Omni - where are they now? (December 1989)

Yes, you've guessed it. Two more Continuuum articles.

• Left Face: Thinking about whether to give your child piano lessons? Rather than checking their fingers dexterity, perhaps you should determine whether your youngster is left-faced or right-faced.

  Just as most people are left- or right-handed, most people have a more dominant, flexible facial side that steers the production of speech. "And unlike handedness", says psychologist Karl Smith, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, "which isn't determined until at least age two or three, facedness is decided before birth."

  So what does your face side give you?

  "With rare exceptions, all talented musical performers -- singers, instrumentalists, jazz artists, composers, conductors, and even country music artists -- are left-faced."

  To determine whether you are one of the 12 percent of Americans (it doesn't give world statistics, but I'd like to believe that the figure applies to all humans if it's valid at all), who are left-faced, look in the mirror and note which side of your face is larger, more muscular, more flexible, has deeper dimples and a higher eye brow.

  I'd not heard about facedness before but had heard about how people are left-brain or right-brain and how the one type is found in artists and the other is for people who think logically and would make good scientists and mathematicians. I wonder if there is a correlation. Wouldn't the formation of the brain to be left- or right-side dominant have a deciding factor on the facial features as well?

  Unfortunately I couldn't find anything to substantiate or disprove this theory.

• Cat Tuna - Good for the Belly, Bad for the Brain: Any cat owner knows that their moggie just loves Tuna, but this piece reports that a study by two Cornell University researchers shows that tuna may be hazardous to the cats mental health.

  Cornell veterinarian Katherine A. Houpt and toxicologist Donald Lisk fed off-the-shelf tuna cat food to six kittens from the time they were six weeks old until they reached the age of eight months. Another group of kittens ate cat food with a beef base. While the behaviour of the beef group remained normal throughout the testing period, the tuna-fed kittens were decidedly less vocal, less active and less playful than there beef-eating feline counterparts.

  The ingredient causing this difference is, methylmercury, a heavy metal that accumulates in the organs of many saltwater fish.

  Now, if you are wondering whether you should ever eat a tuna sandwich or casserole ever again, Houpt goes on to point out that the tuna in cat food is from the red meat part of the fish, while that in people food is white meat.

  I did find an online report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human services that give the Mercury levels in commercial fish and shellfish, plus an advisory on what you need to know about Mercury in fish and shellfish.

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( Feb 12 2005, 06:00:32 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink