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References?
I read articles about nutrition and cognition some time ago. In general high energy expenditure and low energy intake have about the same effect (however rather long-term as far as I recall). "Exercise and the brain: something to chew on" listed this food as potentially beneficial (though effects are not well-studied yet):
- omega-3 fatty acid (e.g. fish oil),
- some teas,
- fruits,
- folate (vitamin B9),
- spices, and
- other vitamins.

In another article, "Impact of Energy Intake and Expenditure on Neuronal Plasticity", I found that saturated fats and cholesterol increase the risk of cognitive decline.

Without getting into too much detail with #4, note that urine at least functions as an antibacterial agent: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=297400

As for the other part, well, I'm pretty sure that for most of our evolutionary past, we tended to die long before incontinence would set in...

How about ImageJ ? It's a light weight, free, fairly powerful, extensible java-based image editor. I don't know exactly how well it compares to Paint.net in terms of usability and features, but it's worth checking out.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but I believe you may be thinking of this study and its precursors: Rice, M. (1997). Violent offender research and implications for the criminal justice system. American Psychologist, 52(4), 414-423. At least, a number of sources seem to cite to it for this claim, which is actually very interesting. One explanation was that the therapy served to increase the subjects' sense of self-worth and confidence, which made them even more dangerous. For them, only medication seemed to do any good. If the research the article describes can add more options, that seems to me like a good thing.

There's now strong evidence that it's possible to train fluid intelligence. For a long time it was considered impossible, and most types of training are indeed ineffective, but not all:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/04/25/0801268105.abstract
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cites=7546690114547074715&hl=en
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18556560

If you want to try it yourself you can download software here:
http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/

Good point, even though some regard it only as funny.

Will our silly government limit itself to censoring German language sites only or will they prevent me from posting inflammatory comments to foreign language forums? I will not test this lest I spoil my Karma.

I have my doubts though that our politicians are totally unaware of American politics as they are essentially using an emotionally loaded issue to foist censorship of a rather complex medium to a target audience that has age-wise passed beyond the capability to understand the subtleties of DNS redirection. Age may not be the only issue here but I just had to put all the problems into one sentence. Framing has been all the rage in the US,

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2631940

http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/?p=83

and I guess our politicians advisers are smart enough to read those papers too.

So now we frame the internet as a "lawless chaos space" as Ms. von der Leyen puts it. The poor little internet has been framed as something worse than the space that surrounds us with all those chaotic n-body systems, it is even lawless - Gasp!

I suppose there are laws against all the nastiness worth policing on the internet but I guess it is cheaper to just close your eyes and pretend it is not there, even cheaper (just in time for the next election to prove they have done "something") than going ahead and forming some international consensus on what is objectionable and what not. I guess the world hasn't come far enough yet, for us not to pull an Iran, i.e. to fence ourself off rather than some few misfits out.

Weight of evidence (WoE) is a phrase used to describe the type of consideration made in a situation where there is uncertainty, and which is used to ascertain whether the evidence or information supporting one side of a cause or argument is greater than that supporting the other side. We all frequently make personal WoE decisions in our daily lives, but more-formal WoE approaches are used in many different kinds of circumstance â" for example, in commercial, educational, health, legal and scientific contexts

The weight of scientific evidence against the use of pesticides is quite frankly, frighting. For a decent condensed summary of many scientific papers from many fields demonstrating the effects of pesticides, (especially on the endocrine system) check out the book/collection of scientific reports Our Stolen Future. In 1995 worldwide pesticide sales were around 30 billion. Who knows what they are today?

If you search for the terms "evolution" and "hiv" on pubmed you get nearly 5,000 papers back. That's just one disease. One of the big problems about most, probably all, diseases caused by some kind of pathogen is that they have huge population sizes and grow very fast. Evolution can move damn fast under those situations, and that's why we've got multiple-antibiotic resistant bugs out there that didn't exist 30 years ago. If you're working in epidemiology or virology or any disease-related field you're de facto doing evolutionary biology research.

Wrong.

You're throwing around assumptions again.

First of all, there is no proof these antibiotic resistant bugs didn't exist 30 years ago. What we did NOT have 30 years ago was the antibiotics to kill off the rest of the population. All you're observing is that they are dominant now. Why? We're killing off the rest of the population. This should be common knowledge. Unfortunately, too many people have minds that run on one track.

Understanding DNA has nothing to do with Darwinian evolution per se... it has to do with DNA. If you're doing research on some strain of a bacteria that is immune to all known antibiotics, it's not as if it necessarily "evolved" to develop the immunity, but rather has some gene active or inactive in the first place which happens to make it immune. If you're familiar with the process, it's more or less random on finding what gene that new antibiotics should target.

Certainly, this process involves natural selection type scenarios, but the resistant bacteria didn't necessarily develop it in response to our current antibiotics... they are often simply just presenting themselves in higher numbers because they're the only ones that survived (and even thrived).

Now whether you believe they "evolved" to get to be resistant is neither here nor there. The important part is understanding genetics, and how to manipulate them to achieve the desired effect.

Recent HIV research has found that, although incredibly, incredibly rare, some individuals do possess immunity to HIV. It happens to be certain genes that do that... recently evolved? Possible, but not necessarily. Active? 100% yes. Now if the entire population were to be infected with HIV, only those very few would survive, obviously, and soon the majority would have this, because everyone else would be dead. Natural selection? Yes, but not necessarily by developing some new gene in response to an HIV epidemic. For all we know, some people have had this immunity for thousands of years. It just doesn't surface in large numbers until it's vital to survival.

Please don't mix up natural selection concepts with Darwinian evolution concepts. Natural selection is necessary for Darwinian evolution, but not the other way around.

I call bullshit. Here's one: http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00042081 Prevention of Autogenous Vein Graft Failure in Coronary Artery Bypass Procedures

This study -- which was actually of a drug used to treat tissue before transplantation, rather than of a surgical technique -- found that "Failure of at least 1 vein graft is quite common within 12 to 18 months after CABG surgery. Edifoligide is no more effective than placebo in preventing these events. Longer-term follow-up and additional research are needed to determine whether edifoligide has delayed beneficial effects, to understand the mechanisms and clinical consequences of vein graft failure, and to improve the durability of CABG surgery."

I was excited that you might have found a surgical technique that meets the placebo-controlled blinded test standard, now I'm disappointed. You really ought to read a study's findings before you cite it.

Try Googling randomized controlled trial surgery

Following your link I find studies where the "control" is drug therapy or another medical intervention. If you have one where surgery is compared versus a sham procedure, please, point it out to me -- perhaps there's one mentioned in a study behind a paywall.

It's no good to have a study find that "surgery X is better than drug Y" -- maybe the benefits were due to a few days of enforced rest, skilled nursing care, and hospital food, not to mention that nebulous "placebo effect", or even a side-effect of general anesthesia, rather than due to the actual cutting and sewing of flesh.

The term surgeons use is not "placebo" but "sham surgery".

Sham surgery is a form of placebo.

It may be OK to thread a catheter into somebody's coronary arteries and squirt saline, but nobody is going to ask a patient to undergo abdominal or chest surgery, with a mortality of 1% or even 0.1%, just to satisfy somebody's idea of a perfect scientific design.

But sham thoracic and cranial surgery has been performed. The first, and most famous, use of a placebo surgical technique as a control was to investigate mammary artery ligation for relief of angina pectoris. And tests of transplantation of human embryonic dopamine neurons and of fetal pig cells into the brains Parkinson's patients, were also compared to sham techniques. In all three of these cases, the "real" operation was no more effective than the placebo.

We can add to that a test of arthroscopic surgery for knee arthritis which failed to show any benefit of a real surgery over a fake cut.

So again, I ask: if anyone has an example of a placebo-controlled trail of a surgical technique where the real technique proved more effective that the placebo, please post it.

1-sentence course in medical ethics: A doctor can't do anything to a patient that wouldn't benefit the patient.

The fact that it's difficult to te

If you search for the terms "evolution" and "hiv" on pubmed you get nearly 5,000 papers back. That's just one disease. One of the big problems about most, probably all, diseases caused by some kind of pathogen is that they have huge population sizes and grow very fast. Evolution can move damn fast under those situations, and that's why we've got multiple-antibiotic resistant bugs out there that didn't exist 30 years ago. If you're working in epidemiology or virology or any disease-related field you're de facto doing evolutionary biology research. Also, given Kansas' infamous pro-creationism leanings it will be much harder to recruit scientists there. Any scientist with children would be reluctant to move there because they would worry about science-deniers on the board of education tampering with their kid's education. I doesn't help in recruiting those of us without kids, either.

BS!

Just because as an academic, I could copy a commercial work and make a few changes to it with out fear of the copyright police coming after me, doesn't mean that a commercial entity could now take that work and use it as if there wasn't any copyright of the original. It just means my contribution is free. This is like including snippets of BSD code in GPL code, and wouldn't harm any projects created by outside communities.

As far as fights breaking out over where work was produced, this would be no different than current patent rights issues in academia. If you aren't being productive, or there is a clear conflict of interest your institution is likely to fire you.

Finally, if copyright is abolished in academia, this wouldn't stop you from selling a commercial textbook with protection against other commercial, it just means that students in academia won't have to pay to get a copy of it. Most likely this means books written specifically for students would have to be funded though some other means, such as a grant or charter. I can't see how this would be a bad thing as some of the experiences I've had with the current system tells me it's severly broken. For instance the professor who taught chemistry at WPI mandated his book be used for the class. No one else used the book because it was so poorly written, making the on-line used market virtually non-existent and thereby forcing all sales to go though the school bookstore for twice the cost of any other chemistry text. Not to mention the correction manual that came with the book was almost half as large as the book it self, making fluid reading nearly impossible. Furthermore, NIH already hosts many text books they've bought the rights too or that have been donated. Similarly, there's a whole slew of textbooks already being published on the internet for free and being modified like an open source software projects.

Possibly, but we won't know unless we find.. omg.. a citation for your statement.

Not quite a citation for the statement, but NIH's budget is ~30.5billion/year while the DOD expects to spend $78.94 billion in research in 2010

Is there $100 billion dollars of private research dollars floating around out there? I doubt it, but please do try to prove me wrong

If you support stem cell research (as I do) have the balls to call it what it is...

Induction of fibroblasts to become pluripotent (IPSC) can actually be described as controversial, at least in the academic sense, not so much ethically controversial as ESC use is. The field is extremely new, it was only a few years ago that IPSC were discovered/invented. New ways of making IPSC are coming out at a pace that is faster than biological research usually moves, because the rewards are so great and so many people are working on it.

It's inevitable that there are going to be some scientists who come to opposite conclusions from published articles on the subject. One lab found that four genes transfected into fibroblasts will cause them to become pluripotent, others find a different four genes. How many of the results have been duplicated by other labs? Not all of them, since again, they're relatively recent discoveries. In April of this year, researchers found that you can just incubate cells in modified proteins to make them pluripotent. I'm sure there are quite a few experts who are skeptical about that, and probably some who aren't convinced the whole field is anything more than a distraction.

It's not the same type of controversy as surrounds ESC, fortunately, but the techniques used to make IPSC can still be described as controversial as there's still reasonable skepticism about some of them, and there will be for a few more years, though I think everyone expects them to be validated.

Anway, stem cells are different than the reprogrammed cells beyond that. True stem cells are natural cells which have normal roles in cellular proliferation. Induced pluripotent stem cells, while sharing many of the characteristics of true stem cells, are not exactly "Stem cells" because they're completely artificial.

By the way, another complication of stem cells and IPSC being so new is that the terminology itself hasn't been set in stone. A few years ago a defining characteristic of stem cells was said to be that they were slow cycling, wheras since then the field has seemed to disfavor that as a hallmark. For all I know, it may have swung back the other way. There are undoubtedly some people who lump IPSC in with stem cell research, others don't. As a developmental biologist, I tend to think the artificial versus natural is a pretty important distinction.

Similarly, combining the hydrogen and carbon in slightly different configurations leads to a solid at room temperature. Look at the waistlines of many Americans (myself included) for examples of this magical substance.

Does anyone out there know the formula for calculating the burn time of a single wick embedded in a given amount of human depot fat? I've always wondered how long I'd burn with a wick sticking out of my belly button.

So urine screening has worked by testing metabolite levels as a patient responds to thiopurine treatment?

You're obviously being purposefully (and uselessly) facetious. The fact that this patent covers thiopurine has nothing to do with the novelty of the patent; in fact, just the opposite. If theirs was truly such a great discovery, why are they not claiming to own the knowledge of tying metabolites to the levels of drug metabolism in general? Why specifically do they need to craft their claim such that it only applies to thiopurine? Is this the biotech equivalent of patents that take something we've been doing for 50 years, append "on the Internet" to it and look around for people to sue?

We've known about drug metabolites since 1840, with much of the research coming in the 1950s. We've recognized the importance of making tests for these metabolites for various reasons since the 1970s. These patents were filed in 1999 and 2001 and granted in 2002 and 2004 (respectively).

Essentially, this is no different than testing you for diseases. You're not tested for having a disease, you're tested for the presence and quantities of the anti-bodies for that disease in your blood. Metabolites are basically leftover material from the metabolism of a particular drug, and more means you've metabolized more.

So what is the novelty? How has it not been common knowledge for--take your pick--forty, sixty or one hundred and eighty years? How on earth should a patent have been granted for a process by which you count something we've known should be counted for decades? They obviously make no claim to having discovered the specific process, they just added "of thiopurine" at the end of what we've been doing for fifty years and looked around for somebody to sue.

Sounds familiar. They're patent trolls.

Actually, they published the work in Science.

I think you can read the abstract there without a subscription. If you can't, you can go to PubMed and search for 18403709 (that's the PMID).

You can't really call publishing in Science not publishing in a real scientific journal.

In conclusion, results of the study obviate that the apparent protective action of C(60)HyFn in vivo is determined by its considerable ability to decrease X-ray-generated reactive oxygen species. Based on the results and that neat C(60) is nontoxic, actually in the hydrated form, without side effects and with sufficient radioprotective effects in low doses, C(60)HyFn may be considered as a novel antioxidant agent, which substantially diminishes the harmful effects of ionizing radiation.

C(60) isn't that a fulerene/buckyball? So this guy wants you to eat buckyballs?

Not the BioLabs stuff, the wild speculation and false statements spouted here being imaginary. Not a one here so far has attempted to find out if there actually were peer reviewed publications by Andrei Gudkov on the subject of radiation treatment and/or radioprotectants.

Go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez

Put 'Gudkov, Andrei' in as the search term

You'll get 52 results with his name given as 'Gudkov AV'; the abstracts make it clear it's him by giving his associations.

Repeat the search with 'Gudkov, Andrei radiation' as the search term.

You'll get 10 results, all of which pertain to radiation treatment, radioprotectants and specifically the role of p53.

Two of those entries are reviews. Those would be the most instructive to any who actually want to find out if there's actually research on the subject and what it's about. Here's the two abstracts:

(1) Nat Rev Cancer. 2003 Feb;3(2):117-29.

The role of p53 in determining sensitivity to radiotherapy.

Gudkov AV, Komarova EA.

Department of Molecular Biology, NC20, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44195, USA. gudkov@ccf.org

Ionizing radiation (IR) has proven to be a powerful medical treatment in the fight against cancer. Rational and effective use of its killing power depends on understanding IR-mediated responses at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels. Tumour cells frequently acquire defects in the molecular regulatory mechanisms of the response to IR, which sensitizes them to radiation therapy. One of the key molecules involved in a cell's response to IR is p53. Understanding these mechanisms indicates new rational approaches to improving cancer treatment by IR.

Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2005 Jun 10;331(3):726-36.

Prospective therapeutic applications of p53 inhibitors.

Gudkov AV, Komarova EA.

Department of Molecular Genetics, Lerner Research Institute, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA. gudkov@ccf.org

p53, in addition to being a key cancer preventive factor, is also a determinant of cancer treatment side effects causing excessive apoptotic death in several normal tissues during cancer therapy. p53 inhibitory strategy has been suggested to protect normal tissues from chemo- and radiotherapy, and to treat other pathologies associated with stress-mediated activation of p53. This strategy was validated by isolation and testing of small molecule p53 inhibitor pifithrin-alpha that demonstrated broad tissue protecting capacity. However, in some normal tissues and tumors p53 plays protective role by inducing growth arrest and preventing cells from premature entrance into mitosis and death from mitotic catastrophe. Inhibition of this function of p53 can sensitize tumor cells to chemo- and radiotherapy, thus opening new potential application of p53 inhibitors and justifying the need in pharmacological agents targeting specifically either pro-apoptotic or growth arrest functions of p53.

===

Note: 'Apoptosis' is the tendency for cells to die off based on signals from other nearby cells that are dying off -- a 'suicide signal'. This happens in many situations, radiation exposure being one of them.

As for emphasis on ethnicity, sure, they do mention it. The source noted is an Israeli newspaper. They have right to be proud since one of their citizens is accomplishing something notable to the world. Nobody seems to find it a problem when US newspapers note that a scientist is from the US. That's so common that it's not even noticed, unless you're not from the US. 90% of scientific publications are from the US. In those from other countries it's common for such emphasis to be included so the w

Here is a link to an article about a radioprotective protein by the professor listed in the TFA.

Pollution and such can be handled easily through protection of life and property - if you damage either - you are liable.

And who pays for hurricane damage or for flooded land? What about health problems from poison ivy?

The answer to all of it is to protect individual rights and freedoms

By what mechanism? How do you protect Indonesia or Venice from submerging? How is an Inuit protected from thin ice while out hunting? Inuits are already paying for the West's use of chemicals like PCBs which bioaccumulates. Puget Sound is contaminated with PCBs and other man made chemicals. Orcas and other wildlife can be driven extinct in the Sound because of them.

Falcon

I would suggest that you spend some time studying the topic in more detail before you make comments on /.

At all the genome conferences I've been to the "genome" includes everything -- the chromosome number and architecture, the coding, regulatory & non-coding regions (tRNA, rRNA, miRNA/siRNA, telomere length, etc.). But the non-coding, highly variable parts of the genome can be considered part of the "big picture" because the amount of *really* junk DNA may function as a free radical "sink" which protects the critical DNA from more rapid mutation (and thus effects rates of cancer development and aging). The DNA composition and ultrastructure may also effect things like gene expression (DNA unwinding temperature, variable access to genes, etc.). It would be a gross simplification to divide a gnome into simply coding vs. non-coding regions.

Books like DNA Replication, DNA Repair and Mutagenesis and Aging of the Genome (~2000+ pages) are good places to start on this topic. Bruce Ames demonstrated in the early '90s that all cells are receiving damage to the DNA (thousands of "hits" per cell per day) and usually repair it successfully. If you knew about the 5+ types of DNA repair (BER, NER, MMR, HR, NHEJ) involving 150+ proteins or had some knowledge of the types of DNA damage which have been discovered in genetic diseases (OMIM) and cancers (Gancer Genome Anatomy project(s)) you would understand that mutational repair does occur within both coding and noncoding DNA and that such damage is probably the core cause of cancer, aging and arguably many other major causes of death (decline of the immune system, susceptibility to influenza or pneumonia, aging of the blood vessels, heart and other muscles, etc.). The accumulation of mutations *does* happen in non-dividing cells and is cumulative. Karanjawala & Lieber [1] have estimated that each cell of a 70 year old individual may contain more than 100 mutations in the critical regions of genes. The accumulation of the proper set of "wrong" mutations (5-10) in dividing cells tends to steer towards cancer while mutations in less critical genes, or non-dividing cells, tends to result in general aging.

There are several million differences in the, esp. SNPs, between the genomes of each human, which is what makes each of us (excepting identical twins/triplets) "different". Speciation results when those differences become sufficient to effectively prevent breeding between population groups. However, the same mutation accumulation that drives differences in individuals and evolution among species can also occur within a single individual. There are many more cells in a single human body (which are derived from a single genome) than there are humans on the planet (~3 orders of magnitude difference), and I suspect more than have ever lived on the planet, so it is unlikely that even within a single individual all of the "genomes" are the same. A genome can best be considered an "average" (esp. if the DNA used to produce the sequence was derived from more than a single cell -- the typical case).

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15272504

'I say we fork and refactor the entire project.'

You mean like this?:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16729053

While some people have a slower metabolism than others, you can't buck the laws of physics. If you're getting fat you're eating too much for you.

Also I wouldn't regard self-reportred claims of how much people eat as being particularly reliable

This is flagrantly incorrect. The population of the U.S. is an immediate and obvious counterexample. Humans don't actually (organically) breed like viruses; we only consume like them.

Nope. The US and developing world numbers represent a counter example to larger trends (and which, ironically represents a way of living that is *UNSUSTAINABLE* for the current human population). The US is only about 5% of the world population.

see:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1247545
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1332674
http://panearth.org/panearth/WVPI/Papers/CarryingCapacity.pdf

citing above, "the number of other factors that influence human population size is beyond human capacity to list, comprehend, and synthesize."

This is flagrantly incorrect. The population of the U.S. is an immediate and obvious counterexample. Humans don't actually (organically) breed like viruses; we only consume like them.

Nope. The US and developing world numbers represent a counter example to larger trends (and which, ironically represents a way of living that is *UNSUSTAINABLE* for the current human population). The US is only about 5% of the world population.

see:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1247545
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1332674
http://panearth.org/panearth/WVPI/Papers/CarryingCapacity.pdf

citing above, "the number of other factors that influence human population size is beyond human capacity to list, comprehend, and synthesize."

Honestly, the argument the GP is making is that we should, by our inaction, allow some poor people in some far away country to starve to death.

What??? No.

Please show me how you conclude this. Whomever modded this as insightful is as confused as you are.

If the GP really wants to make a difference and free up some resources, maybe he should start with himself.

You know nothing about me. I ride a bike to work, I grow my own food. Do you?

People on this thread need to go read some research on the issues of food and population. Most every post I read here is grossly off base, including you:

from http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1332674

According to the empirical research (Hopfenberg 2003), human population growth is a rapidly cycling positive feedback loop in which food availability drives population growth and this growth in human numbers gives rise to the mistaken impression that food production needs to be increased even more.

see also
Hopfenberg R. Human carrying capacity is determined by food availability. Popul Environ. 2003;25(2):109117.

The USA *ALONE* produces more than 6 times the food requirements of the entire human population.

and a wiki discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation#Population_as_a_function_of_food_availability

This is an enormously complex area, but some countries that demonstrate negative population growth fails to discredit the larger pattern of 10,000 years of human history (and many other species) that food availability drives population.

and as an antipyretic you should take what exactly? The WHO recommends children take paracetamol for fevers above 38.5C.

why not Ibuprofen?

Get another job.

Shift work is physically unheathy: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1274227

In fact, I'm willing to give you my secret patented method for avoid stupid bullshit assignments: "Say No". If you're valuable, chances are excellent that you won't be fired and they'll find some other poor soul to stuff into that slot.

The secret to a happy life is being selective about how much BS you accept and from who.

This isn't a new concept. The public pays for scientific research at an institution of higher learning also funded by tax dollars, yet sometimes the only way you could get a copy of the results is pay for an expensive subscription to a scientific journal, which claims copyright on the published data.

This is a good example...one that has been recently addressed by the NIH public access policy, much to the chagrin of the "expensive scientific journals." As the Internet makes data mining more accessible (and therefore more common), I think we'll see more of these types of arrangements for government-funded projects.

Actually, I believe I specifically said "electric" cars. Not hybrids.

I actually think hybrids are an excellent middle-of-the-road (no pun intended) choice. They make power onsite, where it's needed, and the technology will only get better.

Full electric is still too early to be truly a solution, in my opinion. Lithium Ion, while not horrible, is still a large question mark. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12904779
for example. It's the same with Nuclear power. It's clean, it's pretty safe, but nobody is advocating putting a nuke in every suburb. And while the goal is admirable, even in the best possible universe (where all energy is created in a fashion with no environmental impact in local safe sites) there will still be issues to resolve in having massive batteries cruising all over. If you look at the number of cars on the road, and the average life span, you will see that this utopia requires an amazing recycling infrastructure as well.

So seriously, people look:
The reach exceeds the grasp.

I think we need to look for modern day, possible, likely solutions, and stop arguing that global impact is impossible, OR that some massive apocalypse is imminent. Neither is true, both are exaggerated.

This is all just "truthiness". Reality, as always, is somewhere in the middle between the extreme right and extreme left.
 

That's highly unlikely. There are basic reasons why we age, which boil down to the laws of physics and our relationship with energy. A good read (albeit highly technical) can be found here, where ageing is put in a cellular context. One of the ideas: our cells age, and yet they give rise to young structures (babies are born very young, but their parents are not young). This process allows us to be "immortal" by spawning off copies. Bacteria make exact copies, we make mixed copies. "Natural selection and immortality" http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18720024

What if she is the first person not to have the disease we all have and that she is aging but really really slow?

That is an interesting thought. There's actually some molecular evidence that aging, on a cellular level, is a result of a specific mechanism, not just a general and inevitable accumulation of damage.

This paper is... well one I haven't actually read. But I did see a seminar by the author. He suggested that accumulation of a specific protein fragment was causing aging. It was found in one of those premature aging diseases (Hutchinson-Gilford progeria specifically) with increased abundance, but they do find it accumulates as people get older, changing some cell mechanisms. The theory was that the full length protein, which has important normal functions, was cut in a specific way with low frequency, but over time the fragments build up and interfere with different processes, the effects of which seem to mimic aging.

Of course, it's not definitive that this is how you age, and there are several other mechanisms which might be causing aging in specific ways, but the implications of the theories are interesting: it might be possible to block those pathways to stop aging.

Unfortunately for this specific girl, I don't see anything to indicate she's not aging, I think it's probably she's just not actually growing. Growing and aging do appear independant, as progeria patients appear to age more rapidly but don't grow rapidly. It is possible that whatever is keeping her from growing will also prevent her from aging, but I don't see any reason to expect that.

citation needed

Sure, I'll bite. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19492313?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Not all medical systems are equally sensitive, and if there is a one in ten million risk of a technical error causing incorrect data for a patient the risk of prescribing the wrong medication is a lot higher if the doctor can't get the whole picture because information is locked away in an inaccessible system or only exists on paper.

There is the Unified Medical Language System that is supposed to address some of the issues regarding interoperability, but I'm sure that there are a lot of problems left to take care of.

Another problem with medical records is the privacy issue. Some data may be embarrassing like sexually transferable diseases. Others like broken bones are rather harmless for the privacy.

And the issue of keeping medical records accessible is an international problem.

I should clarify - men are at remarkably low risk of contracting many STDs from an academic point of view. Phrased differently, male-to-female transmission is significantly more likely than the converse. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to go having sex with random HIV+ people just because you're male.

Reference: http://books.google.com/books?id=7U9ZE_8y0kwC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=HIV+transmission+rates+male&source=bl&ots=DGBEVHp57m&sig=0nxlYdd1GprIToXM131tjYix9gY&hl=en&ei=3OBASrvjGqaxtgeu55ScCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7

Interestingly, that relationship doesn't seem to hold in developing countries, where the transmission risk is about equal: http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102239234.html

I'm always of two minds when it comes to a rationale like that, because I don't smoke, I drink alcohol infrequently and never to excess, and I avoid over-the-counter drugs unless they are prescribed by my doctor. So, if all of it was made illegal I wouldn't really care (although I'd miss the occasional drink).

But I also respect the right of other people to do what they want with their lives and body, even if it is stupid if done to excess, as long as it doesn't impact other people negatively and as long as they are doing so with full knowledge of the effects -- i.e. an informed choice and usage that respects other people's rights. So, if people want to smoke tobacco or pot -- go right ahead, as long as you're not blowing it in my face or stinking up the air I'm breathing, or climb into a car and start driving heavy equipment or a car around stoned. If you want to drink alcohol to the point of drunkenness -- go right ahead, as long as you don't get in a car or start swinging your fists at me because you don't know which way is up. And none of this stuff should be sold without strong regulations on the quality of the stuff (i.e. food/drug safety), on the people providing it (e.g., bars saying 'no' before people get dangerously drunk), and to ensure the requirement to disclose as flagrantly as possible what the effects, risks, and legal implications are.

In other words, go ahead and legalize pot. But I expect genuine, medically-documented side effects to be fully disclosed, and I expect people to be held legally responsible for their actions if they do things that harm others while impaired. None of that has anything to do with "moral panic", but with being responsible as a supplier and when using it -- and that goes for all the things you've listed as "same if not worse". Whether it is as harmful or harmless as some people claim doesn't really matter to that sensible goal. The point is to give people the information they need in order to be responsible.

As someone else has reported in another note, the source for that info may not be impartial or accurate. Here's something a little more authoritative that suggests to me that marijuana should be regulated at least as strongly as tobacco is, because it carries similar health risks, plus the additional danger of impairment when using it.

Wrong...

A condom is not 100% safe, it reduces the odds of getting STDs with 85% (only staying in your mom's basement with the doors locked from in- & outside is).

You are forgetting the risk of the condom cracking, which happens quite a lot, actually. Next to that you are forgetting the odds of performing cunnilingus on a woman also brings risks with it (not a hell of a lot, between 0.5 and 1 in 10.000), but still...

Anyhow, even getting your partner tested doesn't really say anything, because the tests are only 99% sure 6 months after the unprotected sex, so anything in between isn't sure.
Trust between partners is a very important thing, but i wouldn't build my physical health upon it...

I could not find anything to support your claim of Mr. Tashkin being a "government expert". Can you provide a citation for that claim?

Sure, if you include the NIH! His name came up in multiple studies on pot when I entered his name in the search bar there. He's also referenced here in paragraph 8.

That's a lie. The only connection marijuana has with psychosis is that it irritates schizophrenic symptons, but so does alcohol. The psychiatric community is deathly afraid of marijuana, and make all sorts of claims as to its dangers, without a hint of hard, real research. If a patient smokes marijuana, they claim every single problem the patient is facing stems from the fact he or she smokes marijuana. From psychosis to depression -- it's all caused by marijuana. They claim marijuana's a depressant. The government claims it's a hallucinogen. Science claims it's medicine -- anti-nausea, pro-appetite, anti-depressant qualities. Don't believe me? Believe some real research. "The endocannabinoid system has been involved in the control of several neurophysiological and behavioural responses. Indeed, recent studies have suggested that the cannabinoid system could represent an important substrate for the control of emotional behaviour, and further research would probably help to identify new promising therapeutic targets. This paper reviews the results obtained in different animal models used to investigate emotional states after the manipulation of the endocannabinoid system. Cannabinoid compounds can induce anxiogenic- and anxiolytic-like responses in rodents depending on the experimental conditions. Studies using knockout mice lacking the CB1 cannabinoid receptors have shown the participation of this receptor in several behavioural responses including anxiety- and depressive-like states. Furthermore, the endocannabinoid system regulates the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, which is involved in providing an appropriate response to stressful situations. Recent studies have also demonstrated that the endocannabinoids can function as retrograde messengers, modulating the release of different neurotransmitter, including opioids, GABA and cholecystokinin that have been classically involved in the control of anxiety-like responses. All this recent information has further clarified the role played by the endogenous cannabinoid system in the control of emotional behaviour and provides data to support a new possible therapeutic use of cannabinoid compounds." Valverde, O. "Participation of the cannabinoid system in the regulation of emotional-like behaviour." 26 Nov. 2005. National Center for Biotechnology Information. 5 Jan. 2009. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed...kpos=4&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed

However, if the study is "how can we FIX what men don't like about condoms", then the study becomes very important, and might benefit society immensely.

From reading the actual research proposal abstract, yes, the goal of the research is determining what sorts of interventions will help encourage proper condom use:

Grant Number: 1R21HD060447-01

Project Title: Barriers to Correct Condom Use

PI Information: Name Email Title
JANSSEN, ERICK (Contact) ejanssen@indiana.edu PROFESSOR
SANDERS, STEPHANIE A.

Abstract: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sexually transmitted infections (STI), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), pose significant health risks. About half of the new HIV infections in the US are among people under age 25 years with the majority infected through sexual behavior. About one in three new diagnoses with HIV/AIDS are attributed to heterosexual transmission. Men who have sex with women play a major role in HIV transmission to women who can also pass it on to offspring. Consistent and correct use of condoms can be a highly effective method of preventing the transmission of HIV and many STIs. Yet, studies show that problems with condom use are common and that these problems pose a barrier to consistent and complete condom use. This project aims to advance our understanding of, among other factors, the role of cognitive and affective processes and condom application skills in explaining problems with condom use in young, heterosexual adult men. A multi-method approach - consisting of two studies and involving questionnaires, observational, and psychophysiological methods - will be used in conjunction with a skill-based intervention. The knowledge gained from the proposed research can be used to inform the development of innovative, more effective, and targeted intervention and education strategies tailored to the needs of individuals who have trouble using condoms effectively. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Sexually transmitted infections (STI), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), pose significant health risks. Consistent and correct use of condoms can be a highly effective method of preventing the transmission of HIV and many STIs, yet studies show that problems with condom use are common. This project is one of the first to examine under controlled conditions the role of cognitive and affective factors and condom skills in explaining condom use problems in young, heterosexual adult men.

The presence of a sperm granuloma at the vasectomy site prevents epididymal pressure build-up, perforation, and the formation of an epididymal sperm granuloma. It thus enhances reversibility of the vasectomy and lessens the likelihood of epididymal discomfort. In two prospective vasectomy series, a sperm granuloma was intentionally allowed to form by not sealing the testicular end of the vas. The sperm granuloma resulted in no instance of orchialgia, but created a greater risk of spontaneous recanalization. This latter problem could only be solved by more careful sealing of the upper end of the vas. In a separate series of nine patients vasectomized elsewhere and specifically referred to us for chronic and persistent postvasectomy orchialgia, seven had no sperm granuloma at the vasectomy site. Pain in these cases was localized in the epididymis and was relieved by vasovasotomy. Any technique of vasectomy carries a very small risk of orchialgia, whether due to the presence of a sperm granuloma at the vasectomy site or to increased epididymal pressure. PIP: In an Ottawa study, 410 patients consented to open-ended vasectomy, and in a St. Louis study, 23 patients underwent open-ended vasectomy, in which the abdominal end is cauterized but the lumen on the testicular side is not ligated, clipped, or cauterized. In the Ottawa series, 3% of the patients developed no sperm granuloma and 97% did develop sperm granuloma. The Concept unit was used on 148 patients with a 4% failure rate; however, the Hemoclip application was used on 262 patients with only a 0.4% failure rate. In the St. Louis series, all 23 patients developed sperm granulomas with l case of recanalization. In 9 patients referred to St. Louis for chronic and persistent postvasectomy orchialgia with pain localized in the epididymis, the pain was relieved by vasovasostomy. Evidence indicated that heat cautery was not as efficient a method of sealing the vas as the Hemoclips due to the high failure rate.

2004 NIH study on this: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=526278

Ambiguous results. Naturally "they" confuse the results by suggesting that energy extracted offsets the energy increase caused by global warming, thus a small net change and happy bunnies everywhere.

My guess: pulling tens of terawatts of energy out of the atmosphere will effect the climate.

Call it Atmospheric Thermal Depletion, and credit me. :)

It is you who do not understand the placebo effect. It has an objective, measurable outcome. Not just in your head, but in measurable clinical effects. Placebo most emphatically does NOT mean that the remedy does not do anything. It does something, that is why it has an effect.

Dowsing has shown no effect in scientific studies. Dowsing is utter horse exhaust. I don't know why you are talking about dowsing.

Placebo, on the other hand, has a statistically significant effect on many clinical variables. I don't know why you are having such a difficult time understanding this. It is part of our entire medical establishment. The placebo effect is a measurable force affecting clinical outcome and is measured, QUANTITATIVELY for crying out loud in most medical trials.

There are literally millions of studies you could look at, but here is one about caffeine.

Since you seem a bit dense I will explain it to you. Test subjects were divided into two groups. One group was given caffeine and the other was not. Dopamine was released in the placebo group, showing the classic placebo effect. Dopamine is not in your imagination. Dopamine is measurable. If you are expecting caffeine your brain releases dopamine even if you don't receive the drug at all.

So you're afraid of some guy in his basement working with biologicals - wondering if the next Andromeda strain isn't just around the corner. Consider this and feel safer: The same technology and supplies has been available to nasty persons who really do want to cause harm (and no, I don't mean Steve Ballmer) for many a year. See any horrid human kind killing plagues floating around? It's not easy to create nasty things when you're trying to. Doing it accidentally really is pushing the boundary of the Unlikely.

It's summer time. Take the tin foil off! You need the vitamin D.

First, if there are thousands of repeatable experiments done using the scientific method by Ph.D.s to test predictions of scientific or intelligent design creationism, and that the results of these experiments bear out those predictions, then you should have no problem showing me where they are published in peer-reviewed journals, like Science, or Nature, or lower-ranked but quality journals like Journal of Molecular Biology. As far as I'm aware, they don't exist. However thousands of research papers are written on evolution each year as are thousands more in related fields. Don't believe me then Pubmed it yourself. Second, nobody claims evolution or any other scientific theory is perfect; all are conditional knowledge and subject to modification (and even refutation), hence all the research. You are just as wrong on your third point as you are on the first two. Reading up on and debating pseudoscience is a hobby of mine since I was in high school. I have sitting on my book shelf a pretty good collection of the stuff; I've got some L. Ron Hubbard, an old phrenology book ($.25 at a garage sale! Score!), some on homeopathy, UFOlogy, and Bigfoot. I've also got a shelf devoted to my favorite pseudoscience, creationism. I've got them (used!) starting with Whitcomb's 1960 creationist classic "The Genesis Flood" through the 70's and into the early 90's works by Morris, Gish, Ross, Ham, and others. After 1987's Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court beat-down creationism partially morphed into Intelligent Design Creationism, and I've got some of them, like Johnson's profoundly dishonest "Darwin on Trial." I've also got Behe's incredibly ignorant "Darwin's Black Box," one of Dembski's jello math books, and a couple lesser known items. That's just books that I own. I've read more over the years at the library, and am familiar with Answers in Genesis, the Discovery Institute, Institute for Creation Research, and others. They're all dishonest crap, and I know and read them partially because of the adage "know thine enemy" but really out of simple, morbid fascination.

I've shown that I know and have read up on creationism. I doubt you've ever read anything on evolution that's newer than disco and/or that wasn't written by a creationist. So since I keep up on creationism how about you do the same on evolution and related science? Here's a suggested reading list:

What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr. One of the greatest scientific minds in the last 100 years writing for the general audience, and especially good for creationists as you often have very, very, odd and warped ideas as to what evolution is.

The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean Carrol
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo also by Sean Carrol, an eminent scientist at the University of Wisconsin. Both excellent.

Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives by David Sloan Wilson

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald R. Prothero and Carl Buell

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin. A perfect example of what wouldn't be possible in science if creationism were correct. Excellent read (mine's autographed!), and if you've got a chance to hear him give a talk, go!

Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne

Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller.

Evolutionary Biology by Douglas J. Futuyma. If there's a gold standard for undergrad evolutionary biology textbooks, this one's it.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Not really about evolution but demonstrates clearly the absurdity of a 6,000-year old earth and an excellent read besides.

Most/all will be available at your local library, all are available at your local amazon.com. Start reading.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2000;(2):CD001364.

Update in: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006;(3):CD001364.

Zinc for the common cold. Marshall I.

National Center of Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 0200. marshali@health.qld.gov.au

OBJECTIVES: Interest in zinc as a treatment for the common cold has grown following the recent publication of several controlled trials. The objective of this review was to assess the effects of zinc lozenges for cold symptoms.

SEARCH STRATEGY: A search was made of the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, MEDLINE, EMBASE and reference lists of articles. Searches were run to the end of 1997.

SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised double blind placebo-controlled trials of zinc for acute upper respiratory tract infection or cold.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed trial quality.

MAIN RESULTS: Seven trials involving 754 cases were included. With the exception of one study, the methodological quality was rated as medium to high. For most outcome measures different summary estimates were used across the studies to describe the duration, incidence and severity of respiratory symptoms. This limited the ability to pool results. Results from two trials (04 - Mossad; 08 - Smith) suggested zinc lozenges reduced the severity and duration of cold symptoms. However, there was significant potential for bias, and further research is required to substantiate these findings. Overall, the results suggest that treatment with zinc lozenges did not reduce the duration of cold symptoms.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS: Evidence of the effects of zinc lozenges for treating the common cold is inconclusive. Given the potential for treatment to produce side effects, the use of zinc lozenges to treat cold symptoms deserves further study.

(This meta-analysis was actually withdrawn, and I don't know why, maybe to evaluate more recent data.)

Well in this study, they mention that they see significant improvements in depression symptoms and dopamine levels, which you don't see with normal exercise, and the researchers hypothesize that something about the video game component is causing this. There are actually quite a few studies finding that using the Wii is an incredibly effective form of rehab. One case report: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18689607?ordinalpos=13&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

And all of the studies refer to it as a "low-cost gaming console". In comparison to traditional rehab, which cost just as much in equipment then add in the billing rate of a physical or occupational therapist, the Wii is dirt cheap.

Hello Omris You are correct...I was working with a TBI client and transitioned the WIi to PD...I now lecture on the use of video games nationally and internationally if you consider Canada international...the future of rehab is there and while it will not replace the theripist...it can be a valuable tool in assisting the healthy, injured , and Ill in gaining function, self worth, and motivation...I am the researcher of this project and the fact that it decreased depression and increased quality of life is huge...thank you for the support... Dr. Ben Herz MCG OT

b) a number of enormous public access databases with raw data available to anyone who wants to use it

A bioinformatician myself as well, I'd say that it depends. Some databases are really gold mines for analyses, others (I'm looking at you, Gene Expression Omnibus) contain data that's not as useful as it could be because it's poorly annotated. This is IMO a side effect of the dreaded "Publish or perish" syndrome: in order to publish your findings, you need to have them available in a public resource, but nothing is said about the quality of the submission.

Also, software in bioinformatics is of varying quality. Since maintaining software does not qualify you for funding most of the time, software is released at publication time to be abandoned shortly afterwards... if there is even an implementation available. This paper is a perfect example. Method published with no implementation. How can you see if it really works?

Bioinformatics has to learn a lot from FOSS, but until it's driven by the frenzy to get funding, I doubt that will happen.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15477546?ordinalpos=13&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Short version: Pot didn't help keep the patients on the most effective meds. (which is an issue for Parkinson's... you can't just take the meds forever. They stop working)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15111259?ordinalpos=18&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Short version: pot might help people with Parkinson's, and here's how. Need to test that out.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15372606?ordinalpos=15&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Short version: if you ask patients, 25% of them admit to using pot, and about half of those people said it helps.

I couldn't find any trials on cannabis alone as a treatment or how it compares to Levadopa in my cursory 2 minutes search.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15477546?ordinalpos=13&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Short version: Pot didn't help keep the patients on the most effective meds. (which is an issue for Parkinson's... you can't just take the meds forever. They stop working)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15111259?ordinalpos=18&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Short version: pot might help people with Parkinson's, and here's how. Need to test that out.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15372606?ordinalpos=15&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Short version: if you ask patients, 25% of them admit to using pot, and about half of those people said it helps.

I couldn't find any trials on cannabis alone as a treatment or how it compares to Levadopa in my cursory 2 minutes search.