MM6

REM sleep usually ensues 60-120 minutes after falling asleep. We have several bouts of REM per 6-8 hour sleep session, so I don't think lack of REM would be a problem in the OP's query.

Reference

Sasaki Y; Fukuda K, Takeuchi T, Inugami M, Miyasita A (March 2000), "Sleep onset REM period appearance rate is affected by REM propensity in circadian rhythm in normal nocturnal sleep", Clin Neurophysiol. 111 (3): 428–33, doi:10.1016/S1388-2457(99)00254-0, PMID 10699402.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10699402

Calorie restriction works. But this has already been done.

Other ideas:

Teach them to meditate

Transplant the heart of a similarly sized reptile

Have them live in a cooler environment

Let them drink wine

And the cherry:

Keep transplanting the brain of the "contest mouse" into fresh bodies

^ No. Environmental factors affect aging, too.

I am a huge Star Trek fan, so I was skeptical and dismissive. But I did go and it was excellent. They made something novel and equally appealing (for different reasons than the original).

^ True. We've got chimps playing video games via electrodes in their brains.

The science and math pages are generally well written, well organized, go into significant depth, and have many citations. As an aggregator of knowledge, wiki is indispensable.

As for a cited source, I encourage it for elementary through high school students. As others have said, beyond that point students should cite original sources of knowledge.

Glucagon stimulates the release of insulin. Although they seem antagonistic, they work in concert to deliver glucose to cells.

Here are a couple of references supporting my previous statement.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/qwu02ux5rq45v280/

"Evidence that glucagon stimulates insulin secretion through its own receptor in rats "

http://www.newmanveterinary.com/Hormone_Diab.html

"Glucagon, in turn, stimulates insulin secretion. Putatively, the delicate balance between the antagonistic effects of the two hormones results in fine tuning the steady-state levels of blood glucose, and thus, prevents wide fluctuations"

http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%203-4/homeostasis_2.htm

"A protein-rich meal leads to release of both insulin and glucagon. The latter stimulates gluconeogenesis and release of the newly formed glucose from the liver to the blood stream. The very moderate rise in insulin associated with the protein meal stimulates uptake of the sugar formed in the liver by muscle and fat tissue."

Short answer: At times they are produced at the same time, although the window of time is small, as they are antagonistic. In a healthy person the feedback loop inhibits production of one or the other.

Interesting video. I watched/listened to it while doing something else, but it seemed to have a lot of meat to it. I'm going to have to sit down and really pay attention.

Btw, have you seen Scott Atran's exchanges at Beyond Belief 2006?

I don't think so at all. MM6 completely contradicts himself and calls it a glitch, makes completely subjective value judgements on life and calls it scientific and comes to the same conclusion as the rest of us. Animal testing is a necessary evil if you value humanity. Then he suggests Skeptic might be a racist. I think he "owned" himself.

My suggestion to you: work on your reading comprehension.

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I think that it goes something like this:...

I appreciate you response.

Hey GDG,

Thanks for the great link. This stuff is so fascinating.

If and only if that surface is truly horizontal. The majority of natural surfaces are haphazard or rounded with the curvature of the earth. I would go so far as to say that a truly horizontal plane or line does not exist in nature (at least that we know of on earth)

My goodness. Then take astronomical scales where the surface topology becomes irrelevant. The earth's pull on the sun or on any body on the other side of the galaxy occurs on a line to it's center and at a right angle to the surface of the earth.

As Sysiphus and Kyrisch have followed up on my points, which you failed to refute in any sensible way, I'm done here.

You appear so wedded to your hypothesis that you're unwilling to accept any evidence that may refute it. That's ideology, not science.

His seven types of aging are nothing brilliant on his mark. The science is sound. Others have elucidated the mechanisms and relation to cell damage and senescence. From what I know of him, his usefulness is in directing the attention of the scientific community and public at large to the science of aging and how we may use technology and policy to address it.

I was also thinking gene therapy. The problem with inserting genes into our DNA is that it's very hard to control where they insert (i.e., they may insert right into an active gene, thereby disrupting it's function). One reason gene therapy got a bad name is the SCIDs-leukemia cases in children.

Would it be possiable to enlarge the neocortext? Or have people been found to have larger ones? As well have increased skill in thinking as well abstact thinking?

Just to add in another dimension, the corpus callosum, the thick band of neurons which connects the two hemispheres and relays information from one side to the other, is essential to integrative and complex cognitive activity.

Relatively little is known about this region, but it would seem that more intense and novel cognitive challenges benefit from a thicker corpus callosum. Whether this is cause and effect or associative is unknown (i.e., does more intense thinking increases the size of the cc or do those who otherwise develop a large cc enjoy more intense cognitive challenges).

Read up on studies of split-brain patients. That is some weird stuff.

It depends on your plans.

A) An academic degree in science education (M.S.). Frankly these are worthless unless you plan on going straight on for a PhD.

B) A professional degree in education (Ed.M). This track is for those interested in K-12 teaching and supervision.

Do you plan on getting a teaching license (certification) as well?

Most licensure programs are combined with a professional master's degree in education (Ed.M.). In fact you cannot complete the Ed.M. until you've finished your certification program.

The schools I would recommend depend on track A or B.

Resistance to pandemic infection maybe to an extent but it hasn't really occur within recent human history due to the creation of new pharmaceutical and I would think this would be the case if one ever did occur.

Swine flu. HIV. Drug resistant TB.

I was thinking along the lines of a more aggressive anti-viral immune system (e.g., more aggressive natural killer cells), not particular to any one infection.

No, because it is not hurting anyone else. If there are 'increased health risks', then they only affect those engaging in the act to begin with. It is rather like smoking. Laws have been passed (at least here) to keep people from smoking around those who wish not to suffer from the detrimental effects of second-hand smoke, but no law needs to be passed to restrict an individual's right to perform higher-risk behaviours.

I don't understand your logic. Severian already covered the counter-argument here.

Furthermore, you oversimplify human psychology. People often do a thing because of hormonal drive, nature, or addiction, not because they're actively and consciously seeking to increase their own happiness.

This is a weak example as well, because social darwinism of the type to which you are referring is actually a gross misrepresentation of the theory of evolution.

Actually, it's not. It's now called evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, which is what I'm talking about. Either way, do you understand that people were afraid of "social Darwinism" for the same reasons people are now afraid of evolutionary psychology. We may find that our nature is opposed to our ethics. Or as E.O. Wilson says it "what is is not necessarily what ought to be."

This is exactly what is at the core of the argument.

That equation is the basis for utilitarianism. What can maximise the happiness and comfort of the most amount of people is the best action to take.

But why utilitarianism? Why that one code of ethics over any other? Why is happiness so important to you? It's a value judgment. Many of my students would be much happier if I never gave them tests or homework. Does this mean it's unethical that I give them homework, because I've decreased their happiness and comfort?

I don't buy into the equation, that's my point. Happiness is not the ultimate goal in my ethics.

Moreover, utilitarianism is a numbers game. A utilitarian fireman would never go into a burning building unless it contained at least two people to save (because a one to one person trade would not be utilitarian)...i.e., how does self-sacrifice play into utilitarianism?

These are all really rhetorical questions based on value judgments.

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You bring up good points, in fact some of the other attendees bring up similar points in later discussions. Individual vs social well-being would be one big hurdle.

Thanks. You're right about individual vs. societal well-being. I didn't notice the second part. If it's there I'll have to watch it.

You have to set realistic goals with them and work with them to achieve those goals.

For example, if you want to increase your child's interest in science, set a measurable/observable goal: s/he will watch educational science programs on TV by their own choice, or s/he will start asking more science questions.

Set a timeline for the goal: this will be achieved in one year.

Then act on the goal: take them to the museum, zoo, aquarium, watch PBS Nova or Nature togehter, have conversations with them about science, say random interesting scientific facts.

You have to provide scaffolding or a net for them to work with, without doing it for them. It's a lot of work for you, not just them. Your work comes in designing the program and motivating them. Their work is in working to meet the goals of the program.

I hope that wasn't so self-evident as to be patronizing. Maybe it's what you're looking for.

Go go to Caltech and you can write your own ticket to anywhere. Same with Stanford. I'm a public school guy, though.

I have a lot of respect for the UC system. Berkeley, UCLA, Santa Barbara, and San Diego are all excellent schools with first-rate engineering programs.

ASU, UArizona, and UWashington are also excellent schools, which happen to be on the west coast.

There was a man in Bulgaria who had a BAC of 0.914%. He lived! That's the record.

Reference:

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2005/01/04/drunk-bulgarian-050104.html

Where did you hear that? Glucagon stimulates the release of insulin. Although they seem antagonistic, they work in concert to deliver glucose to cells.

I watched the video. His presentation was unfocused and meandering. I didn't get a strong sense of what he was trying to argue. Anyway, I think the premise itself is flawed.

Take homosexuality. What if we find that there is an increased health risk for homosexual behavior (actually we already know that there is). Does this mean that homosexual behavior is wrong?

Or another example, we may find that there is some evolutionary reason to be racist. Does that mean that racism is acceptable? (I don't want to get into an argument over the scientific basis of the term "race". It's just an example)

I didn't hear him address this simple problem in scientism.

Furthermore, I don't understand his equation, happy=moral. That premise itself is a value judgment.

Bottom line: Morality is a value judgment. Science can help inform our judgments, but it can't make them for us.

How does testosterone work with muscle building?!? Add can one actually increase your testosterone levels?

Intense compound exercises, such as squats and deadlifts, have been shown to increase testosterone levels. The spike in production is short-lived (24 hours). Sorry I don't have any references at hand and I'm too tired to Google.

After the title I have no idea what you're talking about. But recently I listened to a fascinating podcast where psychologist P. Zimbardo discusses the title of your thread. iTunes: Science and the City, NY Academy of Sciences (Title: Time Paradox)

Build matchstick rockets. Google it. They are a simple and excellent way to demonstrate Newton's three laws. You can design some experiments around it, if you really are trying to do experiments.