Affectionate-Squeeze Lad to the rescue!

Have you heard of cuddle parties? The logical inverse to online dating, speed dating, hook-up parties and the like, cuddle parties have the potential to be a huge trend.

Given the impending arrival or our own little wriggling bundle of needs, C and I have been pricing slings and carriers, and I've been thinking a lot about touch and the degree to which an inability (or unwillingness) to engage in physical contact inhibits socialization and neuters the human capacity for empathy. "I wasn't held enough as a child" has transcended the epithet of therapeutic gobbledygook to become merely cliché, but it's clear that we're starved for affection if healthy, upwardly-mobile twenty- and thirtysomethings are using their Blackberries to schedule cuddle time with total strangers.

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This little piece in Maclean's about pulp genius Stan Lee led me to read about the California Science Center's Marvel Super Heroes Science Exhibition, a great idea and a brilliant piece of marketing. In a nutshell, it uses the four-colour allure of comic books as an introduction to cutting-edge science in the fields of prosthetics, the effects of different types of energy on the human body, chemistry, etc.

• Lift a sports utility vehicle, just like a real life Iron Man! By experimenting with simple levers and pulleys to lift weights, learn what the future holds for increasing human strength.


• Explore the wonders of Spider-Man while learning about the elasticity and strength of spider webs. Test the strength of spider silk to Technora™, one of the strongest materials ever created.


• See if your senses are as sharp as Daredevil’s when you navigate through an alleyway using your sense of touch and hearing clues (“psst over here”).

Daredevil's exhibit sounds kinda lame, no? I mean, compared to bench-pressing a truck or spinning webs of any size -- which, I've heard, can catch thieves just like flies -- wandering aimlessly around a dark hallway is pretty weak.

Also, I'm not sure how visible the exhibits will be amidst the sea of tiny (TM) signs floating around, but it sounds kinda neat.