Posts by Bart Janssen
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Death is a necessary, and unavoidable, part of life.
Really why?
If you view a person as a collection of cells and bacteria (mostly bacteria) that combine to make a living person. Then individual cell death is normal. But death of the individual is not necessarily required for any reason.
You may have philosophical reasons for thinking death is normal and necessary, but I can't see any biological reason.
There are certainly ecological reasons for have individuals die off.
And because of the way evolution works we have evolved to breed and then there is no species survival advantage to living after breeding. Also note it's unlikely that there is any species survival selection advantage for dying, bearing in mind most of our evolution occurred when humans were a relatively small population.
In practice, for us, at our stage of medical care yes death is inevitable and normal. And dealing with it, is indeed, part of life.
I have no idea what cultural changes would ensue if we were functionally non-dying. I also don't know what would happen to a personality that survived say 5 centuries.
But purely biologically, no I don't see death as inevitable and I really do believe that at some point humanity will have to deal with individuals essentially living a very very long time.
And as usual I am straying very far from David's thread - I think it's a disease.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Steve Barnes,
by keeping people alive longer are we not also keeping diseases alive longer?
No idea. But my optimistic feeling is we will reach a point where we can deal with pretty much every cause of death, except accidental. When that will happen I don't know. We are making extraordinary progress understanding our own biology and I really don't see any solid reason why the "natural" causes of death are certain.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to JacksonP,
I’d love to discuss this subject with you Bart
Dude you have an espresso machine and a table tennis table and you're walking distance away ...
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If you'll all excuse me I'm gonna rant about food and allergies, feel free to skip ahead to an interesting post :).
So the place I work has a reasonable number of folks who work on food and flavour and nutrition so we get regular seminars and bearing in mind I'm a DNA scientist at heart I have read more than my share of papers on the subjects (yes plural).
One thing to note is the increase in allergies is real, kinda. Yes there are more folks with allergies but it's a very difficult thing to untangle from other data particularly in the western world.
More people are alive who wouldn't be, we are very good at keeping people alive who would normally have died as a baby, I'm one of them. What that does to the stats nobody is sure but it probably has an effect.
People are healthier now, which seems an odd thing to mention but if you have a really serious problem with your health you are less likely to notice or care about a food allergy and less likely to report it. Even though ironically the two may be connected.
There are other complications to the stats but the point is nothing is simple in this science, so simplistic answers like "eat this" or "don't eat that" are almost certainly wrong and should be treated with enormous suspicion.
And our understanding of allergic responses is still limited so anyone claiming to know why people are having allergic responses to food is either a genius or wrong.
But with all that in mind we do know the first world diet has changed dramatically. We know this has consequences for the bacteria in our guts but we know almost nothing about those bacteria. We know this probably has a relationship to food allergies but we don't know exactly what that relationship might be yet. That is my summation of the state of scientific knowledge in this field (with the caveat that for some very specific cases we know a bit more).
So for me there are two bits of advice I am prepared to give about food as a scientist.
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
This is stolen unashamedly from Michael Pollan
In short if your grandmother would have recognised it as food, it is food. Ergo an energy drink is not food.
Don't eat too much, well duh, but be aware big plates = big meals.
And most of your diet should be plants, meat is fine (unless you have objections for some reason) but in any meal meat should be less than 25%.The second piece of advice is do what works.
Everyone is different, we have different genes and different gut bacteria and etc etc. As a consequence what is a miracle cure for me will not be a miracle cure for you. Experiment with yourself (bearing in mind n=1) and do what works for you.
Speaking as a person and not a scientist, Molten is a damn fine restaurant.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
it seems a little…reductive
oh Lucy! That was terrible. Also very geeky.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to nzlemming,
cider is a reasonable substitute
Ginger beer is good too
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Nope sorry I don't want that to be the last note in this thread. I don't really understand what is going on here, words are being said that are hurtful for no reason that makes sense to me. It doesn't matter if they are said sarcastically or ironically they are still hurtful.
I've said this almost every year here in one form or another
Russell …
You have created and hosted a wonderful community here. I have benefitted from the voices of the people you have brought here in ways that very few will understand. I am deeply and sincerely appreciative of the effort and honest care, even love, that you Russell have brought to this site.May your holiday season be a wonderful and happy one.
Thank you.
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Hard News: It was a munted year, in reply to Rob Stowell,
CEOs
grrr they’re all a bunch of greedy #&^%$#*^%(
Actually there are some very good ones. The problem in New Zealand is that there are not enough good CEOs to provide an example of how the job is meant to be done. As a result we have a considerable number who believe that the job is about delegating responsibility and setting KPIs that ensure the biggest bonuses possible.
Really good leadership is so very very important. And for CHCH even more so.
Oh and that argument about having to pay more the get good leaders – bullshit pure and utter. The really good leaders take a fair salary, by no means small but also they are aware of what is excessive, that’s why they are good.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Heather Gaye,
presume others are communicating in good faith
Heather is right! This is really really important.
I've been told by friends when I asked them to read something I'd written that they could almost hear me speaking as they read it. I think it was meant as a compliment. I've also been told that I tend to "lecture" both in spoken and written form (not intended as a compliment, but from someone I love).
But I've almost lost a job because I wrote something expecting the reader to read it they way I spoke it. Which was stupid. She read it with a totally different voice and assumed I was an arrogant prick (and yes we could debate the accuracy of that assessment :P).
The point is, most people write as if they were speaking, which is fine if you write to someone who knows your voice and instinctively knows when you are being self-deprecating or taking the piss. But it's entirely possible that someone reading your words can read something utterly different into the tone (note the lecture mode or as we describe it here mansplaining).
What that means here is that when you read something and think "what an arse" it's sometimes worth re-reading but imagining someone you respect (and care for) saying those words and seeing if they feel different, often they do.
Which is my long winded way of saying what Heather said.
As an aside given how hard it is for me to write with anything other than my own voice, I am in constant admiration of those who can write from another voice believably.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Shearer taking on Science and Innovation (and Megan Woods as associate; that makes me really happy.)
Just a note Megan Woods was a business manager for our CRI. She doesn't come from a science background AFAIK but her time here should have given her some insight.
It is also significant that Shearer has taken on Science himself. Especially given much of the commentary from National implied they believed science and innovation needed a prominent role in cabinet which led to some musing that John Key might take on the portfolio.
I guess I was disappointed that it was handed to Joyce along with eleventy-seven other jobs, it would have been nice to see the government give science the prominence in their cabinet that they gave it in their rhetoric (don't mean rhetoric as a pejorative but it seems to come out that way).