Nat'l Geo caffeine feature

[fflo]

KC put out the January National Geographic today, a.s. for me for the cover story:



The online version (photo is hyperlink) is an excerpt; it doesn't have the print edition's appropriately/trippily stylized graphic design, with long one-line quotations scrolling, in varying font size, across photographs on multiple pages (Since when was Nat'l Geo so design-y?), but you can get a taste, and there are some good links. This morning I got as far as the reference to the famous quotation of Paul Erdős, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems" (it didn't mention his purported affinity for amphetamines), and I did read of caffeinated gum, but I don't yet know whether the piece references the caffeinated soap somebody was asking about in ann_arbor_ypsi a while ago.

One cool thing not online is a series of images of brain activity of heavy users when not on caffeine (only a little), of heavy users when on caffeine (quite a lot), and of light users when not on caffeine (much more than the first category). Hope to get another look at the article in hard copy some time---it also has more of the cross-/multiple-cultural examination of the subject you'd expect from the magazine, and more on psychoactivity associated with the stuff.

Comments

[fattest.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting that.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Caffeine is my drug of choice any more. Euphoria in a cup, particularly if you go off it for a while, or cut way back, and then hit it good.

Big challenge for me to keep drinking enough water while using the substance heavily.

[madush69.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I love caffiene! It goes great with smokes.

[paperkingdoms]

From approximately the same time as the Bush one I'd found: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/12/31friedman.html

I adore caffine. It's happy stuff. ::clutches Diet Pepsi can::

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's good. Thanks for the link! (Sometimes exclamation points are just right!)

[paperkingdoms]

They are! And at some point I'll have to read the article. It looks interesting.

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing the National Geographic Powers That Be decided to get a bit more designy when they realized that straight adolescent males can now turn to the "Inter-Net" to see pictures of topless women, and they'd better come up with a new hook pronto.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Ha! But I believe you mean "Inter-Nets."