would be likely to have few side effects, because the smell
receptors on which it would act exist nowhere else in the body except on
sperm and in the nose, he said.

Before research began, it was known that fish sperm, for example, must have
some way to find eggs.  "They definitely need a way of sensing, by
chemicals, how they know where to go," said Dr. Gabriele Ronnet who
collaborated in the research.

The situation with mammals was unknown, but Ronnet decided to look.  She
first found the receptors on the sperm of laboratory rats.  Then she looked
at human tissue, where she found similar smell receptors.

"They're there to smell the egg," Lefkowitz said.  To make a contraceptive,
"the idea would be to develop a drug which binds to those receptors,"
Lefkowitz said.

© 1995 Peter Langston