I guess imagine a circuit carrying a pain signal going from your foot to brain with a high pass filter in your spine. There is a constant low frequency signal (low firing rate) coming from the pain receptors your foot, but when it is hurt the frequency increases (high firing rate). The high pass filter has a potentiometer that will adjust positively in response to a sustained high frequency signal (ie more signal passing leads to increased resistance leads to lower cutoff frequency).
Your body wants you to become more sensitive to pain so that you favor the foot and don't hurt it any further. Once your foot is healed, there should be a sustained period of low frequency pain signals from the foot, the potentiometer should adjust back so that the low frequency signals are filtered out (and do not reach your brain), thus lowering your sensitivity to the pain signals.
One explanation for chronic pain then, would be that the potentiometer gets stuck in the high resistance state and does not return to normal, leading to increased sensitivity to the low frequency pain signals.
No, this didn't have to do with conscious memories. This study was about the neurons in your spinal cord "remembering" pain from a tissue that is no longer sending painful signals. They placed a little blood pressure cuff thing around a rats ankle to limit blood flow for 3 hours, then removed it... this process damaged the tissue. A couple weeks later the tissue was healed, but the circuits in the spinal cord were altered to make the rat still feel pain in that paw. They then injected a compound into the spinal cords of some rats that apparently relieved the chronic pain. I don't see any control
I was talking about Paul, but that is the first time I've looked into Kucinich. Interesting, he sounds like a legit guy. Actually the Department of Peace doesn't sound like such a bad idea in the context of a huge Defense Department.
I am currently reading your post as "the government subsidizing stupid decisions creates value". I am somewhat confused. Are you talking about the Homeowner's Defense Act, or some actual insurance that is currently in effect? Also, do you think it is a good thing to subsidize stupid decisions?
Noone thinks an existing load eliminates lesser radiation sources. It is a matter of percentage. If you want a real hypothesis (no idea if it has been tested), propose that our DNA is normally hardened to IR radiation by the UV light normally mixed in. Say something like that.
Yes, you are right about the "utopian concept" of a balanced budget. I wouldn't call it utopian necessarily, but yea. My idea would be to raise taxes on the wealthy and quickly pay off the debt. Many of them would be, at least in part, paying themselves. The US has been subject to an obfuscated bank tax for a long time now. Funds should be redistributed from wealthy to government to effectively cancel this. But, this entire plan will be in vain unless other debt-limiting measures are taken at the same time.
Oh yea, totally agreed. The current political reality is that the average person will be taxed the same amount regardless, and so not have that extra money. I should start including that disclaimer in posts like the one above.
There is a similar phenomenon in alcohol research. Alcohol bad hypothesis = relatively easily funded, Alcohol good hypothesis = much more difficult
This is not publicly stated by anyone but well known to those in the field. It is a problem with government funding, but we would also see it with private funding whether for- or non-profit. Which option would be better is an unknown. I mostly have a problem with the idea many people have that government funding is completely neutral and merit-based. I prefer blatant bias to the hidden bias though.
Yea, I would say if you have this attitude vote for obama if Ron Paul isn't running. The half-assed statist corporatism of the democrats is preferable to the half assed libertarian corporatism of the republicans. Personally I would encourage voting third party. Once people see a movement gaining steam over the course of a couple elections it will become big. Everyone paying attention knows the two major parties are corrupted and running this country into the ground.
I think it's a combination of both platforms being unrealistic utopianism and corporatism. No rational person would really vote for either, so they just go with gut feeling (which is determined by funding).
Ron Paul can complain loudly about "picking winners and losers" but that's how the world works, we can't just dump cash into a general industry and we can't expect the market to change anything since fundamentally once a market has stabilized or is monopolized it won't innovate much.
Agreed, this is a preferable situation for them and illustrates how misleading relying on a single metric to judge the health of an economy can be. The thing is that once internal debt "carrying capacity" (not sure if I am making that term up) is saturated, then what? I honestly don't know that much about japan's economy so...
With regards to the NIH chart. Applicants have doubled since 1993 while success rate has dropped about 33%. Is it possible we are seeing the effects of a higher education bubble?
Perhaps the success rate could go up if the amount per grant (about $400k/yr for an RO1) was decreased. The various equipment and reagent suppliers know the money is coming from the government and how spending sprees occur at the end of the fiscal year, we are likely seeing price inflation. I know we get wildly different prices from different companies (sometimes even the same company), and also depending on whether we order through the VA or an associated private hospital.
This leads me to believe suppliers could probably get more efficient and offer the same products for less if they need to, but how much more? That is just my hypothesis, I'll have to look at the numbers eventually and see if it is supported.
Bigger projects require more funding, I agree. Collaboration is supposed to increase efficiency though. Have the projects actually been getting bigger? Is this concentrating funding into only big labs (and those associated with them), thus reducing the merit factor and increasing the pal-review factor?
I just meant there is clearly a correlation between age and experience. Obviously adults have both more experience and more "developed" brains than adolescents. Also, it is obvious that some people develop biologically faster than others, some never really get to the point of having "adult" thought processes, and that the rate of this development can be affected by experience.
I don't think it is out of the question that some 16 year olds may be as mature as some 40 year olds. I was trying to raise the question of: How much of a role does experience have on the rate of brain development. If the same level of responsibility was expected of a 16 year old that we currently associate with a 40 year old, would they be more or less mature at 20 years old than now. Things like that...
Japan has a huge national debt...we will see what happens with that. Also, Germany is benefiting from the euro. Basically their currency is undervalued because it is being dragged down by other members of the EU (Greece, etc). Inflation is on the horizon for both countries. You are assuming that both of these situations are sustainable.
Taking on debt in that situation makes sense if you believe that the recession is temporary. If you instead believe this is the "new normal" because America's place in the world has changed, then it is a big mistake.
Since we don't really have reliable data on this either way (that I know of), wouldn't it make sense to assume the worst?
Slashdot Mirror
I guess imagine a circuit carrying a pain signal going from your foot to brain with a high pass filter in your spine. There is a constant low frequency signal (low firing rate) coming from the pain receptors your foot, but when it is hurt the frequency increases (high firing rate). The high pass filter has a potentiometer that will adjust positively in response to a sustained high frequency signal (ie more signal passing leads to increased resistance leads to lower cutoff frequency).
Your body wants you to become more sensitive to pain so that you favor the foot and don't hurt it any further. Once your foot is healed, there should be a sustained period of low frequency pain signals from the foot, the potentiometer should adjust back so that the low frequency signals are filtered out (and do not reach your brain), thus lowering your sensitivity to the pain signals.
One explanation for chronic pain then, would be that the potentiometer gets stuck in the high resistance state and does not return to normal, leading to increased sensitivity to the low frequency pain signals.
Sorry... I was saying I don't see any control showing how much "pain" normal animals have though. So it is hard to say how strong the effects are.
No, this didn't have to do with conscious memories. This study was about the neurons in your spinal cord "remembering" pain from a tissue that is no longer sending painful signals. They placed a little blood pressure cuff thing around a rats ankle to limit blood flow for 3 hours, then removed it... this process damaged the tissue. A couple weeks later the tissue was healed, but the circuits in the spinal cord were altered to make the rat still feel pain in that paw. They then injected a compound into the spinal cords of some rats that apparently relieved the chronic pain. I don't see any control
I was talking about Paul, but that is the first time I've looked into Kucinich. Interesting, he sounds like a legit guy. Actually the Department of Peace doesn't sound like such a bad idea in the context of a huge Defense Department.
I am currently reading your post as "the government subsidizing stupid decisions creates value". I am somewhat confused. Are you talking about the Homeowner's Defense Act, or some actual insurance that is currently in effect? Also, do you think it is a good thing to subsidize stupid decisions?
Noone thinks an existing load eliminates lesser radiation sources. It is a matter of percentage. If you want a real hypothesis (no idea if it has been tested), propose that our DNA is normally hardened to IR radiation by the UV light normally mixed in. Say something like that.
How much does it cost to do this and how much less does the city have to pay for security?
Yes, you are right about the "utopian concept" of a balanced budget. I wouldn't call it utopian necessarily, but yea. My idea would be to raise taxes on the wealthy and quickly pay off the debt. Many of them would be, at least in part, paying themselves. The US has been subject to an obfuscated bank tax for a long time now. Funds should be redistributed from wealthy to government to effectively cancel this. But, this entire plan will be in vain unless other debt-limiting measures are taken at the same time.
Oh yea, totally agreed. The current political reality is that the average person will be taxed the same amount regardless, and so not have that extra money. I should start including that disclaimer in posts like the one above.
There is a similar phenomenon in alcohol research.
Alcohol bad hypothesis = relatively easily funded,
Alcohol good hypothesis = much more difficult
This is not publicly stated by anyone but well known to those in the field. It is a problem with government funding, but we would also see it with private funding whether for- or non-profit. Which option would be better is an unknown. I mostly have a problem with the idea many people have that government funding is completely neutral and merit-based. I prefer blatant bias to the hidden bias though.
Have you investigated these "wacky" ideas (and no I don't mean reading thinkprogress or fox news)? What are they?
Yea, I would say if you have this attitude vote for obama if Ron Paul isn't running. The half-assed statist corporatism of the democrats is preferable to the half assed libertarian corporatism of the republicans. Personally I would encourage voting third party. Once people see a movement gaining steam over the course of a couple elections it will become big. Everyone paying attention knows the two major parties are corrupted and running this country into the ground.
I think it's a combination of both platforms being unrealistic utopianism and corporatism. No rational person would really vote for either, so they just go with gut feeling (which is determined by funding).
Got any data to back that up?
Agreed, this is a preferable situation for them and illustrates how misleading relying on a single metric to judge the health of an economy can be. The thing is that once internal debt "carrying capacity" (not sure if I am making that term up) is saturated, then what? I honestly don't know that much about japan's economy so...
False. Keynesian economic theory does not say the government should deficit spend all the time, forever.
Right, but the end goal is to compare funding cancer research to a variety of other investments.
To do this we need to know the likelihood of the cancer research investment playing out as well as the possible benefit.
Here you go: HR 3699
"To ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector."
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3699:
With regards to the NIH chart. Applicants have doubled since 1993 while success rate has dropped about 33%. Is it possible we are seeing the effects of a higher education bubble?
Perhaps the success rate could go up if the amount per grant (about $400k/yr for an RO1) was decreased. The various equipment and reagent suppliers know the money is coming from the government and how spending sprees occur at the end of the fiscal year, we are likely seeing price inflation. I know we get wildly different prices from different companies (sometimes even the same company), and also depending on whether we order through the VA or an associated private hospital.
This leads me to believe suppliers could probably get more efficient and offer the same products for less if they need to, but how much more? That is just my hypothesis, I'll have to look at the numbers eventually and see if it is supported.
Bigger projects require more funding, I agree. Collaboration is supposed to increase efficiency though. Have the projects actually been getting bigger? Is this concentrating funding into only big labs (and those associated with them), thus reducing the merit factor and increasing the pal-review factor?
Religion is often used as an excuse to make your opinions seem more important than they are. Really any -ism is the same.
So you want morning after pills and abortions included in the free medical treatment provided for victims of violent crimes? Sounds reasonable.
Yes, here is the proper argument. Why do so many people fail to say this and start talking about women's rights instead?
My bad, I think I replied to the wrong post...
I just meant there is clearly a correlation between age and experience. Obviously adults have both more experience and more "developed" brains than adolescents. Also, it is obvious that some people develop biologically faster than others, some never really get to the point of having "adult" thought processes, and that the rate of this development can be affected by experience.
I don't think it is out of the question that some 16 year olds may be as mature as some 40 year olds. I was trying to raise the question of: How much of a role does experience have on the rate of brain development. If the same level of responsibility was expected of a 16 year old that we currently associate with a 40 year old, would they be more or less mature at 20 years old than now. Things like that...
Japan has a huge national debt...we will see what happens with that. Also, Germany is benefiting from the euro. Basically their currency is undervalued because it is being dragged down by other members of the EU (Greece, etc). Inflation is on the horizon for both countries. You are assuming that both of these situations are sustainable.
There is now a bill in the house to end this, I forgot the name of it but there was a slashdot article a couple weeks ago one it.
Also, the percentage of successful grant proposals is determined by three primary factors:
1) Amount of money available
2) Amount given out per grant
3) Number of applicants
You are only focusing on one. Have any of the other factors changed recently?
Since we don't really have reliable data on this either way (that I know of), wouldn't it make sense to assume the worst?