Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Exciting for Some
Anyone who knows me knows I'm a big fan of schadenfreude, and also of making fun of vegetarians. Not vegetarians generally, no, but the stereotypical American Vegetarian, who insists on (a) making a scene whenever someone consumes a food product deemed Unethical by said AV, (b) demanding that hosts of dinner parties, etc., make huge accommodations (usually without warning prior to AV's arrival) in the menu, and - perhaps most damning of all - (c) insists on making every vegetable-based foodstuff into some overwrought approximation of a meat product and centering meals invariably around tofu and/or polenta.
During the summer, I cook almost exclusively vegetarian at home (except for adding fish sauce or stock), but aside from the occasional veggie burger (they are convenient!), no 'meat alternative' darkens my palette. I take my vegetarian living clues from nature as well as from Indian and other vegetarian cultures: fruits and veggies are the focus and highlight of meals, not disguised as tofurkey or soy cheeze. Not that I don't like tofu, but it has to be cooked properly - like tofu, not a hot dog - and also only in moderation!
Where does schadenfreude come in? Well, it appears that eating lots of tofu may increase your risk of dementia! Which is really very funny, since the AV is also famous for lecturing endlessly on the health benefits of the tofu-thrice-a-day diet.
Alas, my karmic retribution for this joy came swiftly: right after seeing news of this study, I also discover - fresh off paying too much money for a pretty new Prius - that VW, Mercedez, and Toyota itself are going even further with fuel reductions. Oy. Really cool, but ... Oy.
During the summer, I cook almost exclusively vegetarian at home (except for adding fish sauce or stock), but aside from the occasional veggie burger (they are convenient!), no 'meat alternative' darkens my palette. I take my vegetarian living clues from nature as well as from Indian and other vegetarian cultures: fruits and veggies are the focus and highlight of meals, not disguised as tofurkey or soy cheeze. Not that I don't like tofu, but it has to be cooked properly - like tofu, not a hot dog - and also only in moderation!
Where does schadenfreude come in? Well, it appears that eating lots of tofu may increase your risk of dementia! Which is really very funny, since the AV is also famous for lecturing endlessly on the health benefits of the tofu-thrice-a-day diet.
Alas, my karmic retribution for this joy came swiftly: right after seeing news of this study, I also discover - fresh off paying too much money for a pretty new Prius - that VW, Mercedez, and Toyota itself are going even further with fuel reductions. Oy. Really cool, but ... Oy.
Labels: car, dementia, diet, efficiency, fuel, gasoline, schadenfreude, technology, tofu, vegetarians
Monday, December 17, 2007
Pig in a Bonnet
Just because you call it so, or give it a 26% boost in gas mileage, it is not a "green" vehicle. It is an SUV. An SUV with better mileage, yes, but still a gas (or in this case diesel)-guzzling monstrosity of arrogant and conspicuous consumption. And yes, it probably also supports terrorism.Am I the only one who thinks this whole green-spun 'nouveau-diesel' business is more than a little disingenuous? We need to develop actual non-fossil-fuel options, not waste time and money on marginal gains like diesel which just make things seem less dire than they are.
Side note: it turns out that the JDSOB is on a similar topic today.
Labels: cars, diesel, economy, environment, fuel, stupidity, SUVs
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Starting in Space, Ending in Gas
Cardiff researchers claim that they've found strong evidence to support the panspermia theory of life's origins on Earth. They say that comets contain all kinds of hydrocarbons and organic compounds necessary to life, and also lots of radiation and clay particles to catalyze reactions and keep everything 'warm' enough to survive. I'm inclined to buy into panspermia, as it makes the probability math of life's beginning on earth just that much less terrifying. But who knows?
Having come in to this life, one way or another, all organisms (especially humans) are rather keen on staying alive longer. One way to do that, according to Japanese researchers, may be to drink more coffee. They found that women who drank three or more cups a day had half the risk of developing colon cancer as did non-drinkers. They did not find an effect in men, but I'm still calling it one more excuse for me!
And for those with joint problems, help may be on the horizon. Canadian researchers claim that injections with hyaluronic acid speed and improve sprained ankle recoveries. The stuff is also supposed to slow aging and make life better in general, and until it's approved in medicinal form, you can get it by eating huge quantities of sweet potatoes.
Life has to end, so it may as well go up in smoke, right? A biotech startup in the US claims that they've convinced bacteria to produce hydrocarbons which could be used to make gasoline. The upside? No more oil crisis. The down side? Unending smog, global warming, and, yeah, gasoline-producing bacteria.
Having come in to this life, one way or another, all organisms (especially humans) are rather keen on staying alive longer. One way to do that, according to Japanese researchers, may be to drink more coffee. They found that women who drank three or more cups a day had half the risk of developing colon cancer as did non-drinkers. They did not find an effect in men, but I'm still calling it one more excuse for me!
And for those with joint problems, help may be on the horizon. Canadian researchers claim that injections with hyaluronic acid speed and improve sprained ankle recoveries. The stuff is also supposed to slow aging and make life better in general, and until it's approved in medicinal form, you can get it by eating huge quantities of sweet potatoes.
Life has to end, so it may as well go up in smoke, right? A biotech startup in the US claims that they've convinced bacteria to produce hydrocarbons which could be used to make gasoline. The upside? No more oil crisis. The down side? Unending smog, global warming, and, yeah, gasoline-producing bacteria.
Labels: aging, biotech, coffee, colon cancer, comets, fuel, gasoline, health, hyaluronic acid, Japan, joints, medicine, panspermia, pollution, science, space
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Coco-Nuts
I went out with a guy once who had a nut allergy (including coconut), and aside from all of his other issues, I realized that there was no way it'd work for that reason alone: no Thai food, no Indian food, no German Chocolate Cake, no PBJ picnics. And now, I'm guessing, no vacations to Papua New Guinea! The PNG island of Bougainville is working to replace diesel fuel with coconut oil, and thus become independent of the expensive imported former source of energy. That's really cool, and even if it's not a global or long-term solution to our energy crisis, it's gotta smell nice!
Speaking of, uhm, nuts, yet another US study has found that, despite what the wingnuts constantly claim, getting kids to use condoms doesn't make them more promiscuous: the UW study found that kids who reported using condoms their first time having sex had the same average number of partners as those who didn't use, and were less likely to have contracted an STI. So as usual, when the fundies scream about not wanting kids to have sex, what they really mean is that they don't want them to have sex without getting gonorrhea.
There's a bit on the other kind of nuts - crazy people - sitting here as well, but I want to think more about it (since it's really cool) before I blog it, so that'll come up later today.
In the meantime, we go to crazy hippies and their meditating ways (kinda). It seems that intensive mental training, by way of Vipassana meditation, improves people's ability to discriminate and attend to temporally close stimuli. Basically, the researchers found that intensively-trained participants had significant reductions in their 'attentional blink' time relative to baseline and more reduction than did a less-intensively trained group. The study was small, and I think the controls were perhaps lacking (groups were not randomized, and the intensive-group were people already signed up for the program -- selection bias?, etc.), but it's an interesting starting point for more research.
Speaking of, uhm, nuts, yet another US study has found that, despite what the wingnuts constantly claim, getting kids to use condoms doesn't make them more promiscuous: the UW study found that kids who reported using condoms their first time having sex had the same average number of partners as those who didn't use, and were less likely to have contracted an STI. So as usual, when the fundies scream about not wanting kids to have sex, what they really mean is that they don't want them to have sex without getting gonorrhea.
There's a bit on the other kind of nuts - crazy people - sitting here as well, but I want to think more about it (since it's really cool) before I blog it, so that'll come up later today.
In the meantime, we go to crazy hippies and their meditating ways (kinda). It seems that intensive mental training, by way of Vipassana meditation, improves people's ability to discriminate and attend to temporally close stimuli. Basically, the researchers found that intensively-trained participants had significant reductions in their 'attentional blink' time relative to baseline and more reduction than did a less-intensively trained group. The study was small, and I think the controls were perhaps lacking (groups were not randomized, and the intensive-group were people already signed up for the program -- selection bias?, etc.), but it's an interesting starting point for more research.
Labels: attention, chlamydia, coconuts, condoms, energy, food, fuel, gonorrhea, jailbait, kids, learning, meditation, neuroscience, nuts, sex, STI, Vipassana
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Ups and Downs
Sometimes, especially in health, stuff designed to make things better don't work that well. The FDA has approved the first vaccine for avian (H5N1) flu, but some are concerned that it's only effective in about 45% of people. The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, given to many men to check for prostate cancer, is not very good at predicting benign versus malignant tumors. The problem there is that treatment for prostate cancer is expensive, painful, and usually has unpleasant after-effects (like impotence), and you don't want to do it unnecessarily. And then there ethanol-fueled cars.
Hailed as an eco-friendlier source, ethanol might just be better left in drinks: ethanol-fueled cars might cause a dramatic rise in ground-level ozone. I don't really buy this study, as it fails to account for why the outcome hasn't been seen in Brazil, which has a major ethanol-based fuel economy, but I also don't buy ethanol-as-fuel as a good solution to our energy woes, so...
On the upside, there's good news for those who like "natural" and herbal remedies! It seems that older women who breastfeed are less likely to develop breast cancer. So using your breasts is good for them. (insert 12-year-old snickering here) On the herbal front, it appears that the Ayurvedic blend triphala is a potent killer of pancreatic tumors, and Hopkins researchers have developed a class of oxidising compounds which mimic Artemisinin's malaria-killing powers, only much more strongly. OK, not precisely herbal, but based-on.
Hailed as an eco-friendlier source, ethanol might just be better left in drinks: ethanol-fueled cars might cause a dramatic rise in ground-level ozone. I don't really buy this study, as it fails to account for why the outcome hasn't been seen in Brazil, which has a major ethanol-based fuel economy, but I also don't buy ethanol-as-fuel as a good solution to our energy woes, so...
On the upside, there's good news for those who like "natural" and herbal remedies! It seems that older women who breastfeed are less likely to develop breast cancer. So using your breasts is good for them. (insert 12-year-old snickering here) On the herbal front, it appears that the Ayurvedic blend triphala is a potent killer of pancreatic tumors, and Hopkins researchers have developed a class of oxidising compounds which mimic Artemisinin's malaria-killing powers, only much more strongly. OK, not precisely herbal, but based-on.
Labels: Artemisinin, avian flu, Ayurveda, breast cancer, breastfeeding, breasts, ethanol, FDA, fuel, H5N1, health, healthcare, herbal remedies, ozone, science, vaccine
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Astoundingly Bad Ideas
Sometimes, smart people get stupid ideas and say stupid things. A US researcher, upon finding that a tiny sea creature (the salp) could theoretically 'mop up' after humans' excess greenhouse gas emissions, has suggested that we artificially alter the oceans' nutrient content, to try and make more of them. This is a mind-blowingly numb-nutted idea. For starters, even if it worked it would fail to address the actual problem: excess greenhouse gas emissions, and at best be only a temporary solution. Then, we move on to what the effects of altering ocean chemistry would be on, well, EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD!
A similarly lame-brained idea to solve our mounting environmental and energy crises is that of a 'hydrogen economy.' I've never been a fan of this idea - H is expensive, hard to produce, and hard to store, but for whatever reason the dubya administration bloody loves it. A leading fuel cell expert, Ulf Bossel, has put together a paper saying about that, and claiming that hydrogen is impracticable to meet our energy needs.
His arguments go beyond the simple technology problem (which could theoretically be solved) to the abundance problem: water is already a scarce resource in much of the world, and burning it all up as hydrogen fuel would make things worse. In that hydrogen fules burn to water, I'm not sure I believe outright quantity is so much the problem as distribution (i.e., not only who has the water to make hydrogen, but where all that end-product ends up relative to where it started).
And then there's cancer. The vast majority of men who die in old age have prostate cancer on autopsy, and the recent fad of screening has caused PC rates to skyrocket. But, the majority of men do not die of prostate cancer, and it rarely even affects them. Treatment is traumatic, expensive, and causes impotence and incontinence, but a study now suggests that it may increase life expectancy in older men, who would normally not be treated. The study's methodology, however, is dubious, and especially given the serious side-effects of treatment, its recommendations should be taken with many grains of salt.
Finally, of course, the most asinine idea of the day, possibly the year, comes from the Texas legislature (where else?). Representative Edmund Kuempel wants to make it legal for blind people to hunt. And they would be allowed, under his bill, to use laser targeting devices and other unsportsmanlike technologies which are otherwise banned. As long as they have a sighted friend help them aim. I don't think I even need to mention the trillions of ways this is a stupid, irresponsible, and likely-to-increase-the-murder-rate idea. Hmm...maybe it'll lower the population in Texas...could be a good idea...
A similarly lame-brained idea to solve our mounting environmental and energy crises is that of a 'hydrogen economy.' I've never been a fan of this idea - H is expensive, hard to produce, and hard to store, but for whatever reason the dubya administration bloody loves it. A leading fuel cell expert, Ulf Bossel, has put together a paper saying about that, and claiming that hydrogen is impracticable to meet our energy needs.
His arguments go beyond the simple technology problem (which could theoretically be solved) to the abundance problem: water is already a scarce resource in much of the world, and burning it all up as hydrogen fuel would make things worse. In that hydrogen fules burn to water, I'm not sure I believe outright quantity is so much the problem as distribution (i.e., not only who has the water to make hydrogen, but where all that end-product ends up relative to where it started).
And then there's cancer. The vast majority of men who die in old age have prostate cancer on autopsy, and the recent fad of screening has caused PC rates to skyrocket. But, the majority of men do not die of prostate cancer, and it rarely even affects them. Treatment is traumatic, expensive, and causes impotence and incontinence, but a study now suggests that it may increase life expectancy in older men, who would normally not be treated. The study's methodology, however, is dubious, and especially given the serious side-effects of treatment, its recommendations should be taken with many grains of salt.
Finally, of course, the most asinine idea of the day, possibly the year, comes from the Texas legislature (where else?). Representative Edmund Kuempel wants to make it legal for blind people to hunt. And they would be allowed, under his bill, to use laser targeting devices and other unsportsmanlike technologies which are otherwise banned. As long as they have a sighted friend help them aim. I don't think I even need to mention the trillions of ways this is a stupid, irresponsible, and likely-to-increase-the-murder-rate idea. Hmm...maybe it'll lower the population in Texas...could be a good idea...
Labels: asinine, carbon, environment, fuel, geriatrics, greenhouse, guns, hydrogen, prostate cancer, science, screening, stupidity, Texas
