Saturday, February 10, 2007

Why the ugly girl is pretty when you’re drunk


Many of us have heard of the so-called “beer goggle” effect. It’s the phenomenon that occurs when someone’s had a few alcoholic drinks and suddenly, all of those people who looked semi-attractive on entering the bar look really, really appealing. Scientists have shown that it’s not just a lowering of standards - alcohol actually stimulates the part of the brain that judges facial attractiveness.
In 2002, researchers at St. Andrews University and Glasgow University in Scotland took 80 college students and had half of them drink a “moderate” amount of alcohol - between one and four servings, depending on gender and body weight. The other half, the control group, remained sober. Scientists showed each subject pictures of people of the opposite sex. In all cases - male and female alike - the experimental (tipsy) group rated each picture an average of 25 % more attractive than the sober group did.

The effect can reportedly be traced to the nucleus accumbens. When you’re looking at another human being, the nucleus accumbens is the area of the brain that decides how attractive that human being’s face is. If you look at, say, George Clooney or Angelina Jolie, this area of your brain probably experiences increased neural firing. In other words, it’s stimulated. As it turns out, alcohol, all by itself, stimulates the nucleus accumbens. So when you’ve have a few drinks, and you look at a face you may have judged as unattractive when you were sober, your brain, under the influence of alcohol, tells you that this face is in fact somewhat attractive. And the increase in perceived attractive seems to be directly proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed.

In a more recent study, this one conducted by researchers at England’s Manchester University in 2005, scientists actually came up with a mathematical formula to calculate the extent of the “beer goggle” effect on a given individual in a given situation. Their reasoning for creating this formula is that alcohol is not really the only factor affecting the drunken perception of beauty. Other factors, according to their research, include:

* How brightly lit the area is
* The observer’s eye-sight quality
* The amount of smoke in the air
* The distance of the observer from the observed
* The formula goes like this:

The formula goes like this:

Where:

* An is the number of servings of alcohol,
* S is the smokiness of the area on a scale of 0 - 10,
* L is the lighting level of the area, measured in candelas per square meter, in which 150 is normal room lightning,
* Vo is Snellen visual acuity, in which 6/6 is normal and 6/12 is the lower limit at which someone is able to drive and
* d is the distance between the observer and the observed, measured in meters.

The formula works out a “beer goggle” score ranging from 1 to 100+. When β = 1, the observer is perceiving the same degree of beauty he or she would perceive in a sober state. At 100+, everybody in the room is a perfect 10.

Cleveland Volcano fumes as seen from space (pic)


At 3:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on May 23, 2006, Flight Engineer Jeff Williams from International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 13 contacted the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) to report that the Cleveland Volcano had produced a plume of ash. Shortly after the activity began, he took this photograph. This picture shows the ash plume moving west-southwest from the volcano’s summit. A bank of fog (upper right) is a common feature around the Aleutian Islands. The event proved to be short-lived; two hours later, the plume had completely detached from the volcano. The AVO reported that the ash cloud height could have been as high as 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) above sea level.

Cleveland Volcano, situated on the western half of Chuginadak Island, is one of the most active of the volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands, which extend west-southwest from the Alaska mainland. It is a stratovolcano, composed of alternating layers of hardened lava, compacted volcanic ash, and volcanic rocks.

At 3:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on May 23, 2006, Flight Engineer Jeff Williams from International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 13 contacted the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) to report that the Cleveland Volcano had produced a plume of ash. Shortly after the activity began, he took this photograph. This picture shows the ash plume moving west-southwest from the volcano’s summit. A bank of fog (upper right) is a common feature around the Aleutian Islands. The event proved to be short-lived; two hours later, the plume had completely detached from the volcano. The AVO reported that the ash cloud height could have been as high as 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) above sea level.

Cleveland Volcano, situated on the western half of Chuginadak Island, is one of the most active of the volcanoes in the Aleutian Islands, which extend west-southwest from the Alaska mainland. It is a stratovolcano, composed of alternating layers of hardened lava, compacted volcanic ash, and volcanic rocks.

Brutally cute Japanese robot eats snow and poops out ice blocks


The harsh winter in Niigata, Japan brings heavy snow, which can pose problems for residents — particularly the elderly — who are faced with the laborious task of clearing it from driveways and entrances. To the rescue comes Yuki-taro, an autonomous snowplow robot developed by a team of researchers from five Niigata-area organizations

The friendly-looking Yuki-taro measures 160 x 95 x 75 cm (63 x 37 x 30 in.) and weighs 400 kg (880 lbs). Armed with GPS and a pair of video cameras embedded in its eyes, the self-guided robot seeks out snow and gobbles it up into its large mouth. Yuki-taro’s insides consist of a system that compresses the snow into hard blocks measuring 60 x 30 x 15 cm (24 x 12 x 6 in.), which Yuki-taro expels from its rear end. The blocks can then be stacked and stored until summer, when they can be used as an alternative source of refrigeration or cooling.

Yuki-taro is the result of nearly seven years of work by researchers from the Niigata Industrial Creation Organization (NICO), Research and Development, Inc. (RDI), Niigata Institute of Technology, Yamagata University and the Industrial Research Institute of Niigata Prefecture (IRI), who set out to design an environmentally-friendly robot that can operate by itself and support the elderly. In 2006, Yuki-taro received a Good Design Award in the small-to-medium sized enterprise category.

Researchers continue to work on reducing Yuki-taro’s size, weight and cost, and they hope to make it commercially available in five years at a price of less than 1 million yen ($8,300). It is unclear whether or not the researchers intend to further enhance the robot’s “cute” factor, but they might ought to consider attaching a pair of pointy ears. O-negai!

Woman, 69, hit by stun gun in cop scuffle fined

A 69-year-old woman who was shocked with a stun gun after she honked her car horn at a police cruiser has been convicted of resisting arrest for sparking a quarrel with officers.

A Circuit Court jury refused to send Louise Jones to jail, fining her $650 instead.

Jones’ attorney, Basil North, said he might appeal. “We don’t think she should have been convicted of anything,” he said.

On June 15, 2004, police officers Cory Le Moine and Ryan VanDeusen responded to a domestic disturbance call near Jones’ home. The officers were cruising the street slowly, watching for trouble. Jones was in her car behind the police vehicle when she honked her horn and pulled into her driveway.

Police, spooked by the horn, parked and questioned Jones, leading to a scuffle after they threatened to write her a ticket. The stun gun of one of the officers discharged during the altercation, according to testimony.

The trial was Jones’ second in the case.

She and her 78-year-old husband, Fred, who tried to break up the scuffle, had been convicted and sentenced to probation by a judge in Municipal Court over the incident. Both appealed, and charges against the husband were dismissed, while the wife was granted a retrial in Circuit Court.

Cop Ejaculated On A Motorist During Traffic Stop

No one disputes that an on-duty Irvine police officer got an erection and ejaculated on a motorist during an early-morning traffic stop in Laguna Beach. The female driver reported it, DNA testing confirmed it and officer David Alex Park finally admitted it.

When the case went to trial, however, defense attorney Al Stokke argued that Park wasn’t responsible for making sticky all over the woman’s sweater. He insisted that she made the married patrolman make the mess—after all, she was on her way home from work as a dancer at Captain Cream Cabaret.

“She got what she wanted,” said Stokke. “She’s an overtly sexual person.”

A jury of one woman and 11 men—many white and in their 50s or 60s—agreed with Stokke. On Feb. 2, after a half-day of deliberations, they found Park not guilty of three felony charges that he’d used his badge to win sexual favors during the December 2004 traffic stop.

Park, 31, was red-faced and unable to control his twitching foot in the moments before the verdict was announced; if convicted, he would have faced prison. When he was found not guilty, he briefly embraced Stokke. In the public seating section, tears flowed from his gray-haired mother’s face. His father, a mechanic, closed his eyes and threw his head back. Outside the courtroom, surrounded by his family, a smiling Park said he felt vindicated.

Veteran sex crimes prosecutor Shaddi Kamiabipour—who’d called Park “a predator” during the nine-day trial—said she was disappointed with the verdicts. She also dismissed Stokke’s contention that the Orange County District Attorney’s office had overcharged the case. At stake, Kamiabipour said, was the principle that no one—not even a horny cop who’d once won honors for community service—is above the law.

“Park didn’t pick a housewife or a 17-year-old girl,” Kamiabipour said in her closing argument. “He picked a stripper. He picked the perfect victim.”



* * *


In the wee hours of Dec. 15, 2004, Lucy (only her first name was used during the trial) finished her final shift at Captain Cream in Lake Forest, not far from the Irvine Spectrum. Management had let her go after an incident involving a female customer in a bathroom stall. According to court records, there had been a small amount of cocaine, kissing and breast fondling.

Meanwhile, Park was on patrol in the southwest portion of Irvine. Prosecutors believe he was craving a sexual rendezvous, and so he watched for Lucy’s white BMW to leave the strip club parking lot, then tailed her, waiting for an excuse for a stop. Park insisted he’d been cruising on the 405 north and coincidentally saw Lucy’s vehicle weave and speed.

Kamiabipour, the prosecutor, shook her head in disbelief. She knew the facts—that the officer had waited at least eight or nine minutes before stopping the stripper on a secluded section of a highway that was out of his jurisdiction.

“He was stalking her,” she said.

Four months earlier, Park had stopped Lucy under similar circumstances. That time, he’d ignored a plastic drug baggie he’d found in her car and her suspended license. But the stop wasn’t a waste of time. After friendly chit-chat, the officer had scored Lucy’s phone number. Telephone records show that Park called the stripper the next morning. She told him she was too busy to meet.

On the witness stand, Park explained that he’d called Lucy out of concern for a citizen’s safety. He also shrugged his shoulders when Kamiabipour slowly listed the first names of nine Captain Cream female employees—Annette, Denise, Rashele, Marlia, Brandi, Andrea, Deborah, Laura and Shannon—whose license plates he’d run through the DMV computer in the weeks prior to his sexual encounter with Lucy. (Another coincidence, according to Stokke.) Jurors also learned that Irvine Police Sgt. Michael Hallinan had previously warned Park as they left work to stay away from the strippers.

Park, who works in construction nowadays, conceded that he’d been given the warning but claimed that he had no clue it was Lucy in the vehicle or that she had an invalid driver’s license, even as he approached her car window.

Kamiabipour believed she’d caught the 6-foot-3 cop in a lie. Records show he ran the bosomy, 5-foot, 110-pound dancer’s license plate before the stop, did not call for backup despite the potential for an arrest and failed to tell his supervisor or dispatch that he was leaving Irvine. Several Irvine officers testified that Park’s behavior that night was odd.

“[Park’s] testimony was just incredible,” said Kamiabipour. Irvine city officials must have doubted his story, too. After an exhaustive police internal affairs investigation, they felt it was prudent to give Lucy $400,000 to make her civil lawsuit go away—for fear a jury might give her much more.

In a secretly-recorded phone call to Laguna Beach police shortly after the incident, Lucy recalled that she’d told Park she had no license. Park began “rubbing himself up against me,” she said. “Then, he said, ‘What are we going to do here, Lucy?’”

Park unzipped his pants, took his penis out and got an erection, she explained. “Basically, the officer made me give [him] a freaking hand job and he let me go. I’m so freaked out about it.”

(Lucy also told police, prosecutors and the jury that Park had also fingered her vagina and fondled her breasts before he ejaculated on her.)

“I was confused,” she told the Laguna Beach dispatcher. “He called me afterwards. I’m scared, you know . . . What’s an Irvine cop doing hanging out at a strip club in Lake Forest?”

Telephone records prove that Park made a 19-minute call to Lucy shortly after their encounter. The officer—who told the woman he was “Joe Stephens,” an Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy who had died months earlier—said it was a friendly call to make sure she’d arrived home safely. The stripper said he told her to keep her mouth shut.

And then Kamiabipour introduced the bombshell evidence from a high-ranking Irvine police officer: on the night Park tailed Lucy out of the city, the global positioning system in his patrol car had been disconnected without authorization.

“I checked and [the GPS] was not working,” said Lt. Henry Boggs.

An unexplainable coincidence, Park’s defense countered.



* * *


For all his boneheaded mistakes, Park madea sharp decision picking his legal counsel. Stokke (and John Barnett, Paul Myer and Jennifer Keller) is among the elite of the local defense bar. His fine suits and mastery of courtroom procedures compliment the folksy, grandfatherly style he uses to charm juries. And there was this unspoken advantage over the prosecution: longtime courthouse observers have no memory of an Orange County jury convicting a police officer of a felony.

It wasn’t a surprise that Stokke put the woman and her part-time occupation on trial. In his opening argument, he made it The Good Cop versus The Slutty Stripper. He pointed out that she’d once had a violent fight with a boyfriend in San Diego. He mocked her inability to keep a driver’s license. He accused her of purposefully “weakening” Park so that he became “a man,” not a cop during the traffic stop. He called her a liar angling for easy lawsuit cash. He called her a whore without saying the word.

“You dance around a pole, don’t you?” Stokke asked.

Superior Court Judge William Evans ruled the question irrelevant.

Stokke saw he was scoring points with the jury.

“Do you place a pole between your legs and go up and down?” he asked.

“No,” said Lucy before the judge interrupted.

“You do the dancing to get men to do what you what them to do,” said Stokke. “And the same thing happened out there on that highway [in Laguna Beach]. You wanted [Park] to take some sex!”

Lucy said, “No sir,” the sex wasn’t consensual. Stokke—usually a mellow fellow with a nasally, monotone voice—gripped his fists, stood upright, clenched his jaws and then thundered, “You had a buzz on [that night], didn’t you?”

As if watching a volley in tennis, the heads of the male-dominated jury spun from Stokke back to Lucy, who sat in the witness box. She said no, but it was hopeless. Jurors stared at her without a hint of sympathy.

In his closing argument, Stokke pounced. He called Lucy one of those “girls who have learned the art of the tease, getting what they want . . . they’ve learned to separate men from their money.”

Kamiabipour wasn’t amused. “Dancer or not, sexually promiscuous nor not, she had the right not to consent,” she told jurors. “[Park] doesn’t get a freebie just because of who she is . . . He used her like an object.”