At least for me.

It’s long been known that caloric restriction is one means of extending lifespan in lower mammals (e.g., lab rats) and presumably humans as well. It’s a tough diet to maintain, though, since most who try it are perpetually hungry. Now there’s evidence that most of the benefits can be attained by periodic fasting (alternate days), allowing a normal dietary intake, but at more irregular intervals.

It makes sense that, like many features of civilized (in the literal sense, meaning cities and civilization) lifestyles, regular meals are unhealthy for us, since our ancestors were probably more in a “go hungry until you can chase down the next mastodon, then feast” mode, and evolutionarily adapted to it. So we need to consider not just what we eat (more paleolithic foods, like meat, nuts, fruits and berries and less or no grain) but when we eat it as well, if we want to do what our bodies (are still) evolved to do.

This is good news for me because I’ll often go long periods without eating, just because I get busy, and have no need for regularity to my meals. Unfortunately, many (particularly hypoglycemic types) start to feel bad if they go more than a few hours without food. Of course, it’s possible that if they change their diets and habit, that they could get used to it as well.

Alab Boyle reports that researchers are learning more about where earworms live, and how they work. Not enough yet to get rid of them, though.

Alab Boyle reports that researchers are learning more about where earworms live, and how they work. Not enough yet to get rid of them, though.

Alab Boyle reports that researchers are learning more about where earworms live, and how they work. Not enough yet to get rid of them, though.

Stanley Kurtz is seemingly disturbed by trends in neuroscience:

So we ought to be

This is interesting (and no doubt confounding to those who continue to deny that homosexuality is inborn). Gay men tend to read maps more like women.

Gay men employ the same strategies for navigating as women – using landmarks to find their way around – a new study suggests.

But they also use the strategies typically used by straight men, such as using compass directions and distances. In contrast, gay women read maps just like straight women, reveals the study of 80 heterosexual and homosexual men and women.

Don’t tell the faculty at Harvard–Nancy Hopkins might have to hie to her fainting couch again.

The Simpsons, that is. Here’s an article about using the show for the instruction of higher math. And here’s the unofficial Simpsons episode index for math references.

[Via The Corner]

* Reference is to the episode in which Homer asks the same question about donuts.

The Simpsons, that is. Here’s an article about using the show for the instruction of higher math. And here’s the unofficial Simpsons episode index for math references.

[Via The Corner]

* Reference is to the episode in which Homer asks the same question about donuts.

The Simpsons, that is. Here’s an article about using the show for the instruction of higher math. And here’s the unofficial Simpsons episode index for math references.

[Via The Corner]

* Reference is to the episode in which Homer asks the same question about donuts.

Chad Orzel has a couple interesting posts about the relative value of literacy versus numeracy in both society and the academy.

…I do think there is an imbalance here, and it bothers me. If a student were to come in and say “You know, I just can’t handle literature classes. I’m no good at reading, and I’m not comfortable with it, so I don’t want to take any English classes,” most faculty would think that there’s something wrong with that person. And yet, I hear functionally equivalent statements about math every time I bring this subject up. Bright people will say “I think science is really neat, but I just can’t handle math,” and see nothing wrong with that.

If a student professed a distaste for reading as frankly as some express their distaste for math, we’d think that they were intellectually stunted. Illiteracy is a sign of a learning disability, while innumeracy is shrugged off as just one of those things.

I do think that one could argue that in fact much of critical theory in literature is unadulterated crap. Does anyone think that it would be as easy (or even possible) for an English major to hoax a physics paper as it was for Alan Sokal to mock postmodernists? Clearly Sokal understood much more about the literary theories (to the slight degree that they’re not nonsense) than any of the humanity professors will ever know about physics–at least enough to pull the wool over their eyes.

What’s dismaying to me is that for many, it’s not only acceptable to have no ability at math, but many take perverse pride in it, and are often rewarded both in academia and in life.

[via Derek Lowe, who has additional commentary.]