In The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean quotes Norm MacDonald's The Orchid Hunters, in which MacDonald quotes an old orchid hunter as saying:

"For when a man falls in love with orchids, he'll do anything to possess the one he wants. It's like chasing a green-eyed woman or taking cocaine.... it's a sort of madness...." (78).

I am wondering what exactly is the mythology behind "chasing a green-eyed woman". Does anyone know where this sort of madness originates? Is it because green eyes are rare or entail something of teh green-eyed woman?

If a woman has breast implants and spends a long time in a low temperature situation, can the implants freeze and cause damage?

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Saline is currently the legal filler for breast implants, and since it is salt water it would freeze only in very cold temperatures, and only after all of the normal water in the body has frozen. In this case, you wouldn't be worrying about the damage from the breast implant freezing, but rather the damage from your death due to hypothermia and the crystalization of the water in your body. Furthermore, the implants are very close to the body, and ambient body heat would keep them warm enough to avoid harm. They are not as much of an extremity as the hand or foot, so really no worries here.

As for silicone implants, which are apparently no longer legal, we don't know. Does anyone know if they can freeze in below zero temperatures? The ambient body heat should do something to prevent this, but it seems that in some cases - depending on the size of the implant and the manner in which it was put in - the implants might be enough of an extremity to freeze of their own accord, assuming that silicone freezes... Anybody know if silicone breast implants can freeze in conditions that a human could live through?

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Well, as SHPIEGIE brought to light, silicone-based fluids freeze at a temperature of -170 degrees fahrenheit. Saline would freeze and the silicone would still enjoy its fluidity for quite a few degrees. The fact of the matter is that breast implants might rupture through pressure or puncture, but they are not going to freeze or vaporize unless the human body housing the implants has become thoroughly dead. As a matter of fact, a human might die of hypothermia, but have completely liquid breast implants. A human might evaporate, but she would leave a pile of carbon and her still-liquid breast implants. Breast implants are like the cockroaches and twinkies of the pectoral region - they can outlast damn near anything!

Is the avocado a fruit or a vegetable?

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According to what I am told is the definition - that fruits have the seeds on the inside (and Strawberries, for example, are inside-out fruits) - the avocado is officially a fruit. Along that line of thought, the tomato would also be classified as a fruit.

For those of you who are not entirely satisfied with the argument by definition, I have - along with the help of a couple clever comments - decided that there ought to be not two classifications that apply to the controversy, but three: fruit, vegetable, and Mexican food. According to this, the whole tomato controversy, as well as anything having to do with the avocado, would be solved - they are used in Mexican dishes, and therefore they are considered Mexican food.

I haven't yet worked out the bugs. For example, what is the fate of sour cream or refried beans? Until I work these problems out, I guess I'm going public with the statement that both avocadoes and tomatoes are fruit.

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Update: In the beginning there were fruits and vegetables, and they were distinguished by whether or not they contained seeds, just like in the beginning there were mammals and birds. Well, heaven knows that there is always somebody like the platypus who wants to waddle around and screw everything up - when it comes to fruits and vegetables we call them the avocado and the tomato.

According to the nutritionists (who may very well be at odds with the Biologists - I feel like there is a battle brewing), we throw these into the category of vegetable. But there's a catch. There is a subcategory of vegetables called fruit, so these are essentially fruit-vegetables. It would seem that according to the hierarchy of things, even though they have seeds, the avocado and the tomato are first vegetables, and then fruits. Think of it as a flow chart, and I think it will make more sense.

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Apparently I have it backwards. I am so happy that people correct me when I am wrong, because it is horrible to think that I would put incorrect information out on the web. Apparently, vegetable is a sub-category of fruit. They are seeded and thus primarily fruits, but there's something that makes them vegetables. I think it is solved...

In what is often explained as a fictional story found in the fourth book of Ezra, it is told that God dictated to Ezra 94 books, 24 of which would be known to everyone (TaNaKh to the Jews; Old Testament to Christians), and 70 of which would only be given to the wise. We have traced which ones the 24 refer to, but is there any reference as to what the 70 books for the wise refer to? Are we here referring to the Apocryphal books in part or as a whole? Are these books lost because they were not popular enough to become transcribed and copied? Are they other forms of literature related to the God of the Jews? What are we to think of these 70 books?

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We're getting some progress, but it seems that this has turned into a forum for whether or not we should keep this project going. By all means, voice your opinion about it, but I hope that we can keep going on this question. A couple people have said they would look into this question, but it seems like we've only scraped the surface. Is this information really out there, or is this one of those topics I'm going to have to close with only a couple of opinions? No problem if it is. Something just needs to stimulate the discussion again.

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I don't think there is any general concensus. It is believed by some that these books did once exist, but are no longer accessible - destroyed or merely falling by the wayside. Others believe the story to be merely a fictional description of the collection of the Tanakh/Old Testament. Still others believe that they did exist and that we may have access to them. I suppose this is the reasoning you fall back upon when you ask a wide-ranging religious question to a diverse group of thinkers from various backgrounds - you get a stalemate. Thanks for the discussion, folks. I really enjoy it.

In the creation myths of the Greeks, the Maori, the Egyptians, the Hurrian-Hittites, the Babylonians, the Semites, etc. there is some sort of reference to the earth and the sky originally being one, but being seperated. Is there any sort of meteorological phenomenon available to all of these cultures that might bring about this mythology in all of these cultures?

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As we often find, there is usually a practical reason for a certain creation myth, or for various myths that show the origin of specific phenomena. We are either taught lessons, or how something came about.

In this case there were two possibilities that seemed to spring up in answer. First of all, what I was looking for was some phenomenon that might take place that one would explain as a result of the division of the sky from the earth, the fact that the two are now one - some vestigial phenomenon that only occurs because of the seperation. That was the intention, but some looked at the question from another standpoint - it is an explanation of how the complex and manifold comes from simple origins. We see all this diversity, and yet it would be easier to understand if it all came from one existence, the first cause if you will. Then everything can be categorized according to its generation from such a first cause.

Of this latter vein, the theory of the Big Bang was brought up. The modern theory suggests that all of the matter and energy in the universe came from one simple ball that exploded and expanded. Dust clouds swirled and formed planets, satellites, stars, etc. From the simple comes the complicated. As the Chinese taoist might say: "From the One came two, and from two came ten thousand things." We see the multitude, and we see similarities and an organic flow, so we assert that they were all the same in the beginning.

Of the former vein, suggestions were across the board, so I will go through them case by case. It was mentioned that because the water in lakes and seas reflects the sky above it, an Ancient might suggest that they come from the same original mass, and perhaps attribute a longing or other anthropomorphic character (which often happened) between the earth and the heavens. Another possibility was that the evidence of comets and shooting stars and meteors were merely chunks broken off when the two seperated, the remnants kind of like the crums left after splitting a cookie. I begun to think that upon looking at the horizon and seeing that the Earth and the sky come together (supposedly like a bowl turned on top of a plate) would be reason to suggest that they once were the same. A very cool suggestion was that the Greeks, and various others tended toward prediction on a multitude of things, including but not limited to the stars in the heavens. The fact that earthly phenomena was corresponding with heavenly phenomena might show some sort of primitive relationship between the two. From this, I wondered if the influence of the moon on the tides might be reason in itself. Finally, it was mentioned that when the rain falls to the sea, it is like an exchange between the two which once were one.

Any one of these suggestions could have lead to the idea that the earth and the sky originally came from one mass. We have generated much speculation, but because of a lack of concrete evidence, it remains just that: speculation.