March 29, 2011
Affluenza [af-loo-en-zuh], a portmanteau of the words affluence and influenza, is a term used by critics of capitalism and consumerism, defined as: a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more. Proponents of the term consider that the prizing of endless increases in material wealth may lead to feelings of worthlessness and dissatisfaction rather than experiences of a ‘better life,’ and that these symptoms may be usefully captured with the metaphor of a disease.
They claim some or even many of those who become wealthy will find the economic success leaving them unfulfilled and hungry only for more wealth, finding that they are unable to get pleasure from the things they buy and that increasingly material things may come to dominate their time and thoughts to the detriment of personal relationships and to feelings of happiness. The condition is considered particularly acute amongst those with inherited wealth, who are often said to experience guilt, lack of purpose and dissolute behavior, as well as obsession with holding on to the wealth.
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March 29, 2011
The ketogenic [kee-toh-jen-ik] diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control epilepsy in children. The diet mimics aspects of starvation by forcing the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates.
Normally, the carbohydrates contained in food are converted into glucose, which is then transported around the body and is particularly important in fuelling brain function. However, if there is very little carbohydrate in the diet, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies. The ketone bodies pass into the brain and replace glucose as an energy source. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood, a state known as ketosis, leads to a reduction in the frequency of epileptic seizures.
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March 28, 2011
Red Hot Organization (RHO) is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture. Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise donations totaling more than 10 million dollars for HIV / AIDS relief and awareness around the world.
First founded as King Cole, Inc. by Leigh Blake and John Carlin, Red Hot was established in response to the devastation wrought by AIDS on a generation of New York artists and intellectuals. Carlin had an ‘improbable dream: to create an AIDS charity album with pop stars singing Cole Porter songs.’ In 1990 the dream was realized when ‘Red Hot + Blue’ was released, featuring David Byrne, Annie Lennox, Tom Waits, U2, and Erasure.
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March 28, 2011
The deadlift is a weight training exercise where one lifts a loaded barbell off the ground from a stabilized bent-over position. It is one of the three gauges of powerlifting, and is an exercise for overall body development. The deadlift is a compound movement that works grip strength with the erector spinae, gluteus maximus, adductor magnus, hamstrings, and quadriceps serving as the primary muscles. The remaining muscles are involved in stability control. It is, in a sense, the purest test of strength because it is one of the few lifts of dead weight (weight lying on the ground).
In most other lifts there is an eccentric phase (lowering) followed by the concentric phase (lifting). The eccentric phase essentially stores some amount of energy in the stretched muscles and tendons, making the concentric phase somewhat easier. the deadlift, however, is solely a concentric movement. The lift begins at its most difficult point, with no inertia or stored energy. The record for a raw deadlift (a deadlift performed without the aid of a deadlift suit where only a belt is allowed) is 1015 lbs by Benedikt Magnússon of Iceland.
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March 25, 2011
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to appreciate their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.
This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence. Competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.
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March 25, 2011
Depressive realism is the proposition that people with depression actually have a more accurate perception of reality, specifically that they are less affected by positive illusions of illusory superiority, the illusion of control, and optimism bias.
The concept refers to people with borderline or moderate depression, suggesting that while non-depressed people see things in an overly positive light and severely depressed people see things in overly negative light, the mildly discontented grey area in between in fact reflects the most accurate perception of reality.
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March 25, 2011
Inbreeding depression is the reduced fitness in a given population as a result of breeding of related individuals. It is often the result of a population bottleneck. In general, the higher the genetic variation within a breeding population, the less likely it is to suffer from inbreeding depression. Inbreeding depression seems to be present in most groups of organisms, but is perhaps most important in hermaphroditic species. The majority of plants are hermaphroditic and thus are capable of the most severe degree of inbreeding depression.
Although severe inbreeding depression in humans is uncommon, there have been several cases. As with animals, this phenomenon tends to occur in isolated, rural populations that are cut off to some degree from other areas of civilization. A notable example is the Vadoma tribe of western Zimbabwe, many of whom carry the trait of having only two toes due to a small gene pool.
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March 25, 2011
Heterosis, or hybrid vigor or outbreeding enhancement, is the increased function of any biological quality in a hybrid offspring. It is the occurrence of a genetically superior offspring from mixing the genes of dissimilar parents. Heterosis is the opposite of inbreeding depression, which occurs in the offspring of closely related parents.
The term often causes controversy, particularly in regard to selective breeding of domestic animals, because sometimes it’s inaccurately claimed, that all crossbred plants or animals are genetically superior to their parents. It’s only true in certain circumstances. When a hybrid is seen to be superior to its parents, this is known as hybrid vigor. When the opposite happens, and a hybrid inherits traits from its parents that makes it unfit for survival, the result is referred to as outbreeding depression. Typical examples of this are crosses between wild and hatchery fish that have incompatible adaptations.
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March 24, 2011
Apophenia [ap-uh-fee-nee-uh] is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by German neurologist and psychiatrist Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the ‘unmotivated seeing of connections’ accompanied by a ‘specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness.’
Conrad originally described this phenomenon in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has become more widely used to describe this tendency in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of neurological differences or mental illness.
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March 21, 2011
Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS), also known as Todd’s syndrome, is a disorienting neurological condition which affects human perception. Sufferers may experience visual and other sensory distortions. A temporary condition, it is often associated with migraines, brain tumors, and the use of psychoactive drugs.
It can also present as the initial sign of the Epstein-Barr Virus. Anecdotal reports suggests that the symptoms of AIWS are fairly common in childhood, with many people growing out of them in their teens. It appears that AIWS is also a common experience at sleep onset.
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March 15, 2011
David Goggins is a Navy SEAL, who served in Afghanistan, and an ultramarathon runner. After several of his friends died in the war, Goggins began long-distance running to raise money. In 2005, Goggins entered the 24 hour race in San Diego and was able to run 100 miles in under 19 hours, despite never having run a marathon before. Since then, Goggins competed in many different long distance running events such as the Las Vegas Marathon and the Badwater 135 miler, where he placed highly.
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March 14, 2011
A placebo is a sham or simulated medical intervention. Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect. In medical research, placebos are given as control treatments and depend on the use of measured deception. Common placebos are inert tablets, sham surgery, and other procedures based on false information. Since the publication of Henry K. Beecher’s ‘The Powerful Placebo’ in 1955 the phenomenon has been considered to have clinically important effects.
The word ‘placebo,’ Latin for ‘I will please,’ dates back to a Latin translation of the Bible. In 1785 it was defined as a ‘commonplace method or medicine’ and in 1811 it was defined as ‘any medicine adapted more to please than to benefit the patient,’ sometimes with a derogatory implication but not with the implication of no effect. Placebos were widespread in medicine until the 20th century, and they were sometimes endorsed as necessary deceptions.
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