18 MAY 2017 by ideonexus
Habituation and Novelty
Beginning in infancy and throughout the life span, humans are motivated by newness, change, and excitement. Habituation, the tendency to lose interest in a repeated event and gain interest in a new one, is one of the most fundamental human reflexes. If the thermostat were to suddenly turn the air conditioning on, you would hear the loud humming sound begin, but within minutes you couldn’t even hear it if you tried. Habituation, a fundamental property of the nervous system, provides mechanis... 1 
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notes08 MAR 2016 by ideonexus
Physical and Actuarial Escape Velocities
The escape velocity cusp is closer than you might guess. Since we are already so long lived, even a 30% increase in healthy life span will give the first beneficiaries of rejuvenation therapies another 20 years—an eternity in science—to benefit from second-generation therapies that would give another 30%, and so on ad infinitum. Thus, if first-generation rejuvenation therapies were universally available and this progress in developing rejuvenation therapy could be indefinitely maintained,...Folksonomies: longevity life-extension
Folksonomies: longevity life-extension
1 05 FEB 2016 by ideonexus
The Stress of Cold Temperatures Extends Lifespans
In 1986, John Holloszy of Washington University immersed his lab rats in shallow, cool water for four hours each day. They burned so many extra calories that they ate half again as much as control rats, but weighed less. The cold rats lived 10% longer, on average. Holloszy framed his report on this experiment not as a hormetic effect of cold exposure, but as a refutation of the “rate of living” hypothesis.
In 2006, Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Aging Research exposed lab worms...Folksonomies: longevity
Folksonomies: longevity
13 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Fundamentals of Cancer
Cancer, we now know, is a disease caused by the uncontrolled growth of a single cell. This growth is unleashed by mutations—changes in DNA that specifically affect genes that incite unlimited cell growth. In a normal cell, powerful genetic circuits regulate cell division and cell death. In a cancer cell, these circuits have been broken, unleashing a cell that cannot stop growing.
That this seemingly simple mechanism—cell growth without barriers—can lie at the heart of this grotesque an... 1 notes
notesIt is a mutated cell, a renegade, the key is to keep it from mutating.
28 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Shorter People Live Longer
The study was conducted to evaluate one aspect of the entropy theory of aging, which hypothesizes that aging is the result of increasing disorder within the body, and which predicts that increasing mass lowers life span. The first evaluation of the impact of human size on longevity or life span in 1978, which was based on data for decreased groups of athletes and famous people in the USA, suggested that shorter, lighter men live longer than their taller, heavier counterparts. In 1990, a study...5 years on average. Suggesting the medical community's focus on encouraging parents to grow big children is misguided as it may be shortening their lifespans.
23 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
A Better Future for Our Children
Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter. ... Transmutation of the elements, unlimited power, ability to investigate the working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about to be uncovered, these and a host of other results, all in about fifteen short years. It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under the an...Our children will experience a world made better through science.
26 OCT 2011 by ideonexus
Seven Steps to Achieve a 90% Chance of Living to 90 or 100
1. GET ACTIVE: Inactivity can shave almost four years off a person's expected lifespan. People who are physically inactive are twice as likely to be at risk for heart disease or stroke.
2. KNOW AND CONTROL CHOLESTEROL LEVELS: Almost 40 per cent of Canadian adults have high blood cholesterol, which can lead to the build up of fatty deposits in your arteries − increasing your risk for heart disease and stroke.
3. FOLLOW A HEALTHY DIET: Healthy eating is one of the most important things... 1 notes
notesIf people adhere to these seven habits, they dramatically increase the number of years they can live.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Exercise with your Children
This rise in pediatric obesity is painful to hear in the brain science community, especially because we know so much about the relationship between physical activity and mental acuity. Exercise—especially aerobic exercise—is fanastic for the brain, increasing executive function scores anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent. This is true across the life span, from young children to members of the golden-parachute crowd. Strengthening exercises do not give you these numbers (though ther... 1 notes
notesExercise is so important for improved cognitive function.
28 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
IQ is Malleable
IQ is malleable. IQ has been shown to vary over one’s life span, and it is surprisingly vulnerable to environmental influences. It can change if one is stressed, old, or living in a different culture from the testing majority. A child’s IQ is influenced by his or her family, too. Growing up in the same household tends to increase IQ similarities between siblings, for example. Poor people tend to have significantly lower IQs than rich people. And if you are below a certain income level, ec...A poor child adopted into a middle-class family will gain 12 to 18 IQ points.
04 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Neoteny in Humans
...the concept of "neoteny"—the retention of juvenile features into adult life. It is a commonplace of human evolution that the transition from Australopithecus to Homo and from Homo habilis to Homo erectus and thence to Homo sapiens all involved prolonging and slowing the development of the body so that it still looked like a baby when it was already mature. The relatively large brain case and small jaw, the slender limbs, the hairless skin, the unrotated big toe, the thin bones, even the ...
1 Adult humans look like baby chimpanzees
