The expression “man-flu” has entered the Collins English Dictionary, according to the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme this morning. This seems a good cue to unveil my theory of man-flu, mentioned a few weeks ago.

As you may recall, the theory has received the full support of male evolutionary biologists in exchange for a round of beers. It gets a much more mixed reception from women (particularly academics), admittedly with no alcohol as an inducement, so not an accurate control.

But I think there is a serious evolutionary biological purpose to man-flu, or the exaggerated symptoms that the pair-bonded, male homo urbanis feels when infected by virus. It was designed to make him stay home from the hunt.

When I started attending the Bath University Sports Training Village for physio treatment, I noticed signs everywhere urging athletes to stay away if they had a virus. You would not see that in an office. While the purpose here is primarily competitive, elite athletes are arguably the closest we have to the hunters of our past. Viral infection is devastating to performance in lost training time and risk to health. Continue reading ‘man-flu conquers dictionary’

Knackered Downunder observes a man who tests endurance to the limit

Seeing as the Knackered Hack is losing his faith in marathon running, he’s unlikely to find the example of American endurance runner Dean Karnazes as inspiring as I did.

Karnazes has just finished a tour of Australia and New Zealand, getting in some long-distance running (naturally) and promoting his book Ultramarathon Man, Confessions of an all-night runner. The book is well worth reading. If you walk away with one theme, it’s the value of sheer doggedness and determination and how far they can get you. In Karnazes’ case, it’s literally hundreds of miles. Continue reading ‘ultra-marathon runner tells all’

Today’s news from Bath is that it’s wet and windy out there — as is traditional for British Bank Holidays and school vacations. It looks like the walk to the park to play ball with the kids is off. Which is a shame, for more reasons than one.

Environmental psychologists have known for a while that green areas are psychologically good for us, helping us to recover from mental wear and tear. But now the good people at the universities of Sheffield and De Montfort, Leicester have found that some green spaces are better for us than others.

When it comes to urban green spaces, mental health benefits increase with the level of biodiversity, Dr Richard Fuller (Department of Animal & Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield) and colleagues have found. A green area rich in species is better for us than an equally green area with fewer species. And we seem to be pretty good at assessing how many kinds of species live in urban parks, just by looking at the plants.

The researchers point out that the world’s human population is increasingly concentrated in cities, isolated from nature. So perhaps we should now be investing the municipal parks manager with much higher importance. S/he is providing something of more profound human value than just pandering to preferences for busy lizzies or pansies.

Hat tip to The Situationist for alerting us to this story.