Brain tricks us into overindulging

All these fad diets have forgotten one enemy in the battle to not gain weight - our brain.

According to Brian Wansink, director of the University of Illinois' Food and Brand Laboratory, the following factors fake us into overeating.

-- People who drink from short, fat glasses drink twice as much as those who use tall, slender glasses - even when the glasses hold the same volume.

-- People rate desserts with dramatic names, such as Chocolate Fudge Death, higher than simple chocolate cake, even if they are identical.

-- In offices with Hershey's Kisses available, workers who had to get out of their chairs to reach the candy bowl made fewer trips for treats. But they didn't realize that once at the candy bowl, they tended to grab two or three Kisses, rather than just one.

-- People were given bowls of jelly beans with either four or six different colors (all of which tasted the same). People with only four flavors to choose from ate 40 percent less than those with six options.

Source: Psychology Today

Downsized works of literature

-- "A Tale of a City"

-- "To Half and Have Not"

-- "Fifteen Minutes Before the Mast"

-- "Slaughterhouse-Three"

-- "Fahrenheit 450"

-- "The Diamond as Big as the Phone Booth"

-- "Campfire of the Vanities"

Source: McSweeneys.net

If figures were named after Maine cities

-- "O Narraguagus, Narraguagus! Wherefore art thou Narraguagus?"

-- "The name's Bangor. Piscataquis Bangor. 007."

-- "Alas, poor Passagassawaukeag! I knew him, Mattawamkeag."

-- "Call me Isle au Haut."

Source: McSweeneys.net

The Rail's boo-boo

Two Rail readers politely pointed out that last week it mistakenly referred to Ralph Nader as this year's Green Party candidate for president.

He is not. Nader ran on the Green Party ticket in 2000. This year, he is an independent. But he is still pretty darn rich.

To contact The Rail, send an e-mail to features editor Dean Rhodes at drhodes@forumcomm.com and he'll forward it to the responsible writers.

Today's best bet

Summer Cinema 2004, showing is the 1941 satire "Sullivan's Travels."

Weld Hall Glasrud Auditorium, MSUM campus, Moorhead