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Smarter Children Through Food Supplements
An anonymous reader writes "Baby rats (mmm...baby rats) fed a little extra choline in utero popped out with brain cells dramatically bigger and faster than pups who didn't receive the supplement. Duke University researchers say the implications are profound for humans and the future of learning."
Careful...... It should also be noted that in neurons in the hippocampus (and elsewhere), when the threshold for firing is decreased, the propensity for epileptiform discharges increases. The authors of the study claim that the neurons are bigger and fire more easily. I suppose that the ease of firing could simply be related to simple cable theory as predicted by Hodgkin and Huxley, but their explanation of increased dendritic count could also explain it nicely. However, other explanations could also be correct such as increased or upregulated glutamatergic channel count or increased receptor count.
researchers say the implications are profound for humans and the future of learning
At any rate, I regardless of the actual model, these sorts of public proclamations are troublesome as there are now going to be thousands upon thousands that will go out and start purchasing choline supplements just like their mass purchasing of melatonin (extracted from bovine pineal gland commonly, prion diseases anyone?), or ephedra (cardiac arrest anyone?), Aristolochia fangchi (kidney damage or cancer anyone?), shark cartilage (simply a lighter wallet anyone?), or any other unproven (not a troll, I am a scientist folks, so I want proof) supplement.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
What does choline come from? Is it part of our foods, so that we could eat more of some weird vegetable?
No, seriously, this does raise interesting issues such as how such a wonder supplement would be rationed to a population; how its absence would hold back the third world even further, and whether the first generation of hyper-intelligent kids would face discrimination at all levels of society.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
as if i didn't have enough of a hard time finding a job with those genetically superior south asians walking around.
Baby rats (mmm...baby rats) fed a little extra choline in utero popped out with brain cells dramatically bigger and faster than pups who didn't receive the supplement. baby rats...in utero...popped out....bigger and faster... Disturbing, I tell you! Disturbing!
-=- celibate by popular demand
So now we get to find out if overclocking the brain
with choline will lead to nasty side effects?
Am I the only one who initially read the blurb as "Baby rats (mmm...baby rats) fed a little extra chlorine in utero...?
__________
[Big Brick Wall]
What exactly does "reduce the brain's vulnerability toxic insults." mean? Perhaps there is some biological terminology I am not familiar with... Also, how can they claim this will help effects of long term memory loss?
why couldn't they have figured this out 22 years ago?
now if you'll excuse me i have to go fail my calculus final.
A Beowulf cluster of these super brainy rats, hopped up on choline, taking the jobs AWAY from the Indians and bringing them back to the USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!
Sure, the rats'll have our jobs, but they'll be US rats.
Someone needs to read Brave New World
Thousands of parents will be rushing out and getting these supplemets, trying to "help" their unborn children.
10 years from now, a crime wave is going to hit. A bunch of Super intelligent, yet hyperactive and ruthless 9 year olds, with ultra fast reflexes and photographic memory, but total lack of self-control and morals, begins their master plan of taking over the world.
Hey, this may be an interesting Movie plot....
People, I recommend against fooling with the brain until we actually know what we're doing. But Parents are insane anyway (looking into a mirror.)
Your tax dollars hard at work
GeekLeak.com - Silly name, serious geeks
"Choline is a naturally occurring nutrient found in egg yolks, milk, nuts, fish, liver and other meats as well as in human breast milk."
I remember a study a long time ago that suggestest that children who were fed breast milk as a child, were on average, slightly smarter than those who were fed other substitutes. With so many things, what is natural seems to be beneficial to the body, possibly because we evolved to benefit from our natural surroundings.
Perhaps the time where natural is best is coming to an end. I for one, support this even though it may mean that my natural mind and body may become obsolete. The thought is scary that some day I may find myself left in the dust by a choline fed, geneticly altered, super human. If this is what must be done to better all of humanity; push mother nature aside; finish what God started; then I can only say one thing. May the best man win.
Well, the article just says that the baby brains are bigger than normal and the neurons seem to be firing faster, but there hasn't been any testing as to whether these guys are any smarter than the average bear (or rat). It does look interesting, but last I checked, in humans there hasn't been any correlation between hat size and IQ. Elephants and blue whales have the biggest brains on the planet, but nobody's calling them the most intellegent creatures in the world.
I remember a while back a scientist bred a mouse strain with altered NMDA receptors, which gave a pretty hefty increase in memory and apparently reasoning. It'd be interesting to find what additional effects this method might have on them.
Everything will be taken away from you.
And 20 years from now:
"Brilliant super-baby drives car into side of White House. Jailarity ensues."
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
My brain is already resistant to /. trolls...
Let's see, choline grows baby rat brain cells... sounds like great news for the cheese industry!
"May result in cirrhosis and fatty degeneration of the liver, hardening of the arteries, heart problems, high blood pressure, hemorrhaging kidneys."
I'm not so sure I want too much of that stuff in a human subject.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
:-) Else we son't be making any real difference to the world.
You didn't think I'd risk my karma on this did you?
http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/~fischeni/ resource.html
...your generation found television boring!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
an me way smarter than u!!!11!!! lOlOL arofol
extended warranty? how can i go rong!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I, for one, welcome our new bigger, faster, baby rat overlords.
You can buy choline in almost any of those stores which sell vitamins and nutritional supplements. I live in New York and there is one on every corner.
I read something similar about over a year ago in Science News magazine. Curious and willing to experiment on myself, I bought a jar of choline and started taking one a day.
Here's what I noticed:
First, its it's an intestinal irritant. Its sold in gelatine capusules and if you just swallow one a day, you'll be sorry after a while. I recommend opening the capsules and disolving the choline in something buffered, like milk.
You don't notice anything for a few weeks. And after you stop taking it, the effects persist for weeks.
The stuff is defintely psychoactive. I was constantly locked in deep thought. I finally stopped taking it because I got tired of thinking all the time.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
...if you're unborn. Call me selfish, but I want drugs that make me smarter. Stupid rats!
Note to self: No more arguing with the faithful.
Smarter children thru:
Playing with them, spending time with them.
Giving them toys, then spending time showing them how the toys work. Toys that challenge them to do something are good - like legos - stay away from "Disney type" toys (yeah, I know, it's a blanket definition. You know what I mean)
Teaching them to read - don't wait for fucking kindergarten, teach them yourself. Added benefit of getting to know your kids better. Books. Lots of books. Share the reading with them. Read to them, with them, and for them.
Answer questions. "Why is the sky blue?" Answer it. If you don't know how to, learn why it is. There are a lot of questions that a kid will ask that will require you to to know at least something about it. The hardest part is translation. I asked that question when I was very young, and my old man told me that it's because it's the color that "comes thru"; later I learned that he wasn't bullshitting me. I really appreciated that. He didn't evade the question, just tried to put it in terms I'd understand.
Which leads to
Don't ever, every lie to your your kids. Don't bullshit them. Not about anything. If they ask you about sex, don't evade the question or bullshit them - they'll find some other avenue to educate themselves, and it will likely be something that's not the best way to learn it. You might have to actually think about it to find some way to explain it to them. Do it. You might learn something, too.
Don't ever, EVER try to bullshit your kids, or evade what they are curious about. You will lose their respect and trust when they find out (and they do, eventually, and that's one of the biggest problems in the US right now, but that's a whole 'nother topic).
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
We will begin to complain again about outsourcing, since we can no longer compete. Rather than properly analyzing the problem and creating solutions which help everyone.
Was "anyone" besides me "annoyed" by the superfluos "quotation" markes in this "article".
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
At least kids around here do.. you can't walk though the mall with out seeing one or two empty boxes of dramamine .
In Soviet Russia, babies supplement food!
Or something like that. Anyway.
...but let's just see how Algernon is doing in a couple of months.
This strikes me as a bit bizarre.
Humanity already has a fairly well-known subgroup of people with brains that have more active neuronal structure, greater capacity for memory, a drastic reduction in age-related decline in cognitive/memorizations kills, and heightened sensory reactions. (Which is all wonderful to have, speaking firsthand.)
The response from the community has not been to embrace us. It has been to force us into painful "treatments" from a young age that train us to "act normal" -- to hide all signs that we're different, including strong natural interests in learning and pain at stimuli that doesn't bother sensory-average humans. There are huge organizations decrying how horrible it is that we exist at all, that actively claim it'd be better if we died of cancer, because we don't act just like "normal" people.
It strikes me as bizarrely hypocritical for one wing of science to be fighting to find a way to prevent/cure my kind, while another is attempting to learn how to intentionally create us. We're already here, we tend to reproduce reliably within families, we just need to be accepted rather than terrorized into hiding our abilities.
How about a recommending a balanced, healthy diet, with exercise, for pregrant mothers -- *and* soon-to-be-fathers ?
PS. I'm not a scientist.
I wonder if this would make them grow up to carry a certain odour?
Trimethylaminuria ("fish odour syndrome") can be triggered by a kidney or liver infection or the excess intake of the chemical choline, which the body turns into trimethylamine.
BBC article
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
... and no one has said it yet:
I, for one, welcome our new rat overlords!
And since that's best I could do. I need a shot of choline.
http://www.mycustompak.com/healthNotes/Supp/Lecith in.htm
http://blogs.lns.kicks-ass.net/moonjihad/
...what I'm pondering, Pinky?
We're called GEEKS 8-}
I hope this doesn't mean more spam....
Before things are addressed on a chemical level, they need to be addressed on a psychological one. The educational system, at least in the States, has progressed very little in the past century, even though it has been pretty much established that different minds work different ways and the current methods for teaching cater to only a very small percentage of the people. All the choline in the world won't compensate for a lack of utilisation on what's already there, which, as it is, is most often neglected, or used in a way which results in burning out before full potential can be reached.
I don't try to be right, I just try to make people think
"Duke University researchers say the implications are profound for humans and the future of learning."
The problem isn't with intelligence. Its a problem with the school systems. I am in high school right now and I'm amazed how dumbed down even my Calculus class is. What was grade school level 10 years ago is High school and college level today. We need to tighten the standards and make classes more challenging. There is a huge population of "smart" students but 90% of them just get by by taking the easiert classes possible. Half of my classes I don't even know why I show up.
A smarter rat doesn't necessarily correspond to a smarter human. And human intelligence isn't necessarily related to whether the hardware is faster. By analogy, a DSP may run operations faster than a Pentium, but that doesn't make the DSP a better general purpose processor. Or, as another analogy, just upgrading the clock circuit on your motherboard doesn't just make your processor faster--it may also make it flakier. It's plausible that choline is somewhat beneficial as a nutrient during pregnancy. But I wouldn't expect miracles (if choline were that important, women would crave more of it than they do), and there is at least the possibility that an unbalanced intake actually might do some harm.
I doubt we need smarter kids [or rats] instead maybe we need to better educated kids [and adults].
Intelligence is nice and has taken us a long ways - it seems that perhaps enducation & maybe some wisdom is really what is lacking.
Makes me wish I were still an egg within my mother's body!
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
i can just see it now, viagra flavoured choline supplements that not only keep you hard, but improve your memory!
You tried your best, & you failed miserably,
The lesson is:
Never Try
Since we're on the topic of improved memory and learning. I'm one of the layed-off dotbomb folx. It's been 10+ yrs since I was in highschool, and now I am back in College struggling with classes.
Any suggestions for supplements that will make studying, concentration, retention, etc of classroom material improved?
I know everyone drinks massive amounts of caffiene. Methamphetamines seems like it would be good at first glance but I've read it causes horrific brain damage so that's out. I've heard choline and ginko biloba mentioned before. I'm wondering if anyone knows of things that work, or will help.
I think one of my biggest problems is trouble remembering things, retaining and manipulating lots of new info at once to complete assignments. I'm so slow at it, I'm getting crushed under the workload, and I think the combination of both being older, and also not fresh out of highschool hurts immensely. I'm wondering how everyone else deals with it (besides dropping out, or committing suicide, etc)?
Get laid. College chicks are great for stimulating the cognitive powers.
Rats can eat anything a person will eat and plenty of things that we won't.
Can I get a do over?
Here's hoping the reincarnation crowd is right.
--- Ban humanity.
This is the kind of science that can easily get hurt by controversy. The press release doesn't say, but what if these neurological differences translate to significant behavioral differences? The implications for humanity would be for nothing so trite as "the future of learning." How about the disparities between social classes and ethnic groups? Do impoverished mothers get enough choline? Are there ethnic diets that include more or less choline, and is it reflected in their average intellectual abilities? (And how to quantify that is a whole other subject for debate!) These are important questions that may go unanswered if the wrong kinds of people get a chance to put their spin on this. Heaven forbid we find out there's a biological reason why the underpriveleged can't seem to get ahead, even if it's brought on by social conditions rather than something intrinsic. Just watch... if the reasearchers get too close to implying something like that, their funding will get cut and the whole thing will be swept under the rug. Remember how the media roasted Herrnstein and Murray?
bovine prion disease from melatonin? how about from BEEF? i am willing to bet you are NOT a vegetarian with all the anti-herbal statements you made. now i like proof too, but you are just throwing bullshit around like its fact (yes shark cartilage is BS though). melatonin WORKS for me and a LOT of other people who have problems sleeping and it is also anti-cancer (PROVEN). ephedra also works for fat loss and studies comparing it to other alternatives show it as the clear winner, can you say greedy drug companies? as for cardiac arrest, try not taking 2x the reccomended dose? whats that? you dont know what your getting? GNC STRICTLY checks ALL the products they carry to make sure the claims on the bottle (amount wise) is correct and they arent the only ones. i dont know what aristolochia fangchi is and it may well cause organ damage or cancer. i am in no way saying we should all just take shit because someone else says it does such and such, but melatonin and ephedra are proven, and frankly, if you take Meridia or some other Rx weight loss drug at higher than reccomended dose you will die of heat stroke or cardiac arrest as well (just a note the baseball player who died died of heatsroke and had been fasting for days as well, speaking as someone who has taken ephedra it does not make you not eat). get off this highhorse bullshit of "i want proof" and then not accepting studies that someone else provides. you want some truth? the medical system in the U.S. (and most if not all other countries, no anti-us sentiment here really) is designed to make drug companies money, not make you well. Fen-Phen anyone??! VIAGRA anyone? any of the other medications with side effects such as "spontaneous bleeding", "liver damage without a history of liver problems", etc? Do you know how many people die taking tylenol, compare it to how many die taking ephedra. yes more people take tylenon but the numbers still make tylenol more dangerous. sorry for the rambling nature of the post but i just had a wisdom tooth extraction and this codeine is messing with my thought process and i am aware my spelling is pretty bad (sorry)
dont get me wrong, lots of "western" medicine is great and if i was shot i wouldnt want to be anywhere except an emergency room in a western country, but many M.D.s are arrogent pricks. i work in a GNC, and pregnant women come in and refuse to take mutli vitamins (not buy, but take) because their doctors tell them it could harm the fetus? this is based on some bunk research that too much vitamin E (as in WAY too much) can cause mental retardation. notice how ANDRO and other prohormones have been banned along with ephedra? can someone say cheap alternatives that WORK WELL to Androgel(TM) or Meridia(TM)? wake up and see that neither the F.D.A. or a panel of MD's OR supplement companies really have your best nature in mind? its up to YOU to find studies and rate the effectiveness of something? you really trust a medical association that in the 60s prescribed methamphetamine to people for ANYTHING (my uncle was prescribed dexadrine because he had MONO and was tired??? the -worst- thing to do).
Anyone try BrainQuicken?
http://www.brainquicken.com/
It sounds great from reading their site. Well duh. Supposedly a lot of athletes and 4.0 students use this stuff. I wonder if it really works?
Further, a typical human diet already includes choline. Assuming this is important to human brain development, how much do we really need? I can understand that rats (who typically probably do not eat fresh eggs very often) might need a choline supplement to enhance brain development. Perhaps humans already get enough anyway.
Might it be possible to identify the amount of choline different populations receive from their diet and correlate this with intelligence? This would give a better basis for discussion.
Ho, choline me bheja hai meraa...
no television...
a healthy non-supplement.
What kind of simpleton thinks that more and faster neurons is better, or makes for smarter children? You get those for free with cancer and epilepsy.
Just give your kids meth if you want to boost their IQs. That'll bring the scores up, but do you think that makes them smarter in any meaningful way?
In my rash youth, I tried a number of different drugs, (here are examples of my own stupidity) including drinking a over liter of whiskey one evening, an unknown pill given to me by a guy in a superhero costume at a SF-Con, and a few things that can either enlighten or precipitate psychosis, depending on your personal biology, and whether you believe that any significant insight comes in chemical form.
However stupid I was, I would _never_ have given significant quantities of neurotransmitter precursors in a fetus or a child.Neurons have to communicate to be useful, and there are good indications that a neuron's rate of fire is actually related to information content. Or do you think we can determine intelligence by weighing people's brains?
The brain is marvelously subtle, and incredibly malleable in youth.
You want your kids to be smarter? Teach them. Play with them. Stimulate their senses. Show them the world that rewards you for paying attention to it and thinking about it. If this isn't enough for you, then you can make them smarter by having somebody else raise them.
Anybody who tries this on a human child should be sterilized, preferably with a shotgun.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
While I don't know anything about how the Inuit prepare their foods, I do know that eating fish can prevent scurvy.
The important thing to remember is that it needs to be eaten raw: baking, cooking, leaching, frying... in short, cooking fish (meat for that matter) breaks down the vitamin C in the food, rendering it useless for nutrition (and the prevention of scurvy).
Wow, let's create a master race!
Liver, cauliflower, soybeans, spinach, lettuce, nuts, and wheat germ are decent natural sources of the stuff, and eggs contain rich veins of choline.
Why can't we all just get along?
strange brew thats good for you, too.
Guess what? You can't draw parallels like that!
I can imagine the kiddie brain supplement commercials 10 years from now... SLACKJAWED REDNECK WELFARE MOM(Looking over at the hydrocephalic uber-freak in Yuppie Princess/Junior Soccer Mom's stroller): "That thing got a hemi?"
Most products today follow popular demand. There is nothing wrong with this...as long as consumers are completely informed. However, most merely follow fad, fancy and place trust in commerce. But since commerce in turn follows consumers, there is no true progress, just a circle of followers.
This is not to suggest that we are perfect, or have all the answers. Nevertheless, as knowledge grows, we will have continuing advancement, as well as faithfulness to our core belief that health and a better world are not only attainable, but a responsibility.
This smells like an advert for the herbal suppliments people. Remember, you can say anything on the label as long as you say that the FDA has not verified those claims in fine print somewhere on it. And people will buy into anything if you make it sound scientific and claim that Researchers at Some University think it could be revolutionary. I bet you could convince people to take mercury suppliments without too much effort. Hell, there was just a story on NPR the other day about that being a problem in some South American countries.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Boy will I have a hard time with the English department if I ever go back to school...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"(...) turn into an outcast of some sort or, worse, could refuse to do work altogether. They will think of petty homework and tasks such as character charts and subjects such as The Renaissance as beneath their intelligence."
Obviously, you don't need to be a genius to do that.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
They should look at swimmers' children. They should be chock full o' the stuff.
Rats... overlords... welcome... you know the drill.
What everyone seems to be missing here is that choline is natural and occurs in foods we eat everyday. This isn't some scary untested drug... this is a staple of many people's diets.
For this reason, it is possible that we evolved to use this substance during development.
Here's some of the foods that choline is found in:
Cabbage
Calves' liver
Cauliflower
Caviar
Eggs
Garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
Green beans
Lentils
Rice
Soybeans
Soy lecithin
Split peas
All animal and plant products.
Of course, keep in mind too, that in a sample of two people I know of (myself and a friend) Choline made the subjects EXTREMELY depressed. Sorry, but I don't plan to experiment on my children like that.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Fun facts
Lecithin is the best artificial supplement of choline and insotol.
If you don't like pills, eggs (yolks) are your next best bet.
Choline/insotol supplements increase ejaculate volume. Sperm cells and brain cells have a lot in common chemically. Subsequently chronic masterbation can adversely affect your memory because you keep dumping your body's stores of choline. Absurd but true!
For more info check out lecithin.net
Let's start giving this to all of our kids!
Only the usual side effects apply: cancer, tics, siezure, SIDS, chronic headaches, brittle bones, frequent loose bowels....
But my kid will be SMART!!!!!
it reminds me of that ep of simpsons where lisa is president... and they talk about that program for healthy and smarter kids
"we only made stronger and smarter super criminals"
This explains where The Brain came from, but what about Pinky?
-Rich
Man who get mod points get this huge ego and starts going out punishing anyone who does not think inline with their system of thinking.
Its just as simple as that.
> A bunch of Super intelligent, yet hyperactive and
> ruthless 9 year olds, with ultra fast reflexes and
> photographic memory, but total lack of
> self-control and morals
I wonder why everyone seems to assume that any improvement in human capacity is always accompanied by "total lack of self-control and morals". If any correlation is warranted, it is the reverse. Perhaps it is all just sour grapes?
uh, nobody read that
Harvesting the seeds specifically is quite important. We certainly are not well adapted for grazing. We have a fairly standard issue digestive system, and our teeth only get replaced once (horses, and cows have specialized digestive tracks, rodents and lagomorphs (rabits) have teeth that grow continuously). Even more importantly if we apply our teeth to gathering grass we can't see any approaching predators, (or the aproach of other groups of humans). We would be well suited for detecting ravenous earthworms and snails however. Since grassy plants are mostly indigestible cellulose we would also have to spend most of our time pulling it out with our hands just to get enough nutrients, and it won't be as easy as weeding a garden either. Havesting and processing the seeds is very important... oh yeah and it's highly seasonal too :) we would have to eat something else for the remaining 10 months of the year anyway. (The african plains have dry and wet seasons folks, I know they don't have summer/winter)
It's also very well established that many (I suspect most, but I don't have any numbers to cite here) pre-agricultural peoples hunted. Also note, people (like wolves) are very well built for endurance running. In fact we are even built for endurance in a high temprature environment (we sweat profusely and have a large surface to body mass ratio, unless of course we eat too many cheetos). We are remarkably poor sprinters (20-25mph for 100 yards or less is very slow for an animal of our size). If you can't sprint you won't get away from most predators, but endurance running can be used quite effectivly to run down large animals, especially for herding them into traps and ambushes.
Also I think for analysis of our evolved state with respect to diet, the relevance of our past behaviors is decreasingly relevant the further into the past you go. If you take it back far enough primates all evolved from a sort of tree shrew, and it probably ate insects. The most relevant thing is the condtions of early agriculture, and pre agricultural hunter-gatherers. IMHO at least.
Version 2.0 New and Improved!
But wouldn't it be interesting to discover that what were thought to be genetic predispositions turned out to have a considerable dietary component - passed down through the generations mimetically, not genetically.
As pointed out by Donald D. Dorfman in the link that you provide, Herrnstein and Murray were engaged in non-peer-reviewed psuedo-science. The scientific flaws in their work were numerous and are well documented. See The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould for a critique of this and other attempts to put a scientific basis to racist beliefs.
Test 1 2 3 4
I didn't drop out of high school because of the pleasure of being in a class with intellectual equals. Without my gifted classes I wouldn't have the drive to succeed in life.
this is well documented and hardly new news. See www.prestigepublishing.com. I've got a $140 bottle of phosphatidylcholine(PhosChol brand) in my refrigerator of which I partake 2 tsp per day along with about 2 dozen other nutritional supplements. Its embarassing to see how BADLY misinformed you slashdotters are when it comes to nutritional subjects. Why would anyone want to take PhosChol? To help repair the damage to cell receptors and transfer peptides that are the heart to functioning of the human body. What causes the damage you ask? Well, exposure to pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, gasoline, diesel... you get the idea. BTW I was poisoned in the womb. I didn't have a say in the thing one way or the other.
Sure, there may be some small tweaks that can make the brain run a little more efficiently, but I'm convinced that it's what we learn, when, and how that make us "smarter".
:)
Think about the difference between a fresh untrained neural net that runs on a G4 vs. a G5. Big whoop. They're both useless. The G5 can be trained a little faster, but you probably wouldn't notice much difference until the speed differential was greater. Number of neurons is probably more critical, but again, only when huge differences are seen.
Well, that's my uneducated opinion anyways
Cheers.
I can see it coming now.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
That's how I originally read the title.
I thought "Hell, just let 'em keep eating McDonald's and Wal-Fart food. We'll soon be a nation of midgets as it is."
So I think it's kind of premature to make any preditions about the intelligence of such a baby. But, as long as we're doing it, my prediction is that those extra cells will die off, and the brain will go the normal course of development.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Hey!
I for one, welcome our new giant intelligent rat overlords.
quantity and concentration are the variables here... ever heard of "too much of a good thing"?
'Every try eating raw, unground grain? Bleah.' When i was a kid, I loved eating grain sorgum right out of the bin.
And while we're at it, don't forget to let your kid climb trees and play ball in the neighborhood, and be a kid.
Don't schedule your child like they were a corporate executive under the mistaken belief that they're understimulated by normal life, and will be smarter if kept busier.
Love your child, let them be children, and try not to program their lives for some ultimate goal.
It's their life, not yours.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
What kind of sick parent would not wish that his children have better opportunities than he had? Who would be so abusive as to deny his children a superior physiology?
Granted, choline might have negative side effects that outweight the benefits, but in general it is natural to do everything we can to improve the lot of our offspring. To do otherwise is to fight against our genes and (for most of us) our memes. And we do so much to improve ourselves with our technology after birth that it is not a significant stretch to apply technology before birth.
The only counter-argument I can conceive of is that stupidity is a cultural trait in the same way that some deaf parents are arguing that they should be allowed to try and have deaf children because they have a flourishing subculture. Considering the attacks on intelligence in the US media and highschools throughout the Western world, I might even buy it, but it's damn sad that you're promoting it.
I for one welcome our new baby rat overlords.
Ok, but how long until I can get choline in my Centrum? Wait... do I take Centrum? I forget.
... real quick with a few new keywords !
So why should I feed my "in utero" children fat rat brain food? Plenty fat rat brained humans around as it is. Pathetic. What you should be worried about is if your kid has 10 fingers and 10 toes. "super baby" psychosis is rampant. Poor shumuck parents who never achieved anything wat to grow a super baby for bragging rights. Good way to spawn a miserable child. The other kids want to make sand castles and your kid wants to talk quantum mechanics
If this is not a troll, the poster doesn't have a clue what he's talking about
Got it from my cleaning closet.
Me not feel any smarter atall.
My point: talking heads shouldn't get involved in science.
How about the disparities between social classes and ethnic groups?
That's one of the things I found most interesting about the method presented here. The usual Gattica scenario points to only the upper class being able to have access to the technology to produce modified offspring, but in this case most anyone in the western world could afford to take a chance with it. Choline's pretty cheap, to the point where even someone on minimum wage could manage to use it for nine months with a little planning. Something I'd find interesting, is if in fact human use took off more in lower class enviroments with parents grasping for anything to increase their kids chance of getting out.
Everything will be taken away from you.
You are two things; insolent and clueless. :-)
My gifted class was much more than just an advanced English class. And yes, I did miss out on quite a bit because of the budget cuts. The world has social strata and that is a fact. I see no need to be coupled with children who don't want to learn.
Furthermore, while public school provides nothing intrinsically necessary to succeed in life, it sure does help. Try getting any decent job without a high school diploma. It's not that easy. There are major stigmata involved. Sure, you could start your own business, but that takes money. I was not born of rich parents.
Forget about choline! Eat More Product P!
Product P, the Pink Protien Power Powder Produce from Powdered Pigs!
Product P is guarenteed to give you a Parasitic Orgasm or your money back!
now we know that chlorine will alter
I think that was choline. Don't feed anyone chlorine, even if it's just a little bit.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
What's disturbing here is that while they've documented the physiological effects on the rat's brains, they didn't do any follow-up studies as to how this actually effected the rat's capacity to learn, or any of the effects on the rat's behavior.
That's not disturbing, that's lazy.
Baby steps: First you kill the super rats you created and you chop up their giant brains.
Takes notes while you do it. Publish, wait for more money to show up.
Then you either hightail it out to Mexico and live like a king on your stolen grant money, letting the rest of the scientific community recreate and then raise uber-rats of their own to see if they can be thought to pilot military vehicles over rough terrain autonomously. Or you buckle down and you do it yourself.
If you're not happy with the speed at wich they are getting their research done, dope up your own rats, see for yourself.
You can't take the sky from me...
My point is that Murray and Herrnstein got just what they wanted: plenty of publicity, and adulation by like-minded racist conservatives. If they had wanted a scientific discussion they would have submitted their work to scientific journals.
Your claim that respected researchers have been scared off is just silly. There are hundreds of scientists exploring these topics every day.
Test 1 2 3 4
A public school teacher once explained it to us (paraphrasing from memory), "The goal of public education is not to raise the highest even higher, but to raise the lowest to an acceptable level." Translated: The goal is to get the "slow" kids to society-contributing levels, not help the smart get smarter. In cold, logical terms this makes sense; a group of at least average-performing people is better than a super-genius or two in terms of benefit to society.
;) It wasn't until I got into programming in high school that I really started to come into my own. Interestingly enough, it was my interest in the computer games the grandparent post criticizes that really got me interested in programming. I'd breeze through my BASIC assignments and learn more about graphics manipulation in order to create a cool game.
In my opinion and personal experience, the best thing a super-smart kid can do is to get self-motivated to learn on his or her own. I wish I had been encouraged more to learn on my own. (I was in Talented and Gifted classes when I was young, but I was too distractable to really get into them.
My love of gaming really helped me in my life. I got into programming in high school, I got into creative writing, I made great friends with D&D players in college despite my introvert tendencies, I found a great significant other that enjoys gaming (her and I often play together), I got the motivation to find a job I enjoyed in the game industry, and I was given the impetus to start my own game development company. All from my love of gaming.
In the end, find something you enjoy and start learning what makes that "tick"; for me, it was video games, and I learned how different playing games was from developing games. Learn as much as you can about it and get into the deep details. Apply your intellect to that pursuit and you might be surprised where it takes you.
My thoughts,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
"Through my communication with him telepathically and through his delay in arrival I was able to attend a music conference that was very important to me at that time." (Emphasis mine)
After that I'm uncertain whether I believe anything this person has to say.
I do not moderate.
There are plenty of recent studies confirmingit is an effective treatment for cancer.
-nukebuddy
Brave New World. An excellent book, I might add.
I do not moderate.
I for one welcome our giant intelligent rat overlords.....
Or
I for one welcome our hyper-intelligent kids soon to be our leaders in office.
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
Secondly, you obviously are completely out of touch with the herbal supplement industry because they are regulated with respect to claims made on their labels. And since all "Standardized" herbel supplements DO state the amount of each active and inactive ingredient in them people who take herbel supplements ARE informed about what your taking.
Thirdly, you completely missed his point. He was satyrizing the typical non-argument against herbal supplements. Namely, invent a worse case senario of someone in a vulnerable state taking HUGH amounts of the supplement and then imply or state outright that this is the typical scenario.
No, it's ignorant scare-mongering. Frankly, other than truth in labeling and advertising issues all levels of government should stay out of regulating what I put in MY body. If we do not control ourselves then we really control nothing.
Oh, and just for the record, I take no herbel or dietary supplements.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
There's a difference between my generation, and my fahters generation. I was born as a mistake[...]My parents divoreced with I was 5.
Welcome to the club. This doesn't make you special or painful or painfully special. Neither does saying it.
You seem to have a well self-examined and notably high self-assessment. Relative to the people you're trying very hard to distance yourself from, that's not much of an accomplishment.
Many kids in my generation are in pain like I was, and my generation will be the most fantastically screwed up and fantastically smart of all humanity.
Oh, boo hoo hoo. Perhaps if you tried harder, you'd actually have a vision of the future that wasn't exhausted by what you probably think of as your father's generation in that epoch called the 60s that happened along shortly after the Devonian Period.
Sorry. I'm not feeling your pain. In fact, you come off like a whiny little shit. The entire point you're trying to make is that you've suffered so horribly for so long that you're now some kind of Nietzsche-esque wet dream of what people ought to be and that it's been brought about solely by your suffering and that you and Wonder Woman and Captain Planet and Eminem all the other super cool people will hole up somewhere and recite Coleridge's Kubla Khan to each other at night because TV is just too demeaning.
While I'm sure that's cute, it's also incomplete. The punchline of your recycled perspective is either the hippy-dippy activism of the 60s (which I'm sure you're not into since Nintendo wasn't around then) or the finally sanctimonious and badly written, preachy horseshit of Thus Spake Zarathustra.
People who really are truly like what you hype to yourself that you are don't flop around making a mess of it, no matter how much of a challenge to the Uebermensch you might think it might be to do so.
Here are you choices:
[1] Give up the Nintendo
[2] Start a cult
[3] STFU
[4] learn how you know when you know something and use it do something
I dare you to try choose any combination of the above without resorting to a depth of feeling comparable only to realultimatepower.com. This kind of shit is only funny when you intend it to be.
It ought to be easy, Little Miss Feel-My-Pain. Your call.
...we should try it on bill gates before reaching a decision
:)
-Katherin
Indian Programmer
I've seen ephedra as an ingredient in another somewhat "major" TCM remedy.
Dit Da Jow (also sometimes called 'hit fall wine' in English)
there's a bunch of other herbs as well mixed in alcohol, meant to be applied and rubbed externally on bruises, ligaments, sprains, over broken bones, etc. to help them heal quicker.
recipes vary greatly from one herbalist to the next though.
I've used it to treat a partially torn plantar fascia, apparently a common tennis injury. A good number of internet sources say that even the smallest tear of the plantar fasciae can take a minimum of 6 months to heal properly.
I rubbed dit da jow 3-4 times a day on the black & purple swelling, and within a month there was no trace or feeling left of injury, and I was able to resume my sport activities in full.
You don't get karma on +Funny moderations because Taco hates Funny. You do lose it though when it is modded down from +5 Funny to +4 Funny.
Lasers Controlled Games!
"
I'm with Mr. Jones on this one.
"
Mr. Jones - put a wiggle in your stride.
Loosen up! I believe he'll be all right.
Changing clothes - now he's got ventilated slacks.
Bouncing off the wall - Mr. Jones is back!
- The Talking Heads
(actual lyrics may vary)