Rough Times Make Us Healthier

When the rough gets going, the body feels better. Some social scientists have done a little research and have found that in certain circumstances around economic downturns people get healthier - in multiple manners. Their bodies get healthier - they eat better (the absolute best evidence that we are eating too much in our wealth). Their families get healthier - they spend more time with them. Their rates of suicide drop (caught me here). And a few other interesting little tid bits...

Our bodies are evolved to work in conditions of feast and famine. Maybe these economic bubbles aren't the work of bad policy or foolish Wall Streeters but the natural reactions of human beings in situation of plenty. When there is something to be gotten, as our history has dictated to us, you must get as much as you can because at some point it will stop flowing.

And maybe, those famines are important to us because they reeducate us. They refocus us. They teach us how to live within our means, how to appreciate a normal sized meal and how to live in a manner that made human beings so great.

Long live volatality!

Natural Isotopes Counter Free Radicals

Eurek Alert! - Meat and two neutrons -- the key to a longer life

A while back I read an article from a crazy looking guy talking about the coming immortality. One of his thoughts was that we would learn how to counter free radicals in our body and extend, incrementally our life span. Looks like someone has hit on a slight piece of things...

The most interesting thing is that the same gentlemen from above is quoted in the story and he seems to be the pessimist...I guess being a well educated person in a certain field and understanding the complexities of the human body might make you a cynic.


Ageing experts are impressed with the isotopic approach. Aubrey de Grey, the Cambridge-based gerontologist, says it could be very relevant to the rates of several chemical and enzymatic processes relevant to ageing 'It is a highly novel idea,' he says. 'But it remains to be seen whether it can be the source of practicable therapies, but it is a prospect that certainly cannot be ruled out.'

Charles Cantor, a professor of biomechanical engineering at Boston University, said: 'Preliminary data indicates that this approach can potentially increase lifespan without adverse side effects. If this is borne out by further experiments the implications are profound.'

"Elsie - mother of the modern loaf"

Elsie - mother of the modern loaf - BBC.Com

Very interesting article.

"Elsie Widdowson and her scientific partner, Robert McCance, oversaw the first compulsory addition of a substance to food in the early 1940s, when calcium was introduced to bread.

They were also responsible for formulating war-time rationing - some experts say that under their diet of mainly bread, vegetables and potatoes, that was when Britain was at its healthiest."

Very interesting tidbit at the end...

"She studied children at a German orphanage where one group was scolded as they ate - and found these children did not thrive as well as other orphanage children fed the same diet."

Sleep is Good for Us

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=437683&in_page_id=1965

Lead researcher Bob Stickgold, professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, said: "We're not just stabilizing memories during sleep. We're extracting the meaning.

"Sleep helps us extract rules from our experiences. It's like knowing the difference between dogs and cats, even if it's hard to explain."



I think I am going to petition for a 1.5 hour lunch break so I can nap. :-)

Get your kids AWAY from the damn television!

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6081

Do not use the TV as an educator.
Do not use the TV as a babysitter.
Do not allow the TV to impart morals and values.
Do not yourself become a victim to the vice of sloth.

There are many mediums to receive knowledge.
There are many way to entertain oneself.

TV may not be the bane of society, but it can change us.

Physical Diseases that Lead to SUPERPOWERS!!!

Or something like that...

http://www.autoadviceoffl.com/Braindisease.htm