Dolly, the New Scientist

Dropped by the library to read some magazines. Haven't done that for quite some time.

The January 29 issue of New Scientist reckons we have 21 senses, instead of the five (taste, sight, sound, smell, and touch) mentioned by Aristotle. When you close your eyes, and extend your arms. Do you know where they are? You can't see them, but you do know where they are. Now, wriggle your fingers. Again, you can't see them. They're not touching anything, but you know they're really wriggling. Now stand on one leg. Were you able to keep your balance or did you fall over. Which senses were you using in the above examples? When hold an ice cube with one hand, and a hot coal with the other, is it a matter of touch? What about texture? What about pain (or pleasure)? Or hot and cold? When you go on a roller-coaster ride? Can what you feel be fully expressed by just sight, sound, and touch?

New Scientist says that we define "sense" to be "a system consisting of a specialized cell type responding to a specific signal and reporting to a particular part of the brain." So instead of taste as a single sense, we would have sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and "unami", a Japanese word for the taste of glutamate, which gives us our sense of meaty flavours. Vision could be viewed as light and colour. (We can even break down colour into red, green and blue.) Then, there are the senses tuned to temperature, pressure, touch, joint position (proprioception), body movement (kinaesthesis), balance, and feelings associated with a full bladder, an empty stomach, or thirst. Have we got the 21 senses yet?)

For some light reading, and out of curiosity, I picked up a copy of Dolly. It has Ashlee Simpson on the cover, and I wanted to see what she has to say for herself after her embarrassing SNL "performance". Bad idea. Turns out Dolly is a magazine for tweens. Inside, it's chock full of advertisements for mascara, lipstick, clothes, perfume, hair removal cream, shoes, bags, etc. - all modeled by tweens and young adults. Jeez. Flipping through the pages, I had a feeling I was reading a scrapbook. Loud colors, fonts simulating handwriting, lots of cutouts and collages, 80% pictures 20% text. Some sample article titles:

• Saying "NO" Doesn't Make You Frigid - It makes you a killjoy.
• Over-Protective Parents: When You Have Rules and Your Brother Runs Wild - Wait till you becomes a parent yourself.
• Competitive Dieting: Who's the Thinnest of Them All - And I thought we're having an obesity crisis.
• What are Your Dreams Trying to Tell You? - It's time to wake up.
• 236 Blow-Your-Mind Fashion Buys - So many things to buy, so little allowance.
• How to Talk to a Guy about Anything - Anything meaning girls, football, and Playstations.
• How to Deal When He Wants It and You Don't - He can pay for a copy of Halo2 himself, you know.
• Protect Yourself against Dodgy Guys - Go for dodgy girls.
• Gotta Have Faith? Religions Explained - Seven religions in two pages. I kid you not.
• "You're in Brisbane, He's in Perth. Can Your Luv Last the Distance?" - All-you-can-eat SMS for $20 a month.
• 18 Things to do Before you're 18 - Stop reading Dolly, and get a life. Repeat 17 times.