As US economy slows, gym memberships decline

The Vancouver Sun reports:

In the U.S., the flagging economy has triggered the first nationwide decrease in gym memberships in more than a decade, according to a report by the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association.

Not only are gym memberships likely to decline, Americans will try to save money by eating more fast food. In the US, processed junk food tends to be both affordable and most widely available in poor neighborhoods. Thus, a bad economy will likely lead to increased obesity, more chronic illness, and ultimately -- down the road -- to higher health care costs.

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Health benefits of vanilla

Wikipedia discusses the health benefits of the world's second most expensive spice:

In old medicinal literature, vanilla is described as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for fevers. These purported uses have never been scientifically proven, but it has been shown that vanilla does increase levels of catecholamines (including epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline), and as such can also be considered mildly addictive. In an in-vitro test vanilla was able to block quorum sensing in bacteria. This is medically interesting because in many bacteria quorum sensing signals function as a switch for virulence. The microbes only become virulent when the signals indicate that they have the numbers to resist the host immune system response.*

The adrenaline kick is certainly for real. Be sure you are eating real vanilla, not synthetic product. Otherwise you deprive those farmers in Africa, Mexico, and Indonesia of their livelihood. But worst of all, you cheat yourself of the genuine vanilla experience.
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* Source: Inhibition of bacterial quorum sensing by vanilla extract.

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When US bottled water is actually tap water or worse

The Environmental Working Group recently tested leading brands of bottled water, and this was its conclusion:

EWG's study has revealed that bottled water can contain complex mixtures of industrial chemicals never tested for safety, and may be no cleaner than tap water. Given some bottled water company's failure to adhere to the industry's own purity standards, Americans cannot take the quality of bottled water for granted. Indeed, test results like those presented in this study may give many Americans reason enough to reconsider their habit of purchasing bottled water and turn back to the tap.

Two brands tested were nothing other than tapwater:

Two of 10 brands tested, Walmart's and Giant's store brands, bore the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment — a cocktail of chlorine disinfection byproducts, and for Giant water, even fluoride. In other words, this bottled water was chemically indistinguishable from tap water. The only striking difference: the price tag.

The other brands were not much better:

Laboratory tests conducted for EWG at one of the country’s leading water quality laboratories found that 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand. More than one-third of the chemicals found are not regulated in bottled water. In the Sam's Choice and Acadia brands levels of some chemicals exceeded legal limits in California as well as industry-sponsored voluntary safety standards. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria.

After 8 years of loosening regulatory standards under the Bush administration -- no it's not just the financial markets -- should this report come as any surprise?
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See my post "Tap water vs bottled water" for another perspective.

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Googling makes you smarter

And it may actually be healthy to Yahoo! At least up to a point.

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Emerson on the financial crash of 1837

Emerson, notes Harold Bloom writing in the NY Times, met financial calamity with glee. Perhaps there is a lesson in this outlook for us today. Concerning the crash of 1837, Emerson wrote:

I see a good in such emphatic and universal calamity as the times bring, that they dissatisfy me with society. Under common burdens we say there is much virtue in the world, and what evil co-exists is inevitable. I am not aroused to say, “I have sinned: I am in a gall of bitterness, and a bond of iniquity”; but when these full measures come, it then stands confessed — society has played out its last stake; it is checkmated. Young men have no hope. Adults stand like day laborers, idle on the streets. None calleth us to labor. The old wear no crown of warm life on their gray hairs. The present generation is bankrupt of principles and hope, as of property. I see man is not what man should be. He is the treadle of a wheel. He is a tassel at the apron string of society. He is a money chest. He is the servant of his belly. This is the causal bankruptcy, this is the cruel oppression, that the ideal should serve the actual, that the head should serve the feet. Then first, I am forced to inquire if the ideal might not also be tried. Is it to be taken for granted that it is impracticable? Behold the boasted world has come to nothing. Prudence itself is at her wits’ end.

Pride, and Thrift, and Expediency, who jeered and chirped and were so well pleased with themselves, and made merry with the dream, as they termed it, of Philosophy and Love, — behold they are all flat, and here is the Soul erect and unconquered still. What answer is it now to say, “It has always been so?” I acknowledge that, as far back as I can see the widening procession of humanity, the marchers are lame and blind and deaf; but to the soul that whole past is but one finite series in its infinite scope. Deteriorating ever and now desperate. Let me begin anew. Let me teach the finite to know its master. Let me ascend above my fate and work down upon my world.

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The art of self-overhearing

The Boston Globe's Lehrer writes:

...it has also become clear that listening to your instincts is just a part of making good decisions. The crucial skill, scientists are now saying, is the ability to think about your own thinking, or metacognition, as it is known. Unless people vigilantly reflect on how they are making an important decision, they won't be able to properly use their instincts, or know when their gut should be ignored. Indeed, according to this emerging new vision of decision-making, the best predictor of good judgment isn't intuition or experience or intelligence. Rather, it's the willingness to engage in introspection, to cultivate what Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, calls "the art of self-overhearing."

Hat-tip: Andrew Sullivan's blog.

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