Actually my Dad says that in the days before radio, they would often tell stories they had heard as a kid. So "time shifting" is at least as old as story telling...
To parent post: This was supposed to be a sarcastic agreement with a different post, but the new editing system confused me when I fixed a typo and it ended up pinned to the first post instead. Sorry about that.
I disagree. I think they need to increase their efforts to stop the online distribution of child pornography. There are many sites that have been claimed by some to contain at least some child pornography - rapidshare, myspace, facebook, photobucket, etc; and these should be blocked as well. But even that isn't doing enough if they were to look at the larger ways of distribution. Email, FTP and HTTP have all been used in to distribute child pornography, and if the ISPs were committed to blocking child pornography, they would block those as well. That would only leave a few other things that would need to be blocked to stop child pornography - instant messaging, telnet and a few others. You say they are taking away legitimate purposes of newsgroups, but they are still leaving so many ways of getting child pornography -- so clearly you are a glass is half full and not half empty type of person, and in cases like this, that makes it seem like you are in favor of an internet part full of child pornography.
The wisdom of relying on herd immunity to protect an individual depends on each disease's prevalence. It might be OK with polio, perhaps diphtheria, but see the huge rate increase in Russia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphtheria#Epidemiology.
For tetanus, which is found in soil bacteria, this is bad reasoning, as you aren't protected by your neighbor having all her boosters of tetanus toxoid. For pertussis, probably a bad idea as there are significant people's whose immunity has waned and thus can carry it to and infect your children. I think the same applies to measles among college-age kids. For hepatitis B (HBV) there is a prevalence of 1/2% in the USA http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/h/hepatitis_b/prevalence.htm. If your child wants to go into healthcare or is going to be sexually active, they should get it. There is a risk of hepatocellular carcinoma from HBV that probably exceeds the risk of untoward effects from the vaccine. For H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae vaccines, I think most of the population has not had these vaccines. Probably better to get them for your children. Does that mean your child will die if they don't? Probably not, but the odds of mortality or morbidity are much likely lower if they get it than if they don't.
It still is a cost-benefit problem, but the benefit is lowered at constant cost whenever the prevalence decreases, which can happen either through other people being vaccinated or otherwise. Also, just FYI, some of the live-attenuated vaccines may vaccinate your children second hand. They may very well "catch the vaccine" from someone else that was vaccinated. That is one "advantage" of using live-attenuated vaccines. I'm not saying I'm a proponent of live vaccines for this reason, but this argument has been made as to why to use them, though I think it is mostly made for developing nations where not everyone has the opportunity to be vaccinated.
Great point about herd immunity, bad example. Pertussis is increasing in teen and older populations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pertussis due to waning immunity from the vaccine, which has led recently to pre-teens getting a booster shot. The pre-teenage kids of the adviser of my graduate program actually got pertussis a few years ago out in suburban Long Island, despite being immunized along the normal schedule. I think there was a mini-outbreak in their school. The severity is much less in previously immunized people, however.
I would think sanitary conditions and public health initiatives contributed much more than diet, but I'm sure diet adds to it as well. I never said vaccines were the sole reason for reduction of death or morbidity, but they are one very important contributor. I think you want to extrapolate the negative slopes right before a vaccine in your data to say they were already on their way to zero before the vaccines, but I don't think that is valid. I think, if you look at the Diphtheria entry Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphtheria, you find this example for why vaccination is important:
Outbreaks, though very rare, still occur worldwide, even in developed nations. After the breakup of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, vaccination rates in its constituent countries fell so low that there was an explosion of diphtheria cases. In 1991 there were 2,000 cases of diphtheria in the USSR. By 1998, according to Red Cross estimates, there were as many as 200,000 cases in the Commonwealth of Independent States, with 5,000 deaths. This was so great an increase that diphtheria was cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as "most resurgent disease". Also, be careful in your data as 4 of the 9 examples in your graph are antibiotics and not vaccines. Certainly antibiotics have also been a large contributor. Some people die, lose their hearing, have kidney failure and have other bad outcomes from antibiotics, but more survive only because of them. Again the point is cost-benefit. If you were to look at some of those graphs in your data to present day, TB, had a major resurgence in the 80s-90s following HIV. Now the #1 cause for TB in America is from immigrants. So because there is no TB vaccine, the TB health status in America seems to be fixed at the level of the world's TB health status. I think if there was a vaccine, it would be more like the case with Polio--gone from the US, with some remaining areas in India and such. Also, the influenza example in your data is bad because there is a reservoir in birds and the strains change each year, so a vaccine is only good for one year (if that, given this year's 2 of 3 in the vaccine being for the wrong strains).
My point is that there are several health precautions and post hoc treatments to prevent death and morbidity, and vaccination is not the sole method for many diseases, but it is an important component, and one that worth the small risks.
It is a valid point to state there is more vigilance by physicians in looking for autism and an expanded definition, as you have mentioned. Thank you for making the point. I had no intentions of skipping it. It is stated in the reference, which is why I didn't make it, in a hope of saving some time and doing something this afternoon beyond arguing with people over vaccination. Other studies have suggested the increase in cases is not only due to a widening of the definition or increase in realization of the symptoms/signs, however I do not have a readily available reference. The point was that it didn't go down despite removal of the claimed causative agent. It is possible that Thimerosal, which contains mercury (but is not identical to elemental mercury), causes developmental problems in children, but this isn't supported by much evidence, if any legitimate evidence, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. If Jenny McCarthy said, hey I'm worried about Thimerosal, we need to study it more, that is one thing, but if she says it causes autism and you need to fire the head of the CDC because she isn't doing anything about it on TV, that is another thing. The evidence I was linking to suggests rather strongly, in fact, Thimerosal is not causing autism, but there are other explanations that are possible. I didn't mean to suggest it is conclusive. However, it seems very unlikely Thimerosal is causing or even strongly influencing the development of autism.
Also, I think you need to distinguish Asperger's syndrome, which is part of the Autistic Spectrum Disorders, with Autism. It may be a matter of severity of effect, or it may be a different disease altogether, but it is certainly complicated.
Sorry to hear about your daughter.
I've since come to realise that she's autistic. You said she was diagnosed with mental retardation, but you realized she was autistic, which has confused me. Was diagnosed with autism or do you think she is autistic despite a diagnosis of mental retardation (these are not the same entities)? Autism is usually characterized by decreased communication skills and decreased socialization. You haven't described anything like that, so she may not actually be autistic, or you have just not described those.
It should also be noted that for autism to be diagnosed, the symptoms have to start by three years of age, I believe. If childhood vaccines are given frequently during this time, it is not unlikely that a significant number of people will notice an association between a vaccine panel and the first onset of the symptoms of autism by mere chance alone. I'm sure this could even be quantified, but I don't have the time.
You're not going to convince ME there was no link....Show me all the studies showing red is really green you want and I'll be convinced that the researcher is color blind or dishonest. So you are saying you will ignore any evidence and all reason?
My friend Mike had polio (which has been completely eradicated in this country so there's no excuse for polio vaccinations here any more) as a child and he walks with a limp and one hand doesn't work well, but he has a productive job. Polio is still found in some of India, so I think the idea is to vaccinate until it is eradicated. Also, the morbidity is unacceptable for a preventable disease. You are saying, effectively, a little limp and loss of the use of a hand never hurt anyone.
Small pox and diptheria are gone, no need to vaccinate against them either. Small pox vaccinations stopped in the 1970s, several years after it was eradicated. Diptheria isn't eradicated.
AFAIK there is no vaccine for meningitis. There is for bacterial meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningococcus, for bacterial meningitis caused by streptococcus pneumoniae strains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumovax and for bacterial meningitis caused by haemophilus influenzae B: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemophilus_influenzae.
I am not saying that vaccines can never do any harm, but that it is rare and grossly outweighed by the benefits. I seriously doubt your daughters mental disorder was caused by MMR vaccine (which has been well studied and refuted, and the original paper showing the link has since been retracted, but given your own admission of not believing any published evidence to the contrary, I imagine this is just wasted time on my part. However, I would like you to consider what ill may have fallen on your other daughter had neither of them been vaccinated.
I think it is completely irrational. There is simple evidence against the link, but obviously that didn't get through. Thimerosal was removed from most all child vaccines in or around 2001, but the autism rate kept increasing during 2004-2007 (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/08/autism_rate_in_calif_increases/). There is additional evidence, but this is pretty strong evidence.
I should note, all I did was a Google search for "autism rate" and chose the second link. I hope any lawyers reading this don't want discovery of my financial records, although, as a student, they are pretty simple and can be summarized by a single digit: 0.
What do you think the cost-benefit ratio is for reducing measles, mumps, polio, small pox, diptheria, strep pneumonia, N. meningitis HPV, etc? Between that and no known link between vaccination and autism, I think such a belief against vaccinations is one not based on evidence and one that is not reasonable.
I have 2 comments, but I didn't read all of the 600 comments, so I apologize if I duplicate another's thoughts.
1) What kind of response bias is there in this? They survey Nature's readers, but is the 1400 the number of responses? If so, perhaps people with a history of use or knowing someone who used an enhancing substance responded preferentially. Maybe someone needs to be on a performance enhancing drug to even subscribe with institutional subscriptions now-a-days.
2) Beta-blockers like propranolol [trade name-Inderal] can be used for anxiety, hypertension, tachycardia, etc. I've never heard them described as drugs of abuse or performance enhancing drugs, save perhaps for someone doing public speaking. In fact, beta-blockers are given to drug addicts/alcoholics for the treatment of anxiety instead of Xanax or other benzodiazepines. I tried to find a the statistics on Beta-blocker prescription numbers, but could only find that there were >$3 billion in sales for beta blockers within the last few years (It was like looking for a needle in a Viagra-stack). I have to wonder, what is the baseline rate of beta-blocker usage that is not performance-enhancing in a group of people that may be type-A personalities, have high stress jobs if they are writing grants with 8-9% funding success rates, and may be of an older age bracket if they are personal vs institutional subscribers and also have the time and interest in replying to an unsolicited survey?
Thanks. For anyone with access to the journal Respiration, you can see some pictures through that link.
The authors summarize the machine as producing "in essence a dynamic map of breath sound distribution."
Basically, there is a grayscale image with an object that is almost cloverleaf in shape, I presume corresponding to the superior and inferior lobes of the left and right lungs. You can visualize where there is inhalation and there are examples demonstrating a variety of pathological conditions.
Though I'm only a second year medical student and not a pulmonologist, I don't see how it is of much benefit over listening with a stethoscope at 4-6 positions over the back unless there is a need to be quantitative, which I am not sure this can be reliably and that a cheaper alternative does not exist. They say this, "The fact that VRI shows distribution of lung sounds in a rapid manner in mechanically ventilated patients may prove to make it a valuable tool for the assessment of recruitment maneuvers and ventilator adjustment at bedside," which might be of value across shifts or something where a different Dr. is listening to before and after changes.
Though the method may be unique (and I'm not sure it is), I can't imagine any use that isn't pure novelty.
From the patent:
Useful products include individual identity analysis, for example, for security checking, paternity testing, and the like. The music generated by an individual sample can be compared with a control sample. An identity analyzer can be configured to provide an audible signal for a specific comparative result, for example, if the sample and the control differ, e.g., signaling an alarm in a security setting, or when they are the same, e.g., adding excitement to live television coverage of paternity determinations.
Clinical analyzers that compare sequences of patient samples with controls may be programmed to provide soothing melodies when the sequence is "normal" and to provide an audible, for example, discordant music when an "abnormal" sequence is detected. Such signals can provide a signal for the clinical technician to alert a physician to the difference in the sequence. It is like they took legitimate uses for DNA and just give you the results in a song. I don't get it. But then again, pet rocks and moon property have been successful, so why can't this?
I think the point of Nerds serving as a canary is not that Ubuntu is here yet, but that it is starting to be easy enough to use (and yet flexible and highly customizable) that the time spent tweaking it (for a Nerd) versus other problems inherent with a Mac or Windows or whatever is approaching the break even point. As Ubuntu becomes more user friendly, less expert users may also find their break even point is crossed. I think that is the idea of the importance behind these long-time Mac supporters changing to Ubuntu. Granted 2 people do not make or break Apple. However, if they can be considered as a small group of formerly loyal Mac users, it is possible they are signaling an approaching point, perhaps driven by an effort to make linux accessible by the linux community, where linux may be a viable alternative to Mac for a fraction of the price, as well as have the added bonus of a high degree of control over the OS by the end user (where desired).
The exact number of genes may well turn out to be slightly higher (or less). This number probably is after a good estimate to identify potential genes and reading frames and weed out pseudogenes, but the number may not be exact. Secondly, what do you call microRNA? These are sometimes very short transcribed RNAs that do not get translated into proteins for their function. If it is a functional nucleotide message, but doesn't code for a protein, is it a gene? I don't know the convention, but it is probably not a gene, but maybe it should be.
In addition, it is very possible there was some human tuning of the number to have it come out 3,141 instead of 3,142 or 3,140 for example.
Are you telling me "Mission accomplished" in 2003 was a little ahead of itself?
Animal contact with humans not animal health
on
Blaming The Bats
·
· Score: 2, Informative
>"it is hardly controversial to argue that human health is linked to animal health."
I would argue that perhaps the greater problem is the number of people living in close proximity to these animals. Whereas the diseases listed above may have been confined to non-human animals for long periods of time, the frequency of jumping to humans must depend on the amount of contact they both have. I don't know to what degree animal health fits into this, unless you suggest animals have weakened immune systems due to abnormal environmental stresses. The term for diseases (usually animal in origin) that can jump to humans is zoonosis, and the wikipedia article here may be a more valuable reference than the submitter's comments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis
The events that change the degree of association of humans and animals, such as raising domestic animals as livestock and other similar agricultural and cultural changes may have a bigger impact on the number of new (to humans) pathogens than the health of the zoonotic population.
While your point is very good about inherent intelligence and education, it could very well be that there is a correlation between amount of "deep thinking" or some other "cognitive workout" and education. The likely source of this would be employment, which likely lasts into the persons 60-70s. Education may just be an easy way to measure this lifelong mental exercise. Another possibility is that the people in your situation are relatively few and are lost to averages when the whole groups are considered.
That is because this slashdot-linked review is an over-simplification of the actual study. The mice lacking the gene probably have lost the ability to remember they were subjected to aggression previously. That is they are behaving naively. They aren't kissing up, they just don't know they were picked on previously.
You should read the F study RTFS http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;311 /5762/864 but your conclusion is supported by the article, from what I can see, maybe the article should RTFS.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually my Dad says that in the days before radio, they would often tell stories they had heard as a kid. So "time shifting" is at least as old as story telling...
To parent post: This was supposed to be a sarcastic agreement with a different post, but the new editing system confused me when I fixed a typo and it ended up pinned to the first post instead. Sorry about that.
I disagree. I think they need to increase their efforts to stop the online distribution of child pornography. There are many sites that have been claimed by some to contain at least some child pornography - rapidshare, myspace, facebook, photobucket, etc; and these should be blocked as well. But even that isn't doing enough if they were to look at the larger ways of distribution. Email, FTP and HTTP have all been used in to distribute child pornography, and if the ISPs were committed to blocking child pornography, they would block those as well. That would only leave a few other things that would need to be blocked to stop child pornography - instant messaging, telnet and a few others. You say they are taking away legitimate purposes of newsgroups, but they are still leaving so many ways of getting child pornography -- so clearly you are a glass is half full and not half empty type of person, and in cases like this, that makes it seem like you are in favor of an internet part full of child pornography.
I believe they don't need to deplete them, but can just irradiate them to prevent replication, or they could do both.
For tetanus, which is found in soil bacteria, this is bad reasoning, as you aren't protected by your neighbor having all her boosters of tetanus toxoid. For pertussis, probably a bad idea as there are significant people's whose immunity has waned and thus can carry it to and infect your children. I think the same applies to measles among college-age kids. For hepatitis B (HBV) there is a prevalence of 1/2% in the USA http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/h/hepatitis_b/prevalence.htm. If your child wants to go into healthcare or is going to be sexually active, they should get it. There is a risk of hepatocellular carcinoma from HBV that probably exceeds the risk of untoward effects from the vaccine. For H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae vaccines, I think most of the population has not had these vaccines. Probably better to get them for your children. Does that mean your child will die if they don't? Probably not, but the odds of mortality or morbidity are much likely lower if they get it than if they don't.
It still is a cost-benefit problem, but the benefit is lowered at constant cost whenever the prevalence decreases, which can happen either through other people being vaccinated or otherwise. Also, just FYI, some of the live-attenuated vaccines may vaccinate your children second hand. They may very well "catch the vaccine" from someone else that was vaccinated. That is one "advantage" of using live-attenuated vaccines. I'm not saying I'm a proponent of live vaccines for this reason, but this argument has been made as to why to use them, though I think it is mostly made for developing nations where not everyone has the opportunity to be vaccinated.
Great point about herd immunity, bad example. Pertussis is increasing in teen and older populations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pertussis due to waning immunity from the vaccine, which has led recently to pre-teens getting a booster shot. The pre-teenage kids of the adviser of my graduate program actually got pertussis a few years ago out in suburban Long Island, despite being immunized along the normal schedule. I think there was a mini-outbreak in their school. The severity is much less in previously immunized people, however.
My point is that there are several health precautions and post hoc treatments to prevent death and morbidity, and vaccination is not the sole method for many diseases, but it is an important component, and one that worth the small risks.
It is a valid point to state there is more vigilance by physicians in looking for autism and an expanded definition, as you have mentioned. Thank you for making the point. I had no intentions of skipping it. It is stated in the reference, which is why I didn't make it, in a hope of saving some time and doing something this afternoon beyond arguing with people over vaccination. Other studies have suggested the increase in cases is not only due to a widening of the definition or increase in realization of the symptoms/signs, however I do not have a readily available reference. The point was that it didn't go down despite removal of the claimed causative agent. It is possible that Thimerosal, which contains mercury (but is not identical to elemental mercury), causes developmental problems in children, but this isn't supported by much evidence, if any legitimate evidence, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. If Jenny McCarthy said, hey I'm worried about Thimerosal, we need to study it more, that is one thing, but if she says it causes autism and you need to fire the head of the CDC because she isn't doing anything about it on TV, that is another thing. The evidence I was linking to suggests rather strongly, in fact, Thimerosal is not causing autism, but there are other explanations that are possible. I didn't mean to suggest it is conclusive. However, it seems very unlikely Thimerosal is causing or even strongly influencing the development of autism. Also, I think you need to distinguish Asperger's syndrome, which is part of the Autistic Spectrum Disorders, with Autism. It may be a matter of severity of effect, or it may be a different disease altogether, but it is certainly complicated.
I think it is completely irrational. There is simple evidence against the link, but obviously that didn't get through. Thimerosal was removed from most all child vaccines in or around 2001, but the autism rate kept increasing during 2004-2007 (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/08/autism_rate_in_calif_increases/). There is additional evidence, but this is pretty strong evidence. I should note, all I did was a Google search for "autism rate" and chose the second link. I hope any lawyers reading this don't want discovery of my financial records, although, as a student, they are pretty simple and can be summarized by a single digit: 0.
What do you think the cost-benefit ratio is for reducing measles, mumps, polio, small pox, diptheria, strep pneumonia, N. meningitis HPV, etc? Between that and no known link between vaccination and autism, I think such a belief against vaccinations is one not based on evidence and one that is not reasonable.
I have 2 comments, but I didn't read all of the 600 comments, so I apologize if I duplicate another's thoughts.
1) What kind of response bias is there in this? They survey Nature's readers, but is the 1400 the number of responses? If so, perhaps people with a history of use or knowing someone who used an enhancing substance responded preferentially. Maybe someone needs to be on a performance enhancing drug to even subscribe with institutional subscriptions now-a-days.
2) Beta-blockers like propranolol [trade name-Inderal] can be used for anxiety, hypertension, tachycardia, etc. I've never heard them described as drugs of abuse or performance enhancing drugs, save perhaps for someone doing public speaking. In fact, beta-blockers are given to drug addicts/alcoholics for the treatment of anxiety instead of Xanax or other benzodiazepines. I tried to find a the statistics on Beta-blocker prescription numbers, but could only find that there were >$3 billion in sales for beta blockers within the last few years (It was like looking for a needle in a Viagra-stack). I have to wonder, what is the baseline rate of beta-blocker usage that is not performance-enhancing in a group of people that may be type-A personalities, have high stress jobs if they are writing grants with 8-9% funding success rates, and may be of an older age bracket if they are personal vs institutional subscribers and also have the time and interest in replying to an unsolicited survey?
I thought the brain was supposed to cool the heart anyway. At least that is what Aristotle said: http://library.thinkquest.org/C0126536/main.php?currentchap=5¤tsect=history.htm
Probably for the same reasons why tobacco escapes regulation from them.l iamson_Tobacco_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDA_v._Brown_%26_Wil
Thanks. For anyone with access to the journal Respiration, you can see some pictures through that link. The authors summarize the machine as producing "in essence a dynamic map of breath sound distribution." Basically, there is a grayscale image with an object that is almost cloverleaf in shape, I presume corresponding to the superior and inferior lobes of the left and right lungs. You can visualize where there is inhalation and there are examples demonstrating a variety of pathological conditions. Though I'm only a second year medical student and not a pulmonologist, I don't see how it is of much benefit over listening with a stethoscope at 4-6 positions over the back unless there is a need to be quantitative, which I am not sure this can be reliably and that a cheaper alternative does not exist. They say this, "The fact that VRI shows distribution of lung sounds in a rapid manner in mechanically ventilated patients may prove to make it a valuable tool for the assessment of recruitment maneuvers and ventilator adjustment at bedside," which might be of value across shifts or something where a different Dr. is listening to before and after changes.
Clinical analyzers that compare sequences of patient samples with controls may be programmed to provide soothing melodies when the sequence is "normal" and to provide an audible, for example, discordant music when an "abnormal" sequence is detected. Such signals can provide a signal for the clinical technician to alert a physician to the difference in the sequence. It is like they took legitimate uses for DNA and just give you the results in a song. I don't get it. But then again, pet rocks and moon property have been successful, so why can't this?
What else floats?
Let me see if I get this right:
If fruit weighs as much as a duck, it's ripe?
You can decrease its activity with MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors), also known as anti-depressants.
I think the point of Nerds serving as a canary is not that Ubuntu is here yet, but that it is starting to be easy enough to use (and yet flexible and highly customizable) that the time spent tweaking it (for a Nerd) versus other problems inherent with a Mac or Windows or whatever is approaching the break even point. As Ubuntu becomes more user friendly, less expert users may also find their break even point is crossed. I think that is the idea of the importance behind these long-time Mac supporters changing to Ubuntu. Granted 2 people do not make or break Apple. However, if they can be considered as a small group of formerly loyal Mac users, it is possible they are signaling an approaching point, perhaps driven by an effort to make linux accessible by the linux community, where linux may be a viable alternative to Mac for a fraction of the price, as well as have the added bonus of a high degree of control over the OS by the end user (where desired).
In addition, it is very possible there was some human tuning of the number to have it come out 3,141 instead of 3,142 or 3,140 for example.
Are you telling me "Mission accomplished" in 2003 was a little ahead of itself?
>"it is hardly controversial to argue that human health is linked to animal health." I would argue that perhaps the greater problem is the number of people living in close proximity to these animals. Whereas the diseases listed above may have been confined to non-human animals for long periods of time, the frequency of jumping to humans must depend on the amount of contact they both have. I don't know to what degree animal health fits into this, unless you suggest animals have weakened immune systems due to abnormal environmental stresses. The term for diseases (usually animal in origin) that can jump to humans is zoonosis, and the wikipedia article here may be a more valuable reference than the submitter's comments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis The events that change the degree of association of humans and animals, such as raising domestic animals as livestock and other similar agricultural and cultural changes may have a bigger impact on the number of new (to humans) pathogens than the health of the zoonotic population.
While your point is very good about inherent intelligence and education, it could very well be that there is a correlation between amount of "deep thinking" or some other "cognitive workout" and education. The likely source of this would be employment, which likely lasts into the persons 60-70s. Education may just be an easy way to measure this lifelong mental exercise. Another possibility is that the people in your situation are relatively few and are lost to averages when the whole groups are considered.
If he wanted it.
That is because this slashdot-linked review is an over-simplification of the actual study. The mice lacking the gene probably have lost the ability to remember they were subjected to aggression previously. That is they are behaving naively. They aren't kissing up, they just don't know they were picked on previously. You should read the F study RTFS http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;311 /5762/864 but your conclusion is supported by the article, from what I can see, maybe the article should RTFS.