New studies show that brief, intense exercise benefits the heart. “Six weeks of intense sprint interval exercise training improves the structure and function of arteries as much as traditional and longer endurance exercise with larger time commitment.” So I could save about 30 minutes a day just by hopping on the ROM for 4 minutes. Ray Kurzweil uses it.

KURZWEIL: Well, I don`t actually buy that either. I do it for four minutes. But I have added it to my other routine. I still walk and I still work out with weights.

BECK: Why would you do that for four minutes in that ad.

KURZWEIL: It is a good four minutes. If you are going to exercise four minutes. I recommend it.

Supposedly it gives you “a complete non-impact cardio, resistance- and flexibility workout” - in just 4 minutes!
The only problem is that they cost exactly $14,615 a piece. Wondering why it is so expensive? Just go to whyisitsoexpensive.com.
You can get a DVD or video about it for free, though, or just watch this:

This is so awesome. It is hard to be anti-technology when you read something like this: a man who has been paralyzed for 30 years can finally walk again - in Second Life.

The 41-year-old patient used his imagination to make his character take a walk and chat to another virtual person on the popular Second Life website.

The patient, who has suffered paralysis for more than 30 years, can barely bend his fingers due to a progressive muscle disease so cannot use a mouse or keyboard in the traditional way.

In the experiment, he wore headgear with three electrodes monitoring brain waves related to his hands and legs. Even though he cannot move his legs, he imagined that his character was walking.

In the near future this man may be able to walk again in real life. With the exponential growth of information technology there is a lot of promise to treat problems that were once considered hopeless. Imagine a man in a similar situation 50 years ago - what hope would he have?
Today it is very different. It is only a matter of time (e.g. like maybe 10-20 years) before even the most serious conditions and illnesses will be completely cured and/or treated.

Another article about resveratrol and significantly increasing life-span:

The general public has no idea what’s coming,” said David Sinclair, a Harvard Medical School professor who has made headlines with research into the health benefits of a substance found in red wine called resveratrol.

“It’s not an if, but a when…”

Sinclair said treatments could be a few years or a decade away, but they’re “really close. It’s not something (from) science fiction and it’s not something for the next generation.”

I was following the stock, SIRT, before it was bought out by Glaxo.
I’ve also been taking my resveratrol supplement every morning and I think it helped me to run my best time in a recent race.

I am seriously considering taking Provigil after reading this article.

I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I’m thinking of writing. It had been hanging over me, daring me to read it. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn’t stop or stumble once.

Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich – and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual. My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

The age of cosmetic neurology is coming.
From wikipedia, here are the known side-effects:

* Common
   o Headache (34% vs 23%)
   o Nausea (11% vs 3%)
* Uncommon
   o Nervousness (7% vs 3%)
   o Insomnia (5% vs 1%)
   o Anxiety (5% vs 1%)
   o Anorexia (4% vs 1%)
   o Dry mouth (4% vs 2%)
* Rare
   o Chest pain (3% vs 1%)
   o Hypertension (3% vs 1%)
   o Tachycardia (2% vs 1%)
   o Vasodilation (2% vs 0%)
   o Dizziness (5% vs 4%)
   o Paresthesia (2% vs 0%)
   o Pharyngitis (4% vs 2%)

Even if you don’t use it regularly, it seems like it would be a good idea to have some on hand in case of an emergency.

This is amazing. Kanzius RF therapy uses microscopic nanoparticles that attach to cancer cells, which then burn away tumors inside the body with harmless radio waves.

In trials with animal and human cells, the RF treatment destroyed 100 percent of malignant cells injected with nanoparticles, without harming surrounding healthy tissue.

A study in the November 2007 issue of the journal Cancer showed that tumor cells infused with nanoparticles and exposed to the electromagnetic field of the RF generator died within 48 hours of treatment, with no noted side effects.

A study in the Journal of Nanobiotechnology in January 2008 showed that destruction of human pancreatic cancer cells was 100 percent effective — again producing no noticeable side effects.

Here is some video:

I found this article about traders’ hormones pretty interesting:

They tracked those levels against the amount of money that a trader made or lost, and against the variation in the market. What they found was that when the traders made more money, they had elevated levels of testosterone. When the markets were particularly variable, they had elevated levels of cortisol.

A further analysis showed that traders who started their days with elevated testosterone made more money than those who didn’t. One trader went on a six-day winning streak, making twice as much money each day as the previous one. Over that period, his testosterone levels rose steadily, some 74 per cent.

“The popular view is that experienced traders can control their emotions,” Coates says, “but in fact their endocrine systems are on fire.”

You use your brain for trading and it is part of your body, so the chemicals in your body are going to have an effect on your trading. This is why some traders take cognitive enhancement drugs. And this is why other traders program automated trading systems.
This quote is funny: “maybe if more women and older men were trading, the markets would be more stable.”
They also talk about the long-term negative effects of these hormones.

This article in the NY Times about brain enhancement was pretty interesting.

…Two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic performance.

One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of Adderall transformed his career: “I’m not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps),” the posting said. “I’m talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.”

The article seems to be concerned about whether this is right or wrong. I see absolutely no reason why it would be wrong if there were no side-effects. In fact, I am confident that more and more people will be taking these drugs in the future, and that it will only benefit humanity.
As for traders - I’ve said it many times before - you are trading at a disadvantage if you are trading without cognitive enhancement drugs.

Wired has a new article about Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity. It’s pretty good - nothing really new, I guess. I like the picture of Kurzweil’s daily pill intake. I think I recognize the fish oil capsules.
They briefly mention FatKat, but no new information about his hedge fund.

“If you’re just very good at doing mathematical theorems and making stock market investments, you’re not going to pass the Turing test,” Kurzweil acknowledged in 2006 during a public debate with noted computer scientist David Gelernter. Kurzweil himself is brilliant at math, and pretty good at stock market investments. The great benefits of the singularity, for him, do not lie here. “Human emotion is really the cutting edge of human intelligence,” he says. “Being funny, expressing a loving sentiment - these are very complex behaviors.”

It is some expensive stuff, priced at about $150 an ounce, but Estée Lauder’s Re-Nutriv Ultimate Youth Creme contains “the Youth Molecule—Resveratrate™.” They describe this molecule as “a more potent, stable and time released form of Resveratrol, and was shown by in vitro testing to provide 6 times more protection from environmental damage, more than doubling the survival rate of skin cells.”

Research by Estée Lauder scientists working with scientists from a major university* has indicated that one of these “longevity genes”—SIRT1—helps to regulate the lifespan of our skin’s epidermal cells.

Inspired by these discoveries, Estée Lauder developed Ultimate Youth Creme to help prolong the youthful appearance of your skin.

Very interesting, but way too much for a cheap bastard like myself. Plus, I’m much more interested in being healthy than looking beautiful. I think I will just stick to the supplements for now. For those interested in learning more about resveratrol, here are previous posts I’ve written on the subject.

I’m too cheap to pay for water, but it may be worth it after reading this article:

Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.