Neurological Correlates

Q: Can you be allergic to oxytocin, and does that make you mean?
A: Yes, and well, maybe just unempathetic.

We just kept a sick person on cold meds company through a marathon of the show “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant,” watched intermittently with Real Housewives of New Jersey.

We learned something: When Ashley (Jacki’s daughter)  pulled Danielle’s hair at the New Jersey Country Club fashion show when she thought Danielle (who may have something of a criminal past) was attacking Jacki (Ashley’s mom) after Teresa (the one who turned over the dining room table last season) tried to say hello to Danielle after the entire evening was spent in a stare-down between the “cool” girls and the “mean” girls and Teresa called Danielle “honey” and Danielle thought Teresa was being uppity and said, don’t call me honey, so Teresa said, well, what do you want to be called, Bi***? and then they all went out to the parking lot where the valet was concerned about scratching a Bentley and Danielle’s high heel broke off as she was running away from Teresa who was reminding everyone that she was from Patterson, and you don’t bring it with Patterson girls you coke whore, well,  we thought a weave was putting in blond hair streaks, and that hair extensions were those hair-lengths that you glued in one by one, but now we know that you weave (verb) hair extensions. Danielle claims that when Ashley pulled out the extension, she also pulled out real hair, but Teresa, in her blog, claims that Danielle probably just got that from an old hairbrush as the clump of hair Danielle was showing around wasn’t even her current color.

One more thing epiphany we had after seeing Danielle’s energist was concerned about escalation with Teresa, and had a very entertaining chat with Jacki on Jacki’s I-phone, where the energist was channeling the energy from Jacki as Jacki played a game app: People hire energists because they have brain disconnects that prevent them from understanding the emotion in the world around them and properly interpreting it.

Now, to the uninitiated, that sentence is probably incomprehensible, but, in our orbit, there are people who hire and pay for others to explain the world to them. (Yes, pay for these people).  Here’s how it works:  You bring them to a party with you and say to your friends, “Meet Rebecakah, my energist” and they walk around and meet your friends and then report back to you and call your friends and try to drum up more business or at least discredit those who think it’s a bunch of hooey. (See Noel Coward’s Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit for the general flavor of it).  But, and don’t make this mistake, while the East Coast occupational term is “energist,” here in LA  it’s “intuit.”  Intuits are not to be confused with Inuits, indigenous people of northern latitudes, a mistake I made for about 5 incredulous minutes with first intuit I met, to wit, “You’re blond with lip liner! You’re not an Inuit!” In our circle, the people who have intuits are very Danielle-like, with what seems like a brain disconnect between the frontal portion of reason and cognition and the toxic, roiling, amygdalar limbic cocktail intermittently spewing pyroclastic social behavior. So no wonder they need an energist or intuit or whatever.

Be that as it may, what is with these people?

How can someone not know they are pregnant?

And how is it that Danielle can go at it over the slightest wrong tone of mid-day Mimosa voice?

Oxytocin seems to be a common denominator between the shows. Oxytocin is the molecule that bonds mother to child; it also is one of the molecules that gives rise to heightened social awareness.

A lot of the mothers in “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” said that they were under stress or had health issues. Two of the mothers (the one who was 28 and married to the 52 year old, who worked in the auto parts warehouse stacking 50 lb boxes of bolts,  and planned motorcycle trips  with her husband), and one of the other younger mothers (we forgot which one), along with their spouses seemed to be a little on socially awkward side, perhaps indicating a little on the autistic spectrum. (A total armchair guess, grain of salt on table. This doesn’t mean that they are not loving mothers (and fathers)).  Stress, health issues, autistic spectrum . . ..  . . all of these things can have an oxytocin deficit, and all can have an inflammatory component. Did these individuals not know they were preggers because of an oxytocin deficit?

Did these people not have any oxytocin? Or were they immune to what they had? Or did they have too much?

So we did what we always do with any questions in life, we Googled it. Or Pubmedded it.

Can you be allergic to oxytocin, and if you are, what then?

First, oxytocin allergies are known particularly in pregnant women who have induced labor (pitocin, or another analog).

Second, there are all sorts of neuro-immune theories about autistic spectrum, schizophrenia, and even Alzheimers lately.  PTSD sort of comes close to those who have an empathy deficit and there are neuroinflammatory and peripheral inflammatory markers for PTSD.  And one recent paper demonstrates that, as compared to controls, certain inflammatory-response proteins are higher in people who have a difficult time feeling emotion and being empathic (called “alexithymia” – how come no one has gotten rid of this jargon?) .  This was true for IL-4 and IL-6– but not other inflammatory proteins, notably TNF and interleukins earlier up in the inflammatory cascade.

To oversimplify, IL-4 (a) prevents mothers from recognizing the fetus as foreign; and (b) is influential in preterm birth.

Is IL-4 then — the molecule raison d’être for mothers not rejecting a fetus as foreign -  like the bar bouncer who lets anyone in? Does IL-4 permit the an oxytocin allergy to take place because it lets in a molecule that binds up oxytocin, not recognizing it as foreign?

Male Revue = Normal; Banker Pay = Obscene

A little over a year ago we noticed how comfortable we are around male strippers.

We thought about this and realized that our standards of obscenity are such that male strippers are normal but what bankers earn is obscene.

This notion appears to have gained traction, and even theoretical jurisprudential support.

We were reminded of our observation of the new obscenity standards in some articles about how city officials in the twee village of Bell, near LA, earn $800K+.  From Bloomberg,

*  *  *

California law limits the salaries of council members to several hundred dollars a month, depending on the size of the city, according to Hector De La Torre, a state assemblyman from nearby South Gate, who sponsored legislation in 2005 that limits how much council members can get paid from other city-related assignments to $150 a month.

‘Obscene Pay’

De La Torre said that after his bill was passed, Bell’s City Council voted to operate under its own charter, rather than adhere to state laws on how cities should be run.

“It seems obscene to me,” De La Torre said in a telephone interview. “People making $30,000 a year are paying taxes so that their council members can make $80[0],000.”

*  *  *

The notion of  “Obscenity” to limit looting compensation has legal roots in the US Constitutional law for limiting first amendment rights.

Constitutional law is the backstop protecting the individual against the tyranny of the group; and so usually you need a really super good reason to squelch a single person’s Constitutional rights for the benefit of the country.

But it happens. Freedom of speech is limited by the obscenity laws, and these are largely local. You can’t normally open up a strip club next to an elementary school, even if most of the mothers drop the kids off in their workout thongs before going to pole class.

And so the concept of obscenity is now catching on as a government march-in right against “obscene” compensation, which is rooted in the 5th Amendment right to own property.

Again, Ms. Tavakoli provides a thorough run-down of the 5th Amendment property ownership vs. Obscene banker pay, and refers to Mr. Saucier, a Parisian lawyer, interviewed by the finance broadcaster Max Keiser:

. . .Saucier explains that labeling a financial institution “obscene” is an effective social deterrent. U.S. citizens have the right to own property and to make money. We also enjoy freedom of speech, up to a point. The Supreme Court stated that when “art” becomes obscene–and the court worked hard to define what is meant by “obscene”–it is no longer considered art and does not enjoy the protection of freedom of speech.

The most highly compensated players in finance are hedge fund managers earning $1 billion to $4 billion per year. Saucier says that when you see someone making money–billions of dollars a year in bonuses by exploiting the subprime crisis–then one can take the view that part of the remuneration is obscene. The same can be said for many bank CEOs, who may earn somewhat less economic compensation, but enjoy countless valuable perks.

*  *  *

Incidentally, the Thunder from Down Under or American Storm are the two male strip groups that were big in Vegas, or at least the Macy’s in one of the malls. We saw them pretty much fully clothed, and couldn’t imagine possibly being offended by anything they did unless they somehow collected $4B in tips by betting against their customers.

It would be really great if these hale and hardy “male revue” fellows could be recruited to be spokesmodels for the banker-pay-as-obscene movement. Now that would get some press.

Do you want the US government to keep track of how fat you are?

Too bad if you don’t, that ship has sailed, train left the station, done deal.

HHS (Health and Human Services, an agency in the executive branch of the US Gov’t) is implementing the  Health Information Technology laws with a teensy little clause that sez “we get to know your BMI at all times.” §170.302(e) (2).

Set aside the faulty premise that BMI is a relevant proxy for general health (it’s not). Is reducing obesity the best way to reduce health care costs?

Obviously, the very best way to reduce health care costs is to let everyone die (or not be born), because nothing is cheaper than death (or not existing). But, considering that the financial services industry and its lackey consultancies haven’t seriously proposed that one yet, the next best way to reduce health care costs is to have chubby wubbies lose weight because everyone knows that fat = $$$$ on the health care cost menu.

Right?

Oops, also faulty premise. The savings in obesity-related health care costs is offset by living longer once you’re a skinny minnie.  Skinny people live longer and presumably use more resources.   (Here’s the health economics paper). Reducing obesity reduces obesity-related health care costs, not health care costs overall.

The other problem is that lifespan — how long healthy people live — is increasing. (SSA life table for 2006).  As we previously blogged, about 30% of Medicare is spent on last-year-of-life (we also note that this topic got us kicked out of the Research Blogging aggregator in addition to our not being researchy enough).

People, people . . . this has got to stop, people. Increasing lifespan by reducing infant mortality, starvation, epidemics, and violent death, is a terrible idea for reducing health care costs. (Here).  We need to go back to 1632 when 75% of the people died before age 26 to rachet down health care costs.

OKOK, so the premise for the whole “war on fat” is based almost entirely on truthiness.  Moreover, there are incentives to keep people fat: The global diabetes drug-and-accoutrement market is $24B+ , and diabetes in China is like sugar to the flies in biopharma for new markets, to use a glucosey analogy.  (We note in passing that if you want to blame someone for running up health care costs, blame the system that is based on reverse competition  — that is, everyone makes more money the more expensive health care they provide.  Our friend was just showing us a cyst on her finger that her Beverly Hills adjacent plastic surgeon is removing for $1200 on Monday. It looks like a mosquito bite. No other medical professionals in our orbit ever having heard of surgical removal of what looks like a mosquito bite).

Being in the biopharma biz, our own bias is, “If there’s something wrong, take a pill, and in fact, take two.”  But, we have questioned the development of some of the obesity meds, and just recently, the FDA voiced some safety concerns with one of the drugs.

Put it this way: Say you’re fat, and you can choose among the meds in three little clear plastic cups.

In the first cup is Qnexa,  a combination of two existing drugs, phentermine and topiramate (marketed for epilepsy and migraine as Topamax). Phentermine is approved for short term use basically because it’s Schedule 4. (This is the one the FDA had safety concerns with recently, and denied marketing approval unless more safety data is presented).

In the second cup is Contrave,  a combination of bupropion (marketed as Wellbutrin, a psych med acting as a dopamine reuptake inhibitor) and naltrexone (a competitive antagonist for μ- and κ-opioid receptors ). This seems to focus on the reward system, keeping dopamine available longer and pressing the mu opioid receptor buttons. Mu opioids are interesting, and relate to binge eating, for instance. In general, we like this concept, but could see how walking around feeling rewarded all day long might be a not great idea. Sort of like choosing between Lyle and Erik, obesity or new psych conditions.

In the third cup is lorcaserin, a single agent that  is (so far) very safe (an extremely selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), but not skyrockets on the efficacy. A guess is that efficacy is increased when combined independently with phentermine.

Which one would you take?

We’ve argued here for the third choice (lorcaserin), on the rationale that (a) the clinical trial data are  cleaner if you use a single agent; and (b) patients can independently titrate the phentermine, the part that has safety concerns.  (Here is a compilation of our lorcaserin posts. ) Probably, there will be more specific drugs that act as molecular pincers that pinch off the hypothalmic bad actors giving rise to undue appetite. But for right now, a highly specific single agent like lorcaserin, if it can be demonstrated safe and effective, seems the way to go.

Regardless, going back to the Electronic Medical Health Records regs that have a line item for BMI, you can see this one coming.

An aside about financial analysts:  We fail to understand why the analysts were voting for the combo-psych drug modes, because these simply don’t make sense to us.  Do analysts perform their own independent analysis yet, and if they do, are they scared to report it for fear of losing the underwriting or other business?

What analysis we saw seemed to rely on two points: one, best efficacy wins, outweighing perceived safety issues;  and two, the management team has to be brand name.  On the second point, we note that good science has covered up for a lot of  mediocre management (no names mentioned here), and even the best managers rarely have stellar second acts in this biz.  Moreover, cows could be in the executive suite of a biopharma, if the drug is terrific, has known mode of action, large unmet need, terrific safety profile, and market exclusivity supporting premium pricing. (We’re stealing that line from a ratings agency e mail, that cows could structure finance for a triple A rating).  Gramm-Leach-Bliley provided perverse incentives, and it’s tough to be a CEO who operates in good faith and actually wants the company to succeed, if that conflicts with investment bank trading profits.

In addition, Financial Services get inside baseball information aided and abetted by big pharma and it’s publishing propaganda machinery as the veteran druggie (reporter) Adam Feuerstein reports in TheStreet.com. For those who are unschooled in methods of media manipulation, it goes like this:  Science journals have embargo policies where they send pre-prints and press releases to science reporters confidentially*, about a week in advance of releasing the papers and PR to the general public. Reporters have time to write up an article, and publish the day the papers become publicly available.  Sounds reasonable, no? Except, the big science publishers provide a loophole to big banks, who get to tell their customers about the papers in advance – so their preferred customers can trade on it. (We’ve seen this with leptin). This is all done open and notoriously, without  a care in the world, and staunchly defended . .  . somehow.  Big Science is yet another Big Institution in the pocket of Big Finance, and how these co-conspirators can perform these acts in furtherance of selective disclosures for the express purpose of stock trading is beyond us, and why the SEC considers this within Reg FD is incomprehensible to us.It looks like persons conducting an enterprise with a pattern of racketeering activity (RICO). Is everyone sleeping?

*Here are Neurological Correlates, we appreciate the courtesy of embargoed press releases, but usually don’t bother reporting on them because everyone else already does, viz. , Yogi Berra principle of “no one goes there because it’s too crowded.”  We haven’t requested the JAMA/Big Bank loophole, but suspect they would be unamused:

Can your voice be a deadly weapon?

This post is about how Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin seem to use their voices as a weapon — regardless of what they say.

Wait!  Don’t say “duh.” There’s a paper: Sell A, Bryant GA, Cosmides L, Tooby J, Sznycer D, von Rueden C, Krauss A, Gurven M. Adaptations in humans for assessing physical strength from the voice. Proc Biol Sci. 2010 Jun 16. [Epub ahead of print]

OK, so Mel Gibson is like a living laboratory to us (and this is all from the news and blog reports). He apparently physically assaulted the ex, and threatened her with death, according to reports. In his latest alleged verbal rant to go public (see here), he tells his ex that because of her unattractive appearance and her provocative dress she deserves to be raped by the N-word. (Advice to the abuserati:  Be as sexist or anti-Semitic as you want, but don’t ever be racist in Hollywood, or your agent will drop you. )

Compare the message from Alex Baldwin a few years ago for his then young teen daughter, who he called a “rude little pig” or some such.

(Just to continue: Mr. Baldwin then excused himself by saying he didn’t mean to say that to his child, he meant it for her mother. (Oh. That makes it OK. ) He blamed his ex for his failure to commit suicide (they would call it a win because their goal is to destroy him), and blamed her again when, when, after he became unresponsive when talking to his daughter on the phone and she called 911, the ambulance rushed him to the hospital. Blame, why isn’t he thanking her? He reportedly claims that his daughter and ex just wanted to embarrass him. We still like 30-Rock, but this guy is scary.)

Now, to an outside observer, the words themselves are  vin ordinaire.  The bully-abuser has social dominance in mind, and in US culture, there are only so many ways to evoke ostracism and humiliation. So, for women, abusers use some variation on the Limbaughian “sluts or nuts” theme; whereas for men the words are something like “failure” or “you’ll never be successful.”  (It’s always interesting for me when I hear “you’ll never be successful!” ranted to a woman, or “you’re a fat slut” to a man. Maybe LA is less sexist when it comes to choice words of abuse.) If this were Shakespearean, “get the to a nunnery” might be the thing. It’s all context.

Mel and Alec both had their rants posted on-line for all eternity, flipping the social dominance:  the abuser looks like there’s something wrong with them.  Their response may be to apologize or get all   lawyered up. You never hear their publicists say, “So what? What’s wrong with that?”  (Going blogosphere is the best way to out abuse, and we previously blogged about a big law lawyer who did this to much public support.)

Here’s our question:  Can an abuser’s voice, alone, regardless of what they say, induce fear of bodily harm?

Sell et al. demonstrate that –solely from voice — people can predict strength, and strength is  a proxy for fighting ability. Particularly, upper body strength.  Does the sound — regardless of the words – evoke a fear reaction?

Both Mel and Alec  are leading men and know how to use their voices.

Is there some kind of physical autonomic reaction of inducing fear merely by a voice that conveys upper body strength?

Around 10 year ago we went round and round with “private bankers” who were circling like birds of prey on a small furry hapless animal. (Sorry bankers, we like you as individuals but don’t like what you do. We know you don’t either). Anyway, Goldman had just gone from a partnership to a publicly held company and we didn’t get it: how can you have a fiduciary duty to shareholders and the customer? Doesn’t that mean that you’d be charging the customer as much as possible to satisfy your duty to maximize shareholder profits?  There was an intellectually dishonest/total lie response:  the more money you make, the more we make so we’re on the same page if we charge you 0.75% percent.

A percent. Wellll… yes and no. Without going into what others have already hashed out ad nauseum, the percent was charged on the principal and the earnings. So if  we had $100 and they charged .75%, they’d make 75¢ no matter what. They’d make less if the 100 crashed to $50, but still they’d make something, and the .75% would simply accelerate the loss in principal.  No thank you parle a ma main.

Multiply that divided loyalty by a gazillion and there we are.

How did that translate to biopharma?

Well. .  . B.G.S.IPO (Before Goldman Sachs IPO), let’s say a biggish company was looking to in license some technology. They’d kick the tires and slam the doors and check under the hood, so to speak. That’s called, children, diligence, and you’re supposed to do due diligence to make sure you aren’t buying idiotic stupid stuff that’s not going to be druggable until we are all in our walkers if it doesn’t poison someone first. Everyone knows you are supposed to take risks, but not dumb money risks when that money could just as easily be smart. We’ve been in meetings B.G.S.IPO where the people with the big check books would actually look through laboratory notebooks for the control experiments. (These people are quite well known now,and are billionaires, at the time they were merely multi millionaires). They used to make the scientists and clinicians shake in their shoes, and everyone was sure to dot their i’s and cross their t’s, to use an antiquated expression. We’d be up all night actually reading the technical stuff and data and all. Tombstones never occurred to us.

Then things evolved into business development and that turned into a numbers game. Anything could have a net present value of zero if you try hard enough, and of course, everyone tried because no one wanted to jeopardize their job by making a decision. Except the person at the top whose bonus depended on doing, say, 3 deals a year (all of this is a mixture of fact and fiction, so no one sue us, but you get the general idea of our opinion). So the worker bees said “this stuff is no good” and the boss (who was marginally aware of what this life science mumbo jumbo was all about, but, in the shall we say, Welshian traditions, a leader), said “find me 3 deals” and so at the end of the day, there was diligence done, but not on anything relevant. The 3-deals-a-year (hypothetically speaking) could be really truly drek. No matter — and this is what we now understand more clearly — the bankers made their M&A fees and got to exit those nasty little biotech stock shares they wanted out of.  Bigger fool.  Boss man got his bonus. And some worker bee got fired later on for being forced into deciding what deal to recommend (like choosing between Lyle and Erik. . . ).  The technology was usually killed off, and then finance would come in and say that the cash value  on the target’s books or the factory tax credits made the cost to the company zero, anyway, so no harm no foul, wash, rinse repeat. So nothing gets done, everyone gets paid. Oh yes, it’s public money, usually, because Medicare is typically a big customer. Socialized loss, privatized gain.

And so, now, here’s Mayor Bloomberg (C-span link, how come C-Span doesn’t permit embedding?). We need jobs, sez the Mayor, and for that we needs capital, he expounds.  Don’t touch mah finanzal survaces, the lol Mayor cautions.

No argument from us, Mayor B., we cn hz capital, in theory. But don’t have the people who are deploying the capital have divided loyalties.

Mayor Bloomberg:  Don’t pander to financial services industry so much. They are sucking the lifeblood out of everyone else.

A recent report out of Scotland points to epigenetic regulation of the IGF2 gene in the womb as relating to child intelligence, but not adult intelligence.

Haggarty P, Hoad G, Harris SE, Starr JM, Fox HC, et al. 2010.  Human Intelligence and Polymorphisms in the DNA Methyltransferase Genes Involved in Epigenetic Marking. PLoS ONE 5, e11329. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011329.

Now, we know quite a few people who showed tremendous promise in  5th grade, but, through lifestyle decisions,  ended up in a halfway house.  So it looks like epigenetics do soften the blow of genetic karma, but it can only work for so long.

Let’s review: Unless you are the product of virgin birth, you contain two sets of chromosomes, one set each from the male and female biological parent. So, much like people in Hawaii buy two used cars, driving one and keeping a beater of the same model up on blocks in the driveway for hard-to-get parts, there are duplicate genes, but frequently only one allele is actually ever transcribed.   For instance, you only express your biological father’s insulin growth factor 2 (IGF2), a protein upregulating growth hormone in utero, and having a lot to do with fetal development. When you get old, you may begin to express both your mother’s and your father’s allelic variants, and that could lead to cancer. Issa et al. 1996. Switch from monoallelic to biallelic human IGF2 promoter methylation during aging and carcinogenesis. PNAS-USA 93, 11757-11762. (There are also lots of reports about IGF2 partial or improper imprinting in utero causing tragic congenital problems.)

Genetic imprinting, or silencing of one allele, however, isn’t as binary, on-off, 0 or 1, as all that, and recent work points to the vagaries of epigenetics.  It is sort of like wearing a kilt – one is not totally unclothed, but not totally clothed, either.  And so IGF2 imprinting is sort of wearing a kilt, in being regulated with at least one particular  methyltransferase (DNMT1, Weaver JR, Sarkisian G, Krapp C, Mager J, Mann MR, Bartolomei MS. 2010. Domain-specific response of imprinted genes to reduced DNMT1. Mol Cell Biol. Jun 14.).

And so, it is now reported that a little extra IGF2 in utero, determines whether you will work as a burger flipper or get a Nobel prize for smarts. OK, not that dramatic, but still, a particular epigenetic configuration for IGF2 expression in the womb resulted in doing decidedly better on a grade school intelligence test.

The study began in 1936, when knowledge of genetics was sketchy, and the prevailing eugenic theories were in a downward spiral toward evil.

In Scotland, 1936 was a year most school children took an intelligence test.  Some 74+ years later, with a genetic toolkit in hand and eleemosynary intent, Scottish researchers checked the epigenetic markers for  the children who were then 11 from Aberdeen and Lothian ( now 70+ years old, about 1500+ people in total). They found a gene associated with childhood intelligence, or at least how well the children did on the test. This was a methyltransferase genetic variant , the DNMT3L 11330C>T variant .  Some of the people were kind enough to re-take an intelligence test, apparently, but the gene wasn’t strongly associated with adult intelligence.  (Haggerty et al 2010) .

Haggarty et al also report that this particular variant  hypomethylates (under methylates) IGF2 regulatory regions ( manuscript in press.) Possibly this results in extra IGF2 during a particularly important fetal developmental period (a guess) and so some extra brain cells packed in. That would get you through the grade school intelligence exams. Presumably, if both alleles stayed stuck in the “on” position there would be perhaps a lethal mutation in utero, due to cell growth (this is presumed from the many in utero studies reported).

So, the key is to have methyltransferases that are kilt-like, able to open at appropriate times, to give a perhaps unfortunate Scottish visual.

But, of course, lots of lifestyle decisions can mess with epigenetics, as possibly Mr. Osbourne’s DNA analysis may reveal.

Ozzy Osbourne is getting his genome mapped.

After living the life of a toxin-and-bat head imbibing rock and roller, shouldn’t Ozzy Osbourne be near death? No one knows, but he is getting his genome mapped, in an effort to find out why he’s still alive.

Not to be ungrateful to la familia Osbourne, who comforts us with their dysfunction,  but we would rather Le Père Osbourne got his epigenome mapped because it turns out brain DNA is chock full of methyl groups.

Ghosh et al. (bel0w) demonstrate that, as compared to other peripheral tissues, neural tissue, and particularly brain gray and white matter tissue, is chock full of methylation, one of the text book ways to turn on and off genes in particular places at particular times. This makes perfect sense to us:  animals need to regulate different parts of their bodies at different times in response to the environment. For instance, epigenetics and immune function go hand in hand (e.g., here, immune genes are un-methylated with PTSD, causing an immune over-response). What better way to kick back and respond to the environment that popping the top on the immune gene promoters and downing some of them bad boy antibody transcripts?

We’ve wondered about brain epigenetics (blogged here, and here,  using the examples of Indian corn and Keith Richards, but now we will refer to Mssrs Osbourne and Richards).

Our guess is that it’s probably not the amount of methylation, but the degree to which methylation/de-methylation/re-methylation runs smoothly.    There’s epigenetic drift, as one ages or lives the life of a rock and roller. Ozzy’s epigenome would be pretty interesting, in fact, in a longititudinal study if there’s any Ozzy DNA laying around from years ago.

The paper: Ghosh S, Yates AJ, Frühwald MC, Miecznikowski JC, Plass C, Smiraglia DJ. Tissue specific DNA methylation of CpG islands in normal human adult somatic tissues distinguishes neural from non-neural tissues. Epigenetics. 2010 Aug  4;5(6). (abstract after the jump)

[Read more →]

OK, the insurance exemption is up. Should the SEC regulate annuities?

We don’t really know but the state insurance commissioners and NAIC are like the rating agencies – paid shills.

Insurance companies are really not in the insurance industry, they are really financial services companies. Those big buckets full of money from the premiums paid? Those don’t go to pay off claims, mais non, mes petites choux. These go to invest just like any other big pool of unregulated capital. When the market tanks, premiums go up.

I’m not quite sure what this exemption is all about but any big pile of public money should not be left unattended without criminal penalties if someone nicks it.

If you aren’t listening to the hearing, here is the live streaming link:  http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/06/22/HP/R/34468/Conferees+Addresses+swipe+fees.aspx

As we keep C-Span on in the background while we do some big document work, it is simply nauseating that the out-party is claiming the consumer protection czar (probably Prof. Warren) will have “unfettered” power (the Tennessee guy) and be “more powerful than a czar”  (the New Hampshire guy).  They are playing on the Foxian fear-mongering . And will have control over (pinkie to mouth) $800 million dollars !!

800 Million? This is one whiff from the air conditioning from Wall Street Data Centers in New Jersey.  I don’t know how much cash flow agencies need to run, but it seems like if you need to hire law firms and accounting firms and the like, $800 MM isn’t a huge fortune, even if the idea of having to use taxpayer money to police Wall Street from taking more taxpayer money isn’t all that palatable.

What about us, Senators, who keep getting scalped by financial services?

Not to say the in-party is any better. Sen Dodd keeps apologizing to the other committee members for taking the time and remarking how smart and good looking and talented everyone is.  And, saying that the consumer watchdog has been contentious and a big fight. Sen Dodd stop apologizing and start forcing, you’ll get a job once you retire. Power of the purse = bribery pure and simple and say it like it is.

Wha? Is he teeing up a post-Congress career as a lobbyist or what?  Last I checked the financial crisis hit like, being charitable, 2+ years ago although you could say it started 30 years ago, probably. Where’s the apology to the American people for not putting anyone in jail who has looted the country by taking zero-interest-rate money, manipulating the market, skimming a big fat bonus, and emptying out everyone else’s bank account?

Is there anyone who’s not on the take? Hello? Hello?

Blogs are rapidly taking the place of mainstream media, and if anyone feels strongly about something, we would encourage them to grab a keyboard and give it about 6-9 months or a year.  Our encouragement of one and all to be publishers of their own is mostly selfish:  sunlight is the best disinfectant, so to speak, of all the oozing horribleness that seems to have been covered up in the world for so long. So go write about it.

Be that as it may, here are things we wish we wouldn’t have done but are now stuck with:

1. Putting in a popular niche video, Parle a Ma Main. Huge mistake.  Off topic, and, sadly, by far the most popular post on this blog. Sigh. Google “Parle a ma main English” and this blog is at the top.

2.  Linking two unrelated blogs, Neurological Correlates and Vintage Printable. Two very different blogs, should have been separated at birth.

3. Setting up too many categories. In fact, forget the categories. Tags are better.

4. Not paying more attention to Psychoanalyst.tv.  For 5 + years we’ve been talking about original programming and now that the technology is point and shoot, we’re going to get started on that.

5.  Using too many images in the blog posts.

6. Not including enough sex and violence in the blog posts.  In fact, maybe more high school students would be interested in science if  it included more sex and violence. They could relate it to LiLo or the anthrax guy in charge of the army’s anti-anthrax research. (That one blows us away).

7.   Having infrequent posts that are too long — but, alas, the day job and all, not much we can do about that one.

8.  Not realizing that people would actually read this blog. Particularly those with “treasury.gov”  addresses.

9.  Trying to fit in with the real neuro-scientists who have research blogs.  This isn’t that.

10.  And this is probably the biggest error — holding back what we really think. Like, not saying straight out that the entire financial service industry is based on fraud.  Or, trying to satisfy all the science critics and ending up not saying anything. Professional writers probably know this, but the most challenging thing is to say what you think without a filter or that little annoying voice saying “all your professional colleagues will make fun of you and shun you.”   Ditch that, forgive yourself your typos and grammatical errors, speculate, hypothesize and try to figure things out that you wonder about even if no one gives you permission.