Every once in a while the world hands you something from out of the blue.  Sometimes it comes to you in the same way pigeons gift statues, other times it can come as a little bonus.

Driving to a client I was listening to NPR—Not for Polite Republicans.  Their story reported recent findings by a team of British scientists about the likelihood of men—their word, not mine—getting prostate cancer.  (While they felt the need to use the qualifier ‘men’ is beyond me, maybe the English should learn English.)

Regardless, the study found that men whose right index finger is longer than their right ring finger are thirty percent less likely to get prostate cancer.  This announcement had me, and probably a million other men, raise simultaneously their right hands and compare the length of the two digits in question.  No data was given for men who wear black socks with sneakers other than what is already understood about that subgroup; they have no game.

So, there I am staring at my fingers at six o’clock and trying to compare their length using the headlights of the approaching cars.  Indeed, my index finger is longer.

That was a nice way to start my day.  The physician went on to validate her findings using words so large they never would have made it past the New York Times editorial board.  I found myself nodding in agreement right up until she said, “And we can trace this gene all the way back to the point in evolution where we as fish came to live on land.”

It was at this point where I would have found the study more credible had she found that guys in their teens who had a crush on Karen Carpenter were thirty percent less likely to contract the disease.

It also made me wonder, just where would one find a fish’s prostate?