America's favorite planets poll misses an opportunity for a Uranus joke

Do I have a favorite planet? You bet Uranus!

Hah hah hah. That is a variation of what is undoubtedly my most-used gag in these columns over the 25-plus years I've been writing about things other than sports. Uranus jokes – funny when you're 12, funny when you're 112. Always funny.

Surprisingly, despite Uranus having the funniest planet name, it's not America's favorite planet. Not even close. In fact, of the eight planets other than Earth (the survey-takers included Pluto, which was demoted from planet status when scientists discovered that Pluto never filed the correct paperwork and was, in fact, orbiting the sun under an assumed identity), Uranus is tied with Neptune for sixth place, ahead of only Mercury.

America's favorite non-Earth planet? It's Mars, of course, which benefits from proximity and from the glow of being the home planet of friendly (and unfriendly) visitors in science fiction books and movies for more than a century.

Also, Mars is the name of a famed candy bar, which doesn't hurt. (Note: I would not eat a Uranus chocolate bar for obvious reasons. Hah hah hah. Another Uranus joke!)

Anyway, the rankings of planets among Americans surveyed by the good folks at YouGov provide insight into what planets we like and presumably why we like them.

Here is the breakdown and expert insight (I live on the most popular planet, I know what makes planets popular!) for the rankings.

Mars. No surprise that this leads the way, with 19% of people picking it as their favorite planet (unsurprisingly, 38% of people had no opinion on their favorite planet and 55% had no opinion on their least favorite planet. Earthlings are known for being neutral and we have very little history of arguing over random issues. Am I right?). Mars is the least favorite of only 3% of responders. What do we often call extraterrestrial visitors? Martians. Who is the greatest Super Bowl halftime performer? Bruno Mars. Case closed.

Saturn. Presumably because of its rings, this is the favorite planet of 14% of Americans. Make no mistake, the rings make Saturn cool, as does the fact that it was the name of an American car company from which Mrs. Brad and I purchased a sedan in the early 1990s. 

Jupiter. While some might attribute this planet's popularity to the Train song, "Drops of Jupiter," I suspect there's another, more clever reason. It's the only planet with "er" at the end, making it even more Jupit than Jupit. It's Jupiter, get it? To move past Saturn and perhaps even Mars, it could change its name to Jupitest. What could be more Jupit? Nothing. That would be the Jupitest planet ever.

Pluto. The highest ranking planet with a negative ranking (liked most by 7%, disliked most by 11%), Pluto (again, not a planet according to scientists) is the name of a beloved Disney character, but also an impersonator (implanetator?). It feels mean to dislike Pluto, but that wouldn't be the Jupitest thing you could believe.

Venus. People are surprisingly neutral (favorite of 6%, least favorite of 3%) about a planet that has been the title of two iconic songs (although I suspect the songs are about the god Venus, not the planet): The Frankie Avalon version that reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1959 and the entirely different Shocking Blue song that reached No. 1 in 1970 and was remade by Bananarama in 1986 and again reached No. 1. But Venus languishes low in the rankings of favorites. Yeah, baby, she's got it.

Uranus. Guaranteed to get giggles in every middle-school science class forever, it's also the planet that takes 84 years to complete a rotation of the sun. Favorite of only 3% of people and least-favorite by 9% (likely the teachers who had to deal with the chuckles in class). Does it deserve to rank higher? You bet your . . . well, you know.

Neptune. It's the planet most likely to be forgotten when we're asked to name all the planets. What do you think of Neptune? Right . . . nothing. It's blue and really cold (colder than Green Bay, Wisconsin, if you can believe it). There are few movies, songs or even jokes about Neptune. It's the planet that is most overlooked, with only 3% of people naming it as their favorite and 3% having it as their least favorite. The other 94% forget it existed, like Pauly Shore or Sinbad.

Mercury. The planet closest to the sun is the least-favorite of 12% of those who have an opinion, the most of any planet. Only 2% of people like it most, despite the influence of singer Freddy Mercury and former NFL running back Mercury Morris. It's also the only planet with an element named after it (although Uranium, Neptunium and Plutonium are all inspired by planets). That this is the least favorite planet is the Jupitest thing ever. You can bet Uranus on it.

Hah hah hah. There we go again!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Am I the superhero Veinman? You can weigh the evidence

Am I a superhero? Probably not. Do I have superpowers? Maybe.

According to the surgical nurse, I have superpowers. According to my cardiologist, maybe not.

My origin story: Several months ago, my doctor recommended an ultrasound of my heart to see if my persistent high cholesterol has caused problems. (Background, at a risk of violating HIPPA: I'm a Type 1 diabetic and have maxed my cholesterol medications without significantly lowering my bad cholesterol. I do all the things you're supposed to, I swear. But it remained high until I recently started biweekly injections that have done the trick. So better now, but it's been a while).

Anyway, the test showed that I have a high calcium score, which isn't great. So they suggested a stress test, which I presumed was someone yelling at me that I was late for a crucial appointment and that I was missing deadlines at work. Alas, it was a treadmill test and I . . . failed it. Inexplicably. I thought I aced it.

So it was time for the next procedure, an angiogram, where (this is my dumbed-down understanding) they stick a wire in my veins at the wrist and go all the way to my heart in search of problems that they can fix then (are there little workers inside the wire? Perhaps).

I had the angiogram and woke up in the recovery room. The nurse told me they found a blockage, but didn't have to do anything because I GREW NEW ARTERIES TO REPLACE IT.

What? I can grow my own arteries and veins? I'm a superhero! I'm Veinman!

Could I become a vein donor? Could I also grow a new ear or toe if needed? Is anything possible?

I communicated the good news to my family, close friends and co-workers. They were all amazed and (to my face, at least) agreed that it was likely a superpower. I recovered well, as you would expect for Veinman.

A week later, I had my follow-up appointment, where I was told this isn't that unusual. We have backup veins (again, this is my dumbed-down version) that come off the bench when needed to replace blocked veins and arteries around our heart and brain. I apparently had Brock Purdy or Steve Young waiting to replace the starter (another allegory: Those veins are like side streets. When the body's equivalent of Highway 12 or Interstate 80 gets blocked, my blood pours off the freeway/highway like cars going to side streets, then coming back on before the destination, losing no time and delivering the same amount of cars).

So maybe I'm not a superhero and maybe I don't have a superpower. Maybe it's more about the remarkable, miraculous bodies that God gave us and how they can sometimes create their own workarounds when something goes wrong. It's already amazing that our bodies work perfectly about 99.9% of the time (our heart, lungs, brain, liver, kidney, legs, etc. almost always work. Our eyes work. Our ears work. When you take a step, you just do it because your body works. You get the point).

Now I'm even more amazed that when they don't work perfectly – when an artery or vein gets totally blocked, as in my case, there are other veins and arteries ready to come in and finish the job.

I'm grateful for the good news. I don't have any restrictions, other than continuing to monitor my cholesterol and checking in with the cardiologist.

But apparently, I'm not Veinman.

However, I still am so good at veins that I probably think that Carly Simon song is about me.

Reach Brad Sranhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Artificial intelligence, the dumbing down of the world and bixonimania

Artificial intelligence is changing the world in the same way that the printing press, vaccines and democracy changed the world. Also in the same way, the black plague, smallpox and state-sponsored terrorism changed the world.

It's either going to be great or horrendous. Or maybe – if we're lucky – somewhere between.

For most of us, artificial intelligence is a clever tool to create a cartoon of ourselves or to make fake videos of our dog talking to another dog. Or maybe it's an easy way to write an email that doesn't include misspellings and has the tone we want.

All pretty good stuff. But it also has the capability of disrupting the world's economic system, to eliminate millions of jobs and to potentially enslave humanity. Unless we are already enslaved and don't realize it.

My biggest concern about AI, is of course, existential. AI can write. If it can write better than me, what am I supposed to do? Get a regular job? Ha ha ha. Ridiculous, right?

Another issue, though, is that large language models of AI (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others) aren't very discerning and, like people throughout history, don't fact-check before spouting something as truth. Even if it's not true. Even if it says it's not true multiple times.

Take bixonimania.

It's a made-up disease, created by a team of medical researchers in Sweden two years ago to see how AI handled such a situation. According to an article in the journal Nature, researchers uploaded two fake studies on bixonimania to a preprint server and within weeks, people who asked large language model AI tools (like the ones that come with your web browser) about rubbing their eyes and getting slightly pinkish eyelids got an answer. Within weeks, bixonimania was a possible cause. Peer-reviewed literature even cited the studies (revealing that researchers didn't check their sources).

This despite the fact that the reports had a made-up author who worked at a nonexistent university in the equally nonexistent Nova City, California. The report thanked people on the USS Enterprise and mentioned Sideshow Bob, from "The Simpsons." It included the phrase "this paper is entirely made up" and described the people in the study as "made-up."

Yet the AI tools cited it as a possible cause of the problem. Other researchers cited it. An obvious trick (as the author points out, "mania" is used only for psychological issues, not eye issues) became accepted medicine.

Bixonimania is now in the ether for good. There's no getting that genie back in the bottle.

Of course, there have always been lies that have been believed despite all the evidence. Some people insist Elvis is still alive. That the moon landing was faked. That the 2020 election was stolen. That the Dodgers aren't the evil empire. They didn't need AI to believe those things.

But we're now living in a world where we increasingly depend on AI. When you Google something, the first response is AI-generated and many of us never go past that.

I guess it's not that much different than when we relied on our family, friends and neighbors to communicate what was true. We believed that razor blades in apples were a real risk at Halloween. That the Procter & Gamble logo reflected Satanism. That eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke would make your stomach explode.

Now, however, we trust our phones and laptops. We trust artificial intelligence applications that steal other people's work, summarize it and are willing to make things up.

AI is a great tool. It will make the world a fundamentally different place. It will (at least initially) make things easier and more accessible. The big concern is the same one that has existed since the dawn of the industrial revolution: Will chasing money (and there are trillions of dollars to be made on AI) include ignoring red flags that lead to unanticipated consequences? Will the cure for our need for knowledge and information be worse than the disease?

I don't know. My bixonimania is affecting my eyes right now, so I don't want to think about it.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.