The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will no longer allow carbofuran pesticide residues on domestic or imported food.  In making the decision, the EPA explained that carbofuran is a neurotoxin which poses a high safety risk for small children and sensitive individuals.  A 2006 EPA document reported the death of 84 percent of a flock of mallard ducks that landed on an alfalfa field that had been treated with carbofuran the week before.

Carbofuran is used worldwide to combat insects on bananas, coffee, rice, sugar cane, alfalfa, corn, potatoes, sunflowers, and soybeans.  Carbofuran has one of the highest toxicities to humans of the insecticides commonly used on crops.  One quarter of a teaspoon can be lethal for humans.  Some of the symptoms of carbofuran poisoning include muscle weakness, dizziness, sweating, headache, salivation, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, blurred vision, incoordination, muscle twitching and slurred speech.

Carbofuran is just one of the chemicals to which we may be exposed by living in modern society.  Many people buy “organic” produce because they fear the effects of chemical residues, but they may not be aware of the harmful effects of chemicals in fire retardants, fabric softeners, cleaning products, and cosmetics that can be found in every home.

It turns out that mice and men are not that different after all, at least regarding the correspondence between Calorie Restriction (CR) and body weight.  It has been known for a long time that mice or rats allowed to eat only 60% of the control animals, i.e. 40% CR, starting at weaning, grow to be adults which weigh only 50% of the control animals, but they live 30% longer.  The longevity figures have been widely publicized, but the stunting effect of the low calorie diets has not received much attention.  Masoro had some tables documenting the weights of his experimental rats [1], and Mattson [2] provided the following growth chart for mice:

In a recent blog entry about the Effect of Calorie Restriction on Body Size, I provided a graphic illustrating the silhouettes of humans corresponding to the various degrees of calorie restriction to which mice are subjected.  Of course this was just speculation, or so I thought.  However, after tabulating the Mifflin-St Jeor Energy Equations which are used to calculate Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) for humans,  I found that for proportionally shaped bodies with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 22, the dependency of weight vs. CR for the humans was identical to the results for the mice.  I had previously discussed this anecdotally in my Calorie Restriction page, but with some additional mathematical analysis, I found that the mouse equations could be derived from the human  Mifflin-St Jeor equations.

I think that there is something intrinsic in the three-dimensional proportions of an organism.  Our genes, or Mother Nature, try to balance the way in which our bodies grow based on the level of nutrients.  A certain amount of muscle is required for every inch of bone growth, and during our growth, we are not overly lanky or overly squat.  If you plant a maple seedling in a big field it will grow to be many feet high, whereas a similar seedling planted in a one-gallon flower pot will grow to be a miniature version of the big tree - a bonsai.  And just like you cannot replant the big tree in the small pot, we cannot cut our calories to levels that cannot support our size.

The correspondence of the mice and human CR equations are discussed here:

Effect of Calorie Restriction on Body Weight

[1] E J Masoro, et al, “Action of food restriction in delaying the aging process”, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A., 1982 July; 79(13): 4239-4241.
[2] 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.

As a natural instinct, I always avert my eyes from someone who is visibly handicapped.  I suppose there are several reasons for this reaction.  I do not want the handicapped person to feel self conscious from my attention, and at the same time I do not want the person to notice my feeling of pity for his or her affliction.  Sometimes, it is not possible to avoid a direct encounter.

I went to the cash register of a department store and the clerk who helped me had a serious case of Parkinson’s Disease.  Her right hand was shaking quite uncontrollably and her left hand was somewhat better.  The muscles in her arms were emaciated from the repetitious involuntary motions. As she tried to scan the bar code of my item, her hand kept jerking and the scanner could not read the code.  At one point I felt like reaching to hold the bar code in front of the reader, but I resisted the impulse.  She was persistent and eventually the cash register beeped an acknowledgment.  You could see some frustration in her face, although her face also twitched.

I realized that she would not be able to work much longer.  I wondered why she was still working in her condition, but in the back of my mind, I knew that she had to work because the health care system in the United States had failed her. I felt admiration for the department store that had hired her with her visible handicap in a position where she had so much public exposure.  Hopefully this work entitled her to some medical benefits.

The cause of Parkinson’s disease is not known, there are no cures, and no preventive measures.  Parkinson’s disease affects 2 in every 1,000 people, most often after age 50.  The possible causes for the disease could be genetic or environmental, but nobody knows for sure.  We can only hope that we don’t become victims of this progressive, degenerative ailment.

I have only run out of gas twice in my life.  The first time, I had been moving from one apartment to another, and I had a very busy schedule.  I completely forgot that cars ran on gas.  Lo, and behold, as I was driving down the street, my car started to sputter.  Dazedly, I looked at the gauges, and sure enough, the gas tank was completely empty.  This was in the days before there were red little warning lights on the gauges that let you know that your gas was low.

Fortunately, it was my lucky day!  The car stopped right in front of a house where the owner was mowing his lawn and he had a can of gas right there.  Seeing my predicament, he poured his gallon of gas into my tank and would not take any money.  Of course, gas cost about 50 cents per gallon in those days.  It was not a major investment like today.  I thanked him profusely and went on my merry way - directly to the gas station.

The second time I ran out of gas was because of an accident.  I was driving in my Buick Century down a freeway with my son, and all of a sudden, the car in front swerved to the left.  By the time I realized why he had swerved, I was on top of a big chunk of metal that probably had fallen off a truck.  Clink! Clank! Thunk! These were the sounds that I heard as the metal hit the underside of my car.  My tires were OK, but as I continued further, I noticed that my gas gauge was dropping quite fast.  I looked back in the mirror and saw a trail of gasoline.   My first thought was “I hope the car doesn’t catch on fire”, as I kept going.  There was an exit coming up.  I ran out of gas as I entered the exit and coasted right into a gas station that was in the right place at the right time.  I was really lucky!  The gas station specialized in gas tank repairs.  I called a neighbor to give me a ride home and lived happily ever after.

An analysis of cancer statistics from 1973 to 2004 by the National Cancer Institute found that the rate of new melanoma cases in women from 15 to 39 years of age had increased by 50%, but the rate for men of the same age had remained unchanged.

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer characterized by black skin tumors.  Melanoma usually starts from excessive exposure to the sun or from the frequent use of tanning salons.  Some sun exposure is necessary for the production of Vitamin D in the skin, but sun exposure that causes sunburn damages the skin.  Skin specialists recommend using sun block lotions to prevent sunburn and avoiding being outdoors in the middle of the day when the sun’s rays are strongest.

Melanoma lesions are usually black with irregular shape.  Any unusual or bleeding moles should be checked by a dermatologist.

Calorie Restriction (CR) reduces the nutrients available to the body and limits its growth.  We lose weight when the nutrients that we eat are insufficient to meet the requirements of the body.  Conversely, we gain weight when we eat more calories than we burn through our activities.

Exercise stresses the muscles and stimulates them to grow.  With adequate nutrition, the muscles will strengthen and gain mass.  Since the muscles consist mostly of protein, they need additional protein to grow.

Exercise tones the muscles while Calorie Restriction keeps their growth in check.  The combination of dietary restriction and exercise establishes an equilibrium that can be monitored with a bathroom scale.  If your weight increases, you are eating too much.  If your weight decreases, you are not eating enough.

The domain ScientificPsychic.com has been active since February 15, 2001.  The web site has continued its original goal of providing educational material and entertainment.  Some of the most popular pages are the optical illusions, games, diet calculator, verb conjugation, and hygiene.

ScientificPsychic.com averages approximately 6000 visitors and over 16,000 page views per day.  Most of the traffic originates from English-speaking countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and India, but there are visitors from many parts of the world where English is spoken such as Singapore and the Philippines.  This is an example of the country of origin of the visitors.

Some of the web pages have been translated to other languages and it is not unusual to have Google refer French queries to the French version of the verb conjugation page.  The recent translation to Spanish of the diet calculator, and the pages about carbohydrates and hygiene already is attracting visitors from Latin America who search the web in Spanish.

Scientific Psychic^® is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office with registration number 3,088,970.