Read_the_Genes

A search for Toxoplasmosis on G-scholar reveals that this parasite is in fact a problem for immune compromised patients and infants. Although I do not think WebMD is a reliable source, another comment here cites them to indicate that infections are usually cleared up by our immune system. This appears to be plausible, but because the parasite enters cells, and can hide in a latent phase, your immune system may be unable to clear the infection permanently. Because the parasite can halt the cell cycle, it may be able to hide indefinitely. I would not be concerned about a latent parasite, but its re-emergence may become a problem if your immune system becomes compromised.

A correction to your statement that, according to wikipedia, the disease cannot be tested by blood sample. Wikipedia, in fact, stats that it can be tested by blood or other tissue, but only if the parasite is active (non-latent).

Regarding its effect on behavior, the parasite seems to increase dopamine levels and possibly inhibit fear response. Since the increased dopamine is caused by an enzyme made by the parasite, this probably only occurs during a full scale infection. The inhibition of fear may occur while the parasite is inactive, if the parasite is able to enter cells in your amygdala. I do not see this inhibition of fear as long-lasting, except perhaps in extreme cases.

One disclaimer, I grew up with a few cats, so I may have been, or am currently, infected. I cannot rule out that this parasite is manipulating me to write this comment. Now I'm off to find some cat pee. Can't get enough of that smell, mmmmmmmm.....

More technical wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii

And why should we trust you (or Google etc) with our data? Perhaps you (they) will exploit our ignorance and manipulate our preferences?

Not everyone in the world can be assured their human rights and exposing personal information can lead to persecution. Therefore, there is a risk attributed to this data collection, at least for some. Not everyone is willing or able to take these risks.

While I can agree that this data may be useful for both customer and advertiser, its potential misuse should not be ignored. And when these networks deny the use of pseudonyms, they force their users to take (unnecessary) risks.

Dr. Agrawal has some good pdf's available from his website: http://stanford.edu/~mukul/tutorials/index.html

Here is a link to a 161 page pdf on QFT and QED (Warning: direct pdf download):

stanford.edu/~mukul/tutorials/Quantum_Optics.pdf

I have found his explanations of quantum physics to be very clear. [Edit: url correction]

We all have tumors in our bodies, not cancer. Cancer is when the tumor metastasizes, and begins to grow out of control.

Perhaps instead of hoping for a silver bullet to cure cancer, determine when/if your body is full of tumors, and do everything you can to prevent them from accumulating any more DNA damage.

Thank you for linking to this interesting discussion on Reddit. Their discussion lacks a few key points.

First, inflammation is an important cause of cellular (and DNA) damage. The standard weapon used by your innate immune system is super-oxide, a free radical! Avoiding chronic infections is likely to be an important key to longevity, especially for those prone to inflammation.

Second, while "aging" is a natural mechanism by which your body defends against cancer, "aging" quickly is not the ideal way to prevent cancer.

Your cells will stop dividing when they have reached their Hayflick limit. This limit is not exactly caused by telomeres, but rather the lack of telomerase (a protein that lengthens telomeres). Active telomerase is necessary for a cell to become cancerous.

So the cell has its own built in mechanism to determine when it has divided too many times, as well as when it has accumulated DNA damage from external sources like UV or oxides. Your cells have "aged" when they have accumulated too much DNA damage! So aging, in this sense, is not a good way to prevent cancer. The aged body is filled with tumors that are near metastasis, and undergoes drastic changes (eg. reduction in hormones) to prevent cancer formation.

The only real way to prevent cancer is to stop cell division. This, of course, is not ideal. How would we grow to become an adult without cell division? How would we heal damaged tissue? The answer is actually in the growth pathways of mammals.

It turns out that dwarfs (little people) have very low cancer rates. See for example: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=defective-g...

These people lack a gene (in a pathway) that is necessary for cancer to form. Knocking out genes in growth pathways in mice drastically reduces their cancer rates (the mice are also small). Want to prevent cancer? Stop growing!

This is completely unrealistic, of course. However, populations with limited activity in their growth pathways will be less prone to cancer. This extends to short people too, not just dwarfs.

I tried using this, but it left me with the impression that it was unprofessionally done.

1. The board is not correct. The black square must be in the left corner. While this may seem like a small quibble, it changes the patters so that squares like e4, which should be white, are now black. This makes it difficult to play.

2. There are apparently no openings programed into the computer. Since openings are so complex, simply using an algorithm to find good opening moves does not work well. So, this program will almost always start out with bad first moves.

Interesting that they use this strategy. Essentially, high variance is good when the expected value of the game is negative. It increases the chances of success in a bad situation.

The maths of this can be found in the article "A Rule of Thumb (not only) for Gamblers." Currently, this article is available free here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.55.3...

Unfortunately you are correct, we are not really sequencing the genome. We are simply reading short segments of DNA, and comparing that to a reference sequence to find point mutations (eg. changes from G to C). We cannot easily determine whether there are large-scale duplications with the present technology. Ironically, the older, more expensive tech was better at this.

There is so much variation missed by "genome sequencing" that it is no surprise to me that we can only explain a tiny percentage of heritable human variation with genetics.

See: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/full/nature0... for more.

Forgive me if my surfing time is limited. I would appreciate links to these conversations, if you have them.

The biggest problem with Wikipedia is not that entries about current politics may be biased by national/religious propaganda.

The real problem is when the political propaganda influences the scientific entries. For example here I loosely refer to entries on evolution and pharmacology.

But, perhaps Wikipedia handles this better than other encyclopedias?

Can anyone recommend a P2P VoIP other than Skype?

I suspect that it wont be long until MS "improves" Skype and it becomes useless.

This is a very well written blog, and the links to pdfs providing further detail are excellent.

As pointed out in jane.pdf, and also be Ed Thorp elsewhere, betting with the Kelly criterion requires large amounts of capital. The reason is simple; there is a real chance of going broke if you start out near 0. This can be countered by playing a fractional Kelly strategy, where you bet Kelly, but only on a fraction of your bankroll.

The smartest man in the room is a fool if he makes others look foolish.

-Ancient Chinese proverb

The answers on HN are better and have more variety than SE!

This journal is going under:

http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-o...

From Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fy4w5/journal_of_co...

I think it is safe to ignore articles published in this journal.

Most studies use raw p-values. This, coupled with "exploratory analyses" which are not mentioned in the research, leads to a high false discovery rate.

Alternatives include using simulations to estimate false discovery rates (this can be done analytically for some problems). Bayesian frameworks can also be applied, depending on the amount and accuracy of prior knowledge of the system under study.

That said, I see nothing wrong with publishing results with nominal p-values, as long as the researchers indicate the weakness in their results. Meta-analyses can always come back later and use the results they publish.

What annoys me is seeing 50 or so statistical tests done, and then researchers stating they have found something when 1 of those tests shows a p-value of 0.05. Just using a Bonferroni correction, the simplest of all corrections, would demonstrate that findings like this are not significant.

This is similar to other models of courtship behavior. Essentially, females prefer males that invest in their relationship because they are more likely to remain in the relationship. This same phenomenon can be found in all sorts of things, such as law offices (why are they so fancy?!).

A great general model on this can be found here (pdf): http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/publications/forthcomi...

This is a chapter from a book (P. Zak, ed. Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy. Princeton University Press).

Sorry to be so harsh, but this analysis is really lacking.

If you want to learn more about how to hedge bets, read about things like moment theory or the Kelly criterion.

Also, taking a measure like variance would be much more meaningful than just the spread of the payoff.

I agree, this math is terrible. Just. Terrible.

Please no one believe this post, it uses dubious statistics.

Thank you much for crafting this finely worded commentary!!! One point to add:

Many economists assume equilibrium in their models. Often, economists will invoke [Nash] equilibrium as the resting state of the economy. This simplifies their maths, but seems like a dubious assumption for most real world situations. Human activity is biological, and evolving. Economies are complex systems composed of biological entities (humans), and need not ever reach equilibrium.

Out of respect for the recently deceased economics genius, B. Mandelbrot, I urge brave souls to learn his two cents on the topic.