The authors claim this correlation is likely caused by the mouse paying attention to its dreams, while skeptics say no such conclusion can be made. One skeptic (Blumberg) is pursuing a hypothesis in which, in REM sleep, the brain is test-driving the body.
The article was quite vague about what signals the head direction neurons normally respond to, but this paper [1] seems to suggest that they respond to head-rotation information from the horizontal semicircular canals - in transgenic mice which lack functional horizontal canals, "the neural network for the head direction signal remains intact in these mice, but that the absence of normal horizontal canals results in an inability to control the network properly and brings about an unstable head direction signal."
As we know that the head-direction signals in sleeping mice are not caused by head movement, one of the first questions I would have is whether we can figure out what, if anything, they are responding to - or whether they are like the unstable signals of the transgenic mice. Unfortunately, one cannot ask a mouse to imagine that it is rotating its head and see whether that triggers the head direction cells, but in a setup where the mouse's body and its visual field can be rotated independently, it might be possible to figure out the causal chains (For all I know, this is already well-understood.) If the head direction signals are the unstable output of a network disconnected from its when-awake inputs, and the eye movements are in response to that, they may have nothing to do with dreams.
If Blumberg is right, could dreams be the result of conscious minds trying to make sense of the sort of test signals he proposes?
I agree that the father appears lucky to have avoided issues such as debilitating disease due to random genetic mutation. Even the father acknowledges that "lots of good luck" was involved. The article does not appear to overstate the significance of this single example.
Anecdotes are not useless. They can be inspirational and they can help illuminate possibilities and methods that are otherwise opaque in large-sample statistics. Anecdotes that are consistent with our best scientific understanding are powerful ways of communicating knowledge and providing inspiration for change to those who don't have the ability or inclination to evaluate the studies. In this case, the father is doing several things that large studies tell us are beneficial to health. These unmentioned studies suggest that the father has probably improved his quality of life. Most people I know are far more motivated by such anecdotes than they are by credible statistical analysis.
I disagree with your list of uncontrollable variables. All of them are largely controllable. Much of the medication consumed today is either outright unnecessary or can be reduced with lifestyle changes. You can control the air you breath by controlling where you live and when/where you are most active. You can lower your risk of cancer and many other diseases by lifestyle and environmental changes. The fact that complete control and certainty are impossible is no reason for inaction.
I addressed some of this in another comment:
"You can control the side effects you may get from a medication you take? If you get an infection you are taking meds. If you get kidney stones, you are very likely getting meds, if you injure yourself and need surgery you are getting meds. These carry risks, therefore, every time your chances of "perfect health" are decreasing.
I get that most people on HN, can control the air they breath as they have the means to decide where they want to live, this isn't the case for most of the people.
Cancer is literally just a numbers game, people in perfect health at their PEAK get diagnosed with cancer. A top club soccer player is now going through testicular cancer treatment.
I am not sure how general person can control any of this."
I don't disagree that exercise and healthy habits can be great for your health. But the post seemed like it ignored all the other factors.
> You can control the side effects you may get from a medication you take?
You can eliminate unneeded medication to eliminate side effects.
You can reduce or change your needed medication to control side effects.
You can change your lifestyle to eliminate the need for medication.
Even if there is no way to eliminate your need for medication, you still don't necessarily have to accept bad side effects. Doctors make mistakes and the standard treatment doesn't work for everyone. The first medication a doctor prescribes is often a poor fit. Doctors sometimes need to be prompted to look for better alternatives.
> I get that most people on HN, can control the air they breath as they have the means to decide where they want to live, this isn't the case for most of the people.
Even with very limited means, there is still likely to be something you can control such as: how close to major road traffic you live, how well-ventilated your home is, whether you allow unnecessary particulate or VOC sources in your home, whether you exercise outdoors on days with higher than normal pollution levels, or whether you go running near a highway or at a park. These simple things can have a significant effect on one's air quality.
> Cancer is literally just a numbers game, people in perfect health at their PEAK get diagnosed with cancer.
Cancer has controllable risk factors. There is overwhelming evidence that we can take reasonable actions to significantly reduce our risk of getting cancer.
If you want to reason about the real world, then a top-left origin will typically be better as it aligns with a right-handed coordinate system of Forward-Right-Down; where the Forward dimension aligns with the range to an object in the scene, the Right dimension aligns with the pixel column, and the Down dimension aligns with the pixel row. As a result, vector operations are more intuitive and there is less mental translation required when mapping between image space and real-world space.
> As the author mentions, the original moniker for Excel was VisiCalc
VisiCalc wasn't actually a moniker for Excel. It was a predecessor. It was the first spreadsheet program, which was made by a different company, VisiCorp, and released in 1979. Excel was developed by Microsoft and released in 1985. Prior to Excel, Microsoft had released an earlier spreadsheet called Multiplan in 1982.
Humans have an instinctive drive to optimize genetic survival. Without it, we would not exist. One of the control mechanisms for this is our instinct for reproduction. We constantly access future availability of resources, attractiveness to high quality mates, and probability of a new child surviving to bear children of their own with high quality mates. The industrial revolution, with its massive increase in productivity and technological advancement, dramatically altered the survival cost function that humans must now optimize. A measly 200 years has not been enough time for our instinctual optimization algorithm to adapt. As a result, I believe we are seeing over-compensation for higher resources and lower mortality, which is most apparent in countries with the highest per-capita GDP (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#/media/Fi...) where parents are over-delaying childbirth because they perceive an opportunity to improve their economic standing, improve their mate selection, and take better care of a smaller number of children. We even see this happening with immigrants from low-GDP countries who move to high-GDP countries and converge towards the lower fertility rate of their new country. I expect we will eventually adapt, but it will likely require a conscious override of instinct if we want to avoid a massive population decline in the process.
Higher prices will result in increased production. We don't need to motivate producers beyond that. There's plenty of potential from non-Russian sources. It will take months though.
I think the biggest motivational issue will be expectations for the duration of any oil sanctions. If producers think it is likely to only be short-term, there won't be as much motivation to bring extra production online.
Constricting the pupil can certainly reduce the effect of defects in the eye lens by reducing the amount of lens used; however, it won't work well in dim light.
Alternative: Increase environmental lighting and use bright, high contrast displays with dark text on bright backgrounds (no dark mode). This will not just constrict your pupils (as the eyedrops do), but also increase the rate of photons reaching your retina in bright areas of the scene relative to dark areas (in other words, improves contrast, which the eyedrops won't do).
