Thursday 20 March 2014

Dating curves

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Dangerous Curves ( The Simpsons )



Contents



Plot [ edit ]



On the Fourth of July. the Simpson family takes a road trip to visit a cabin in the woods. While driving there, they pick up hitchhikers Squeaky Voiced Teen and his girlfriend, Beatrice. Staring at the two younger teens, Homer flashes back to how he and Marge were, twenty years earlier, in their dating years. In the flashback, a young Homer and Marge are on bikes, riding down the highway. Homer and Marge attempt to kiss while biking, but Homer ends up crashing his bike, forcing them to continue on foot. Ned and Maude Flanders. who are driving by, see them and pick them up. Ned and Maude shock Homer and Marge by revealing the two of them are married (as of 2:00 pm that day). They appear to be having some marital problems already and, seeing this, Homer proposes to 'not' marry Marge. Back in the present, Homer becomes quite annoyed with the Squeaky Voiced Teen's kissing Beatrice, which prompts him to go into another flashback, five years ago in Homer and Marge's married years.



In their married years, Homer and Marge are more stressed. Driving with Marge, Patty and Selma. and getting the usual flak from the latter two, Homer reaches his breaking point and kicks his sisters-in-law out of the car. Marge points out that Patty and Selma have the map and therefore the directions to their destination. After mistaking the fuel gauge for a compass reading "E" for East, the car runs out of gas, and Homer and Marge head to a nearby home to use their phone. The house owner, Alberto, is having a party, and he invites Homer and Marge inside. Marge becomes annoyed with Homer's behavior at the party, and becomes enraged after seeing him flirt with a beautiful woman named Sylvia. Following an argument about this with Homer, Marge accidentally falls into the pool. Homer starts a sushi fight, and Marge regrets marrying Homer. In the present, the family drops off the Squeaky-Voiced Teen and Beatrice at a cabin, while the Simpsons head off to their cabin.



Homer and Marge flash back to their dating years, where the Flanders' dropped them off at the very same cabins they are at today. Flanders manages to successfully convince Homer and Marge to sleep in separate rooms, while Ned and Maude have sex. much to their disappointment. In their married years, Marge leaves Alberto's party with him to run to the cabins. Similarly, Homer runs off with Sylvia to those very same cabins. Not wanting each other to discover their own near-affairs, Marge hides Alberto in a box and has Homer put it outside; Homer, not knowing Alberto is in there, puts Sylvia inside as well. Alberto and Sylvia fall in love while Homer and Marge rekindle their love. In the present, Homer and Marge meet Alberto and Sylvia, now married with a daughter named Ruthie and learn of each other's near-affairs. Marge becomes disgusted that the most important moment in their early years of marriage was based on lies and deceit; however, Homer points out that Marge was just as bad as he was at the time, and that she has no moral to scold him. Homer regrets marrying Marge and, trapped in a ball of their luggage which happened while unpacking, has Ruthie roll him away from Marge into the woods but he gets hit by a pedal car driven by Bart with Lisa and Maggie inside.



Back in their dating years, Ned tells Homer that if he were married to Marge, he could make all the love to her he wants. Taking a walk through the woods with Marge, Homer carves the message "Marge + Homer 4ever" into a tree. In the present, Homer sees this message on the same tree and decides there is still time to save his marriage. He attempts to peel the bark off the tree and show the message to Marge; Marge suddenly arrives to find Homer and accidentally knocks the tree, which had severely weakened roots, over a ravine. Homer clings onto the bark and refuses to let go, but Marge tells him that their love for each other is within themselves, not in the bark. Homer falls down the ravine toward the river below, still holding onto the bark and peeling it all off the tree, with Marge falling after. They stop falling when the line of bark stops, allowing them to be saved by Bart and Lisa in their pedal car. which Bart had accidentally driven into the river. As the episode ends, Bart allows Homer and Marge to have PG-13 smooching in the back seat.



Cultural references [ edit ]



The episode's non-linear plot showing various points in Homer and Marge's relationship is a reference to the 1967 film Two for the Road . starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. and the episode's musical score mimics the film's Henry Mancini score. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Homer, Sylvia and Dr. Hibbert sing the Chubby Checker song "Limbo Rock ", while a water-soaked Marge resembles Cousin Itt from The Addams Family . [ 3 ]



Toucan Sam. Trix. Cap'n Crunch and Count Chocula are all featured on Bart's Cereal Killer game; they are, respectively, the mascots for Fruit Loops, Trix, Cap'n Crunch and Count Chocula breakfast cereals. [ 3 ] The handheld system Bart is playing on is a Game Boy Advance. [ 4 ]



Reception [ edit ]



Since airing, the episode has received mixed reviews from television critics. Robert Canning of IGN said, "I did find Bart and Lisa as the bickering couple. to be very funny. It added a fresh twist to this generally stale outing. There were other fun laughs. but none of that could make up for the poor story being told or the overall unfunniness of the episode." He gave this episode a 5.8. [ 2 ] Daniel Aughey of TV Guide said, "[It was the] Worst. Episode. Ever. I found the events of this week's episode so simplistic that I was utterly confused." He went on to say, "The story was stitched together and never really had any momentum." [ 5 ] Erich Asperschlager of TV Verdict wrote: "I’ve always enjoyed The Simpsons flashback episodes. The best of them tickle a nostalgic funny bone, but 'Dangerous Curves' doesn’t really fit with those episodes, though. The story of Homer and Marge’s marriage weathering a serious storm would be a lot more compelling if we hadn’t seen it before. I’m glad the writers feel they can write character-based stories after 19 years. I just wish they’d stop repeating themselves. Still, 'Dangerous Curves' is at least a complete story from beginning to end, and it has some of the best one-liners this season." [ 6 ]



Radiocarbon dating



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Radiocarbon dating is a method of determining the age of an object by using the properties of radiocarbon. a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was invented by Willard Libby in the late 1940s and soon became a standard tool for archaeologists. It depends on the fact that radiocarbon, often abbreviated as 14



C. is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting radiocarbon combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide. This is then incorporated into plants by photosynthesis. and animals acquire 14



C by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and from that point the amount of 14



C it contains begins to reduce as the 14



C undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of 14



C in a sample from a dead plant or animal such as piece of old wood or a fragment of bone provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The oldest dates that can be reliably measured by radiocarbon dating are around 50,000 years ago, though special preparation methods occasionally permit dating of older samples.



While the idea behind radiocarbon dating is straightforward, years of additional work were required to develop the technique to the point where accurate dates could be obtained. Research has been going on since the 1960s to determine what the proportion of 14



C in the atmosphere has been over the past fifty thousand years. The resulting data, in the form of a calibration curve, is now used to convert a given measurement of radiocarbon in a sample into an estimate of the sample's actual calendar age. In addition to this curve, other corrections must be made to account for different proportions of 14



C in different types of organism (fractionation) and different 14



C levels in different parts of the biosphere (reservoir effects).



Measurement of radiocarbon was originally done by beta-counting devices, so called because they counted the amount of beta radiation emitted by decaying 14



C atoms in a sample. More recently, accelerator mass spectrometry has become the method of choice; it can be used with much smaller samples (as small as individual plant seeds), and gives results much more quickly.



The development of radiocarbon dating has had a profound impact on archaeology. In addition to permitting more accurate dating within archaeological sites than did methods previously in use, it also allows comparison of dates of events across great distances. Histories of archaeology often refer to the early impact of the new method as the “radiocarbon revolution”. Occasionally, the method is used for items of popular interest such as the Shroud of Turin. which is claimed to show an image of the body of Jesus Christ. A sample of linen from the shroud was tested in 1988 and found to date from the 1200s or 1300s, casting doubt on its authenticity.



Contents



Background [ edit ]



History [ edit ]



In the early 1930s Willard Libby was a chemistry student at the University of Berkeley. receiving his Ph. D. in 1933. He remained there as an instructor until the end of the decade. In 1939 the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley began experiments to determine if any of the elements common in organic matter had isotopes with half-lives long enough to be of value in biomedical research. It was soon discovered that 14



C 's half-life was far longer than had been previously thought, and in 1940 this was followed by proof that the interaction of slow neutrons with 14



N was the main pathway by which 14



C was created. It had previously been thought 14



C would be more likely to be created by deuterons interacting with 13



C. At about this time Libby read a paper by W. E. Danforth and S. A. Korff, published in 1939, which predicted the creation of 14



C in the atmosphere by neutrons from cosmic rays which had been slowed down by collisions with molecules of atmospheric gas. It was this paper that first gave Libby the idea that radiocarbon dating might be possible. [ 1 ]



In 1945, Libby moved to the University of Chicago. He published a paper in 1946 in which he proposed that the carbon in living matter might include 14



C as well as non-radioactive carbon. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Libby and several collaborators proceeded to experiment with methane collected from sewage works in Baltimore, and after isotopically enriching their samples they were able to demonstrate that they contained radioactive 14



C. By contrast, methane created from petroleum had no radiocarbon activity. The results were summarized in a paper in Science in 1947, and the authors commented that their results implied it would be possible to date materials containing carbon of organic origin. [ 2 ] [ 4 ]



Libby and James Arnold proceeded to experiment with samples of wood of known age. For example, two wood samples taken from the tombs of two Egyptian kings, Zoser and Sneferu. independently dated to 2625 BC plus or minus 75 years, were dated by radiocarbon measurement to an average of 2800 BC plus or minus 250 years. These results were published in Science in 1949. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. [ 2 ]



Physical and chemical details [ edit ]



In nature, carbon exists as two stable, nonradioactive isotopes. carbon-12 ( 12



C ), and a radioactive isotope, carbon-14 ( 14



C ), also known as "radiocarbon". The half-life of 14



C (the time it takes for half of a given amount of 14



C to decay ) is about 5,730 years, so its concentration in the atmosphere might be expected to reduce over thousands of years. However, 14



C is constantly being produced in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere by cosmic rays. which generate neutrons that in turn create 14



C when they strike nitrogen-14 ( 14



N ) atoms. [ 2 ] The 14



C creation process is described by the following nuclear reaction :



Once produced, the 14



C quickly combines with the oxygen in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide ( CO



2 ). Carbon dioxide produced in this way diffuses in the atmosphere, is dissolved in the ocean, and is taken up by plants via photosynthesis. Animals eat the plants, and ultimately the radiocarbon is distributed throughout the biosphere. The ratio of 14



Principles [ edit ]



During its life, a plant or animal is exchanging carbon with its surroundings, so the carbon it contains will have the same proportion of 14



C as the biosphere and the carbon exchange reservoir. Once it dies, it ceases to acquire 14



C. but the 14



C within its biological material at that time will continue to decay, and so the ratio of 14



C to 12



C in its remains will gradually reduce. Because 14



C decays at a known rate, the proportion of radiocarbon can be used to determine how long it has been since a given sample stopped exchanging carbon—the older the sample, the less 14



C will be left. [ 8 ]



The equation governing the decay of a radioactive isotope is: [ 2 ]



where N 0 is the number of atoms of the isotope in the original sample (at time t = 0, when the organism from which the sample was taken died), and N is the number of atoms left after time t . [ 2 ] ? is a constant that depends on the particular isotope; for a given isotope it is equal to the reciprocal of the mean-life — i. e. the average or expected time a given atom will survive before undergoing radioactive decay. [ 2 ] The mean-life, denoted by ? . of 14



C is 8,267 years, so the equation above can be rewritten as: [ 11 ]



The sample is assumed to have originally had the same 14



C / 12



C ratio as the ratio in the biosphere, and since the size of the sample is known, the total number of atoms in the sample can be calculated, yielding N 0 . the number of 14



C atoms in the original sample. Measurement of N . the number of 14



C atoms currently in the sample, allows the calculation of t . the age of the sample, using the equation above. [ 8 ]



The half-life of a radioactive isotope (the time it takes for half of the sample to decay, usually denoted by t 1/2 ) is a more familiar concept than the mean-life, so although the equations above are expressed in terms of the mean-life, it is more usual to quote the value of 14



C 's half-life than its mean-life. [ note 1 ] The currently accepted value for the half-life of 14



C is 5,730 years. [ 2 ] This means that after 5,730 years, only half of the initial 14



C will have remained; a quarter will have remained after 11,460 years; an eighth after 17,190 years; and so on.



The above calculations make several assumptions, such as that the level of 14



C in the biosphere has remained constant over time. [ 2 ] In fact, the level of 14



C in the biosphere has varied significantly and as a result the values provided by the equation above have to be corrected by using data from other sources in the form of a calibration curve, which is described in more detail below. [ 12 ] For over a decade after Libby's initial work, the accepted value of the half-life for 14



C was 5,568 years; this was improved in the early 1960s to 5,730 years, which meant that many calculated dates in published papers were now incorrect (the error is about 3%). However, it is possible to incorporate a correction for the half-life value into the calibration curve, and so it has become standard practice to quote measured radiocarbon dates in "radiocarbon years", meaning that the dates are calculated using Libby's half-life value and have not been calibrated. [ 13 ] [ note 2 ] This approach has the advantage of maintaining consistency with the early papers, and also avoids the risk of a double correction for the Libby half-life value. [ 15 ]



Carbon exchange reservoir [ edit ]



Simplified version of the carbon exchange reservoir, showing proportions of carbon and relative activity of the 14



The different elements of the carbon exchange reservoir vary in how much carbon they store, and in how long it takes for the 14



C generated by cosmic rays to fully mix with them. [ 2 ] The atmosphere, which is where 14



C is generated, contains about 1.9% of the total carbon in the reservoirs, and the 14



C it contains mixes in less than seven years. [ 16 ] [ 17 ] The ratio of 14



C to 12



C in the atmosphere is taken as the baseline for the other reservoirs: if another reservoir has a lower ratio of 14



C to 12



C. it indicates that the carbon is older and hence that some of the 14



C has decayed. [ 12 ] The ocean surface is an example: it contains 2.4% of the carbon in the exchange reservoir, [ 16 ] but there is only about 95% as much 14



C as would be expected if the ratio were the same as in the atmosphere. [ 2 ] The time it takes for carbon from the atmosphere to mix with the surface ocean is only a few years, [ 18 ] but the surface waters also receive water from the deep ocean, which has over 90% of the carbon in the reservoir. [ 12 ] Water in the deep ocean takes about 1,000 years to circulate back through surface waters, and so the surface waters contain a combination of older water, with depleted 14



C. and water recently at the surface, with 14



C in equilibrium with the atmosphere. [ 12 ]



Creatures living at the ocean surface have the same 14



C ratios as the water they live in, and as a result of the reduced 14



C / 12



C ratio, the radiocarbon age of marine life is typically about 400 years. [ 19 ] [ note 4 ] Organisms on land, however, are in closer equilibrium with the atmosphere and have the same 14



C / 12



C ratio as the atmosphere. [ 2 ] These organisms contain about 1.3% of the carbon in the reservoir; sea organisms have a mass of less than 1% of those on land and are not shown on the diagram. [ 16 ] Accumulated dead organic matter, of both plants and animals, exceeds the mass of the biosphere by a factor of nearly 3, and since this matter is no longer exchanging carbon with its environment, it has a 14



C / 12



Dating considerations [ edit ]



The variation in the 14



C / 12



C ratio in different parts of the carbon exchange reservoir means that a straightforward calculation of the age of a sample based on the amount of 14



C it contains will often give an incorrect result. There are several other possible sources of error that need to be considered. The errors are of four general types:



variations in the 14



C / 12



C ratio in the atmosphere, both geographically and over time;



isotopic fractionation;



variations in the 14



C / 12



C ratio in different parts of the reservoir;



contamination.



Atmospheric variation [ edit ]



In the early years of using the technique, it was understood that it depended on the atmospheric 14



C / 12



C ratio having remained the same over the preceding few thousand years. To verify the accuracy of the method, several artefacts that were datable by other techniques were tested; the results of the testing were in reasonable agreement with the true ages of the objects. However, in 1958, Hessel de Vries was able to demonstrate that the 14



C / 12



C ratio had changed over time by testing wood samples of known ages and showing there was a significant deviation from the expected ratio. This discrepancy, often called the de Vries effect, was resolved by the study of tree rings. [ 20 ] [ 21 ] Comparison of overlapping series of tree rings allowed the construction of a continuous sequence of tree-ring data that spanned 8,000 years. [ 20 ] (Since that time the tree-ring data series has been extended to 13,900 years.) [ 22 ] Carbon-dating the wood from the tree rings themselves provided the check needed on the atmospheric 14



C / 12



C ratio: with a sample of known date, and a measurement of the value of N (the number of atoms of 14



C remaining in the sample), the carbon-dating equation allows the calculation of N 0 – the number of atoms of 14



C in the sample at the time the tree ring was formed – and hence the 14



C / 12



C ratio in the atmosphere at that time. [ 20 ] Armed with the results of carbon-dating the tree rings, it became possible to construct calibration curves designed to correct the errors caused by the variation over time in the 14



C / 12



C ratio. [ 23 ] These curves are described in more detail below .



Atmospheric 14



C. New Zealand [ 24 ] and Austria. [ 25 ] The New Zealand curve is representative of the Southern Hemisphere; the Austrian curve is representative of the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric nuclear weapon tests almost doubled the concentration of 14



C in the Northern Hemisphere. [ 9 ] The date that the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) went into effect is marked on the graph.



Coal and oil began to be burned in large quantities during the 1800s. Both coal and oil are sufficiently old that they contain little detectable 14



C and, as a result, the CO



2 released substantially diluted the atmospheric 14



C / 12



C ratio. Dating an object from the early 20th century hence gives an apparent date older than the true date. For the same reason, 14



C concentrations in the neighbourhood of large cities are lower than the atmospheric average. This fossil fuel effect (also known as the Suess effect, after Hans Suess. who first reported it in 1955) would only amount to a reduction of 0.2% in 14



C activity if the additional carbon from fossil fuels were distributed throughout the carbon exchange reservoir, but because of the long delay in mixing with the deep ocean, the actual effect is a 3% reduction. [ 20 ] [ 26 ]



A much larger effect comes from above-ground nuclear testing, which released large numbers of neutrons and created 14



C. From about 1950 until 1963, when atmospheric nuclear testing was banned, it is estimated that several tonnes of 14



C were created. If all this extra 14



C had immediately been spread across the entire carbon exchange reservoir, it would have led to an increase in the 14



C / 12



C ratio of only a few per cent, but the immediate effect was to almost double the amount of 14



C in the atmosphere, with the peak level occurring in about 1965. The level has since dropped, as the "bomb carbon" (as it is sometimes called) percolates into the rest of the reservoir. [ 20 ] [ 26 ] [ 27 ]



Isotopic fractionation [ edit ]



Photosynthesis is the primary process by which carbon moves from the atmosphere into living things. In both photosynthetic pathways (C3 and C4 ) 12



C is absorbed slightly more easily than 13



C. which in turn is more easily absorbed than 14



C ratios in plants that differ from the ratios in the atmosphere. This effect is known as isotopic fractionation. [ 28 ] [ 29 ]



To determine the degree of fractionation that takes place in a given plant, the amounts of both 12



C and 13



C isotopes are measured, and the resulting 13



C / 12



C ratio is then compared to a standard ratio known as PDB. [ note 5 ] The 13



C / 12



C ratio is used instead of 14



C / 12



C because the former is much easier to measure, and the latter can be easily derived: the depletion of 13



C relative to 12



C is proportional to the difference in the atomic masses of the two isotopes, so the depletion for 14



C is twice the depletion of 13



C. [ 12 ] The fractionation of 13



C. known as ? 13 C. is calculated as follows: [ 28 ]



where the ‰ sign indicates parts per thousand. [ 28 ] Because the PDB standard contains an unusually high proportion of 13



C. [ note 6 ] most measured ? 13 C values are negative.



The Real Reason Why You Can't Resist Her Curves



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Curvy women hit men's brains like a drug.



It’s no secret that dudes prefer curvy women. Seen in paintings by historic masters and pined for in modern song lyrics, feminine curves top most men’s wish lists. Whether we’re talking bodacious boobs. bountiful booty or mouth-watering thighs, gentlemen prefer curvy women over fashionable waifs.



Now there’s some science to back up this craving. And, yes, I said craving. Researchers at Georgia Gwinnett College and the University of Texas at Austin say that curvy women hit men’s brains like a drug. Their study asked a group of men to look at photographs of women’s naked bodies before and after plastic surgery. None of the women lost weight. Instead their fat had been redistributed to other places. Some essentially gained weight to become more curvy after surgery. MRI scans of the observers’ brains when they looked at curvy women showed activity in the same reward centers activated by pleasurable drugs. The men were getting a kind of high from the experience.



Curves are the language everyone understands



Anthropologists have long known about the virtues of curves. Countless cross-cultural studies have shown that men prefer a low hip-to-waist ratio, no matter the body weight. In other words, small waists in relation to larger hips and breasts seem to be the ideal worldwide. Yes, 36-24-36 is a brick house in any language.



Everything in anthropology boils down to answering the question of why a particular trait was selected in evolution for reproductive success. Anthropologists speculate that curvy women signal health, reproductive fitness and youth. Ask any woman in menopause what body part is first to announce the closing of her baby factory, and she’s likely to say, “My expanding middle.” Women past child-bearing age tend to become less curvy.



Now let’s talk breasts. There are all kinds of theories as to why human females developed large frontal mammary glands. Some anthropologists say they grew as a kind of frontal derriere when we evolved from moving on all fours to walking upright. When our closest primate cousin, the chimpanzee, is ready to mate, she sports bright red lips on her back end. When we began walking on two feet, our upright hips closed the curtain on that show. Some scholars speculate that breasts grew to create a new show up front. Of course, that theory doesn’t explain why so many women in parts of the world didn’t grow breasts as large.



Telltale Curves



Another anthropologist speculates that large breasts that succumb to the gravity sag are also a telltale sign that women have reached a certain age and reproductive chances are waning. Of course, if this is true, the foundation garments of modern times and plastic surgery have disabled this signal. Today, men can easily be tricked by a good push-up bra.



One other researcher suggests that curvy women are smarter and make smarter babies. Steven Gaulin from the University of California at Santa Barbara says that guys who choose women with chubby booties and thighs have a reproductive advantage. He believes that women’s hips and thighs contain omega-3 fatty acids, which help nurture both mothers’ and babies’ brains during pregnancy. Yep. This dude thinks curvy women make smarter babies. Just sayin’.



Curves: Not for every guy



But it would be unfair to make a sweeping generalization that all men like large breasts and hips. In fact, many don’t. One study looked at the personality traits of men who prefer curvy babes, and guess what? They tend to date a lot, engage in masculine activities and read mostly sports magazines. Clearly these dudes are looking to produce a Nobel Prize-winning baby.



The men in the study who preferred smaller breasts and hips tended to make more money and be of a higher social class. The researchers speculate that these men are more susceptible to the influences of fashion .



So who’s right? Everyone. Most men prefer curvy a woman for her reproductive potential, and those men also tend to practice reproduction a lot. Others prefer the time-honored method of survival of the fittest by bowing to social customs and climbing society’s ladder to a feast of resources.



Which curvy celebrity featured in the photo should be in our Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2012. Tell us in the comments.



Dangerous Curves ( The Simpsons )



Contents



Plot [ edit ]



On the Fourth of July. the Simpson family takes a road trip to visit a cabin in the woods. While driving there, they pick up hitchhikers Squeaky Voiced Teen and his girlfriend, Beatrice. Staring at the two younger teens, Homer flashes back to how he and Marge were, twenty years earlier, in their dating years. In the flashback, a young Homer and Marge are on bikes, riding down the highway. Homer and Marge attempt to kiss while biking, but Homer ends up crashing his bike, forcing them to continue on foot. Ned and Maude Flanders. who are driving by, see them and pick them up. Ned and Maude shock Homer and Marge by revealing the two of them are married (as of 2:00 pm that day). They appear to be having some marital problems already and, seeing this, Homer proposes to 'not' marry Marge. Back in the present, Homer becomes quite annoyed with the Squeaky Voiced Teen's kissing Beatrice, which prompts him to go into another flashback, five years ago in Homer and Marge's married years.



In their married years, Homer and Marge are more stressed. Driving with Marge, Patty and Selma. and getting the usual flak from the latter two, Homer reaches his breaking point and kicks his sisters-in-law out of the car. Marge points out that Patty and Selma have the map and therefore the directions to their destination. After mistaking the fuel gauge for a compass reading "E" for East, the car runs out of gas, and Homer and Marge head to a nearby home to use their phone. The house owner, Alberto, is having a party, and he invites Homer and Marge inside. Marge becomes annoyed with Homer's behavior at the party, and becomes enraged after seeing him flirt with a beautiful woman named Sylvia. Following an argument about this with Homer, Marge accidentally falls into the pool. Homer starts a sushi fight, and Marge regrets marrying Homer. In the present, the family drops off the Squeaky-Voiced Teen and Beatrice at a cabin, while the Simpsons head off to their cabin.



Homer and Marge flash back to their dating years, where the Flanders' dropped them off at the very same cabins they are at today. Flanders manages to successfully convince Homer and Marge to sleep in separate rooms, while Ned and Maude have sex. much to their disappointment. In their married years, Marge leaves Alberto's party with him to run to the cabins. Similarly, Homer runs off with Sylvia to those very same cabins. Not wanting each other to discover their own near-affairs, Marge hides Alberto in a box and has Homer put it outside; Homer, not knowing Alberto is in there, puts Sylvia inside as well. Alberto and Sylvia fall in love while Homer and Marge rekindle their love. In the present, Homer and Marge meet Alberto and Sylvia, now married with a daughter named Ruthie and learn of each other's near-affairs. Marge becomes disgusted that the most important moment in their early years of marriage was based on lies and deceit; however, Homer points out that Marge was just as bad as he was at the time, and that she has no moral to scold him. Homer regrets marrying Marge and, trapped in a ball of their luggage which happened while unpacking, has Ruthie roll him away from Marge into the woods but he gets hit by a pedal car driven by Bart with Lisa and Maggie inside.



Back in their dating years, Ned tells Homer that if he were married to Marge, he could make all the love to her he wants. Taking a walk through the woods with Marge, Homer carves the message "Marge + Homer 4ever" into a tree. In the present, Homer sees this message on the same tree and decides there is still time to save his marriage. He attempts to peel the bark off the tree and show the message to Marge; Marge suddenly arrives to find Homer and accidentally knocks the tree, which had severely weakened roots, over a ravine. Homer clings onto the bark and refuses to let go, but Marge tells him that their love for each other is within themselves, not in the bark. Homer falls down the ravine toward the river below, still holding onto the bark and peeling it all off the tree, with Marge falling after. They stop falling when the line of bark stops, allowing them to be saved by Bart and Lisa in their pedal car. which Bart had accidentally driven into the river. As the episode ends, Bart allows Homer and Marge to have PG-13 smooching in the back seat.



Cultural references [ edit ]



The episode's non-linear plot showing various points in Homer and Marge's relationship is a reference to the 1967 film Two for the Road . starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. and the episode's musical score mimics the film's Henry Mancini score. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Homer, Sylvia and Dr. Hibbert sing the Chubby Checker song "Limbo Rock ", while a water-soaked Marge resembles Cousin Itt from The Addams Family . [ 3 ]



Toucan Sam. Trix. Cap'n Crunch and Count Chocula are all featured on Bart's Cereal Killer game; they are, respectively, the mascots for Fruit Loops, Trix, Cap'n Crunch and Count Chocula breakfast cereals. [ 3 ] The handheld system Bart is playing on is a Game Boy Advance. [ 4 ]



Reception [ edit ]



Since airing, the episode has received mixed reviews from television critics. Robert Canning of IGN said, "I did find Bart and Lisa as the bickering couple. to be very funny. It added a fresh twist to this generally stale outing. There were other fun laughs. but none of that could make up for the poor story being told or the overall unfunniness of the episode." He gave this episode a 5.8. [ 2 ] Daniel Aughey of TV Guide said, "[It was the] Worst. Episode. Ever. I found the events of this week's episode so simplistic that I was utterly confused." He went on to say, "The story was stitched together and never really had any momentum." [ 5 ] Erich Asperschlager of TV Verdict wrote: "I’ve always enjoyed The Simpsons flashback episodes. The best of them tickle a nostalgic funny bone, but 'Dangerous Curves' doesn’t really fit with those episodes, though. The story of Homer and Marge’s marriage weathering a serious storm would be a lot more compelling if we hadn’t seen it before. I’m glad the writers feel they can write character-based stories after 19 years. I just wish they’d stop repeating themselves. Still, 'Dangerous Curves' is at least a complete story from beginning to end, and it has some of the best one-liners this season." [ 6 ]



Kelly Rowland Plastic Surgery Photos



In detail, Rowland admitted that she had breast implants and it clearly appears that she had a nose job .



Rowland revealed to Cosmopolitan UK: "The decision was 10 years in the making, so I'm comfortable talking about it. It's something I really wanted to do for myself - not for a man, not for work, for myself. And I love them!"



Rowland claimed she felt like her "little nuggets for boobs " (her own words) were a bit of a "Bug a Boo," so she decided to use some of her free-flowing Destiny's Child money to pay her plastic surgery "Bills, Bills, Bills."



It has to be noted that Rowland told People Magazine in its March 17 issue, 2008, that she finally feels complete after a long soul-searching journey. Wonder what was that journey all about? Deciding to get breast implants.



Kelly stated that she had plastic surgery in October, 2008, to bring her breasts "from an A-cup to a B-cup."



As for the one-cup upgrade, Rowland explained: "I didn't want to have double Ds and be a little bitty size 2 - that would look nuts!"



"I was sick of not fitting into my tops. There was this one really hot House of Dereon top - I just wanted to fill that out!," Rowland was quoted as saying.



Rowland said that top complements her new curves. "I put it on and I looked so good! I'm so happy. I feel complete," Rowland continued.



"It is a decision I made for myself. I like it, and that's all that counts. For young people: Think about it before you just jump off and do something (you may regret later)," Rowland advised.



Judging by the before and after photos, we can't help but notice that Kelly's nose is thinner and more defined now, although there is not a huge difference. This shows her surgeon did a great job as he made her nose look natural, proportional and without drastically changing her look.



Conclusion: The subtle changes Kelly made to her nose and breasts were done very tastefully and only enhanced the natural beauty that she already possessed.

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