48 new of 100 responses total.
That's it . :) Thank you. And also the part about you belong here...
"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here."
Nobody's going to denie that.
I wish that were true, Clees. There are a few people who deny other people's right to exist.
How perfect! We reviewed a poem by Stephen Crane in Lit class today. <ahem> A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
(So the universe is a guy, eh? Never knew that...)
From an interesting book called The Secret Family by David Bodanis: Women have more visual receptors for peripheral vision and can see better in low light. And can hear high-frequency sounds better, and detect more dilute tastes. Women have better control of tongue muscles and can finish chewing in fewer bites.
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the pitch frequency of a tv (or a terminal?) is 17500 Hz, which is very high. It0s estimated that most teenagers at the age of 17 can hear this tone. As the years go by, the ability to hear it drops considerably. Nowadays I have to concentrate to hear that tone, but when a terminal is wearing off there seems to a shift in the frequency or the volume, but old tv's and old terminals every now and then give me a headache because of that pitch.
Do men salt their food more? Or just older people?
Well, I can sometimes hear the whistle from monitors, if it's especially loud or I'm listening for it. (I'd suggest that more grexers can hear it becuase we tend to be people who spend a lot of time with computers, and so we've noticed it at some point and can now recognize it)
I wonder how much it has to do with whether Grexers listen to less in the way of loud noises that lead to high frequency hearing loss than the average person or average male does.
No, no, no, no. Women , all women , hear the high-pitched sounds more because (apparently it's an evolutionary thing) that way they can pick up the sound of a baby crying easier. It een wakes them up faster when they are sleeping. At least, that's what I read somewhere.
I used to be a rock&roll sound tech, but I can hear monitor whine easily. I especially hate the high-freq. whine from certain fast hard disks.
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There are a bunch of different sorts of high pitched sounds that come from monitors. The more common one happens when the monitor is on but not getting a video signal. I also had a monitor at some point in the past that made annoying high pitched noise for a while even with a video signal, before dying completely. In that case it had a dead flyback transformer, whatever that is, which had been making the noise while it was damaged but hadn't died yet. I don't know if the noise monitors used to make when they didn't have a video signal also indicated that something was broken or not. The obvious test would be to see whether fairly new monitors make that noise when they don't have a video signal, except that fairly new monitors tend to turn themselves off when they don't have a video signal.
Females live longer, on average. Two reasons, the first being that they are less likely to self-destruct as teenagers and young adults. Second, smaller people live longer on average. According to a book I read, the difference in average life expectancy for age 30 M or F is due solely to differences in average size. My 5'4" grandfather lived to be about 95, but then again, my 5'5" father died at 61. Supposedly in shorter people the heart does not wear out as fast since the blood does not get pumped as far. So women who don't want to be widows should marry someone shorter than themselves, or younger, or both. I don't know if average blood pressure is higher in taller people. Mine is 107/68 (I think, omni's mother measured it to test her equipment), but so is my roommates, and we are 6" apart in height. Are there couples whose blood pressures are proportional to their heights? Maybe the difference would be greater in cases of high cholesterol (my roommates is 125), where there is more resistance in the arteries?
Well, never having been female, I wouldn't know how it sounds to hear monitor whine through a woman's ears. I can _hear_ it all the time, but usually just as a faint high hiss, not really a whine. Then again, I'm also young, and such things decline with age. Who knows.
I used to always hear a high-pitched whine when I was standing between sets of double doors at large department stores. I haven't noticed it lately, though. Maybe my ears are getting worse.
("the heart wears out"??? Well, maybe your grand worked on a farm and kept
his heart exercized, while youir father had a desk job and didn't? Not to
be a total skeptic, but I've never heard that the heart muscles just wear out)
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My grandfather worked as a baker until about age 90 (with a brief vacation from age 65 to 72, until he could work again without losing social security). My father smoked. Smoking used to be another reason why men died sooner. Smoking constricts the arteries and makes the heart work harder. Cholesterol deposits constrict the arteries by filling them up, smoking by causing the little muscles around them to constrict, raising blood pressure. Did you know that nicotine was evolved by plants as a defense against insect predation. It causes the insect's nervous system to go into convulsions. Caffeine is also an insect poison acting on the nervous system. In the case of plants which produce estrogen analogs, these hormones interfere with insect development. Plants are 'clever', perhaps more so than people who intentionally poison themselves with the plant products. When heart cells die (as from lack of enough oxygen) they do not normally get replaced by other cells, same as nerve cells, which have to last a lifetime. (Brain tumors are not normally in the nerve cells). This prevents the development of nerve and muscle tumors. Another reason to take very good care of the arteries.
I'm assuming there's more to it than just the heart wearing out sooner the more it does. Or is it just the regular excersize, which makes the heart work harder some of the time, does enough to ease the workload on the heart at other times?
Or could it be that regular exercise increases the ability of the lungs to provide enough oxygen to the heart at all times? Anyone in our midst with a medical background?
There is some guy out there right now selling a book that reports every heart is programmed, from birth, for just so many beats. So if you use them all up carrying around 100 extra pounds, hey, your choice. ;-) Experts tend to see obesity and heart disease from different perspectives. Obese people have a higher rate of heart disease and death from sudden heart attack than the general population, but why is disputed. Some say it is the extra work expected of the heart to perfuse all that extra tissue. Others say it is mostly due to the inactive lifestyle of most obese people. Some say it is the same genetics that make you prone to obesity that bundles with it cardiomyopathy and high cholesterol levels. About the only thing everyone agrees with is that you have better odds of living longer if you're not morbidly obese.
I read that obese people who get lots of exercise are healthier than skinny people who get little exercise. The categories of obesity and laziness may show a statistical overlap, but individuals behave differently than the statistical picture might predict.
The problem, really, is that there's some correlation between exercise and skinniness, so the two are hard to separate as to their benefits.
So compare sumo wrestlers and skinny couch potatoes.
Color vision is sex-linked. The gene for seeing red is on the X chromosome, so men have only one copy. If it is bad, they can't see any difference between red and green. But even more interesting, there are two slightly different variants of the gene for red vision, so that some women have red receptors for two slightly different wavelengths. That lets some women see more colors than men or other women. I have heard that women tend to distinguish between a lot more colors than men, and to use much more explicit color names, and care more about the colors they wear. One theory is that it was more important for women to be able to spot colored fruit, while the men were out hunting for brown or grey animals. Fruit is often red, because that is the color best seen by birds. (If you don't want the birds to eat your cherries, grow yellow ones.) Insects, on the other hand, see yellow, violet, or ultraviolet, and can see patterns in white flowers that humans cannot. There is often a pattern directing them to the center.
Interesting. My Mom certainly can distinguish (and remember) colors a lot better than I can. If you're out in the woods and looking for some berries to eat, picking red ones is usually a bad choice. They are often poisonous. (At least in North America.)
But picking green ones (except for gooseberries) means they are unripe. For
some reason, birds can tolerate berries that people cannot. These berries
all exist to be eaten by something and therefore distribute the seeds.
Regarding the X and Y chromosomes, there are other sex-linked diseases,
such as hemophilia, due to one bad copy of the X chromosome (women have two
X's so are less likely not to have at least one good one).
Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is an X-linked gene, and if you have
no good copies of it you can develop anemia due to enzyme deficiency after
eating fava beans, or coming in contact with mothballs or sulfa antibiotics.
The colorblind problem can be due to the loss of either the red or the green
gene, and in W. Europea about 5 percent of males cannot see green properly
and 1 percent cannot see red. There is a possible Y-linked trait, passed from
father to son, called hairy pinna (hair all over the ear, but not enough to
make you look like a werewolf.) The advantage of having a Y chromosome, even
though it is lacking a lot of useful genes, is that it makes the sperm
fractionally lighter so that it can win more races. Therefore more males are
conceived, to make up for more dying before birth or shortly after. At birth
there are about 6% more males. A selfish gene?
sometimes i have a bit of difficulty with the color yellow. i dont see it as well as i do other colors. light yellow will sometimes be .. more beige-y or creamy looking. some shades or orange look pink to me. and some shades of blue-green look blue to me. gooseberries do indeed turn a dark color. they are a lot sweeter then, and make great projectiles as they explode on contact. best target is a sibling wearing a light colored shirt!
I have never heard about anyone seeing less yellow, how interesting. Are there any particular circumstances, such as different kinds of artificial light, under which you see yellow more poorly. Maybe you have just a small amount of the color receptor for yellow because you only have one functional gene for it? I wonder if there are any men who don't see yellow at all.
I did some internet research on colorblind (a lot of it is on affirmative action). There are three color receptors: red, yellow-green, and blue. It sounds like you either have no green receptor or it does not detect some wavelengths as well as others. This would be called green-deficit. The red and green receptors have very similar genes on the X chromosome near each other, and one developed from a faulty mutation of the other. Monkeys do not have both, apes including humans do. My guess is that green reception developed latest. I wonder if ethnic groups that have fewer color names have more colorblind people? (In English there was originally no distinction between red and orange, thus redheads with orange hair. Oranges were named after the fruit, which was named after a town in Spain. Similarly, I think some languages do not distinguish blue and green, maybe you would fit in well there. They are hardly necessary for finding berries, or for hunting deer). See two internet files at /a/k/e/keesan/colorblind and /a/d/e/keesan/ColorBlindness. The second discusses problems of colorblind people in using color computers. Colorblind people see better at night, but may need to wear sunglasses during the daytime to prevent too much light going to the rods (used for night vision, but maybe they kick in when too little light is absorved by the color vision cones). Fascinating subject! How is your night vision and do you wear sunglasses often?
I guess that I have pretty good color vision. Once, though, I got tested for colorblindness because I was having trouble connecting names to colors accurately. I have a poor connection between language and sense sections of my brain...
How interesting! I would like to know more about the connection. Is it just for visual vocabulary? Can you name tastes or odors or temperatures? I have heard that there are people who can name verbs but not nouns. Do you know if your 'condition' is at all common, and if so, more common among XYs?
No, it's not really a common pattern among any one type of person (although you could argue that it creates certain types...). I have a very good grasp of language, and a great set of ears (hearing plus mental processing), but often the connection is poor. I might remember a conversation I have with somebody, but not their name, or even temporarily forget the name of somebody I already know. I can pick up sounds in a language, and also understand the ltructure, but as for connecting the two... :(
as for me, i have the XX chromosone. :-) my night vision isnt too good. i think it just takes too long for my eyes to adjust <or re-adjust> to the dark. bright light, especially in winter hurts my eyes. i am not fond of sunglasses, i'd rather squint. a weird quirk is that really bright light, as reflecting off snow and wet roads makes me sleepy. i am also the only one in my birth family that does not need glasses, this means siblings, parents, and grandparents, and many of my parent's siblings. er.. make that 'chromosome' up there... by the way, does anyone else get sleepy from bright winter light?
re 89, there are people with no connection between their brain hemispheres
who can see or feel an object, describe what to do with it, draw it, etc.,
but not name it if the sensory input is going into the left hand or eye, which
feeds it to the right brain hemisphere, because the left hemisphere (at leasst
in most people, maybe not dyslexics) is responsible for language. Usually
htere is crossover. Maybe you have weaker crossover?
Re 90, sounds like you are lacking some or all of the cones, or sensory
cells, for yellow-green, meaning you are one of those rare colorblind XXs!
There are supposed to be only 0.4% of women and about 8% of men who are
colorblind in any way. Do you have male relatives who can't see yellow, or
tell aqua from blue? In particular your father or a brother? My theory is
that the light which is usually absorved by the cones for green, is not
absorbed and there is therefore too much of it for the other color cones.
No I have not heard of light making anyone sleepy. I have heard of Seasonal
Affective Disorder, where the lack of light in the winter makes some people
sleepy because they need light to stimulate hormone production. I have not
read up on night vision, maybe you need to eat more carrots? Or maybe you
also have a deficit of rods (that see in low light but only in grey). Once
you get accustomed to the dark, do you know if you can see better in it that
other people? It would be an interesting test.
I find myself feeling kind of depressed when I'm not around bright lights for long periods of time, so from what I've read about Seasonal Affective Disorder it sounds like I may have it. As long as I spend time in places with bright lights I'm fine, so it isn't a big problem if I can control the environment I'm in. I have found that at my grandpa's house, where he's got big windows and extremely dim lights, that I'm fine as long as the sun is out, but start feeling like I don't have any energy at all the moment the sun goes down. For some reason, I do a lot better with no light than I do with dim lights. Having too much light while driving can make it hard to stay awake, perhaps because dealing with the glare gets tiring. When I'm driving on a sunny day I wear sunglasses, and have a much easier time staying alert than without them.
A housemate of mine who I am sure had SAD was always complaining that there
was not enough light at work, and even got a note from the doctor that told
his employers they had to given him a desk near a window. He thought it had
something to do with his extreme shortsightedness, that he needed to rest his
eyes on distant objects frequently. His symptoms were wanting to die and
refusing to get out of bed from about November until the sun started shining
againg in Jan or Feb, then hardly sleeping at all until about June. ANother
symptom was needing the shades up and two hours of sunlight to wake up. He
tried medication, and finally moved to sunny California. Supposedly light
treatments with a very bright specially constructed light, for about half hour
in the morning, will fix the light-related hormone problem. Theere was a good
book in the library that I got out for the roommate, who always felt better
when he could manage to drag himself out to the sunporch to read about the
problem (the light helped).
I have found that as I get older the glare at night bothers me.
it isnt that i cant see any yellow, just a few shades of yellow i have trouble.as far as being able to see better at night once i have adjusted...hmm. i dont know.
That article on colorblindness that I mentioned said some people cannot see certain wavelengths (shades) of some colors. Have you ever tried looking at all the computer-available colors to see which ones matched?
re: resp:73 Actually current research calls into question the idea that obesity, in and of itself, causes a strain on the heart. What does cause a strain on the heart is a poor diet, low level of fitness, and high levels of stress. All are common among the obese, but hardly limited to them. A fit, happy fat person with a good diet will generally outlive a thin, stressed out couch potato with a junk food habit. The biggest culprits are stress and poor diet. As a matter of fact obese people have about the same rate of heart disease as poor blacks, fat and thin. Some research suggests that the two factors that may have the largest influence on the longevity of fat people are dieting (malnutrition) and discrimination, which cuts them off from the social support network that all humans need to remain in top health.
If someone eats a well-balanced diet, and is not a couch potato, I expect they
will end up at the proper weight for them, which is not necessarily the same
for all of us. Exceptions would be people with metabolic disorders.
Re colorblindness, please see coop item #34, proposing a new genetics
conference. We could talk about genetics and diet, for instance some people
need more of a certain vitamin, or come from an ancestry where periodic
famines were more common, and it was therefore highly advantageous to be able
to store fat.
Dieting in itself is extremely stressful, making the body think there
is a famine. If you want to modify your weight, modify the type of food you
eat, and the balance of different nutrients, not just the calorie or fat
count. You will end up a lot healthier at any weight. (This has gotten
pretty far afield from the topic, sorry).
Well, obese people will get a certain amount of exercise simply because of their weight. Like if I was to start carrying around a backpack with 50 or 100 pounds. I'd certainly add some muscle to my legs! The downside is that it would probably wreck my knees.
It might -- or it might not. It depends on your genetics and your long term diet. If you have the genes for thick strong legs and have had a good diet, rich in minerals, for most of your life, your knees will be fine. If you have had a poor diet for some significant part of your life and genes that make for long, fine bones, you may very well be right. Of course exercise plays a part, too. If one day you just pick up that 100 lb. rucksack (or gain weight suddenly) and you have built up the muscles in your legs, they won't support the bone adequately and again, you'd have knee problems.
Right. The answer is that I've inhereted not-so-great knees, so I know what would happen. :(
You have several choices: