Tiny genetic difference splits hunks and wimps

The Daily Telegraph ^ | February 21, 2003 | Roger Highfield

[Ed Straker]

I know pain. Not a friendly acquaintance. He's here now, and he better be gone by 5 tomorrow.

[rmmcdaniell]

Most women get a cold and they carry on. Most men catch a cold and they whimper about it, and tell everyone they have the 'flu.

Sexist nonsense. In many individual cases I've observed the exact opposite.

[FITZ]

Not true, some of us have been fortunate to have kidney stones at an early age. Doctors compare the pain intensity to be about the same as childbirth for women.

I wonder how populated the world would be then if men had to have the babies. Not many would get a kidney stone on purpose.

[Cacique]

True, but then I know a couple of people to whom I'd give kidney stones on purpose.

The second part of it is that once you've reached that pain threshhold you can handle lower levels of pain pretty well. It's all comparative, I guess.

[Chemist_Geek]

a team from the University of Michigan and the National Institutes of Health reports.

I wonder where they got the subjects for the study. I mean, coming up with wimps is easy, just visit Michigan State or Ohio State, but finding a real he-man in the People's Democratic Socialist Republic of Ann Arbor has got to be rather like finding a needle in a haystack...

Full disclosure: I did my undergrad at the University of Michigan's main campus ;-) in Dearborn.