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Also, remember that muscle mass only helps for short-duration exercise. When it comes to extended things, like 50 mile treks through jungle or ultra-marathons, women are just as competitive if not better than men.

This is certainly true. However, we are discussing "one-on-one physical confrontations", in which muscle mass plays a very significant role.

Just considering height alone, in the US women average around 5'4", and men average close to 5'10". This is an average difference of six inches, or almost 10%, with an accompanying difference in potential body mass. Taking into account that men (due to testosterone and other biological factors) are able to build muscle mass much easier, and to a much greater degree, this is a huge biologically enforced dimorphism.

To contrast with your example of ultra-long, endurance-based events, there are virtually no sports in which speed and/or strength play a significant role where women are competitive with men. Of course cultural factors affect participation in these sports and skew the observed results somewhat, but this does not account for the staggering difference in physical capabilities.

Sexual dimorphism is not caused by "societal norms", it is caused by genetics and specifically testosterone.

It is started by testosterone, but societal norms reinforce what would otherwise be a much smaller difference.

Also, remember that muscle mass only helps for short-duration exercise. When it comes to extended things, like 50 mile treks through jungle or ultra-marathons, women are just as competitive if not better than men.

Neither can compete with black powder yet. One might, eventually

Currently, rail gun can't even compete with NAIL gun. (yes, technically Gauss != rail gun, but it RHYMES!)

Nail Gun ballistics

Looks like it's possible: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2737577/?tool=pmcentrez

It has everything to do with GM food because what we are getting has been modified to maximize their profit, not for our benefit

So? How does that imply there is anything wrong with them? That the companies that make these aren't charities doesn't indicate that GMOs are dangerous, and that GMO crops benefit corporations does not mean they cannot also benefit others (like this for example).

There is a high probability that it is safe, but it isn't proven.

Safety is a lack of danger. You can not prove a negative.

There is a link between the fever that kids get as a result of the immunization that can cause autistic spectrum disorder due to an underlying mitochondrial disorder, but this only happens in less than .01% of the time.

There have been some studies linking prolonged fevers in the **pregnant mother** with increased risk of ASD...

There have also been some studies that indicate a prevalence of a certain type of mitochondrial disorder in those diagnosed with ASD...

However, I don't know of any studies that link any potential fever that a **child** gets due to vaccination to a mitochondrial disorder, or a predisposition to ASD. It appears that the underlying mitochondrial disorder itself may be the risk factor independent of any vaccination or fever.

This sounds to me a case of someone sympathetic to anit-vac camp putting 1+2 together and getting 10,000.

There is a link between the fever that kids get as a result of the immunization that can cause autistic spectrum disorder due to an underlying mitochondrial disorder, but this only happens in less than .01% of the time.

There have been some studies linking prolonged fevers in the **pregnant mother** with increased risk of ASD...

There have also been some studies that indicate a prevalence of a certain type of mitochondrial disorder in those diagnosed with ASD...

However, I don't know of any studies that link any potential fever that a **child** gets due to vaccination to a mitochondrial disorder, or a predisposition to ASD. It appears that the underlying mitochondrial disorder itself may be the risk factor independent of any vaccination or fever.

This sounds to me a case of someone sympathetic to anit-vac camp putting 1+2 together and getting 10,000.

So you spend over a decade of your life and a huge sum of money in medical school to become a doctor and you would prescribe medicine to your patients based on who buys you lunch? I don't think so.

From one AC to another, best to check your facts. It may not be a majority, but plenty of doctors appear to be influenced by pharmaceutical company reps,
From: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11109183

The influences of drug companies' advertising programs on physicians. Güldal D, Semin S.

Abstract

This study investigates the influences of drug companies' advertising programs on physicians. Of the 446 physicians interviewed, 53.9 percent were visited by pharmaceutical company representatives at least once a day, and 43.5 percent spent 15 minutes or more per day on these visits. With respect to the information delivered by the pharmaceutical company representatives, 67.7 percent of physicians thought it was not reliable, and 62.8 percent reported that it had no effect on their prescription writing. The promotional gifts had little effect on prescriptions for 43.9 percent of physicians, and 80.3 percent reported that these gifts were distributed unequally among doctors according to the drugs they prescribed. Only 23.5 percent of physicians supported the prohibition of promotion programs; 90.6 percent of physicians agreed that drugs are too expensive, and 82.9 percent agreed on the presence of overprescription. The authors evaluate these results and provide some suggestions for improving the sources of information for drug prescribing.

PMID: 11109183 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

"Show many ANY time in nature where plants have modified themselves with ANIMALS and FISH and then and ONLY then will I buy your bullshit, because in case you ain't been keeping up on current events they have been mixing everything from starfish to grasshopper into plants to increase yields and make them grow larger."

Challenge Accepted.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23166508

Bdelloids!

Of ~29,000 matched transcripts, ~10% were inferred from blastx matches to be horizontally acquired, mainly from eubacteria but also from fungi, protists, and algae. After allowing for possible sources of error, the rate of HGT is at least 8%-9%, a level significantly higher than other invertebrates.

They haven't had sex in 80 million years. 8-9% of their genome is made up of sequences captured from all of the above sources. They've got plant DNA right in the middle of their animal DNA, and they've got the DNA of multiple other microinvertebrates mixed up in there, too. They're also enormously resistant to radiation.

I believe this satisfies your criteria. But speaking to the larger point, you need to get over the idea that your DNA is some kind of pristine paradise. It's more like a hoarder's paradise shot through with fragments of viruses, bits and pieces from other species, and vast swaths of code that don't actually *do* anything -- they're just there. The degree of genetic bloat in a species varies enormously, the Norway Spruce has a genome of some 20 billion base pairs (we have just 3 billion). We both have the same number of protein-encoding genes -- about 30,000.

I guess all the evidence points to using copious amounts of herbs is a good idea, health-wise. On the other hand it doesn't really make a case for avoiding synthetic preservatives.

Nope, the only case for that is fear of the unknown. Or, stated another way, the devil you know...except that in this case the devil you know happens to be rather good for you

In fact, if we focus on the anti-microbial properties of herbs and spices, synthetic (anti-microbial) preservatives should also sound like a good idea. If on the other hand herbs and spices are beneficial due to vitamin and mineral content, synthetic preservatives lose out completely.

You're still leaving out details, though. What other effects could there be? (Bleach also has anti-microbial properties, and even ignoring the effect on taste I'd still prefer to add herbs to bleach.) How does either anti-microbial agent break down in the stomach, or, if they don't, affect our gut bacteria? (Could you pass the penicillin?)

You seem to have mentioned the 'one' exception [...]

Alrighty then.

This argument would work if we would experience rewards from eating things with certain other nutrients (vitamins, minerals and such), which I believe is not or hardly the case. I.e.: I'm not so sure those other signals even exist.

It does look like I have to acquiesce that I'm standing on shaky ground on this general idea. However, I have found some evidence that some vitamin or mineral deficiencies can affect dietary preference for supplemented feed in rats, sheep, and hens. While this behavior may not represent a "craving" as addressed by the above articles you linked to, it does support the idea that food selection can be driven by nutritional need. Now, all I need to do is ask those researchers to repeat the experiments when sugar was added to all of the tested feeds. I'll get back to you on that one...

The following is a purely subjective, personal anecdote, but it has likely contributed to my belief that our nervous systems might develop interesting interpretations of whatever signals may be triggered by the various stages of digestion. There are certain foods that I will suddenly experience what I'll call an "anti-craving" for--that is, something in my brain/body just makes me not want to eat it for at least a couple days. This has happened to me with beef heart and chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms. I have no idea what was behind that feeling, but I can tell you it was pretty strong, and pretty food-specific (it's not like I wasn't hungry for the next couple days or anything).

Other than the above, my general impression from having studied perception and neuroscience is to never underestimate what types of signals our brains can learn to work with. For instance, did you know that trained radiologists can detect the presence of lesions in an x-ray image with better-than-chance ability when the image is only displayed for 1/5 of a second without even consciously knowing what it was that they detected? (The latter part of that statement comes from having spoken to the PI of that study). I'm not saying that there are perceptual nutrient receptors (there are, however, sweet receptors in the gut), just that there are perceptual differences that can occur due to a sufficiency or deficiency of various nutrients via their action in all systems in the body, and that if there's a signal, the brain will learn to use it.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Mainly from experience, but a little googling also seems to indicate that there is ei

I guess all the evidence points to using copious amounts of herbs is a good idea, health-wise. On the other hand it doesn't really make a case for avoiding synthetic preservatives.

Nope, the only case for that is fear of the unknown. Or, stated another way, the devil you know...except that in this case the devil you know happens to be rather good for you

In fact, if we focus on the anti-microbial properties of herbs and spices, synthetic (anti-microbial) preservatives should also sound like a good idea. If on the other hand herbs and spices are beneficial due to vitamin and mineral content, synthetic preservatives lose out completely.

You're still leaving out details, though. What other effects could there be? (Bleach also has anti-microbial properties, and even ignoring the effect on taste I'd still prefer to add herbs to bleach.) How does either anti-microbial agent break down in the stomach, or, if they don't, affect our gut bacteria? (Could you pass the penicillin?)

You seem to have mentioned the 'one' exception [...]

Alrighty then.

This argument would work if we would experience rewards from eating things with certain other nutrients (vitamins, minerals and such), which I believe is not or hardly the case. I.e.: I'm not so sure those other signals even exist.

It does look like I have to acquiesce that I'm standing on shaky ground on this general idea. However, I have found some evidence that some vitamin or mineral deficiencies can affect dietary preference for supplemented feed in rats, sheep, and hens. While this behavior may not represent a "craving" as addressed by the above articles you linked to, it does support the idea that food selection can be driven by nutritional need. Now, all I need to do is ask those researchers to repeat the experiments when sugar was added to all of the tested feeds. I'll get back to you on that one...

The following is a purely subjective, personal anecdote, but it has likely contributed to my belief that our nervous systems might develop interesting interpretations of whatever signals may be triggered by the various stages of digestion. There are certain foods that I will suddenly experience what I'll call an "anti-craving" for--that is, something in my brain/body just makes me not want to eat it for at least a couple days. This has happened to me with beef heart and chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms. I have no idea what was behind that feeling, but I can tell you it was pretty strong, and pretty food-specific (it's not like I wasn't hungry for the next couple days or anything).

Other than the above, my general impression from having studied perception and neuroscience is to never underestimate what types of signals our brains can learn to work with. For instance, did you know that trained radiologists can detect the presence of lesions in an x-ray image with better-than-chance ability when the image is only displayed for 1/5 of a second without even consciously knowing what it was that they detected? (The latter part of that statement comes from having spoken to the PI of that study). I'm not saying that there are perceptual nutrient receptors (there are, however, sweet receptors in the gut), just that there are perceptual differences that can occur due to a sufficiency or deficiency of various nutrients via their action in all systems in the body, and that if there's a signal, the brain will learn to use it.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Mainly from experience, but a little googling also seems to indicate that there is ei

I guess all the evidence points to using copious amounts of herbs is a good idea, health-wise. On the other hand it doesn't really make a case for avoiding synthetic preservatives.

Nope, the only case for that is fear of the unknown. Or, stated another way, the devil you know...except that in this case the devil you know happens to be rather good for you

In fact, if we focus on the anti-microbial properties of herbs and spices, synthetic (anti-microbial) preservatives should also sound like a good idea. If on the other hand herbs and spices are beneficial due to vitamin and mineral content, synthetic preservatives lose out completely.

You're still leaving out details, though. What other effects could there be? (Bleach also has anti-microbial properties, and even ignoring the effect on taste I'd still prefer to add herbs to bleach.) How does either anti-microbial agent break down in the stomach, or, if they don't, affect our gut bacteria? (Could you pass the penicillin?)

You seem to have mentioned the 'one' exception [...]

Alrighty then.

This argument would work if we would experience rewards from eating things with certain other nutrients (vitamins, minerals and such), which I believe is not or hardly the case. I.e.: I'm not so sure those other signals even exist.

It does look like I have to acquiesce that I'm standing on shaky ground on this general idea. However, I have found some evidence that some vitamin or mineral deficiencies can affect dietary preference for supplemented feed in rats, sheep, and hens. While this behavior may not represent a "craving" as addressed by the above articles you linked to, it does support the idea that food selection can be driven by nutritional need. Now, all I need to do is ask those researchers to repeat the experiments when sugar was added to all of the tested feeds. I'll get back to you on that one...

The following is a purely subjective, personal anecdote, but it has likely contributed to my belief that our nervous systems might develop interesting interpretations of whatever signals may be triggered by the various stages of digestion. There are certain foods that I will suddenly experience what I'll call an "anti-craving" for--that is, something in my brain/body just makes me not want to eat it for at least a couple days. This has happened to me with beef heart and chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms. I have no idea what was behind that feeling, but I can tell you it was pretty strong, and pretty food-specific (it's not like I wasn't hungry for the next couple days or anything).

Other than the above, my general impression from having studied perception and neuroscience is to never underestimate what types of signals our brains can learn to work with. For instance, did you know that trained radiologists can detect the presence of lesions in an x-ray image with better-than-chance ability when the image is only displayed for 1/5 of a second without even consciously knowing what it was that they detected? (The latter part of that statement comes from having spoken to the PI of that study). I'm not saying that there are perceptual nutrient receptors (there are, however, sweet receptors in the gut), just that there are perceptual differences that can occur due to a sufficiency or deficiency of various nutrients via their action in all systems in the body, and that if there's a signal, the brain will learn to use it.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Mainly from experience, but a little googling also seems to indicate that there is ei

I guess all the evidence points to using copious amounts of herbs is a good idea, health-wise. On the other hand it doesn't really make a case for avoiding synthetic preservatives.

Nope, the only case for that is fear of the unknown. Or, stated another way, the devil you know...except that in this case the devil you know happens to be rather good for you

In fact, if we focus on the anti-microbial properties of herbs and spices, synthetic (anti-microbial) preservatives should also sound like a good idea. If on the other hand herbs and spices are beneficial due to vitamin and mineral content, synthetic preservatives lose out completely.

You're still leaving out details, though. What other effects could there be? (Bleach also has anti-microbial properties, and even ignoring the effect on taste I'd still prefer to add herbs to bleach.) How does either anti-microbial agent break down in the stomach, or, if they don't, affect our gut bacteria? (Could you pass the penicillin?)

You seem to have mentioned the 'one' exception [...]

Alrighty then.

This argument would work if we would experience rewards from eating things with certain other nutrients (vitamins, minerals and such), which I believe is not or hardly the case. I.e.: I'm not so sure those other signals even exist.

It does look like I have to acquiesce that I'm standing on shaky ground on this general idea. However, I have found some evidence that some vitamin or mineral deficiencies can affect dietary preference for supplemented feed in rats, sheep, and hens. While this behavior may not represent a "craving" as addressed by the above articles you linked to, it does support the idea that food selection can be driven by nutritional need. Now, all I need to do is ask those researchers to repeat the experiments when sugar was added to all of the tested feeds. I'll get back to you on that one...

The following is a purely subjective, personal anecdote, but it has likely contributed to my belief that our nervous systems might develop interesting interpretations of whatever signals may be triggered by the various stages of digestion. There are certain foods that I will suddenly experience what I'll call an "anti-craving" for--that is, something in my brain/body just makes me not want to eat it for at least a couple days. This has happened to me with beef heart and chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms. I have no idea what was behind that feeling, but I can tell you it was pretty strong, and pretty food-specific (it's not like I wasn't hungry for the next couple days or anything).

Other than the above, my general impression from having studied perception and neuroscience is to never underestimate what types of signals our brains can learn to work with. For instance, did you know that trained radiologists can detect the presence of lesions in an x-ray image with better-than-chance ability when the image is only displayed for 1/5 of a second without even consciously knowing what it was that they detected? (The latter part of that statement comes from having spoken to the PI of that study). I'm not saying that there are perceptual nutrient receptors (there are, however, sweet receptors in the gut), just that there are perceptual differences that can occur due to a sufficiency or deficiency of various nutrients via their action in all systems in the body, and that if there's a signal, the brain will learn to use it.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. Mainly from experience, but a little googling also seems to indicate that there is ei

I need to emphasise how extraordinarily unlikely it is for a measles outbreak to occur in a vaccinated population. Unless a new strain of measles has arisen that the vaccine is not effective against - and as far as I know measles is incredibly stable - then the only way that an outbreak can occur is in the unvaccinated population.

What an absolute load of bullshit

Measles (Rubeola) in Previously Immunized Children, Pediatrics Vol. 46 No. 3 September 1970, pp. 397-402
Measles Outbreak among Vaccinated High School Students — Illinois, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) 1984 Report
A measles outbreak at a college with a prematriculation immunization requirement. American Journal of Public Health (1991)
Explosive School-based Measles Outbreak, American Journal of Epidemiology, 1998
Largest Measles Outbreak in the Americas since 2000: Quebec Ongoing Epidemic, IDSA Boston Oral Abstract, 2011

None of those devices are injecting you with chemicals or producing particulate radiation!

Neither does asbestos, yet it still causes cancer.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567531/

There are other examples as well. The idea that we know a complete list of ways in which physical or chemical agents can cause cancer is simply unscientific bullshit.

Fail.

Yeah, specifically your fail.

NIH: National Library of Medicine: May 2012: Clinical Validation of a Point-of-Care Multiplexed In Vitro Immunoassay Using Monoclonal Antibodies (the MSD Influenza Test) in Four Hospitals in Vietnam (note this link took about five searches to find, where the "journalists" could have provided some more details and saved me the bother of doing their job). The text confirms it regards the same device mentioned in TFA.

Certainly I have none, other than the not-too-convincing argument that we've been eating pepper and cumin for millenia. Plus they taste good :-)

Apparently MSG-laced foods taste good as well ;-)

To me, there's something to the idea that human societies co-developed with and around these sources of food

Well, if you're from European descent, things like pepper haven't been part of your family line's diet for too long. 2000 years, max. I'm not sure to what extent other herbs and spices (with perhaps similar properties) were ever part of European (or going further back: our primate ancestors') diets. I suspect that our preference for them may be epigenetic or even just cultural (which both mean that our bodies aren't evolutionarily adapted to consuming them).

I don't think you can make the argument about how our digestive systems evolved based on an average that includes infant mortality.

That's really interesting. I never realized that infant mortality had such an influence on the numbers. Life expectancies at age 21 were pretty comparable to modern numbers!

The point, though, was just that nutrient absorption is not a linear system, and the response to a sum of inputs (nutrients) is different from the sum of the responses to those isolated inputs. So I take any biochemical nutritional analysis with a grain of salt, just as we should all take our calcium with a dose of vitamin D [nutrition.org]

True, true. But let's not forget that the human body has a lot of dynamic balances and buffers going on. The linked study mainly deals with vitamin D-deficient subjects and the positive effect of supplementation of vitamin D on calcium absorption.
I'm not debating whether consuming certain compounds together influences what effect they have on the body, just suggesting that for some (maybe many?) combinations buffers allow for separate ingestion.

The contribution of smell to taste must play a pretty large role, though, and I don't think smell has much to do with why sugary food tastes "good".

True. Smell is obviously a more fine-grained approach to food-selection. Apparently, olfaction is also considered to be the first sense by some.

For example, there is a proposed mechanism by which we learn the association between certain foods and their nutritive (or at least caloric) content

Well, rats do. We just look at what's on the box ;-)

I suspect that relying too consistently on the taste of sugar to make food taste "good" may interfere with our body's regulatory mechanisms for seeking out other nutrients (cravings?)

I don't know about that. If I'm not mistaken, sugar consumption and cravings is more a matter of blood sugar/insulin levels and to what extent things that slow down digestion have been consumed together with the (large) amount of sugar. Let's be honest, for a lot of essential stuff such as vitamin C, we obviously never have cravings.

Related: the only cravings I had/have are cravings for MSG/umami foods. Even though I don't really eat a lot of MSG-containing food, I still feel the craving regularly. This to me signifies that my body actually requires the glutamate, which could make sense, considering it is one of the most (if not the most) important neurotransmitters in our body: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10736372

Dosing everything with sugar to make it all taste good may also mask our body's other signals relating to important micronutrients.

But dosing everything with a lot of lard is harmless? ;-)
Seriously, though, I wouldn't doubt adding sugar to a dish if you feel that the taste would benefit from it. I can hardly imagine that our body would be some

isn't eating random herbs (natural 'additives') from all over the planet equally unwise? [...] What evidence is there that the natural preservatives aren't ten times as 'dangerous' as synthetically produced preservatives?

Certainly I have none, other than the not-too-convincing argument that we've been eating pepper and cumin for millenia. Plus they taste good :-). To me, there's something to the idea that human societies co-developed with and around these sources of food that makes me more prone to use them over synthetic additives that were explicitly engineered to diminish the food's nutritional availability for some organisms. Just my own preference, and not one that I stick to strictly either.

I'm going to go out of order here because this is related:

I am aware that during pretty much all our evolution we did not live past the age of 40. That could mean that our primal diet and digestive system were tuned for a live hard, die young existence.

Well, that's not necessarily true, and I believe infant mortality make up for the largest difference in mean lifespan. I don't think you can make the argument about how our digestive systems evolved based on an average that includes infant mortality. However even without that, I'm pretty sure adult life spans were, on average, shorter due to several factors including diseases, so there's definitely at least some credence to your hypothesis.

Talking about trust, that link is to a PDF trying to sell some kind of supplement.

Touche. I suppose it was a bad idea to just quickly go scouring for links, and it might have been better to just say "I have read somewhere". The point, though, was just that nutrient absorption is not a linear system, and the response to a sum of inputs (nutrients) is different from the sum of the responses to those isolated inputs. So I take any biochemical nutritional analysis with a grain of salt, just as we should all take our calcium with a dose of vitamin D

If your taste or distaste for something is mainly driven by some memory, feeling or state of mind, it is almost certainly less stable than a taste or distaste originating in your biological make-up. The latter is also something you can use when preparing food for others (as opposed to the other factors).

Agreed as stated. To the original point (i.e. not about Scotch), though, the taste receptors on the tongue are only one biological mechanism we developed for finding nutritious food. Sure, they're probably the most important, at least when energy was scarce and poisonous foods could commonly kill us. The contribution of smell to taste must play a pretty large role, though, and I don't think smell has much to do with why sugary food tastes "good". Nor do I think we can say that my stated preferences aren't due to inherent perceptions of smell and taste. But it goes further; there are learned preferences that can still be pretty universal. For example, there is a proposed mechanism by which we learn the association between certain foods and their nutritive (or at least caloric) content. I suspect that relying too consistently on the taste of sugar to make food taste "good" may interfere with our body's regulatory mechanisms for seeking out other nutrients (cravings?)

So I don't consider it some Victorian doctrine of "thou shalt not have fun" (you should see how much lard I cook with and how much butter I put on my bread). Instead, assuming any of the above is even correct, I consider it as not using to their fullest extent the body's several pathways of deriving pleasure and satisfaction from food. Dosing everything with sugar to make it all taste good may also mask our body's other

isn't eating random herbs (natural 'additives') from all over the planet equally unwise? [...] What evidence is there that the natural preservatives aren't ten times as 'dangerous' as synthetically produced preservatives?

Certainly I have none, other than the not-too-convincing argument that we've been eating pepper and cumin for millenia. Plus they taste good :-). To me, there's something to the idea that human societies co-developed with and around these sources of food that makes me more prone to use them over synthetic additives that were explicitly engineered to diminish the food's nutritional availability for some organisms. Just my own preference, and not one that I stick to strictly either.

I'm going to go out of order here because this is related:

I am aware that during pretty much all our evolution we did not live past the age of 40. That could mean that our primal diet and digestive system were tuned for a live hard, die young existence.

Well, that's not necessarily true, and I believe infant mortality make up for the largest difference in mean lifespan. I don't think you can make the argument about how our digestive systems evolved based on an average that includes infant mortality. However even without that, I'm pretty sure adult life spans were, on average, shorter due to several factors including diseases, so there's definitely at least some credence to your hypothesis.

Talking about trust, that link is to a PDF trying to sell some kind of supplement.

Touche. I suppose it was a bad idea to just quickly go scouring for links, and it might have been better to just say "I have read somewhere". The point, though, was just that nutrient absorption is not a linear system, and the response to a sum of inputs (nutrients) is different from the sum of the responses to those isolated inputs. So I take any biochemical nutritional analysis with a grain of salt, just as we should all take our calcium with a dose of vitamin D

If your taste or distaste for something is mainly driven by some memory, feeling or state of mind, it is almost certainly less stable than a taste or distaste originating in your biological make-up. The latter is also something you can use when preparing food for others (as opposed to the other factors).

Agreed as stated. To the original point (i.e. not about Scotch), though, the taste receptors on the tongue are only one biological mechanism we developed for finding nutritious food. Sure, they're probably the most important, at least when energy was scarce and poisonous foods could commonly kill us. The contribution of smell to taste must play a pretty large role, though, and I don't think smell has much to do with why sugary food tastes "good". Nor do I think we can say that my stated preferences aren't due to inherent perceptions of smell and taste. But it goes further; there are learned preferences that can still be pretty universal. For example, there is a proposed mechanism by which we learn the association between certain foods and their nutritive (or at least caloric) content. I suspect that relying too consistently on the taste of sugar to make food taste "good" may interfere with our body's regulatory mechanisms for seeking out other nutrients (cravings?)

So I don't consider it some Victorian doctrine of "thou shalt not have fun" (you should see how much lard I cook with and how much butter I put on my bread). Instead, assuming any of the above is even correct, I consider it as not using to their fullest extent the body's several pathways of deriving pleasure and satisfaction from food. Dosing everything with sugar to make it all taste good may also mask our body's other

I would think you could get some assistance from one of these resources.

UK: Treatment for Gambling Addiction
UK: Mental health helplines

US: USA Local Problem Gambling Hotlines
US: Mental Health

CA: Problem Gambling Institute
CA: Mental Health

AU: Problem Gambling
AU: Mental Health Services in Australia

I hope you get well soon.

"The estimated decrease in average IQ associated with fluoride exposure based on our analysis may seem small and may be within the measurement error of IQ testing." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491930/

You conveniently ignore that they called it climate change before they called it global warming. After all the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed in 1989. Here is a paper from October 1970 by George Benton titled "Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change".

There is no such thing as "light pollution". That's not to say that shining a floodlight through a neighbours window isn't inconsiderate, but it's not "pollution".

I don't know what your definition of pollution is, but excess outdoor lighting is ugly, it's unwanted, it can cause adverse change (everything from sleepness nights to wildlife deaths to increased levels of vandalism and other crime. And it has detrimental effects on health including a carcinogenic effect. I call it pollution, you call it light trespass or whatever you like but I suspect there is a level of excess light that you would call pollution. Can your neighbor shine floodlights into your window? How about stroboscopic flashing lights tuned to disorient and possibly trigger seizures? How about lasers? I'm not joking, given the fact that running a laser advertisement is now practically free, expect to see the night sky filled with McDonalds ads and other annoyances. If we continue to treat light pollution as a non-issue, our beautiful night sky will be replaced with pop-up ads.

The proper solution to the OP's problem is to:

1) Stop shining your lights in the direction of your neighbour 2) Use a motion-sensing light so that it at least only turns on when it needs to be

I agree with you here. This is a very good start. Ask yourself, "Is the light necessary? Is it necessary to run continuously? Would I like it if all of my neighbors had the same light? What if millions of people did exactly what you are doing, would the environmental impact be worth it? Does it provide even and useful illumination of an important area or does it provide glare and deepen shadows?"

If you do need lights, LED lights provide many advantages over older outdoor lighting technology. They are smaller than discharge tubes so can be focused better. They can be placed where you need them and they consume far less power than incandescent lights. They can be PWM dimmed, they can be cycled instantaneously (opposed to the 10-20 minute warm-up of sodium/mercury discharge lights) without significant reduction in life. Rural areas could turn off streetlights unless they detect someone (a car or a mobile phone) in the area.

I was referring to how PR departments and the media in general spin pretty much every nutritional study into what amount to either flat out lies or terribly misleading statements.

I assume you're familiar with this?

re: unl presentation: very interesting, thanks for that link. I knew spices such as pepper and cumin were effective preservatives, but really didn't think the same could be said about herbs like oregano and thyme. I guess it makes sense that those flavors are related to plant defense mechanisms, which could apply equally to seeds as leaves, so I suppose that does make sense.

Still, a question I have is, not considering severe digestive issues, are there detrimental effects of the types and levels of artificial preservatives on nutrient absorption? I'm not familiar with any data on that, and would like to, eventually, try to digest (no pun intended) some of the available literature (the link as one example, but I'm not experienced enough in this field to make much sense of such studies without spending more time that I can afford at the moment). And I certainly don't trust Kraft Foods to prioritize a thorough understanding of these issues over an extra dose of additives to ensure foods don't discolor and turn sour on the shelf. In the meantime, while i have little basis for telling others that they are "bad", I'm just as happy avoiding these additives when i can do so without too much hassle.

Mmm, fecal transplant therapy...my girlfriend has already talked my ear off about this one as she used to study C. difficile, for which this therapy is sometimes used. From one (only half-serious) perspective, it's another neat reminder of what we can and can't engineer with current biotechnology: "we can't really culture the same flora needed to repopulate your digestive system, but we can shove someone else's poop up your butt!"

If I'm not mistaken, oxidization requires being exposed to oxygen. There's a reason why some stuff can be stored for weeks in a closed package and mere days when the packaging is opened. There's still oxygen exposure, but it is greatly reduced and fairly predictable.

Are there other mechanisms of nutrient loss beyond simple oxidation that are harder to control? For example, does cellular metabolism in plant material, which i believe continues long past harvest, lead to breakdown of nutrients even in the packaging, either directly or as a result of byproducts created in the process? This is, of course, all speculation at this point. Still, I intuitively believe that the blueberries I'm adding to my breakfast might be more nutritionally valuable than the freeze-dried ones in a box of cereal. I enjoy them more, at the very least.

In addition to that, 'non-packaged food' may also have been or be exposed to significant amounts of oxygen and other deteriorating influences.

This is an excellent point, and is probably a pretty significant factor in judging the value of items like pre-cut, plastic-wrapped fruit available in many stores (polyethylene, used in many commercial food wraps, is oxygen-permeable). I also intuitively think the nutritional value of unadulterated produce is correlated to some measure of its fragrance and taste (this at least makes sense from an evolutionary point of view), and, on the flip-side, have seen some pretty depressing-looking produce offerings at several different markets. But, again, I have nothing to back up up that claim of a meaningful difference, or the implicit follow-up claim that I have been better-than-random at picking the "good stuff". I'm ok with that.

With regard to supplements and fortification, it's true that I'm lumping the two together with

One last little point, I think such studies are often overstated but not necessarily deliberately so--rather, with the genuine belief that the assumptions and generalizations being made are valid. I can't back that up, of course, but it's the feeling i get from reading recommendations and interpretations, and it mirrors the kind of thinking I see more often than I'd like in scientists in my own field (auditory neuroscience)

Ok, so I can get into some of the half-formed reasons I have for avoiding the elusive category of "processed foods". Mostly, I eat the way I do because I enjoy it. I love food: growing it, buying it, cooking it, and eating it. But I have this idea that eating foods prepared from fresh ingredients that will go bad within a week is generally a healthier choice too. To put these ideas into words, you'll have to then permit me some unverified ideas and a lot of hand waving as I try to figure this out even for myself right here. "Processed foods", here, is simply a perhaps lazy attempt at a plain-english, loose-fitting label that tends to encompass the foods I would consider part of this group. In general, they are packaged foods with oddly long shelf lives and mostly sugar or salt for flavor. I tend to believe that the reason that this is necessary to make these things palatable is related to my fundamental objection: that, despite what the "nutrition facts" labels says, my body recognizes that I'm eating filler. Not two years ago, I based my entire diet off of reading the nutrition label. Now, I mostly ignore it, read the ingredients list instead, and have found that easier and more successful than my previous strategy for staying fit & healthy. I suppose I do sort of subscribe to the idea that if it's similar to how we've been eating throughout human history, it's probably a good way to sustain ourselves, and that this can't necessarily be said of food chemistry developed in the last century or so. Specific objections might include:

(1): Foods that are uncannily shelf-stable cannot necessarily be said to be as healthy as the picture on the box implies. For example, hydrogenated fats are used to replace the unsaturated fats that would typically go rancid over time. Ok, we've covered the trans fat thing. But then there are ideas like:

(1a) Preservatives are added to make the food inhospitable to microbes. Now, I don't know that there's necessarily a difference between using, say, sodium benzoate vs sodium chloride, which I don't generally object to as much, e.g., in salt cured meats. I'd still only eat the latter in moderation, and would just as soon assume, for my own purposes and as a very loose generalization, that the less easily a food can be broken down by bacteria or fungus in the environment, the more trouble my digestive system (including my gut bacteria) may have in breaking down and properly absorbing the nutrients. Maybe that's complete bollocks.

(1b) Other nutrient loss due to the food's life. For example, vitamins oxidize or otherwise break down with time. Also with heat, often applied to sterilize the food in order to get a longer shelf life. Allegedly this is sometimes known and countered by refortifying the foods with supplemented vitamins / minerals, but I also subscribe to the belief, fueled partly by studies like those mentioned in TFA and here (but yes, I know I'm generalizing without sufficient evidence), that this may be largely ineffective. Other components of the food, such as phytonutrients, may also not last just because the food isn't going "bad". Foods break down, and I little reason to believe that the nutrition label is a particularly meaningful descriptor of a food that for all I know has been months or more from factory to shelf to plate. This leads us nicely to:

(2): trust. I'm sure you know as well as I that labels such as "all natural" and "heart-healthy" are little more than marketing slogans. Many companies seem

The appendix may not be as useless as we once thought.
Recent investigations have suggested that the appendix acts as a kind of "wildlife preserve" for our gut microbes. Throughout much of our evolutionary history (and much of the modern world) massive diarrhea has been a disease with two distinct issues: the likelihood of death from dehydration, and the disruption of intestinal flora in the survivors. A rapid recolonization with "good bugs" would have helped keep survivors from the kinds of recurring and chronic conditions that can result from microbial imbalance.

Testing of this hypothesis has shown that individuals with an appendix are four times less likely to have recurrences of C. diff infections compared to those without: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21699818

However, the way the recurrent laryngeal nerve runs around major thoracic vessels before ending up in the larynx is preposterous. That totally needs a redesign. Also, can I request a functional nictitating membrane? Those things are sweet!

It was a theory I read a few years back, probably in Scientific American. (I took special note because mesothelioma has affected our family, which includes several life-long plumbers and construction workers.)

The Wikipedia article on mesothelioma doesn't mention this particular action. It does postulate that the DNA can get tangled with or otherwise adhere to the asbestos.

There are correlations between different types of asbestos and the cancer, including the observation that long, thin fibers are more potent carcinogens, and that smaller particles are more dangerous. None of those observations run counter to the theory of the strands physically cutting the DNA.

There is a lot of data known regarding the symptoms and effects of asbestos exposure, such as inflammation. But because the action is so small, it's hard to prove the exact pathophysiology at the moment a fiber causes the first incident of cancer. We know mesothelioma develops in people who were occupationally exposed, with higher exposure rates correlating to quicker time to cancer as well as a higher incidence rate. In the body, a mechanism like this would be repeated by millions, billions, or possibly even trillions of inhaled tiny sharp fibers. The fibers are a crystalline lattice, and easily fracture along two axes, and the third axis is not very strong either. As the lungs contract and expand during breathing, any larger fibers that were lodged in clumps of cells would be snapped into progressively smaller pieces, until they're so small they can enter the cells. The sharp fibers would probably kill most cells upon cutting into them, and the collection of dead cells would trigger an immune response, accounting for the inflammation (inhaling too many fibers at once would likely cause injury or death from asbestosis.) But some cells would survive. Of those that do, it's not unreasonable that the shards may occasionally enter the nucleus. Most of the time, that would probably kill the cell, too. But once in a horrible while, a cell might survive long enough to replicate. When you have billions of cells clashing with billions of tiny shards, eventually the numbers catch up. And while white blood cells carry dead cells away, they also carry the tiny sharp fragments which remain sharp, and can pierce and escape elsewhere in the body, not unlike carrying a plastic bag of broken glass shards to the trash bin.

Here's a pretty dramatic photo (from 1974) of an asbestos shard that has pierced a cell: http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult.php?img=1475375_envhper00499-0240-b&req=4

If the trans fats are the problem, then why not say 'things that contain significant amounts of trans fats' instead of 'processed food'? That is my main gripe with the generic nutritional advice. Instead of educating people on the actual compounds that potentially have negative health effects, we end up with a plethora of bullshit advice like 'processed food is bad', 'things in cans are bad', 'eat a different color of vegetable every day' or 'brown bread is healthy' (which has lead producers to add dye to their whitebread).

One arguable reason is that it could be more effective at getting people to eat more healthily than the approach of "avoid X and Y unless Z" etc. Now I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, I personally prefer to get at the more detailed science; however, I also recognize that sometimes the more detailed science approach is going to be bad at quickly developing a complete understanding of the entire nutritional system and all of its interactions. This leads us to shun butter but slather on the margarine, put 7-11 servings of grains on the bottom of our (US; now obselete) food pyramid, and so on. That is, of course, the beautiful progress of science, but it's led to decades of what many now call bad nutritional advice. On the other hand, saying "avoid boxed pre-processed foods" is horrendously unscientific and vague, but, quite honestly, probably not terrible advice.

I don't doubt that there is, as you point out, the significant danger of a plethora of bullshit advice if we start blindly accepting advice of this nature. I just think there's an interesting balance between the two ends of nutritional advice.

Even trans fat research is mostly hard to control epidemiological research. What evidence there is still doesn't warrant saying things like "trans fats are deleterious to health", simply because that is such a broad statement. The risks for a lot of things can differ greatly varying with age, genetics, total diet composition, the average amount ingested over a longer period etc

Not to mention the type of trans fats, which may be an important but overlooked distinction

This tendancy to lump things together

... is exactly the generalization error that I start to find myself really confused by its frequency, particularly in nutritional recommendations. Saturated and mono / poly-unsaturated fats are one I've been looking into a lot, and can find very little reason why we've been so comfortable treating those three classes of fats as the only meaningful distinction. In case you're interested, there's also some interesting recent research into a division in trans fats and the corresponding effects on cardiovascular disease and even body weight.

This tendancy to lump things together

... is exactly the generalization error that I start to find myself really confused by its frequency, particularly in nutritional recommendations. Saturated and mono / poly-unsaturated fats are one I've been looking into a lot, and can find very little reason why we've been so comfortable treating those three classes of fats as the only meaningful distinction. In case you're interested, there's also some interesting recent research into a division in trans fats and the corresponding effects on cardiovascular disease and even body weight.

Doesn't TFA link to some of that evidence?

Well, here's some more.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21430112
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Nitrosodimethylamine#Properties

This study indicates Vitamin C may lower cancer risk from NDMA. NDMA can be found at dangerous levels in chlorinated water - essentially anyone with 'city water.' And there's currently no EPA regulation on NDMA content of drinking water.

I found the study referenced in this broad examine article on Vitamin C.
http://examine.com/supplements/Vitamin+C/#summary1-1

So, there's credence to the notion of Vitamin C for cancer prevention. One can argue prevention is better than chemo or radiation.

Not convinved that there is a cause and effect here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-cause_fallacy On the Vitamin E prostate cancer link that is easily resolved. First assume that there is no correlation then assume that people have read articles saying that it is helpful (this link implies that such information was around http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/october2011/10172011supplements.htm). So people with prostate cancer or at high risk took vitamin E and eventually had a higher death rate. Does the article take such things into account?

"Cooking on gas or electric stoves and electric toaster ovens was a major source of UFP, with peak personal exposures often exceeding 100,000 particles/cm and estimated emission rates in the neighborhood of 10 particles/min."

So in other words, a toaster puts out 10x more UFPs. Nothing to see here folks.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20087407

Males with Down syndrome usually cannot father children, while females demonstrate significantly lower rates of conception relative to unaffected individuals.[43] Women with DS are less fertile and often have difficulties with miscarriage, premature birth, and difficult labor. Without preimplantation genetic diagnosis, approximately half of the offspring of someone with Down syndrome also have the syndrome themselves.[43]

from Wikipedia ([43] is this research paper).

You are conflating "bi-polar" with "totally unpredictable" and "totally unpredictable" with at risk for killing their child.

Realize that means you are saying over 2% of US adults might kill their children.

actually there is... White rural Americans does not reproduce the way they used to.

You mean... they gave up intercourse and adopted pollination as the reproductive strategy?
You know? Given the distances to travel for the mating and the increased weight to carry, I find it a wonderful evolutive adaptation for the niche they occupy... a proof that life will find a way despite the smart phones or guns.

Drunk Man At Party Accidentally Shoots And Kills Himself In Los Angeles

Gun Falls Out Of Holster, Wounds Man In Wal-Mart Parking Lot

Texas Man Wounds Girlfriend While Confronting Ex With Shotgun

6-Year-Old Shoots 5-Year-Old While Playing Cops And Robbers

12-Year-Old Shoots 9-Year-Old Brother, Then Shoots Himself In Ohio

Three Handguns Found In Room Where Ohio 3-Year-Old Was Shot And Killed

In gun-nut-land, where you are John Wayne/Rambo/The Lone Ranger, only the "bad guys" are ever hurt by guns. Here in the real world, guns cause immense amounts of damage.

Use of army weapons and private firearms for suicide and homicide in the region of Basel, Switzerland.

OBJECTIVES: Switzerland has one of the highest rates of firearm suicides in the world. International studies show a positive correlation between the rate of households with guns and femicides with guns. Because its defense system requires a militia to keep personal firearms at home, Switzerland has a high rate of households with a gun.

METHODS: Records of suicides in the region of Basel between 1992 and 1996 were reviewed. Suicides with either army weapons or private firearms and suicides by other means were compared. Methods and types of homicides that occurred in the region at the same time were also analyzed.

FINDINGS: Firearm suicides were clearly the most frequent means of suicide. They were also used in 30.0% of domestic homicides, although other means were used at similar rates. Firearms for suicide were mainly used by men, especially army weapons. These men were younger, professionally better qualified, and fewer had ever been treated in one of the local state psychiatric services.

DISCUSSION: The use of firearms for suicide, rather than homicide, and particularly of army weapons by young, well-educated men, requires more attention in debates and informed policy regarding access to firearms and suicide prevention in Switzerland.

There is a reason that you cling to your guns, and use phrases like "a stupid fucking idea". Your unadmitted goal is intimidation through the threat of violence. You are a bully/coward, and gun ownership is fundamental to your violent fantasies. Even as you read this, you are wishing that you could jam a gun in my face and make me back down.

You're not alone. I've already had threats of personal violence here on Slashdot for saying pretty much the same thing. The last genius called me out for hiding using internet anonymity. He challenged me to give my real name so he could find me and hurt me in an unspecified fashion, I assume using a gun. Of course, he was hiding his identity as well, which was a good thing for him because gun ownership and violent threats are a potential federal crime. Des Moines Man Sentenced to Prison for Internet Threats of Violence and Possessing a Firearm During Threats of Violence . Just remember that before you reply.

What if I have blue balls?

In that case, Scuzzlebutt's *Rim shot* may help.

What if I have blue balls?

Fuckyoushima may not have been the origin of his cancer, but it probably accelerated the disease.

If that is the case, it's much more likely that the suppression of his immunity system's ability to fight cancer was a result of psychological stress (which he was exposed to) associated with the incident and the government's meddling into his culpability, rather than a result of acute radiation poisoning (which he didn't experience anyway).

"It's all political BS. Lifetime healthcare costs for smokers are similar to non-smokers. Smokers tend to die younger, and lung cancer is an average-cost way to die."

Any evidence for this? Everything I've ever seen is to the contrary, are you sure you're not just making this up? Scientifically sound objective studies have always shown smokers to cost more to society not just in terms of healthcare costs but in terms of lost productivity and such too:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_137481.html

http://bma.org.uk/working-for-change/improving-and-protecting-health/tobacco/smoking-statistics

Even if they do die much younger they're going to be less healthy and require more sick leave at a younger age when everyone is still productive and contributing to the economy.

Most people who think there's no cost to anyone else of smoking is smokers who want to try and justify that it's their habit and theirs alone and no one else has any right to interfere in it, or tobacco companies simply spreading FUD to protect their profits. Sorry, but it isn't true, that bad habit is costing people like me, the rest of us have to carry smokers because of the choice they made. You talk about smokers right to smoke, what happened to everyone elses right to breathe clean air when a smoker walks past them smoking in a public place? what happened to everyone else's right to choose not to subsidise people's bad habits? It's funny how smokers and their supporters only talk about protecting rights when it suits the smokers when what they really mean is they want their rights protected at the expense of everyone else's. Talk about selfish.

I'll defend the right of smokers to smoke but only if they do so such that it has no impact on anyone else - do it in their own homes sure, pay for the added healthcare costs and accept a reduction in wage for the loss of productivity it causes, and it's fine. Do that and you can smoke all you want, I could care less, but smoke in a way that impacts me and yes I'll campaign to have it banned and made more costly so that I'm not subsidising it. Everyone else has rights too, not just smokers.

Y'know, I think that business about antibiotics breeding antibiotic resistant bacteria applies more to the antibiotics that are safe for a mammal to ingest than to cell phones, hand soap & such. Bleach has been used for antibiotic purposes for a lot of years, but I have yet to hear of a super strain of bleach resistant bacteria (although this article comes close).

More than likely there is no need to move to "indulge" in cannibalism.

Victim of cannibal agreed to be eaten

I don't think that the Temperance movement believed that it would stop all alcohol consumption, but that it would significantly decrease it. And they were right. Not only that, once prohibition was lifted, per-capita alcohol consumption took about 40 years to reach its previous level. The decrease in alcohol consumption had a number of impacts on other public health issues.

Did Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation

Except that their brains are different!

Paradoxically estrogens make a brain male. Estrogens masculinize the brain but can't cross the brain-blood barrier. On the other hand it's the testosterone that can cross it where gets converted to estradiol in the brain throught the alpha-5-reductase and other steroidogenic enzymes.

So coinciding with popular belief, it's a scientific fact that both men and women brains are physiologically different.

Your wait has been over for a while. Here's a paper that used hESC. Here's one that uses human IPSC differentiated towards early neural stem cells.

Which is irrelevant to the discussion. The fact remains these people, like drug users, have made a choice to do something which is known to cause health issues. Why should the rest of us be forced to pay to protect them from their own choice?

Also, there are contradictory studies on how much smokers cost, to wit:

Abstract

However, more recent studies show smokers DO cost more in healthcare than non-smokers:

NBCnews

Further, the following article talks about not only smokers, but the obese. In both cases the response from people is, "It's my life, I can do with it as I want." Which is correct. With few exceptions, one is free to live as they choose.

However, that does not mean your actions don't have consequences to the rest of us. In this case, their actions cost me money.

The Ledger

It might be the other way around. Were to the proteins responsible source from? Head or body.
Like that experiment where they sew a young and old mouse together as a kind of Siamese twin.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/05/making-old-hearts-younger/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/10220

No pump, I know of, can be overhauled without taking it offline. They move too much which isn't conducive to fine adjustments and create a pressurized system that will lose fluids if opened. That's why the bypass machine was invented because during an overhaul your pump if offline. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/hs/during.html

That's nice that a new technique is developed to measure/observe bacteria, but what's with all that bullshit about rushed bacterial infection?

PR idiots.

As a clinical (critical care, if you care to know) physician, I too am a bit puzzled by the description.

Patients in septic shock are very sick and the prescription of antibiotics is a delicate subject....antibiotics need to be started within a few hours of diagnosis, and getting it wrong (prescribing an antibiotic to which the bacteria is resistant) and the patient has a 50% increase in mortality. To this end we use the broadest spectrum antibiotics available, and most hospitals develop an "Antibiogram " specific for their institution and their pt population. These antibiotics are so powerful, it is rare, but not unheard of, for organisms to be resistant to them.

The process goes like this:

Pt is admitted to an ICU

Cultures of all likely sources (urine, lung, blood, CSF, abscess fluid) are obtained

Antibiotics are started (sometimes before the cultures are drawn, but ideally after), as well as other therapies

Over the next few days the antibiotics are "De-escalated" as dictated by the cultures (see below)

Hopefully the pt recovers and their care is down-graded and ultimately discharged

The cultures are sent to the lab after being draw and in a process that (time-wise) parallels the above:

The sample is extracted from the specimen container and are plated on a growth medium or placed in a broth

They are allowed to grow for (around) 24 hours

The plates are examined to determine if anything actually grew (may take up to 3 days for blood)

If something grew, two processes happen:

The culture is sent through a variety of tests (gram-stain, etc) to determine the species of bacteria which will dictate the next step.

The specimen is then re-suspended in a culture medium and plated and allowed to grow in the presence of antibiotics thus yielding that particular organisms antibiogram

A you can see, there really isn't anywhere to rush the process. And I would be very interested to see how they can speed this up with their technology....the who purpose of the plating is to amplify the bacteria from the milieu of the body fluids and to find the dominant organism growing.

In addition, some cultures are already "contaminated" with body flora (e.g. upper respiratory and stool) and the purpose of the culture is to amplify pathological bacteria from the benign-normal flora.

Longer video that gives a better front to back description