The best girl in the world

RIP Sophie
Always a Perfect Lady.

Maniacs of the Year

James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen

The opposite end of the arrogance spectrum from last year's winner.
Somebody please pull all their teeth out.  Without anesthesia .

State of the Art

2014: Our year in trendy diets

From top-secret military nutritionists to butter coffee, Americans proved we have no idea how to eat.

I gotta check into that military diet... looks like they are actively inducing bipolar in those hyperactive guys...  geez louise... that would explain a lot...

Anyhow, the point is, I don't care how fcking scientific you say your diet is,  if you haven't explicitly accounted for the glucose sensitive effects of Orexin, you are full of shit.

(And I am not even considering the complete absence of any mention of illness.  Ever.)

Just a Reminder

2014 is the year thousands of people filmed themselves pouring ice water over their heads to "contribute" to "medical research".

This is where we are.
Sheer unmitigated insanity.

Zombie Caterpillars

Study suggests virus impacts caterpillar's phototactic response causing them to climb

A small team of researchers with Wageningen University in The Netherlands has found evidence that suggests that a type of virus that causes a species of caterpillar to climb higher up a plant, does so by causing a change to the victim's phototactic response. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the team describes how they studied baculovirus infections in caterpillars and the experiments they conducted in attempting to show that changes in behavior attributed to the viral infection were likely due to changes in how light was perceived.

Run to the light Carol Anne.

A small team of researchers with Wageningen University in The Netherlands has found evidence that suggests that a type of virus that causes a species of caterpillar to climb higher up a plant, does so by causing a change to the victim's phototactic response. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the team describes how they studied baculovirus infections in caterpillars and the experiments they conducted in attempting to show that changes in behavior attributed to the viral infection were likely due to changes in how light was perceived.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-virus-impacts-caterpillar-phototactic-response.html#jCp

A small team of researchers with Wageningen University in The Netherlands has found evidence that suggests that a type of virus that causes a species of caterpillar to climb higher up a plant, does so by causing a change to the victim's phototactic response. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the team describes how they studied baculovirus infections in caterpillars and the experiments they conducted in attempting to show that changes in behavior attributed to the viral infection were likely due to changes in how light was perceived.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-virus-impacts-caterpillar-phototactic-response.html#jCp

A small team of researchers with Wageningen University in The Netherlands has found evidence that suggests that a type of virus that causes a species of caterpillar to climb higher up a plant, does so by causing a change to the victim's phototactic response. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the team describes how they studied baculovirus infections in caterpillars and the experiments they conducted in attempting to show that changes in behavior attributed to the viral infection were likely due to changes in how light was perceived.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-virus-impacts-caterpillar-phototactic-response.html#jCp

A small team of researchers with Wageningen University in The Netherlands has found evidence that suggests that a type of virus that causes a species of caterpillar to climb higher up a plant, does so by causing a change to the victim's phototactic response. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the team describes how they studied baculovirus infections in caterpillars and the experiments they conducted in attempting to show that changes in behavior attributed to the viral infection were likely due to changes in how light was perceived.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-virus-impacts-caterpillar-phototactic-response.html#jCp

Reality based Behavior

Light-emitting e-readers detrimentally shift circadian clock, study shows

You may think your e-reader is helping you get to sleep at night, but it might actually be harming your quality of sleep, according to researchers. Exposure to light during evening and early nighttime hours suppresses release of the sleep-facilitating hormone melatonin and shifts the circadian clock, making it harder to fall asleep at bedtime.

Ummmm.... this is probably facilitated a lot by orexin too.   Orexin production is stimulated by the same optical neurons as melatonin.

So... "internet addiction" may not be a reward system malfunction as psychologists would like you to believe... but some sort of intuitional self therapy for sugar poisoning?  
I'm shocked.  Shocked I tell you.

(Rummages around in cerebral closet... oh here it is... )

Good Article

Microbiology: Ditch the term pathogen

The term pathogen started to be used in the late 1880s to mean a microbe that can cause disease. Ever since, scientists have been searching for properties in bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites that account for their ability to make us ill. Some seminal discoveries have resulted — such as the roles of various bacterial and fungal toxins in disease. Indeed, our oldest and most reliable vaccines, such as those for diphtheria and tetanus, work by prompting the body to produce antibodies that neutralize bacterial toxins.

Yet a microbe cannot cause disease without a host. What actually kills people with diphtheria, for example, is the strong inflammatory response that the diphtheria toxin triggers, including a thick grey coating on the throat that can obstruct breathing. Likewise, it is the massive activation of white blood cells triggered by certain strains of Staphylococcus and Streptococcus bacteria that can lead to toxic-shock syndrome.

Oh My

Such a lovely gift for me...  just what I wanted!

Central and Peripheral Metabolic Changes Induced by Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate.

Study Objectives:
Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) was originally introduced as an anesthetic but was first abused by bodybuilders and then became a recreational or club drug.1 Sodium salt of GHB is currently used for the treatment of cataplexy in patients with narcolepsy. The mode of action and metabolism of GHB is not well understood. GHB stimulates growth hormone release in humans and induces weight loss in treated patients, suggesting an unexplored metabolic effect. In different experiments the effect of GHB administration on central (cerebral cortex) and peripheral (liver) biochemical processes involved in the metabolism of the drug, as well as the effects of the drug on metabolism, were evaluated in mice.
Design:
C57BL/6J, gamma-aminobutyric acid B (GABAB) knockout and obese (ob/ob) mice were acutely or chronically treated with GHB at 300 mg/kg.
Measurements and Results:
Respiratory ratio decreased under GHB treatment, independent of food intake, suggesting a shift in energy substrate from carbohydrates to lipids. GHB-treated C57BL/6J and GABAB null mice but not ob/ob mice gained less weight than matched controls. GHB dramatically increased the corticosterone level but did not affect growth hormone or prolactin. Metabolome profiling showed that an acute high dose of GHB did not increase the brain GABA level. In the brain and the liver, GHB was metabolized into succinic semialdehyde by hydroxyacid-oxoacid transhydrogenase. Chronic administration decreased glutamate, s-adenosylhomocysteine, and oxidized gluthathione, and increased omega-3 fatty acids.
Conclusions:
Our findings indicate large central and peripheral metabolic changes induced by GHB with important relevance to its therapeutic use.

More evidence that Xyrem induces ketosis.   It's the Coma Diet.
Jazz charges about $5000 a month- not to mention all the doctor visits and expensive tests and insurance nightmare- to create a metabolic state that all people can experience for free by doing nothing. 

(cross posted at NN just for spite.   Man, I gotta stay away from there.   Makes me want to scream.)

Merry Merry

My Gift to You.  From the old lady who never ceases to be amazed by the Circle of Insanity.

I loved that stuff so much when I was a kid.   It was psychoactive.   Makes my nose clog up just thinking about it.  Go figure.

Everything Old is New Again

Rudolph is my favorite movie.   It has lots of useful life lessons.

• Old white guys like to make arbitrary rules and drive wicked fast red vehicles.
• Weird people are common and do extraordinary things.
• Poor dental health causes antisocial behavior.

If Rudolph Took Place Today
Heh.

Sorry

I forgot to put up a song for Solstice.

This is the first time in 20 years I slept during the longest night.
I usually stay up and worry about you creatures of the darkness.

I guess this is progress.   I will assume you made it through the night.
Here's what I picked before I nodded off...

Update.  Damn.  Should have picked this.
RIP Joe Cocker...  one of our kind.

Bwa Ha Ha Ha

This is hilarious.  

Tree Talk with the Late Night Tree
video... skip to 1:45

I am pretty sure people think I am that absurd.   Especially my doctors.

Let my treeple go!

Merry Solstice

The Dangers of Winter Darkness: Weak Bones, Depression and Heart Trouble

Long periods without sunshine can play a role in a surprising variety of physical and mental disorders

It's a good discussion of vitamin D and infection control.
But don't forget that orexin production is stimulated by sunlight on the retinas. And orexin deficiency also leads to immune problems.
I think this shift is actually an adaptation to northern latitudes  but it's not really advantageous if you don't stay inside and drink all winter.   It's a Viking thing, it does not seem to be helpful if you have to work year-round.
Don't just take supplements.  Go outside. Get sun on your face. It will help heal your guts and skin.
Wear warm clothes, but breathe cold air. It stimulates the lungs to fight infection and increases brown fat production.

Viva La Vagus

The Year of Outrage

Slate tracked what everyone was outraged about every day in 2014. Explore by clicking the tiles below, and then scroll down to read about how outrage has taken over our lives.

The Circle of Sanity

Scientists prove that you shouldn’t trust anything Dr. Oz says 

Heh.

Okay People

I have always wanted to start a new dance craze like the Hustle or Macarena...
but I'm at that point in life that it looks like it's never going to happen.

So, I've got another idea.
Brothing.

Yeah, that juicing craze is really annoying, and definitely bad for teeth and pancreases.
I think people should drink broth instead.

When there are brotharistas making arty designs in your cup, I will be vindicated.

Glutamine reduces intestinal permeability from infection.

Fun With Obsession

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel …

The classic Hannukah game is painfully slow. It’s time to speed it up.

...Ultimately, I ran 50,000 simulations of 171 different starting conditions, for a grand total of 8.5 million simulated dreidel games. Here’s what I mean by starting conditions: one starting condition was a game of six players with 10 tokens each. Another was a game of three people with 15 pieces each. All assumed eight seconds per spin, and, again out of generosity to dreidel, I assumed there was no delay between player turns.

Based on my calculations, if four players start with 10 pieces each, the game will last more than 1 hour and 54 minutes to complete. Perhaps if you were waiting out a siege by the Seleucid Empire this would be ideal, but two hours is excessive if you’re just trying to kill 30 minutes before the latkes are ready.

Breakfast of Champions

Latest coffee trend is to put butter in your coffee

I'm old-school. I use milk products.
Butter is nice too, but if you're sensitive to dairy, use coconut oil or ghee.

Sick Sick Sick

This is the man who ordered sleep deprivation for prisoners.
This is the man whose heart was so petrified it had to be removed.
This is the twisted man who doesn't believe his illness affected his head.

Speaking of Impulse Control Problems

Stewart Lee Interviews Ben Stiller

Stiller elects to meet at a Soho pancake joint. The comedian is, it turns out, obsessed with pancakes, confessing, “It’s the one vice I have left. As soon as I get to a new city I say to the runner, ‘Show me the pancakes’. I like to go to a new pancake store and sniff each of the pancakes in turn before I choose one. If I could die and come back as a pancake I would. I wish my nutsack was full of pancake mix so I could make my own on demand. Christine made undershorts out of pancakes at Thanksgiving. I felt really happy wearing them but in the end they just weren’t practical and after a few days they rotted away. C’est la vie, my friend, c’est la fucking vie already.”
Stiller, dressed casually in trousers, socks, shoes, underpants, shirt, jumper and jacket, orders a large plain pancake with no syrup, and a mug of pancake mix, which he downs in one, slamming the mug hard on the table afterwards like a shot glass. “Hoo hah!” he shouts, sweating and suddenly agitated, “Bisquick!” Stiller wipes stray mix off his lips using his uneaten pancake as a napkin, and clicks his fingers to the waitress for more mix. “Do you think maybe you could warm it up this time, honey, if it’s not too much trouble?”, he barks, Hollywood style, before turning his ire on me.

Read his righteous rant.  See the pathology.

Dear Young Ladies

Here's a compelling reason for you to go into the STEM careers-

There's a lot to do.  Men have gotten a lot of things wrong. 
We really need you obsessive, detail-oriented girls to get out there and fix some shit.

Thanks.

This is Why

The CIA's Torture Program Would Not Have Existed Without Psychologists

Thanks to revelations in the newly released report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, it is now widely known that the CIA’s torture program was created, supervised, and implemented by two licensed clinical psychologists—James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen—who were paid millions of dollars for their efforts. Less widely known is that the Bush administration’s torture operation, at both the CIA and the Pentagon—at “black sites” and at Guantanamo—was devised and supervised largely by clinical psychologists. These psychologists used their knowledge of the workings of the human mind and psychological “mind-control” research to induce “learned helplessness” and “debility, dependency, and dread,” aiming to destroy the minds of detainees in the hope that “actionable intelligence” and “critical threat information” could be sifted from the wreckage.

The psychologists were vital to the torture program for one additional reason: The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel had determined that the presence of psychologists and physicians, monitoring the state and condition of the prisoner being tortured, afforded protection for the CIA leadership and the Bush administration from liability and potential prosecution for the torture. Later, the OLC applied the same rules to the Defense Department’s “enhanced interrogation program,” which, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee, was created and overseen by a team led by a clinical psychologist, and eventually overseen exclusively by clinical psychologists.

That is not medicine. 
That is leveraging buzzwords to restrain and violate people and escape responsibility.
But that's what they do.   Professionally sanctioned tyranny.

This is why Evidence Based Science is Crucial.
Because Plausible Deniability is the refuge of Sociopaths.

Brain Eating Zombies of the Day

This is annoying the crap out of me:

Cigna- my health insurance provider, the one that pushes the food pyramid for diabetics and universally tries to get everyone to lower their fat intake and eat more carbs...

Yeah, they've taken that show on the road.
They are using my money to broadcast that bullshit on TV.

They are financing this program that uses those same erroneous assumptions to humiliate sick people into compliance.

See the Matrix.

Can't... Stop... Myself...

'Men are idiots and idiots do stupid things,' study finds

Ahhhh... impulse control problems...

Brain Eating Zombies of the Day

Humane Research Council

STUDY: 86% Of Vegetarians Go Back To Eating Meat

Some of the results are:
10% of Americans try a vegetarian diet.
2% are still vegetarians.
Over 80% of people who try the diet go off it in a few months.

The major reason for attempting a vegetarian diet is to improve health.

Most vegetarians are young women.

The authors of this study have decided that this information will be useful to devise a strategy to get us all to eat less meat.

Frankly, their conclusions are backwards.

A 2% adoption rate indicates there is something fundamentally wrong with their protocol.

Maybe it's this:
The Primary reason people believe vegetarianism is healthy is because saturated fats are found in meat.  And we have been told that saturated fats cause heart disease.

THAT IS NOT TRUE.   THAT IS FALSE.
And there has never been any direct evidence that showed otherwise.

As a matter of fact, rigorous research shows the exact opposite:

A new controlled diet study has found that increasing the levels of saturated fat in the diet does not lead to increased levels of saturated fat in the blood. However, increasing the amount of carbohydrates in the diet was found to raise the levels of a fatty acid associated with diabetes and heart disease.

Maybe that's the reason their success rate is so low.   Not because their Marketing isn't good enough, but because their premise is wrong.  People Are Not Stupid- and when they don't get healthier, they go back to eating protein, which is critical for brain function.

This entire lifestyle is perpetuated by hyperinsulinemic young women trying to control their metabolisms.    Without the correct information.

Been there, done that.  Got really fat.