Those of you who have ever suffered from serious depression know that even in remission, one can alway remember and feel little tendrils from the abyss reaching out to test one's strength. So, now and then, when certain wistful and depressing feelings start wafting in, as they are for me now as I read of Democratic leaders planning on compromising on cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, rather than military spending, I seek solace and escape in writing, "now-for-something-completely-different" science posts which give me vague feelings of hope for a better future for our children and future generations.
Perhaps, you too will gain some encouragement from this discovery that spending lots of time reading, writing, advocating here for progressive causes, and even playing video games helps keep aging brains healthier, as reported in Kurzweil AI, in Reading, writing and playing games may help aging brains stay healthy.
Frequent cognitive activity in late life is associated with higher microstructural integrity in the brain white matter regions shown in red. White matter contains the fibers that connect different brain regions, and the microstructural integrity of these fibers naturally decreases with age. (Photo Credit: Vasireddi, A. et al./RSNA)
Mental activities like reading and writing can preserve structural integrity in the brains of older people, according to a new study.
“Reading the newspaper, writing letters, visiting a library, attending a play or playing games, such as chess or checkers, are all simple activities that can contribute to a healthier brain,” Dr. Arfanakis said.
And, I'm willing to bet $10,000 to donuts that taking retribution on cowardly politicians enhances these neuron boosting powers even more.
One advantage of keeping our brains health and vigorous is that we will have extra energy and focus when we seek retribution on any Republican and Democratic leaders" who agree to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, eduction, NSF, HIH, NFA, and other social spending, before even looking at the massive increases in military spending that is has been almost half the real driver of imbalanced budgets since the surpluses of President Clinton.
A visualization of the broad-spectrum solar energy funnel (credit: Yan Liang/MIT)
In other encouraging science news, MIT engineers, in conjunction with those at Peking University, in China are proposing a new way to improve the efficiency with which a broader spectrum of photons can be captured in photo-electric cells by creating "solar energy funnels" in electron shells of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) atoms, as reported in A solar energy funnel to harness a broader spectrum of light.
“We’re trying to use elastic strains to produce unprecedented properties,” says Ju Li, an MIT professor. In this case, the “funnel” is a metaphor: Electrons and their counterparts, holes — which are split off from atoms by the energy of photons — are driven to the center of the structure by electronic forces, not by gravity.
The pressure exerted imparts elastic strain, which increases toward the sheet’s center. The varying strain changes the atomic structure just enough to “tune” different sections to different wavelengths of light — including not just visible light, but also some of the invisible spectrum, which accounts for much of sunlight’s energy. ...
Dang, just as I was cheered up a little by the idea my brain was staying young and healthy from all this reading and writing now I am feeling stupid because I really have little real comprehension of what this solar funnel metaphor is all about with regard to capture of a broader spectrum of photon wavelengths.
But, for those saddened by our shrinking budgets for science funding you may be cheered up to learn that the National Natural Science Foundation of China stepped up to share funding with our NSF and Air Force Office of Scientific Research. (Gak! Snark alert. See plot at end for the massive increase in defense spending Republicans, and some Democrats, would rather do than fund NIH and NSF.)
And, lastly, UPI reports Experiment yields possible 'spooky' matter:
Recent experiments with the LHC at CERN -- European Organization for Nuclear Research -- in Switzerland, where the elusive Higgs boson was discovered earlier this year, may have discovered a new type of "spooky" matter in which particles seemingly interact without any direct connection with each other, they said. ...
"Somehow they fly at the same direction even though it's not clear how they can communicate their direction with one another," reports Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics Professor Gunther Roland, whose group led the analysis of the collision data. "That has surprised many people, including us."
"This 'quantum entanglement' explains how the particles that fly away from the collision can share information such as direction of flight path," Brookhaven National Laboratory scientist Raju Venugopalan told MIT News.
Quantum entanglement describes a phenomenon in which particles that were initially connected behave as if they are still interacting with each other even after they have been separated. ... The phenomenon was so unexpected Albert Einstein famously dubbed it "spooky action at a distance."
Well, I find it comforting that these smart scientists may be just as confused as I am, albeit, perhaps, on a higher plane.
Oh, by the way, did I mention I am disheartened to hear of Democrats planning to cut Medicare and Medicaid instead of military spending? Here are two plots of the vast increases in military spending that few politicians other than Senator Bernie Sanders is talking about rather than slash the Medicare and Medicaid for our poorest and sickest citizens. We could take up to $200 billion a year out of military spending before getting even close to the levels we were at during the Clinton era.
Well, one bit of good news due to this science recharge. My brain is feeling so sparky and electric, in an almost "spooky" way, that I am now revitalized to seek retribution on any politicians, Republicans, or Democrats, who seek to balance the budget with cuts to our social spending rather than reigning in the vast expansion of military spending that caused these deficits, along with Bush tax cuts, in the first place.
Today, tomorrow, and for as long as I may live. (Which is getting longer every day as my neurons recharge! I pity the poor fools who mess with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid funding before reducing military spending!)
7:30 PM PT: I was honored that Meteor Blades asked for the sources of the two plots of military spending mentioned at the end of this post. The first is from the White House database but brought to my attention by an excellent and under-noticed post this afternoon by NonRandomViolence. Cut the Military Budget First+*
White House OMB Budget Historical Graphs as documentation for their upcoming 2013 budget request, with a hat tip to Non-RandomViolence who posted it in this excellent but little notices diary this afternoon.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
And the second I discussed in a post yesterday, is from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
also discussed in Wikipedia's Total Defense Spending .
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
and discussed in the later part of my post yesterday
House Democrats join Senators in rejecting cuts to Social Security to balance budget byHoundDog
Just the base defense spending, Total Defense Spending adds $500 billion/year more
The unmentioned elephant in the room is an almost doubling of total defense spending for three off book wars that should be ending financially, not just in terms of troop commitments. We've been spending near $100 billion/year each for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the "war of terrorism" such as putting dubious "fusion centers" in every state. The Republican plan here all along as been to trade such increases in defense spending for social spending. This unfair trade is not only a bad investment financially, but also is bad for our true national security, which in the long term, is directly contingent on a health economy, and healthy, well educated, high morale citizens who believe in the legitimacy of their own government.
My understanding from a comment last night is that we continue to spend over $80 billion a year in Iraq after troop withdrawals. In terms of economic stimulus those expenditures have much higher "multiplier effects" spent in the U.S. on social programs and infrastructure development at home than wasted overseas.
Politicians who mistakenly betray our middle class by cutting social spending rather than defense spending will be judged harshly by history. The Patriotic and smart thing to do is to balance budgets in ways that support Americans first and provide growth to our economy so we can remain competitive in global markets.