No chance.
No chance 93% didn’t lie.
Liars.
Source: NY Times Magazine
Own up.
November 3, 2016 by 20 Comments
The Wisdom of Crowds
July 16, 2016 by 9 Comments
Notes:
- Source: NY Times Magazine (July 17, 2016)
- Post Title taken from James Surowiecki’s Book: The Wisdom of Crowds
- Post inspiration: Vera Meum – “Why does the sound of rain gently tapping on the roof and windows instantly relieve stress? It is a reminder of survival, an appreciation for being safe, dry, and warm, the most basic of needs. Therein lies a secret to contentment; to remind ourselves regularly of the satisfaction of our basic needs, to appreciate another moment of survival, and forget the extraneous factors that cause us undue stress.”
Unfairly Demonised. That’s Right.
July 5, 2016 by 48 Comments
1980’s: Replace butter with margarine. Overturned.
1990’s: Eliminate salt. Debunked.
2000’s: Eliminate/reduce carbs.
And today, the big news:
- “Eating pasta is not fattening and actually decreases the chances of becoming obese”
- “A new survey of more than 23,000 people, however, has linked pasta consumption to both lower body mass and waist-to-hip ratio.”
- “…also found that the correlation between pasta intake and lower obesity rates occurred independently of overall diet”
- “evidence that carbohydrates have been “unfairly demonised”.”=
- “the current trend of people cutting out pasta from their diets in an effort to lose weight was unjustified”
- “a fundamental component of Italian Mediterranean tradition, and there is no reason to do without it”
- results clearly show that it is wrong to demonise carbohydrates as the data clearly show that consumption of a carbohydrate-rich food such as pasta does not have an adverse effect on body weight.
Read more at The Telegraph: Eating pasta helps you lose weight, says Italian study
Moral of the story:
1) Wait long enough and it all comes home.
2) Back up the Pasta Truck.
3) Next up: Ice Cream.
Notes: (1) Thank you Rich for sharing the research. (2) Photo: Credit
You the oldest sibling? Just say Bollocks to new research.
July 20, 2015 by 36 Comments
Dear Brothers (both younger, adults, but needing direction):
Remember the research on margarine vs. butter? This falls on the same playing field. Don’t believe everything you read.
ScienceDaily, July 15, 2015:
Massive study: Birth order has no meaningful effect on personality or IQ:
For those who believe that birth order influences traits like personality and intelligence, a study of 377,000 high school students offers some good news: Yes, the study found, first-borns do have higher IQs and consistently different personality traits than those born later in the family chronology. However, researchers say, the differences between first-borns and ‘later-borns’ are so small that they have no practical relevance to people’s lives.~ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
If you missed the prior post on my Brother Rich, here’s the link; “New Research. Bull. It’s the natural order.
Notes: Photograph: Thank you Emily RC Photography
So you want to live forever
May 4, 2014 by 28 Comments
From The Weekly Standard: So You Want to Live Forever:
Aubrey de Grey, 51, is the man who insists that within a few decades technology will enable us human beings to beat death and live forever. “Someone is alive right now who is going to live to be 1,000 years old.”
The British-born de Grey, with a doctorate in biology from Cambridge, is also the single most colorful figure in the living-forever movement, where colorful figures generously abound. “I look as though I’m in my 30s,” he informed me…And maybe he does look that young, but it’s hard to tell, because his waist-length, waterfall-style beard—a de Grey trademark—gives him the look of an extremely spry Methuselah, who, according to the Bible, made it only to 969 years.
De Grey is actually of the phenotype Ageless British Eccentric: English Rose cheeks, piercing blue eyes, and someone-please-make-him-a-sandwich slenderness; his tomato-red shirt and gray slacks hang from angular shoulders and legs. Bony frames that verge on gauntness are a hallmark of the living-forever movement, most of whose members hew to severe dietary restrictions in order to prolong their lives while they wait for science to catch up with death. De Grey, by contrast, claims to eat whatever he likes and also to drink massive quantities of carb-loaded English ale, working it all off by punting on the River Cam in the four months a year he spends doing research back at Cambridge.
De Grey subscribes to the reigning theory of the live-forever movement: that aging, the process by which living things ultimately wear themselves out and die, isn’t an inevitable part of the human condition. Instead, aging is just another disease, not really different in kind from any of the other serious ailments, such as heart failure or cancer, that kill us. And as with other diseases, de Grey believes that aging has a cure or series of cures that scientists will eventually discover…
Read more at The Weekly Standard: So You Want To Live Forever
Image: DIYTheme.com
It’s all coming my way
April 2, 2014 by 25 Comments
For a man who holds a fork in one hand and a salt shaker in the other…Who’s been repeatedly scolded for the level of his salt intake…for salting his food before tasting it – – BooYah for me – – Boo Hoo to all my critics. You know who you are. New research spells it all out in Salt Guidelines Too Low for Good Health:
“Don’t toss out your salt shaker just yet: A new analysis from Denmark finds current recommended salt guidelines may be too low. The new research indicates that Americans consume a healthy amount of salt, even though daily averages exceed recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“For most people, there is no reason to change their dietary habits concerning salt, as most people eat what appears to be the safest amount,”
“…They found that low levels of salt consumption may be linked with a greater risk of death.”
Read more here.
It’s only a matter time. Life extension benefits of French Fries and Ice Cream are just around the corner.
Image Credit
Spite Me
April 1, 2014 by 21 Comments
NY Times: Spite is Good. Spite Works:
…Evolutionary theorists have long been intrigued by the origins and purpose of spite, and a new report suggests that sometimes spite can make right.
…The new research on spite transcends older notions that we are savage, selfish brutes at heart, as well as more recent suggestions that humans are inherently affiliative creatures yearning to love and connect. Instead, it concludes that vice and virtue, like the two sides of a V, may be inextricably linked.
…human decency and cooperation require a certain degree of so-called altruistic punishment: the willingness of some individuals to punish rule breakers even when the infraction does not directly affect them — challenging the guy who broke into the line behind you, for example.
…“It could be that Nietzsche was right about punishment,” Dr. Forber said, “that it originated as spite and only later was turned into a mechanism for maintaining fairness and justice.”
“…If you get the reputation as someone not to mess with and nobody messes with you going forward, then it was well worth the cost.”
“…It’s like the Mafia,” he said. “They end up reducing crime in the areas they inhabit.”
Read full article in NY Times: Spite is Good. Spite Works.
We could be better
December 2, 2013 by 28 Comments
“Although people say they want to be thanked more often at work, fewer than 50% of Americans polled for the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization, reported that they would be very likely to thank salespeople, their mail carriers, or cleaning crews, and just 15% express daily gratitude to friends or colleagues. 74% never or rarely express gratitude to their bosses—but 70% said they’d feel better about themselves if their bosses were more grateful.”
~ Andrew O’Connell – We Could Be Better At Giving Thanks, Harvard Business Review
Credits: Stats from HBR. Image: snoopn4pnuts.com
All of the effects are amplified with age
November 29, 2013 by 14 Comments
wsj.com – Drinking After 40: Why Hangovers Hit Harder. A few excerpts…
- When you’re in your 40s, it’s pretty common to need reading glasses. You might need smaller wine glasses, too.
- That’s because alcohol hits people harder in their 40s and 50s than it did during their 20s and 30s.
- “All of the effects of alcohol are sort of amplified with age”
- Body composition starts to change as early as the 30s. As people age, they tend to lose muscle mass, while fat content increases. Alcohol isn’t distributed in fat. People also have less total body water as they get older. So if several people have the same amount to drink, those with more fat and less muscle and body water will have more alcohol circulating in their bloodstream. (This is also partly why women of any age tend to feel alcohol’s effects more than men.)
- People in their 40s and older simply tend not to drink as much or as often as those in their 20s and 30s, which lowers tolerance.
