• Keep Your Fingers Crossed: How Superstition Improves Performance
• More Than Half the World’s Population Gets Insufficient Vitamin D, Says Biochemist
• Low Vitamin D Levels Associated With Cognitive Decline
• Team Develops Non-Toxic Oil Recovery Agent
• Smoking Mind Over Smoking Matter: Surprising New Study Shows Cigarette Cravings Result from Habit, Not Addiction
• Light and Moderate Physical Activity Reduces the Risk of Early Death
• New Antibacterial Material for Bandages, Food Packaging, Shoes
• A Blood Test for Depression?
• 3-D Gesture-Based Interaction System Unveiled

Keep Your Fingers Crossed: How Superstition Improves Performance: New research shows that having some kind of lucky token can actually improve your performance — by increasing your self-confidence. …Volunteers who had their lucky charm did better at a memory game on the computer, and other tests showed that this difference was because they felt more confident. They also set higher goals for themselves. Just wishing someone good luck — with “I press the thumbs for you,” the German version of crossing your fingers — improved volunteers’ success at a task that required manual dexterity.

~Of course, this is still a form of delusion. Everyone tested in the study was superstitious and had a lucky charm. I’d like to see a study or two that involved people who don’t rely on superstition as well. I think if a person understands the delusion of superstition, they will therefore not need the “lucky” feather in their cap. They will have appropriate self-confidence based on their actual abilities. Still, it’s an interesting study.

More Than Half the World’s Population Gets Insufficient Vitamin D, Says Biochemist: Half the people in North America and Western Europe get insufficient amounts of vitamin D. “Elsewhere, it is worse, given that two-thirds of the people are vitamin D-insufficient or deficient. It is clear that merely eating vitamin D-rich foods is not adequate to solve the problem for most adults.” Currently, the recommended daily intake of vitamin D is 200 international units (IU) for people up to 50 years old; 400 IU for people 51 to 70 years old; and 600 IU for people over 70 years old.
“There is a wide consensus among scientists that the relative daily intake of vitamin D should be increased to 2,000 to 4,000 IU for most adults,” Norman says. “A 2000 IU daily intake can be achieved by a combination of sunshine, food, supplements, and possibly even limited tanning exposure.” While there is now abundant data on vitamin D and its benefits, Norman believes there is room for more study.
Because vitamin D is found in very few foods naturally (e.g. fish, eggs and cod liver oil) other foods such as milk, orange juice, some yogurts and some breakfast foods are fortified with it. The fortification levels aim at about 400 IU per day.

Low Vitamin D Levels Associated With Cognitive Decline: An estimated 40 percent to 100 percent of older adults in the United States and Europe are deficient in vitamin D, according to background information in the article. This deficiency has been linked to fractures, various chronic diseases and death. Vitamin D may help prevent the degeneration of brain tissue by having a role in formation of nervous tissue, maintaining levels of calcium in the body, or clearing of beta-amyloid, the substance that forms the brain plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Editorial: “Vitamin D has been known for many years to play a critical role in skeletal health. More recently, observational studies have reported inverse associations between levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the metabolite that best reflects overall vitamin D status, and the risk of a wide range of disease, including cancer, vascular disease, infectious conditions, autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity. …It is now time to test the various hypotheses generated by observational studies of vitamin D in adequately designed and conducted randomized controlled trials.”

Team Develops Non-Toxic Oil Recovery Agent: A team of chemists has developed a non-toxic, recyclable agent that can solidify oil on salt water so that it can be scooped up like the fat that forms on the top of a pot of chilled chicken soup. The agent could potentially be used to recover oil lost in the British Petroleum (BP) spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The gelling agent developed by his team is environmentally benign. It uses a sugar-based molecule that can be obtained from renewable sources and is biodegradable. In addition, only a relatively small amount of the agent — five percent of the volume of the oil being recovered — is required for the process, which handles a range of oil from crude to vegetable oil, to work.

Smoking Mind Over Smoking Matter: Surprising New Study Shows Cigarette Cravings Result from Habit, Not Addiction: The new study found that the intensity of cravings for cigarettes had more to do with the psychosocial element of smoking than with the physiological effects of nicotine as an addictive chemical. …Dr. Dar’s studies conclude that nicotine is not addictive as physiological addictions are usually defined. While nicotine does have a physiological role in increasing cognitive abilities such as attention and memory, it’s not an addictive substance like heroin, which creates true systemic and biologically-based withdrawal symptoms in the body of the user, he says. Dr. Dar believes that people who smoke do so for short-term benefits like oral gratification, sensory pleasure and social camaraderie. Once the habit is established, people continue to smoke in response to cues and in situations that become associated with smoking. Dr. Dar believes that understanding smoking as a habit, not an addiction, will facilitate treatment. Smoking cessation techniques should emphasize the psychological and behavioral aspects of the habit and not the biological aspects, he suggests.

Light and Moderate Physical Activity Reduces the Risk of Early Death: A new study has found that even light or moderate intensity physical activity, such as walking or cycling, can substantially reduce the risk of early death. the largest health benefits from light or moderate activity (such as walking and cycling) were in people who do hardly any physical activity at all. Although more activity is better — the benefits of even a small amount of physical activity are very large in the least physically active.
The good news from this study is that you don’t have to be an exercise freak to benefit from physical activity. Just achieving the recommended levels of physical activity (equivalent to 30 minutes daily of moderate intensity activity on 5 days a week) reduces the risk of death by 19%, while 7 hours per week of moderate activity (compared with no activity) reduces the risk of death by 24%. “This research confirms that is not just exercising hard that is good for you but even moderate everyday activities, like walking and cycling, can have major health benefits. Just walking to the shops or walking the children to school can lengthen your life — as well as bringing other benefits for well-being and the environment.”

New Antibacterial Material for Bandages, Food Packaging, Shoes: A new form of paper with the built-in ability to fight disease-causing bacteria could have applications that range from anti-bacterial bandages to food packaging that keeps food fresher longer to shoes that ward off foot odor. …They made sheets of paper from graphene oxide, and then tried to grow bacteria and human cells on top. Bacteria were unable to grow on the paper, and it had little adverse effect on human cells.

A Blood Test for Depression? Researchers evaluated blood gene expression profiles in healthy individuals and patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder, or MDD. They identified a set of seven genes in whole blood that was able to distinguish un-medicated MDD patients from healthy controls. “This is a first, but major step in providing a molecular diagnostic tool for depression.” Although psychiatry already has specific criteria for diagnosing mental health disorders, this type of diagnosis would be unbiased and particularly valuable for those with whom it is more difficult to have a conversation. It may also eventually assist in reducing the stigma associated with mental health problems.

3-D Gesture-Based Interaction System Unveiled: Scientists have developed the next generation non-contact gesture and finger recognition system. The novel system detects hand and finger positions in real-time and translates these into appropriate interaction commands. Furthermore, the system does not require special gloves or markers and is capable of supporting multiple users. This system detects multiple fingers and hands at the same time and allows the user to interact with objects on a display. The users move their hands and fingers in the air and the system automatically recognizes and interprets the gestures accordingly.
Cinemagoers will remember the science-fiction thriller Minority Report from 2002 which starred Tom Cruise. In this film Tom Cruise is in a 3-D software arena and is able to interact with numerous programs at unimaginable speed, however the system used special gloves and only three fingers from each hand.
The FIT prototype provides the next generation of gesture-based interaction far in advance of the Minority Report system. The FIT prototype tracks the user’s hand in front of a 3-D camera. The 3-D camera uses the time of flight principle, in this approach each pixel is tracked and the length of time it takes light to be filmed travelling to and from the tracked object is determined. This allows for the calculation of the distance between the camera and the tracked object.
“A special image analysis algorithm was developed which filters out the positions of the hands and fingers. This is achieved in real-time through the use of intelligent filtering of the incoming data. The raw data can be viewed as a kind of 3-D mountain landscape, with the peak regions representing the hands or fingers.” In addition plausibility criteria are used, these are based around: the size of a hand, finger length and the potential coordinates.
A user study was conducted and found that the system both easy to use and fun. However, work remains to be done on removing elements which confuses the system, for example reflections caused by wristwatches and palms which are positioned orthogonal to the camera.
“With Microsoft announcing Project Natal, it is likely that similar techniques will very soon become standard across the gaming industry. This technology also opens up the potential for new solutions in the range of other application domains, such as the exploration of complex simulation data and for new forms of learning.”

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So, if you haven’t heard, WolframAlpha, the latest, coolest “computational knowledge engine” is out and ready to play with. It still has a long way to go with adding more functionality, but there’s a lot in there. I was asking it questions regarding religions and that wasn’t really an option yet. Go over and try a few questions, watch the video, and see if you won’t at least bookmark the site. It’s geektastic, if you ask me.

One question I asked it was how many people per church are in my town? Unfortunately it didn’t know how many churches were here, so that didn’t work. But it told me the population, so that was a start. Also it has handy links down on the right. One was to Wikipedia which had an even newer figure for my town’s population. So then I went to Google Maps and asked it to tell me where all the churches are in my town. Here is a summary of what I found:

• Population: 19,096 people
• Area: 8.2 sq. miles
• Churches: 6302

That’s 3 people per church. WTF? That can’t be right!?

Now, I think some of those 6,302 churches are in the surrounding area outside of town. So I redefined my search to be near the main street of downtown. I got 6,296 churches. Within 8 miles of downtown, I would say the first 10 pages of results would be a fair estimate. That’s about 100 churches. Whew.. that’s much better. I was freaking out there for a minute.

That still means 191 people per church. That makes more sense, I guess. But seriously, driving through our sleepy little town, there’s a church on every corner, it seems. The major denominations competing for the sheeple are catholic and methodist. We have a pentacostal church near our house too.

Well, now that I’ve wasted an hour of my day, and a few minutes of yours, I’ll go work on Butch’s computer. Which reminds me, if you’re a geek, I’d love to be your new BFF! I know just enough about computers to get myself deep into trouble and not be able to get back out of it again. So wish me luck. I’m diving in headfirst!

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• Comments: Thanks for the great comments recently! I promise to reply to each of them but I am falling behind. I realized some of them really require a post devoted to them instead of just a reply. So please don’t think I’m ignoring you. I will comment soon.
• Computers: It’s true. Ask my poor long-suffering husband Butch, I am missing the Patience gene. My computer has been doing strange things since I reinstalled windows (which I do every 6 months to a year to keep things fresh and in working order, as every past geek friend of mine has recommended) and I found out through Lifehacker that Windows 7 beta is freely available for download. Well, of course I had to do it. I have waited as long as possible, but the ADD, Shiny-Loving Geek in me had to have it. I’m such a sucker for the shiny when it comes to geek stuff. (Luckily for Butch, I couldn’t care less about diamonds and that kind of nonsense. Unfortunately though, I need gadgets and computers and stuff like that.) It’s my kryptonite, I guess. So I just had to have windows 7, and now, of course, I’m having problems with the virtual memory. Sigh. So bear with me, it’s taking me quite some time to try to figure out the issue and see if I can find a fix. On a completely unrelated note, I’m interviewing geeks to be my new BFF. Please apply within.

Ok, now, I want to talk to you briefly about happiness. Are you an atheist? Are you happy? This lingering idea keeps wandering around that all atheists are curmudgeonly, grumpy, miserable, fatalistic and depressed.

I’ve been an atheist for 9 years, and for many years before that I was basically an agnostic. I have to say, I think discarding religion was a huge relief. I think I felt better. Once I finally learned to think critically, I think I started really seeing rationally and really appreciating the natural wonders of the universe. If anything, this process has left me more happy, more fascinated by the world of science and discovery. I think I’m happier and calmer, yet always eager to learn and grow.

But I think I probably come across under certain circumstances as a furious cynic. Why would that be? Which is the real me? The happy atheist is who I think I’d identify with best. But my bullshit meter has become increasingly sensitive. So when someone says something that screams of ignorance and a total lack of thinking for oneself, I just tend to get irritated, frustrated and grumpy.

It seems that wherever I go I’m surrounded by sheeple people who let others think for them. They spew forth the rubbish and lies that had been told to them by people in some strange version of authority (whether that be their minister, the pope, the government, or a slick marketing campaign) and that’s good enough for them. They wallow in their ignorance like it was some sort of universal remedy. Thinking is endangered and that pisses me off, and worries me.

Anyway, other than that, I’m quite a content person overall. Are you an atheist? Or a believer? Are you happy and content? Or are you angry and bitter and curmudgeonly? If you’re happy, do you still get really angry over certain things? I look forward to your comments! Oh,and have a great evening!

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First, my husband Butch, who happens to be awesomely smart (and pretty damned rogueishly handsome too! hee hee). He doesn’t blog often, but when he does, I just love to see what is bouncing around in his brain. Usually it’s a bit on the angry/ranting side of things. Ok, not usually, almost always.

The other day he wrote about Things Every American Needs To Know. It’s a bit on the “angry diatribe” kinda post, but it’s good stuff and I wanted to share it with you. Basically it’s the difference between rights and privileges. I hope you find it interesting.

Second, my bestest friend (besides my awesome husband, Butch of course!) is Gary. I introduced you to him the other day in the Out of the Blue Jesus Pitch. He was very nice to a bible thumper who randomly tried to convert him to the jesus cult. He wasn’t shaken in his atheism though. He stood firm and politely deflected the attack.

There is a small update on that. The bible thumper contacted him several more times. It’s so boring and repetitive that I won’t bother you with it. She never changed her pitch and refused to listen to anything he said. Of course. He finally told her to leave him alone or he’d block her. Case closed.

But the real reason I’m bringing him up today, is because I just spent the last couple of days reinstalling windows and therefore everything else. I had been having increasing issues with my computer. If you have windows, you’ll understand. It happens. Most IT people recommend reinstalling windows about once a year. That’s about how often I do it.

Of course, I backed up all my settings and stuff. But then windows refused to let me use them. It’s been a grind, as usual. So, that’s why I haven’t been around much.

Now, back to Gary. He is the saver of my bacon. Has been as long as we’ve been friends. He’s my IT guy. Recently he has started offering to help people through this neat program called Crossloop. I love Crossloop. It’s a very simple to use program that lets you access another computer, or let someone help you with yours. User friendly is its middle name. I’ve never helped anyone, but Gary has helped me many times since we both installed it (which takes about 2 minutes and works with your firewall without problems).

I’m telling you all this to pimp my buddy out. Like I mentioned, he started offering to help people through Crossloop a short while ago. You can find his profile here. So, if you need help with your computer, I highly recommend him. He’s saved my bacon many times.

Ok, that’s it, I’m done pimping now. You can go back to your regularly scheduled lives. Have a great day!

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