octern

208 reputation

bio	website
	location	San Francisco, CA
	age	34
visits	member for	1 year
	seen	May 15 at 0:10
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I'm a hybrid programmer / web designer / psychology researcher. I'm currently doing internet-based psychological interventions with a University of California health research lab, trying to help folks learn skills for creating positive emotions and coping with stress effectively.

I also help non-technologically-inclined researchers and administrators manage and collate large datasets. Munging unruly text files may not be glamorous, but you'd be surprised how often it's what gets the science done.

	208 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year
16 badges		location	San Francisco, CA		seen	May 15 at 0:10

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May 3	awarded	Yearling
Apr 21	comment	How are new people created from the DNA of an aged person. i.e. Why are we young? Telomeres shorten with every cell division. Telomerase is an enzyme that adds extra copies to the ends of telomeres, extending a cell's lifespan. The assumption that telomeres only ever get shorter is incorrect (though that doesn't invalidate the rest of your question).
Mar 28	answered	Why do some people find vegetables so repellent when evolutionarily they should find them an attractive and thus tasty food?
Mar 28	comment	what's an ethics-friendly way to measure the protocol of electric shocking mice? Just thinking, perhaps you could test different levels of current with mice that are restrained in ways that are not potentially lethal. You could observe their behavior and look for movements that would be lethal for head-fixed mice, and take that as a sign that you need less current.
Mar 28	comment	What's the Evolutionary Purpose of Hair in Humans (namely the hair that grows on their skin, NOT internal hairs)? We evolved from animals that were covered with hair, so the real questions are a) why we lost so much hair, b) why we retained it in the specific places where we did, and c) whether there are any adaptive reasons for the differences between human hair and chimp hair
Mar 9	comment	What in soy are people allergic to and will these allergens be passed along if an animal that has eaten soy is consumed? Are soy isoflavones among the allergens listed, though?
Mar 9	comment	What is the appropriate blender speed to maximize nutrition and digestion of fruits and vegetables? You might start by asking the company where they got their numbers and if they have published citations or data to back up their claims. They're making two claims, first that 30k rpm is necessary to shear cells, and second that shearing cells is desirable and improves the nutritional properties of the food.
Jan 25	comment	Why people like to see pornographic scenes, but do not feel the same about eating scenes? foodnetwork.com
Jan 24	asked	functional hypocholesterolemia due to very high HDL or low LDL?
Jan 24	comment	Why people like to see pornographic scenes, but do not feel the same about eating scenes? Why do you say they don't feel the same way? Most people enjoy seeing sexual images of attractive people, and seeing these pictures makes them want to have sex. Most people also enjoy seeing pictures of particularly delicious food, and seeing these pictures makes them hungry. Seems pretty similar to me.
Jan 15	comment	What evolutionary reason is there for having the urinary duct and reproductive organs so close together? Nice job giving an answer that avoids the pitfalls of naive adaptationism. The presence of a trait doesn't mean it's a good idea, just that it's not bad enough to kill anyone (and/or kill their chances at reproducing).
Dec 28	comment	How do infectious bacteria know when their numbers are high enough to attack a host? I would have thought this was the universal answer, but shigeta gives some fascinating examples of bacteria that do use environmental information to "choose" a stealthy vs. aggressive strategy. I would imagine your answer is still applicable in most cases.
Nov 22	comment	Why is Paracetamol so great? Over-the-counter paracetamol pills are usually 500mg. Therefore, the 150 mg/kg figure you listed for acute liver damage in a 60kg adult would be 60*150/500 = 18 pills in the span of a day or so. Cumulative damage can occur at lower doses but I think this is only seen in people who take it to control chronic pain.
Nov 18	comment	What is the benefit of near-emptying the bloodstream in the mammalian kidney? This is a great answer. Usually biological arguments based only on logic are a little questionable, but you make a very persuasive argument that the alternative arrangement is just not feasible.
Nov 18	comment	Is there such thing as “half-life” of dopamine? I don't know what the answer is for dopamine, and individuals probably vary in how zealous their brains are about dopamine reuptake.
Nov 18	comment	Is there such thing as “half-life” of dopamine? All processes involving reuptake or metabolism of biological molecules are completely random. However, when you look at a large number of molecules over time, the random events combine into a stable, predictable rate of decay. This rate is usually either exponential decay (a half-life) or, more rarely, a constant amount per second.
Nov 12	comment	Has there ever been an attempt to create nutritionally tailored food for adult human consumption? I think "monkey chow" is the answer. Note that in real labs and zoos, monkeys get a lot of their calories from monkey chow, but are still fed fresh vegetables to provide fiber, obscure phytonutrients, and entertainment.
Nov 12	comment	Is there a timeline for the frequency of evolution of any species? It's unlikely that multiple independent, fitness-relevant changes would occur at exactly the same time. I mean, if getting a beneficial random mutation is like rolling a 1 on a 1000-sided die, then getting two of them is like rolling 1s on two dice simultaneously. However, you could have multiple changes in phenotype if they both trace to the same genetic change (e.g., an increase in metabolic efficiency leads to increased size and also changes in foraging behavior).
Nov 11	comment	What are evolutionary implications of contraception and reduced childhood mortality rates worldwide? I think that technically, there's no such thing as natural selection reducing fitness (except due to random chance). What we're doing is changing the environment to which humans are adapted. This means that we may see an increase in traits that reduce infant robustness against disease and injury, but that increase fitness or reproductive success in adults. Of course, we'll also probably see an increase in traits that decrease infant robustness with no compensatory benefits, but that's because we've created an environment where those don't reduce fitness.
Nov 10	comment	Is there such thing as “meters per calorie” for living organisms? This isn't what I'd call metabolic efficiency. Metabolic efficiency would be calories per gram of some standard nutrient(s). When you're converting calories into movement, it's more a matter of mechanical efficiency.