This and that from the news

Every so often, there is a news story so silly, so stupid, so "today" that the major media feels compelled to distribute it world wide.
So here it is (with a comment following), as reported in the Chicago Tribune by Peter Groner, the Karolinska Institute's Center for Gender Related Medicine reports that "powerful airborne chemicals emitted in male perpiration and associated with sexual reproduction trigger a heightened response in the brains of homosexual men similar to that seen in heterosexual women, researchers reported Monday.
Heterosexual men did not share the brain response to the chemicals in male sweat, according to a team of brain imaging specialists from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
The current climate of debate over whether homosexuality is a matter of choice or is inborn makes such research extremely controversial, said team leader and neuroscientist Dr. Ivanka Savic of the institute's Center for Gender Related Medicine.
"I want to be extremely cautious — this study does not tell us anything about whether sexual orientation is hardwired in the brain," Savic said.
The subjects of the study smelled various compounds, among them two odorless substances closely related to the hormones testosterone and estrogen, as the researchers conducted PET scans that measure blood flow in different regions of the brain.
All three groups — 12 homosexual males, 12 heterosexual men and 12 heterosexual women — responded to common odors such as lavender in a similar fashion, engaging only the regions of the brain that process smell.
But the brains reacted differently to other chemicals.
A compound known as EST, derived from the female sex hormone estrogen, increased blood flow in part of the hypothalamus in heterosexual men but not in heterosexual women. Conversely, a testosterone-related substance known as AND lit up the brains of women and gay men, but not heterosexual men.
In another study also released Monday, researchers at the Monell Chemical Sciences Center in Philadelphia found that a person's preference for another person's body scent depends, in part, on the sexual orientation of both parties.
In the study, 82 heterosexual and homosexual men and women were asked to indicate their preference among samples of underarm sweat collected from 24 men and women of varied sexual orientation.
Gay men preferred body odors from other gay men and heterosexual women.
Odors from gay men were the least preferred choice of heterosexual men, heterosexual women and lesbians, said Charles Wywomensocki, who co-directed the research with Yolanda Martins."
You think?!!!!? Isn't that the definition of what makes people become attracted to each other?
Here's what I want to know: Who in the world wrote the copy to entice members of each group to participate? Join a study of sexual attraction by smelling the body odor of others? YUK!
As a regular, overweight, Playboy reading (yes, I read the movie reviews first), happily-married, appreciative of the female form GUY, there is nothing quite as stinky as a lockerroom fragrented by used socks and jock straps. If you like that smell and you are a male, YES, YOU ARE GAY! Duh!
We know that advertisers sell products based on sexual attraction and Old Spice specifically has a commercial where two guys are watching a sporting event while their women languish in conversation in the next room, looking very unhappy.
Suddenly, one guy hugs his woman after a touchdown (not as cool as anything Terrell Owens would do) and she just melts at the very smell of his deodorant - obviously turned on by whatever Old Spice is peddling.
I'm no genius but I know there are many reasons why men and women, men and men and women and women (I think that covers it) are attracted to one another ... so don't "sweat" it.
And does ANYONE trust someone with the presumed fake last name of "Wywomensocki?" Is that just as obvious of a set-up as it appears to me? Was the ghost writer a Mr. Wymenlykey?
And then there is this from Sydney, Australia, where a prison hostage situation in that nation's top-security prison was diffused, and ended, by ... the delivery of 15 pizzas. Boy, talk about Pizza! Pizza!
Twenty prisoners were involved in the situation on the southern island of Tasmania (trivia answer: home of the late Errol Flynn, perhaps the original Tasmania Devil). Risdon Prison had been the scene of violence and unrest, according to the Associated Press, where the most notorious convicts are held in a country originally populated by convicts (it was a penal colony, much like the U.S. state of Georgia). Included among the group is Martin Bryant, who went on a shooting rampage in 1996 at the Port Arthur historic penal settlement, killing 35 people.
Who knew that some pepperoni and Canandian ham would settle the whole thing?