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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat<br><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] hiccups<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>I don't have much of a taste for hot peppers, but once I thought I would try a habanero. I cooked it and cut it into bits and put it on a pizza. One bite: I had hiccups for 24 hours. Bill<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Hey cool, we can have a contest. Find something that gives you hiccups (such as habaneros) and something that stops it (such as bitters) and then mix them, see which one wins.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Alternative: see who can start and stop the hiccups the most times in an hour. Eat the pepper, must hiccup at least three times to qualify, stop them, for at least one minute is one cycle, see who can do the most cycles or the fastest cycles. Humanity benefits: we get to learn the best ways to stop and start hiccups. Granted it is not at all clear the reason why one would intentionally start that annoying phenomenon, but knowing how to stop it would be good.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Kinda interesting aside: humans cohabitate with exactly two species of beast enough to knew a lotta lotta about those two. So we know of one non-human species which can get hiccups and one which does not: dog do, cats don’t. Whyzat? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></body></html>