The following is an article from the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

(Image credit: Flickr user Eric Rice)

A Physician’s Reasons Why Men Should Stand
by John Gamel
Professor of Ophthalmology
University of Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Western Europe is abuzz with the latest flare-up in the war between the sexes, and for the moment, the women seem to be winning. If outrage continues to mount, it will soon be  not just uncool and politically incorrect for a man to urinate while standing up, but out and out ILLEGAL. Yes, the liberated women of France and Germany and Holland have vowed to put their men down—on the toilet. They carry placards showing a huge red X scrawled across a man standing to urinate. They shout: “Laissez tomber votre
pantalon, et asseyez vous! (Drop your trousers and sit)!” “Behalte deine Tropfen fuer dich (Keep your drips to yourself)!” “Toch niet weer een vieze plas op MIJN badkamer vloer (Not another filthy puddle on MY bathroom floor)!”

Their motives, or so they insist, have nothing to do with penis envy and everything to do with hygiene. On the face of it, their argument seems to hold water. No one enjoys stepping in a puddle of urine. Given the distance between the toilet bowl and the penis of an upright man (approximately 24 inches, depending on anatomic variations), and
factoring in the width of the bowl itself (approximately 12 inches), it becomes clear that only the sharpest aim can hit the target every time. In such a precarious setting, even a moment’s loss of focus will scatter errant drops on the floor. On the other hand, if every  man sits to urinate, the bathroom floors of Europe will remain pristine. Or so goes the logic of the women.

The author's toilet

Forgive me, ladies, but I beg to differ. Before joining the fray, let me establish my credentials: during my life, I have urinated approximately 118,000 times (five times  a  day for 65 years) and on countless occasions have watched other males urinate in public restrooms. (I am not a voyeur, of course; all of these glimpses were caught from corner of my eye, with no intention to invade the privacy of others.) Furthermore, during medical school, I spent four years studying the human body. Combining my knowledge from these sources, I must warn the mothers and wives and cohabitées of Europe that their efforts to sustain the purity of their bathroom floors will surely come to naught, defeated by the anatomy and physiology of the male genitourinary tract.

Are you a movie geek? More importantly, are you an evolved movie geek? It's a long journey from watching cartoons as a kid to honestly enjoying films for what they are -and some stages in between can be difficult. Read about all six stages at The Droids You're Looking For. Link -via Blame It On The Voices

You don't have to be a sports fan to know the crazy mascots of the various teams -but it helps! Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will uncover how well you know the animals that represent your favorite and not-so-favorite sports teams. I scored 40% just by wild guessing. You will do better! Link

Stacy Conradt made cake pops and decorated them to resemble the Beatles! She worked from just a photograph and made up the steps as she went along. The process is archived in pictures at her blog, i met a possum. Link

This lovely springtime cake contains no asparagus, but is a clever decoration project by Rosie at Sweetapolita. It was especially designed for her sister-in-law Mary, who is sick of asparagus. No worries; these spears are made of fondant, covering a chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. Link -via Nag on the Lake

Even driving down the highway can be a virtual experience! With this Google Earth application, just enter your location and destination, hit "go" to find your route, then go to the simulator panel and hit "start." You can adjust your speed as you drive along. Now, slow down and enjoy the scenery! Requires the Google Earth plug-in. The screenshot shown here is where I'm either getting on the Brooklyn Bridge or plunging into the East River. Link -via Metafilter

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A time-lapse video from a security camera reveals a game in which the goal is to escape a parking lot. Why didn't they drive through the grass? -via Buzzfeed

A Tweet from Jason Sweeney cried out to be made into a Twaggie.

Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for life. Give an octopus nunchucks, no one’s ever eating fish again.

Illustration by guest artist Donovan Santiago. Like all Twaggies, this can be made into a t-shirt. Link

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How can you make the three Star Wars prequels watchable? Volumes have been written on how they could have been better, but making them into one two-and-a-half minute Lego version goes a long way! This video is from the same producer who brought us the Lego Star Wars Trilogy in 2 Minutes last year. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The percentage of households in the United States that have TVs dropped from 98.9% to 96.7%. Why would you think that happened? Where I live, high-speed internet access costs $40 a month, whereas a decent slate of TV channels on cable costs $70. If you own a computer, the choice is a no-brainer. According to the New York Times:

There are two reasons for the decline, according to Nielsen. One is poverty: some low-income households no longer own TV sets, most likely because they cannot afford new digital sets and antennas.

The other is technological wizardry: young people who have grown up with laptops in their hands instead of remote controls are opting not to buy TV sets when they graduate from college or enter the work force, at least not at first. Instead, they are subsisting on a diet of television shows and movies from the Internet.

I had forgotten that there are places in which people can pick up several TV channels by using just an antenna. If I lived alone, I would give up TV entirely because I don't have time to watch it. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

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A jumping spider's mating dance only needs the proper music to make it perfect! You can find out more about the spider and see the original video at NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/05/05/135963961/dirty-dancing-a-gallant-spider-goes-all-the-way -via Arbroath

The following is an article from Uncle John's Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.

After World War II, the U.S. and Soviet Union engaged in a "cold" war: an ideological conflict that was waged through political rhetoric, military posturing, espionage, and an arms race. Would it lead to WWIII? It didn't, but at the time, people weren't so sure. Here's an incredible story from that era.

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

In the late 1940s, Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, ordered a prominent Russian film director named Sergei Gerasimov to go to New York to attend a left-wing gathering called the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace.

Gerasimov dutifully attended the conference, and that's pretty much all there was to the story for the next 50 years. Then in 2003, British film critic Michael Munn wrote a book entitled John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, in which he tells a more sinister tale of Gerasimov's trip to the United States and its aftermath. Munn says he got the story from actor/director Orson Welles, who heard it through contacts in the Soviet film industry.

MARKED MAN

According to Munn, while Gerasimov was in New York he learned of the leadership role that John Wayne, one of America's biggest movie stars, was playing in driving communists out of Hollywood. Wayne was the president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a right-wing group dedicated to compiling a "blacklist" of communists working in the film industry. The blacklist was used to destroy the careers of hundreds of actors, screenwriters, and directors, either because of alleged communist sympathies or simply because they refused to testify before Congressional investigating committees.

When Gerasimov returned home and reported the havoc that Wayne was wreaking on communist efforts to infiltrate the film industry, Munn's story goes, Staling became so angry that he dispatched a team of KGB hit men to California. Their orders: kill John Wayne.

BACKLOT JUSTICE

The KGB killers really did come to California, Munn writes, and they even made it onto the Warner Brothers lot, where "Duke" Wayne had an office. Disguised as FBI agents, they checked in at the front gate and were given directions to Wayne's office. (This part of the story, says Munn, was told to him by Yakina Canutt, a Hollywood stuntman and one of Wayne's closest friends.)

Luckily for the Duke, FBI informants had already learned of the plot. As the fake FBI agents made their way across the studio lot, real FBI agents hid in the back rooms of Wayne's office whle he and a screenwriter named James Grant sat in the front room, pretending to be working. When the hit men entered, the FBI agents pounced, disarming and handcuffing the killers before they could harm Wayne.

Those G-men must have been big John Wayne fans, because they let him deal with the killers his own way: at Wayne's direction, the FBI men loaded the KGB agents into cars and drove them to a secluded beach north of Los Angeles. At the beach the KGB men, still handcuffed, were marched down to the surf and were made to kneel in wet sand. Then as the FBI agents looked on approvingly, Wayne and Grant drew pistols and aimed them at the heads of the KGB men. "On the count of three," Wayne told Grant. "One...two...THREE!"

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YouTube user and "Science Bard" cadamole wrote this tribute to Mom from biologist's point of view. I enjoyed the song, despite the fact that I didn't give any of that stuff to my children. -via The Desonestro Doctrine

Talk about a twist- Steve Kass made noodles that are Möbius strips! You can see them cooked and ready for dinner at Flicker. Link -via Evil Mad Linkblog

(Image credit: Flickr user Steve Kass)

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A Mothers Day tribute, from The Forward. -via Buzzfeed