Messrs. Ryan & Lenin

Size matters for the amygdala, so we bet that Susan B. Anthony dollar again.

Brain scans are the way of the future, as we pointed out in the post "Stock up on tin foil".

A couple of days ago, there was a an NPR show about a scientist who performed brain scans on murderers, proving once more that the K-landnews is a wee bit behind the times.

Still, what he had to say about impulse control was cool, and what he had to say about the size of the amygdala gland, up there in your brain, in a certain group of people was even more interesting.

A smaller than normal sized amygdala indicates people who have decreased empathy. They are the ones who can say "I feel your pain" but who have no idea what it feels like. The people we sometimes call "bleeding hearts" should really be called "the big amygdalas", a change unlikely to happen because language can be quite resistant to change and because we cannot all be spelling bee champions.

We would love to see what the amygdala of Mr. Ryan looks like. Since it is extremely unlikely our wish will ever be fulfilled, we'll settle for some embalmed ones, like Mr. Lenin.

We bet Mr. Lenin's amygdala was a bit smaller than average. You can win our Susan B. Anthony dollar (minus shipping and handling), if you can prove otherwise.

One more thing:
We understand that it might feel odd to have your name mentioned alongside Mr. Lenin in the same post. Despite the squeamish now putting up warning signs, we continue to firmly believe in "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Plus, our Mr. Ryan is so generic that nobody would feel we are talking about him.