Bonobo - the gentle ape

I recently watched a re-run of a PBS NOVA special about bonobos.[1] For some time, scientists have known that chimpanzees and bonobos share about 98% of their DNA with humans. Current research has shown that bonobos can use and understand language.[2] Analysis of the behavior of the two apes indicates that chimpanzees are bullies, fighters, and murderers who dominate by force, whereas bonobos are peace-loving, social, and sometimes join peacefully with non-related groups of bonobos. Researchers think that unity between the high-ranking bonobo females and year-round social sexual encounters between all members of the bonobo group help to reduce conflicts.

Humans have aggressive traits as well as social traits. The NOVA program tried to imply that the personality of humans may be closer to bonobos than to chimpanzees because we aggregate into social groups, we are very sexual, and we have some altruistic traits. However, as a background to the story, the program mentioned the regional war that spread through the Congo which is the native habitat of bonobos. The researchers studying the bonobo were detained as spies and were lucky to survive the ordeal. The war brought great misery to the area when food became scarce and thousands of people lost their lives through aggression, starvation, or disease.

There is great irony in trying to find good qualities in mankind when there are so many conflicts around us. The lessons of the great world wars have been largely forgotten. Words like Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Gaza, Sudan, and Abu Ghraib evoke images of chaos, destruction, famine, and new forms of torture like “waterboarding”. We may be closer to chimpanzees than we would like to admit.

[1] Nova Special on the Bonobo

[2] Linguistic Capabilities of the Bonobo

CR mice weigh only half as much as non-restricted mice

Calorie Restriction is well established as a method for increasing the average life span of many experimental animals. If after weaning, you feed mice 40% less that what they would normally eat, the mice virtually stop growing in size. At maturity, the calorie restricted mice weigh only half as much as the mice fed a normal diet. The following chart shows the weight gain of the normally fed mice and the almost constant weight of the restricted mice:

The non-restricted mice eat F grams of food per W grams of body weight (F/W). The restricted mice eat 0.6 grams of food per 0.51 grams of body weight (0.6 F/0.51 W).[1] However, 0.6/0.51 is 1.18 F/W which corresponds to 18% more food per unit of body weight.

This is the paradox: How can a rodent that, on a body weight basis, eats proportionally more than the control accrue the benefits of longevity?

[1] Mattson, et al. “Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake”, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2003 May 13; 100(10):6216-6220.

Auguste Rodin - The Kiss

Last week I ran across two statistics that indicate that the United States is dropping its guard against sexually transmitted diseases. All the political talk about sexual abstinence and emphasis on family values is producing a country with record numbers of venereal diseases. Something is not working.

For political reasons, middle school children are not getting adequate sex education. Meanwhile, television and cable channels have an increasing number of shows with sexual content, and the internet has an abundance of pornography. The result is predictable. Half of the children in the United States have lost their virginity by age 16 and many of them don’t know about the risks of pregnancy or venereal diseases. The worst thing is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that about 19 million sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were recorded in the United States during 2006, half occurring among people between the ages of 15 and 24.

Charles Koop, the Surgeon General of the United States during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, made many Republicans unhappy by advocating teaching sex education in schools starting as early as the third grade, and expanding the curriculum in higher grades to teach about the use of condoms to combat the spread of AIDS. New appointees to the office of Surgeon General have kept a low profile rather than battle diseases that a large segment of the American public believe to be punishments from God for immoral people.

Antonio Zamora - Age 65

We have been conditioned to think that we will gain weight as we get older. This is only true if we do not adjust our diet for the reduced number of calories that our body uses as it ages. A good bathroom scale is our best friend. A scale will not tell us that our double chin or the bulge in our midsection makes us look better — it just shows our weight. We should be thankful for the honesty of the scale.

Using a scale regularly, we can keep our weight fairly constant. If our weight goes up by a few pounds and it stays up for several days, we know that it is not just water retention. We are getting fatter! It is time to eat less. We have to choose nutritious foods that will satisfy our hunger and provide all the nutrients that our body needs.

I am thankful to my sister for having pointed out several years ago that I was getting fat. Who? Me Fat? I weighed myself and calculated my Body Mass Index, and sure enough, I was overweight! We change so gradually that we do not notice the small increases of weight that add up to many pounds over the years.

So, here I am, 65 years old and at the same weight that I had when I was in my twenties. I have had to learn a lot about nutrition and exercise to achieve this. It is hard for me to believe that I am now officially on Medicare insurance. I am going to continue to try to stay in good health in order not to use it.

Calculate your Body Mass Index

The formulation of valid logical arguments is one of the pillars of the Scientific Method.  An argument consists of one or more premises and one conclusion.  A premise is a statement that is offered in support of the conclusion. Premises and conclusions are statements that may be true or false. A valid logical argument presents true premises that logically lead to a true conclusion.  Arguments may be either deductive or inductive.  The premises in deductive arguments provide complete support for the conclusion, whereas for inductive arguments they provide some degree of support, but not complete support.  Fallacies are arguments that are defective because the premises do not provide the proper support for the conclusion.  These are the most common fallacies:

An Ad Hominem fallacy is an argument which is used to discredit what a person said by attacking the person rather than by disproving the statement.  An Ad Hominem fallacy is invalid logic because the character, circumstances, or actions of a person are not relevant to the truth or falsity of the claim being made.   For example, in the argument “President Bush is a bad president because he goofed off in college”, the conclusion that President Bush is a bad president may be true, but the statement that he goofed off in college which may also be true does not provide enough support for the conclusion.

An Appeal to Authority is an argument where the premise references an authority to support the argument.  Appeals to authority may be wrong when the authority is not a reliable reference for a particular subject, for example:  “President Bush said that our mission in Iraq was accomplished therefore it must be true”.

Appeal to Ridicule is a fallacy in which ridicule or mockery is used in the premise as a justification for the conclusion.  For example, “Copernicus said that the Earth goes around the sun.  He is crazy!”  Ridiculing Copernicus does not disprove that the Earth goes around the sun.