A New Angle of Attack Against Alzheimer's Dementia

A study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that the compound epothilone D (EpoD) is effective in preventing further neurological damage and improving cognitive performance in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The results establish how the drug might be used in early-stage AD patients.

...EpoD acts by the same microtubule-stabilizing mechanism as the FDA-approved cancer drug paclitaxel (Taxol™). These drugs prevent cancer cell proliferation by over-stabilizing specialized microtubules involved in the separation of chromosomes during the process of cell division. However, the Penn researchers previously demonstrated that EpoD, unlike paclitaxel, readily enters the brain and so may be useful for treating AD and related disorders.

After three months of receiving EpoD, additional tau clumps did not form in the brains of the aged AD mice, and nerve-cell function was increased compared to the AD mice that did not receive drug. What’s more, the EpoD-treated mice showed improvements in learning and memory. Importantly, the doses of EpoD that resulted in these benefits were much lower than had previously been used in Phase II clinical testing of EpoD in cancer patients. The investigators observed no side-effects — including the suppression of the immune system and peripheral nerve damage -- in the transgenic mice that received EpoD. _UPennNews

Most approaches to treating Alzheimer's dementia aim to either affect the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain -- particularly acetylcholine -- or to decrease accumulation of amyloid beta protein.

The idea of over-stabilising neurotubules to prevent tau tangles from forming in early stage Alzheimer's is an intriguing approach, and dates to earlier studies attempting to discover the true etiological origins of Alzheimer's. More from a 2011 study published in The Journal of Neuroscience:

Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology is characterized by senile plaques (SPs) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) (Selkoe, 2001). SPs are extracellular deposits of amyloid-β (Aβ), a 3–4 kDa peptide derived from proteolytic cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) by β-site APP cleavage enzyme 1 (BACE) (Hussain et al., 1999; Sinha et al., 1999; Vassar et al., 1999; Yan et al., 1999) and the presenilin (PS)-containing γ-secretase complex (De Strooper et al., 1998; Wolfe et al., 1999). NFTs are intracellular accumulations of hyperphosphorylated tau (Lee et al., 2001). About 5% of AD cases are linked to pathogenic mutations in APP, PS1, or PS2 genes (Selkoe, 2001). Tau gene mutations are pathogenic for familial frontotemporal lobar degeneration characterized by tau pathology without SPs, indicating that tau abnormalities alone cause neurodegenerative disease (Lee et al., 2001). _Journal of Neuroscience 25 May 2011, 31(21): 7691-7699; doi: 10.1523/​JNEUROSCI.6637-10.2011

Note that researchers are still attempting to unravel the apparent multiple strings of causation involved in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and similar neurodegenerative diseases of the brain.

The new research involving microtubule stabilisation, was performed in transgenic mice, meaning that results in human populations using such treatments may be quite different. The fact that both amyloid placques and tau tangles are seen in pathological brain specimens from AD patients suggests that more than one treatment approach may ultimately be required for many, if not most AD sufferers.

Cross-posted to Al Fin Longevity

Bonus: Rather far-out reading for extra credit -- http://www.dhushara.com/cosfcos/cosfcos2.html. The fascinating webpage at the link ties into the theme of brain microtubules, via the much debated idea of a microtubular quantum coding involvement in human consciousness. Most readers will want to skip this topic, but for the obsessive compulsives among the Al Fin readership, it may prove interesting. More from the online Journal of Cosmology

Building Two Pillars of SENS

Aging Damage	Discovery	SENS Solution
Cell loss, tissue atrophy	19551	Stem cells and tissue engineering (RepleniSENS)
Nuclear [epi]mutations (only cancer matters)	19592, 19823	Removal of telomere-lengthening machinery (OncoSENS)
Mutant mitochondria	19724	Allotopic expression of 13 proteins (MitoSENS)
Death-resistant cells	19655	Targeted ablation (ApoptoSENS)
Tissue stiffening	19586, 19817	AGE-breaking molecules (GlycoSENS); tissue engineering
Extracellular aggregates	19078	Immunotherapeutic clearance (AmyloSENS)
Intracellular aggregates	19599	Novel lysosomal hydrolases (LysoSENS)

The "seven pillars of SENS anti-aging strategies" are shown in the table above, with a timeline of the discovery of their importance shown in the image below.

Important progress has recently been made on two of the pillars of SENS: Correcting for mutant mitochondria, and an improved clearing of cellular junk.

First, correcting human mitochondrial mutations:

Researchers at the UCLA stem cell center and the departments of chemistry and biochemistry and pathology and laboratory medicine have identified, for the first time, a generic way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs, a finding with implications for treating a host of mitochondrial diseases. Mutations in the human mitochondrial genome are implicated in neuromuscular diseases, metabolic defects and aging. There currently are no methods to successfully repair or compensate for these mutations, said study co-senior author Dr. Michael Teitell, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

Between 1,000 and 4,000 children per year in the United States are born with a mitochondrial disease and up to one in 4,000 children in the U.S. will develop a mitochondrial disease by the age of 10, according to Mito Action, a nonprofit organization supporting research into mitochondrial diseases. In adults, many diseases of aging have been associated with defects of mitochondrial function, including diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

"I think this is a finding that could change the field," Teitell said. "We've been looking to do this for a long time and we had a very reasoned approach, but some key steps were missing. Now we have developed this method and the next step is to show that what we can do in human cell lines with mutant mitochondria can translate into animal models and, ultimately, into humans."

The study appears March 12, 2012 in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. _esciencenews

More at the link.

Next, clearing cellular trash aggregates:

A University of Michigan cell biologist and his colleagues have identified a potential drug that speeds up trash removal from the cell's recycling center, the lysosome.

The finding suggests a new way to treat rare inherited metabolic disorders such as Niemann-Pick disease and mucolipidosis Type IV, as well as more common neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, said Haoxing Xu, who led a U-M team that reported its findings March 13 in the online, multidisciplinary journal Nature Communications.

"The implications are far-reaching," said Xu, an assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology. "We have introduced a novel concept—a potential drug to increase clearance of cellular waste—that could have a big impact on medicine." _UMich News

More at the link.

Both of these developments will require a number of years to perfect and shape into useful therapies. But as noted, improved therapies in either domain would provide hope for slowing the ageing process, and for treating many of the degenerative scourges of human existence.

The SENS Foundation has worked to promote research in the seven areas pictured above. And at least partially due to the efforts of SENS, more researchers and funding agencies are picking up the same themes.

Cross-posted to Al Fin Longevity

Et Tu, Duqu?

Duqu, a trojan of unknown purpose spread by tainted Microsoft Word files, is supposedly the follow up to the Stuxnet worm, the self-replicating USB-stick-distributed malware that wrecked 400 uranium centrifuges with overspeed commands at Iran's Natanz nuclear fuel enrichment facility in 2010. Duqu is a remote access trojan (a RAT) and is waiting on instructions from a remote commander to activate it and tell it which files to steal, corrupt or run.

Stuxnet and Duqu are thought to have come from the same programming teams because they share whole chunks of code.... In a section of the malware called 'payload dll', and sandwiched between regular C++ code, there's a mysterious section written in an unknown programming language. "It's definitely not C++, Objective C, Java, Python, Ada, Lua or many other languages we have checked," says Soumenov. If it is a customised language that might very well need the support and resources of a nation state's security apparatus.

One of the strongest hints in the comments thread suggests that the language may be a variant of the AI programming language LISP, while another says the code looks like it might hail from a version of C++ for old IBM System/38 (from 1978) computers. They suggest the IBM-alike code may give Duqu a robust TCP/IP internet connection for receiving its malicious commands. _NewScientist

Duqu Spread
Here are a few conclusions that experts have arrived at regarding Duqu (excerpted and edited):

• It is obvious that every single Duqu incident is unique with its own unique files using different names and checksums;
• Duqu is used for targeted attacks with carefully selected victims (The term APT has been used to describe this, but I don’t like this expression and prefer not to use it);
• We know that there are at least 13 different driver files (and we have only 6 of them);
  We haven’t found any ‘keylogger’ module usage. Either it has never been used in this particular set of incidents, or it has been encrypted, or it has been deleted from the systems;
• Analysis of driver igdkmd16b.sys shows that there is a new encryption key, which means that existing detection methods of known PNF files (main DLL) are useless. It is obvious that the DLL is differently encoded in every single attack. Existing detection methods from the majority of AV vendors are able to successfully detect Duqu drivers. But it is almost 100% certain that the main DLL component (PNF) will go undetected.
• Duqu is a multifunctional framework which is able to work with any number of any modules. Duqu is highly customizable and universal;
• The main library (PNF) is able (export 5) to fully reconfigure and reinstall the package. It is able to install drivers and create additional components, record everything in the registry, etc. It means that if there is a connection to active the C&C and commands, then Duqu’s infrastructure on a particular system might be changed completely;

_Securenet

The fact that part of Duqu is written in an unknown programming language, suggests that the coders may just bet getting started, and are conducting something of an experiment in advanced remote command and control of computing systems.

Duqu code is being shared among a large number of persons and institutions interested in computer security and hacking. Symantec is among the companies that are tracking Duqu:

Symantec Corp. (SYMC) is among the firms tracking Duqu. Interestingly, they make some statements about the worm's origin which seemingly exonerate the U.S. from Stuxnet suspicions. Symantec states that the Duqu authors must have either been given code by the Stuxnet authors, have stolen the code from the Stuxnet authors, or are themselves the Stuxnet authors.

Symantec's Kevin Haley comments to Reuters, "We believe it is the latter."

The sophistication of this worm suggests that if the U.S. didn't have a hand in crafting it, that China or Russia perhaps did. A command and control server was found to be hosted in Belgium, but it's rather unlikely that the attackers chose their home nation to host the attacking platform.

China -- a cyber-superpower and notorious aggressor -- is thought to maintain a repository of unpublished vulnerabilities on platforms such as Windows, Linux, and OS X, waiting to exploit them when the need arises.

Nine international organizations have found their systems compromised. The compromised nations in these victim organizations are:
Organization A - France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ukraine
Organization B - India
Organization C - Iran
Organization D - Iran
Organization E - Sudan
Organization F - Vietnam
Other researchers report that systems in the United Kingdom, Austria, Hungary, and Indonesia were infected. _DailyTech

No one is coming forward to admit having composed Duqu or Stuxnet. It is not clear that the two worms were disseminated by the same entities, since Stuxnet appears to have been aimed at Iran's nuclear projects, while Duqu may well be a copycat which is evolving beyond the abilities of its predecessor.

More on China's Economic Situation

First, from Beijing based economist Michael Pettis:

The problem in China is as much the amount of debt as the structure – and by structure I don’t mean the distinction between bonds and loans (bonds end up mainly on the banks’ balance sheets anyway) but rather the unstable and self-reinforcing relationship between underlying conditions and debt servicing costs. The fact that much of the debt is being accumulated in an opaque fashion only explains why so many people did not see this coming, but it is not the fundamental problem.

As for the claim that successful fiscal reform can keep the impact limited, I am not sure what this means. Fiscal reform in China can only be successful, in this context, if it eliminates loss-making investment activities, and unfortunately I see it doing nothing of the sort. If the problem is that China is keeping growth high only or mainly by borrowing and misallocating the proceeds, then hidden losses are rising and one way or another the bad debt must be resolved. The only two ways to resolve the bad debt are by defaulting or by forcing someone else to make up the loss, and the former almost certainly won’t happen to any great extent.

That leaves the latter....

The best solution for China, economically, seems to be off limits because it will be politically difficult. In that case the second best solution, a gradual build-up of government debt as growth slows for many years, is the most likely outcome.

And how much will growth slow? The World Bank report apparently doesn’t say, but the consensus has been slowly moving down towards 5-6% annual growth over the next few years. That’s better than the crazy numbers of 8-9% most analysts were predicting even two years ago (and some still are), but it is still too high. GDP growth rates will slow a lot more than that. I still maintain that average growth in this decade will barely break 3%. It will take, however, at least another two or three years before a number this low falls within the consensus range.

And by the way when it does, metal prices should fall sharply. Copper prices have done reasonably well in the past few months as Chinese buyers have restocked, as we suggested might happen to our clients last fall. With the recent easing we may see more strength in copper over the next month or so, but I have little doubt that within two or three years copper prices are going to be a whole lot lower than they are today. Chinese investment demand simply cannot hold up much longer. _Michael Pettis

What Pettis is saying is that actions have consequences. While economists may pretend that they can make gold out of feces, reality eventually calls at the doorstep for an accounting.

This is from Also Sprach Analyst:

It seems to be widely believed that China has almost unlimited tools and power to gear the economy towards whatever direction they would like to. It is probably true in some respects. For instance, there are rooms to cut interest rates and reserve requirement ratios, and if you believe the official data (which I don’t) that China has very sound fiscal position, they can certainly throw another trillions RMB to invest in more pointless stuff for the sake of generating GDP growth and create jobs.

However, we have already heard deposits flight where households are seeking better returns other than deposits, and if China slow down (as it is, and as I expect), it will not be surprising to see capital outflow and trade surplus shrinking. In the likely event of these happening, it will tighten the screw of monetary policy automatically, and cutting reserve requirement ratio, while it looks useful, could be seen as offsetting the tightening effect of capital outflow and other things. Furthermore, if money is flowing out of the banking system (for whatever reasons, like capital outflow), that makes it difficult to cut interest rates. As I mentioned earlier, the view here is that while reserve requirement ratio will be cut, it is important to understand that it may not make monetary condition easier, and that interest rates may not be an available tool at all. And if things get so bad, we could expect a small probability that RMB will have to be depreciated. And with respect to the fiscal side of the story, if my analysis on the debt side of the story is accurate, the Chinese government’s fiscal position might not be as good as it seems, one will have to question 1) whether they have the financial resources to invest in more for the sake of creating GDP growth and 2) whether it still makes sense to invest in a place where over-investment has happened.

The key conjectures (or the only things that you need to know) are:

1. Inflation might actually surprise on the downside. We might even see deflation.

2. Real estate industry will slow down drastically, and drag the whole economy.

3. Home prices and other asset prices will fall, possibly resulting in debt deflation.

4. The government and central bank may have some tools to help the economy, but the tools are not unlimited.

_Also Sprach Analyst

Al Fin economic analysts suggest that the CCP government achieved a superficial success using one growth model. But they are attempting to sustain the same level of success using an altogether different growth model which is unsustainable.

In other words, China's government may be the victim of its own success and a prior fortunate timing in global markets. We are in a very different global market than that which existed from 1985 through 2007. The dragon which the CCP is attempting to tame has grown too large and unwieldy. Fortune cookie says: Expect surprises.

Cross-posted from abu al-fin

China: Abrupt 70% Drops in Growth, Income; Trade Balance Plunges on Crude Oil Buy-Up; World Commodities Prices Totter

China’s trade deficit hit $31.5bn in February as exports slumped, underscoring concerns about slowing global demand and cooling growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
February exports from China fell 23.6 per cent from the previous month, and rose a slower-than-expected 18.4 per cent from the previous year. The fall in exports, combined with spectacularly strong imports as China bought commodities such as crude oil and iron ore, brought the trade deficit to its highest level in years.
_FinancialTimes

Video Source: Financial Times
The above video describes the abrupt 40% to 70% drops in growth, income, and land sales experienced by virtually all regional Chinese governments -- a reflection of the deflating economic bubble within China. This data was obtained independent of the Chinese government, and as such is likely to be more reliable.

Below you will see some revealing charts, describing the radical drop in China's trade balance caused by an apparent stockpiling of crude oil and other commodities.

...here are some truly stunning charts showing the epic collapse in the Chinese economy, which while still experiencing intermittent flashes of inflation, will have no choice but to resume easing all over again, in the process sending all commodity prices higher yet again. _ZeroHedge

All Charts via ZeroHedge
China's current trade deficit is the largest since 1989, and is reflective of a number of economic trends impinging upon China's long term economic plan.

World commodities markets from Australia to Brazil to Africa are trembling at the thought of a significant and prolonged slowdown in Chinese demand for raw materials.

China's buildup of its crude oil stockpiles -- with its inevitable stressing of world crude markets -- is even more interesting, as it suggests a multi-tiered strategic thrust on the part of the middle kingdom, using world financial markets as a proxy force.

This is not a China collapse, but rather a foretaste of what happens when there is a suggestion of an eventual auditing of the books. When the books are actually audited, even more significant adjustments will be made. But even later, in the aftermath of the auditing, there will be a reckoning.

tDCS Kit and OTS Machines: Learn More Faster Be Awesome?

Kooky Video via Technology Review

It sounds like quackery, but it's not. A growing body of evidence suggests that passing a small electric current through your head can have a profound effect on the way your brain works. Called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the technique has already been shown to boost verbal and motor skills and to improve learning and memory in healthy people - making fully-functioning brains work even better. It is also showing promise as a therapy to cure migraine and speed recovery after a stroke, and may extract more from the withering brains of people with dementia. Some researchers think the technique will eventually yield a commercial device that healthy people could use to boost their brain function at the flick of a switch. _biotele.com

The article excerpted above was published in 2006, but it seems that the increasingly popular activity of home brain-boosting via tDCS is just getting started -- perhaps due to the feature film "Limitless" having stimulated the public imagination regarding the possibility of becoming smarter than you are?

Regardless, tDCS appears to have an undeniable effect, and if it can prove itself in the marketplace, we may see the beginning of "a smart revolution."

A $99 tDCS kit, the GoFlow Beta1, is due on the market. It will compete with tDCS machines that range in cost from $350 up to €3000 (about $4,000US). Do it yourself tDCS hacks can be made for anywhere between $30 down to the cost of a 9V battery, a couple of wires, and two saline soaked gauze pads. Of course, the cheapest devices are not necessarily the safest or most reliable.

Basic tDCS Schematic
Some of the uses to which tDCS therapy is being put:

- NEUROLOGICAL DISEASES:

Chronic pain (Fregni et al., 2006; Fregni et al., 2006; Antal et al., 2010)
Stroke (Fregni et al., 2005; Monti et al., 2008; Shlaug et al, 2008; Lindenberg et al., 2010; Williams et al., 2010)
Movement disorders:

- Parkinson disease (Fregni et al., 2006; Benninger et al., 2010)

- Tourette syndrome (Mrakic-Sposta et al., 2008)

- Dystonia (Quartarone et al., 2006)

Epilepsia (Liebetanz et al., 2006)
Alzheimer disease (Ferrucci et al., 2008; Boggio et al., 2008)

- NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS:

Depression (Fregni et al., 2008; Rigonatti et al., 2008; Brunoni et al., 2010)
Craving:
-Alcohol (Boggio et al., 2008)

-Food (Fregni et al., 2008)

-Smoking craving (Fregni et al., 2008) _Newronika

Video on tDCS electrode positioning and basic protocol

Scientific review article on tDCS (PDF) Reviews a large number of studies

Interesting overview of tDCS by someone who develops brain stimulation devices (PDF)

Brain Hacking: Homebuilt tDCS and More, recent article on Al Fin, the Next Level

Home Built tDCS Project
OpenStim is a wiki for development of The Open Noninvasive Brain Stimulator. The community seems to focus on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), but also includes members interested in other types of neural and brain stimulation.

Brian Wang is also beginning to look at this burgeoning movement

An Abundant Future?

Onstage at TED2012, Peter Diamandis makes a case for optimism -- that we'll invent, innovate and create ways to solve the challenges that loom over us. "I’m not saying we don’t have our set of problems; we surely do. But ultimately, we knock them down.”

Peter Diamandis runs the X Prize Foundation, which gives rich cash awards to the inventors and engineers who'll get us back to the moon, build a better car and explore the genome. And watch for more prizes to come. _TED

It is difficult to get an audience for abundance these days, given how popular doom has come to be in the movies, the news media, in academia, and global politics. But there is reason to believe that some of the more popular dooms -- such as peak oil doom, climate catastrophe doom, overpopulation doom, resource scarcity doom, etc -- are not due to take place anytime soon.

Long-term forecasts are rarely sunny or even middling. In fact, they’re often fairly dystopian: Peak oil, peak gas, peak water, peak food, mass hysteria, zombie apocalypse.

Yet, to believe such specific long-term forecasts, you must believe that, now, folks have the never-before-seen ability and technology to accurately make long-term forecasts based on far distant supply pressures, unknowable future innovations and myriad other factors in the complex beast that is the global economy. Consider just one example: The (always moving) Peak Oil date certain has come and gone many, many times. Why? Extracting from easy-to-find conventional sources may slow. But there was just no way for folks in the 1950s to know that, 60 years later, we’d still be finding caches of oil (and natural gas) and innovating new ways to get at said energy sources more cheaply. Every decade, the world consumes more energy, yet every decade, the known energy reserves increase.

...The belief the future will be unmitigated disaster isn’t new to this generation. Humanity is prone to be hypersensitive to unknown future risk. Our brains evolved through tens of millennia to be keenly focused on survival—hence our tendency to focus on the negative. This was handy when one was trying to stay three steps ahead of giant hungry predators and gather enough sustenance to survive a snowy winter in the wilderness, but is probably less useful in helping us think more clearly about the future.

Over the past 100 years average human lifespan has doubled, average per-capita income (inflation adjusted) has tripled and childhood mortality is down by a factor of ten. The cost of basic necessities has fallen—sometimes radically. (If you haven’t watched that video yet, stop and do it now.)

And the future likely only features still more health- and wealth-creating innovations—in the US and elsewhere. _Forbes Doom is not coming

The author of this optimistic Forbes article is probably right, as long as the governments of the world are not allowed to shut down free markets based upon their misguided senses of doom -- or for any other reason.

When Russia became the USSR, many authors and journalists were highly optimistic about the future of the new country. And for a while, things seemed to be going well for the USSR.... until the reality of a failed centrally planned economy set in. The same disaster happened in China with Mao's totalitarian government, and the malaise continued until a new set of rulers opened up China's markets.

It is fine and good to be optimistic about the future of a free people in an opportunity society. But never forget how eager some government officials always seem to be, to shut it all down for reasons of power and ideology. It has happened before and it could easily happen again in your home country, if you let it.

More optimism:

Peak oil is dead

How Canada is adjusting to the North American energy boom

China's big new shale energy wealth

And so on, from South Africa to Argentina to Israel to Vietnam. New resources are being found and better ways to utilise old resources are being developed. The potential for a huge new global energy and industrial revolution is there, and would undoubtedly proceed unmolested -- if it were not for dysfunctional governments.

The most acute shortage is human ingenuity, followed by skilled manpower. But bad government trumps almost everything else, at least on the national and international scale. On a local and regional scale, human capital can often hold out long enough for the dysfunctional governments to be overthrown or voted out or otherwise disposed of.

Counter-Intuitive Creativity Boosting, New and Old

A U. Mass Amherst researcher with degrees in computer science and philosophy, Anthony McCaffrey, has won a $170,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop new tools to boost creativity and creative problem solving. His ideas revolve around the acrononyms OFH (obscure features hypothesis) and GPT (generic parts technique).

Looking at more than 100 significant modern and 1,000 historical inventions, McCaffrey analyzed how successful inventors overcame various cognitive obstacles to uncover the key obscure information needed to solve problems. He found that almost all innovative solutions follow two steps, as articulated by the OFH: Noticing an infrequently-seen, obscure feature and second, building a solution based on that feature.

...Psychologists use the term "functional fixedness" to describe the first mental obstacle McCaffrey investigated. It explains, for example, how one person finding burrs stuck to his sweater will typically say, "Ugh, a burr," while another might say, "Hmmm, two things lightly fastened together. I think I'll invent Velcro!" The first view is clouded by focusing on an object's typical function.

To overcome functional fixedness, McCaffrey sought a way to teach people to reinterpret known information about common objects. For each part of an object, the "generic parts technique" (GPT) asks users to list function-free descriptions, including its material, shape and size. Using this, the prongs of an electrical plug can be described in a function-free way to reveal that they might be used as a screwdriver, for example. _ecs.umass.edu

Part of McCaffrey's approach offers parallels to Edward de Bono's "Lateral Thinking" theories and creativity training programs.

Lateral Thinking Techniques

1. Alternatives / Concept Extraction: Use concepts to breed new ideas
2. Focus: Sharpen or change your focus to improve your creative efforts
3. Challenge: Break free from the limits of accepted ways of operating
4. Random Entry: Use unconnected input to open new lines of thinking
5. Provocation: Move from a provocative statement to useful ideas
6. Harvesting: Select the best of early ideas and shape them into useable approaches
7. Treatment of Ideas: Develop ideas and shape them to fit an organization or situation

"Great business competitors are great lateral thinkers . . ." - Edward de Bono

How Might You Use Lateral Thinking?

The Lateral Thinking techniques are useful in a variety of applications.

• Constructively challenge the status quo to enable new ideas to surface
• Find and build on the concept behind an idea to create more ideas
• Solve problems in ways that don’t initially come to mind
• Use alternatives to liberate and harness the creative energy of the organization
• Turn problems into opportunities
• Select the best alternate ideas and implement them 

_LateralThinking

Yet another parallel counter-intuitive creativity approach comes from a website called Brainstorming.co.uk.

So, what creative thinking techniques are available?

Many! The techniques we specialize in, and will be training you in, are listed below. All of them will provide you with fresh stimuli and a new way of thinking. You will be able to incorporate them into your brainstorming sessions (individual or group) to generate new ideas easily and they will make sure you'll never be stuck for a new idea.

• Random Word
• Random Picture
• False Rules
• Random Website
• SCAMPER
• Search & Reapply
• Challenge Facts
• Escape
• Analogies
• Wishful Thinking
• Thesaurus

_Brainstorming.co.uk CreativeThinkingTechniques

This webpage provides more detail and allows actual practise with a few of the techniques.

All three counter-intuitive creativity approaches are likely to provide positive results to those who are willing to put in the time and work. But that is not what most people want to hear. Most modern wannabe legends -- in their own minds -- would like to have world-shaking ideas pop into their heads on demand, effortlessly.

But as Daniel Kahneman explains, fast intuitive thinking is not trustworthy unless a person puts in the hard work to hone it to a fine edge. Besides, fast intuition is not generally creative, but rather tends to arrive at more obvious -- and often more fashionable -- solutions.

That is why most creativity training programs which produce relatively good results, tend to be of the "counter-intuitive" variety. Because you are looking for solutions that are not typically obvious or intuitive.

One final example of the counter-intuitive approach to creative problem-solving, is John David Garcia's "autopoietic" method. Garcia's technique is meant to be utilised by an octet -- that is, eight people in a group -- consisting of four men and four women. But according to Garcia, a doublet consisting of one man and one woman can also achieve good creative results. Al Fin's experience with this method convinced him that single individuals could also achieve good results, in many cases.

The central idea behind the autopoietic method of creative problem solving, besides a significant mental preparation, is to have a problem presented, at which point the the early, easy, automatic intuitive solution is summarily rejected. That is just the first step, of course, but it is the crucial step. The goal is to enter a deeper, creative state of mind.

Creativity -- like much humour -- is typically counter-intuitive, at least in the sense in which most persons are intuitive.

If we want our children to be creative and powerful problem-solvers, they will not only need to hone their intuitions to a sharp edge, but they will also need to learn when to reject fast and easy intuitive solutions in favour of deeper, less obvious (except in hindsight) solutions.

More for those interested in the John David Garcia autopoiesis techniques: The philosophy of creativity and ethics behind the technique is described in the freely accessible online book by Garcia, Creative Transformation. More detail regarding Garcia's technique and philosophy of autopoietic creativity is presented in Chapter 5 of Creative Transformation.

As developed by Garcia, the experience can be extremely powerful and effective at eliciting a wide range of counter-intuitive solutions and ideas. But it is certainly not for everyone, or even for most.

Cost of Consensus: Overconfidence in Group Decisions

When decisions and policies are made in collaborative groups, an overconfidence in group accuracy develops. Groups are less willing to accept external input, and tend to make mistakes in judgment which individuals would be less likely to make -- due to most individuals' greater willingness to consider alternative viewpoints. (Minson and Mueller APS 2012 PDF)

There is a curious confidence in the power of consensus in bureaucracies and institutions -- including institutions of government and inter-government which increasingly set limits on the future of humans. And yet consensual decision-making is rarely put to the test, to assess its weaknesses and how it might be radically improved.

We demonstrate that the very process of making a judgment collaboratively rather than individually also contributes to such myopic underweighting of external viewpoints. Dyad members exposed to numerical judgments made by peers gave significantly less weight to those judgments than did individuals working alone. This difference in willingness to use peer input was mediated by the greater confidence that the dyad members reported in the accuracy of their own estimates. Furthermore, dyads were no better at judging the relative accuracy of their own estimates and the advisor’s estimates than individuals were. Our analyses demonstrate that, relative to individuals, dyads suffered an accuracy cost. Specifically, if dyad members had given as much weight to peer input as individuals working alone did, then their revised estimates would have been significantly more accurate. _Minson and Mueller 2012 Abstract

The researchers discovered that the larger the number of the collaborative consensus group, the greater the danger of this overconfident refusal to entertain outside input.

The unwillingness of collaborative "insider" groups to entertain outside input is particularly dangerous when the results of the decisions made by such groups could lead to poverty and oppression for large numbers of people. One ready example of such a dangerous consensus is the IPCC collaborative of "ClimateGate" fame. An honest and thorough assessment of insider emails between IPCC insiders reveals an internal climate of hubris, overconfidence, and a willingness to suppress contradictory evidence and to ruin the careers of anyone willing to espouse other points of view.

This willingness of group members to subsume themselves within the identity and purpose of the group -- this decadent conformity of consensus with its concomitant blockheaded overconfidence -- becomes a more serious problem as more and more important decisions are being made by bureaucratic committees and collaboratives.

Individuals are not, of course, immune from this group consensus fallibility. In fact, within a single brain, decisions are made by competition between different brain-wide neuronal assemblies, which battle it out until a winner emerges. That type of decision making is a consensus of sorts, a trial by combat that takes place on a subconscious level constantly, as choices and decisions are made on a moment by moment basis.

Over time, overconfidence is possible on an individual basis, if enough subconscious decisions and choices result in success. Daniel Kahneman has studied this phenomenon of intuitive overconfidence:

"What you find is a great deal of confidence in the presence of very poor accuracy," Kahneman explained. "So the confidence people have is not a good indication of how accurate they are."

Overconfidence is accentuated by the failure of people to, in general, learn from their mistakes. "When something happens that a person has not anticipated, ... they remain convinced that what they had predicted, although it didn't happen, almost happened," he said. The overconfidence is then propagated while the accuracy remains the same, and the cycle begins again. _APS

It is not necessarily a question of whether individuals or groups are better at problem solving or decision making, although false confidence tends to grow exponentially as the numbers in the group grow. The important thing is for both individuals and groups -- no matter what the purported level of expertise -- to be relatively open to looking at alternative approaches and theories.

The modern curse of conformity in general, is a much tougher nut to crack. We will be dealing with that question both here and at Al Fin the Next Level.

How Shale Revolution Creates Jobs; How Obama Destroys Them

The oil and gas industry could be creating even more jobs if the United States had more of a pro-development policy for traditional energy sources instead of a government-driven, heavily subsidized, green energy approach. For example, energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie evaluated the impact on production, jobs, and government revenues of implementing regulatory policies that support the development of oil and natural gas resources, including: a) opening federal land that is currently “off limits” to exploration and development; b) lifting the drilling moratorium in New York; c) increasing the rate of permitting in the offshore Gulf of Mexico; d) approving the Keystone XL and other future Canada-to-U.S. oil pipelines; and e) leaving regulation of shale resources predominantly at the state level.

Under a scenario that encourages the development of new and existing domestic energy resources, Wood Mackenzie estimates that by 2015 an additional 1.27 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) could be produced, rising to 10.4 million BOE by 2030. That would be a 47 percent increase over the estimated 2030 production levels under a current development path case.

Furthermore, under the new development path, there would be a potential increase of 1 million new oil and natural gas jobs by 2018, and 1.4 million new jobs by 2030, while adding cumulative potential government revenue of $36 billion by 2015, and nearly $803 billion by 2030. _American

A Remarkable Lack of Concern for America's Energy Future
A new report from the World Economic Forum (PDF) reveals that about 9% of new US jobs in 2011 were created by the shale energy revolution.

The report said the oil and gas industry contributed 37,000 direct jobs in 2011, which led to the creation of an additional 111,000 indirect jobs during the same period. It said the multiplier effect for solar and wind energy were lower during operation, but higher at up to 3.3 times during construction.

“We always suspected that energy had a vital role to play in the economic recovery but we were still surprised when the data uncovered the magnitude of the sector’s multiplier effects,” Roberto Bocca, head of energy Iidustries at the World Economic Forum, said in a release.

The domestic U.S. oil and gas industry is in the midst of the its biggest boom in a generation, with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technology unlocking billions of barrels of oil and decades’ worth of natural gas from previously untappable tight coal seam fissures. _Reuters via GWPF

The Obama administration has, of course, been trying to find a way to shut down as many forms of energy production as possible -- and to hell with jobs.

The oil and natural gas industry, one of the strongest job-creating sectors of the U.S. economy, has been unfavorably targeted by President Obama’s proposed 2013 fiscal year (FY) federal budget. To start with, Obama is proposing, for the fourth consecutive year, to repeal Section 199 of the “American Jobs Creation Act.” If enacted, this selectively punitive treatment would increase taxes on oil and natural gas companies by almost $12 billion over the next decade. It could possibly jeopardize some of the millions of American jobs supported by oil and natural gas producers and prolong the sub-par “jobless recovery.”

Overall employment in the U.S. economy still remains short by almost 5 million jobs, and more than 3 percent below the pre-recession employment peak in November 2007. But the oil and natural gas industry has added 34,200 jobs over that period and expanded industry employment by more than 22 percent. Oil and natural gas companies have been on a hiring spree, adding almost 100 new payroll jobs every day for the last year.

In contrast, job creation in green energy projects has so far been very disappointing. According to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis of $4.3 billion in public funding for wind energy under Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, there were 36 wind farms that employed 7,200 American workers during the peak of their construction, or an average of 200 workers per project. Today, according to these companies and state and local government economic development officials, those projects employ only about 300 workers, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $14 million per permanent job. _TheAmerican

Obama's antagonism toward reliable sources of energy appears to be based upon at least two foundations: 1. A desire to please big money faux environmentalist supporters, who are pursuing an agenda of carbon hysteria, and 2. A desire to punish and discipline successful private sector enterprises, and to bring them more under the control of a bloated central governmental bureaucracy.

Anyone who has read Mr. Obama's first two autobiographies and observed his early career in community organising and political activism, will understand the man's antagonism toward capitalism, free markets, and any source of wealth and power creation which competes with a central, redistributive government.

The people of the US, in the meantime, must find ways of surviving despite their president's internal whims and caprices.

Good luck with that.

Escaping Putin's Russia the Hard Way

Vladimir Putin -- one of the world's wealthiest men with assets exceeding $40 billion in value -- will be president of Russia for at least another term. And that means more of the same, only worse, for the people of Russia. Those who can leave for better opportunities elsewhere, do so. Those who cannot leave, sometimes take more drastic measures.

via chartsbin.com
Besides being burdened by high rates of alcoholism, TB, HIV, crime, corruption, smoking, and drug addiction, Russia is suffering a stealth epidemic of suicide.

Child and teenage suicide in Russia came into spotlight after a series of suicides last month. On February 6 two teenage girls jumped from the roof of a high-rise building. The next day a 15-year-old boy jumped from the window of his apartment presumably after a row with his father. Subsequently, at least four other children committed suicide in about one week.
On Monday afternoon a seven-year-old boy hanged himself on a synthetic cord in his house. His stepfather and sister were in the house at the moment, but could not rescue him.
“After the boy witnessed his father’s suicide, he occassionally asked his mother what happens when you put a rope around your neck,” investigation department spokesman Yegor Markov said. _ria.ru

Russia is hard on its children, and Yelizaveta Petsylya and Anastasia Korolyova finally decided, at the age of 14, to do what thousands of other Russian teenagers have done. There was one way to assert control over their lives, and that was to end them.

Russia has the third-highest teenage suicide rate in the world, just behind its neighbors Belarus and Kazakhstan and more than three times that of the United States. On an average day, about five Russians under age 20 take their own lives.

...The suicide rate is highest in the Far East and in parts of northwestern Russia, said Bertrand Bainvel, head of the UNICEF office in Moscow. It is much higher in small towns than in cities. More boys kill themselves than girls. There is not a big seasonal variation, despite the long hours of darkness in a northern winter. _WaPo

The articles focus on teens, but the problem is severe across all age groups past the onset of adolescence. Children take to alcohol, tobacco, and drugs at an early age. Home life can be oppressive, given the oppressive sense of futility that hovers over so much of Russia.

Despite claims that low Russian birthrates have reversed themselves, the truth is that without immigration from the Central Asian republics, the ongoing demographic collapse of ethnic Russians could not be covered up nearly so easily.

Russians need hope and opportunity, not more of the same forced march to oblivion.

A New Era of Hydrocarbon Fuels: Gas to Liquids & Coal to Liquids

Unconventional liquid fuels are slated to provide ever growing proportions of future demand for transportation fuels. The burgeoning success of plants such as Shell's Pearl GTL plant in Qatar herald a new era of liquid fuels production.

In terms of what GTL is, it is the process of chemically turning natural gas into cleaner-burning liquid products, including fuel, base oil for lubricants and feedstock for chemicals. To produce, the process firstly involves methane and oxygen which are converted into a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide known as synthesis gas or syngas. This is then fed to a reactor with a proprietary Shell catalyst that accelerates the conversion of the mixture to long-chained waxy hydrocarbons and water.

From the GTL reactor, the long-chained hydrocarbons are then reacted with hydrogen and ‘cracked,’ into a range of smaller molecules of various sizes using another proprietary Shell catalyst. This process is referred to as ‘hydrocracking.’ The final step is distillation. Various boiling points are reached to separate out the products, which can be in the form of GTL naphtha, GTL kerosene, GTL normal paraffins, GTL gas oil, or GTL base oils. These are then eventually fed to their own storage tanks ready for use.

...One of the products, GTL gasoil (diesel-type fuel), can contribute significantly to the diversification of the diesel fuel supply. This product can reduce local emissions of nitrogen and sulfur oxides and particulate matter. Because it contains virtually no sulfur or aromatic compounds and has a high cetane number – a measure of combustion quality – GTL gasoil burns more efficiently than conventional oil-based diesel and thus produces fewer local emissions and less black smoke than conventional diesel. The high cetane of GTL gasoil can lead to noise reductions in certain engines under certain driving conditions and improve cold start performance. GTL gasoil can also be blended with conventional diesel and/or biodiesel and used in the same vehicles and infrastructure, thus offering a low investment cost compared with other alternatives.

GTL Kerosene is an alternative to conventional oil-based kerosene. Its primary use is expected for aviation. GTL kerosene can be used as a blend with traditional jet fuel without any modifications to existing aircraft and engines. Given that the aviation sector will rely on liquid hydrocarbons for decades, this fuel can help support the future energy needs of the industry, and offer customers fuel diversification. GTL kerosene has higher energy density than conventional oil-based kerosene and this reduces the required fuel payload, thus aircraft may be required to carry less fuel weight to cover the same distance. _QatarShell

When even pro-nuclear activists such as Rod Adams are speaking out in favour of a coal - nuclear partnership to produce liquid transportation fuels, you should understand that people are finally beginning to look at the possibilities.

Coal is a valuable resource that can be safely mined for centuries by well-trained and compensated miners. Instead of eliminating the use of coal, I would prefer to help coal miners and coal mine owners to recognize that they could make more money and sell a cleaner product if they upgraded their fuel at the mine rather than shipping a dirt-filled, unrefined product that sells for a huge discount in the energy market.

...My pitch to the coal industry would be to use cheap, clean nuclear heat to convert H2O and their carbon rich fuel into a refined hydrocarbon that could compete with petroleum products.

...Shipping oil instead of coal from our domestic mines would also be very beneficial to the US national security and to the prosperity of the world. Just think about the positive impact that substantially lower US demand would have on the price of diesel fuel delivered to a developing country. _RodAdams

Until more people are able to think of energy in multi-disciplinary, multi-industrial terms, societies will be forced to pay higher prices for fuels and energy than is necessary. By including cheap and unlimited nuclear reactor process heat into the fuel production mix, we can immediately bring CTL, GTL, bitumens to liquids, kerogens to liquids, and even biomass to liquids (BTL) into the feasible and profitable arena.

Fortunately, more nuclear advocates are beginning to understand the importance of cleanly integrating coal and gas into the overall energy and fuels mix. But we need more bright chemical engineers like Robert Rapier, and physicists like Tom Murphy, to crunch the numbers once again -- this time including the powerful impact of high temperature process heat from modular and mini-modular HT gas-cooled nuclear reactors.

By utilising scalable, factory produced reactors which can be sited at the point of production of gas, coal, bitumens, kerogens, methane hydrates -- and even biomass in some situations of intensive cultivation -- it should be clear to any objective observer that a new era of hydrocarbon production is quite feasible.

Government action could certainly prevent this development. The great carbon hysteria delusion -- if firmly enacted into law in the developed world -- would not only kill unconventional fuels, it would kill the economic viability of the underlying societies themselves. That is what several governments, from the UK to Obama's US to Australia to the EU are attempting to do in various ways.

A far less likely -- but still potentially effective -- way to stop the revolution in unconventional fuels, is for the national oil companies of OPEC and other oil dictatorships to route needed funds into oil field production, exploration, discovery, and development. It would be easy for existing oil fields and fields under development to ramp up production to overwhelm even the current inflated levels of global demand -- if the equipment, manpower, and funding were allotted for the purpose. But this will not be done, because governments from Russia to Venezuela to Saudi Arabia etc need oil prices to remain artificially high so that they can use oil profits to pacify unstable populations and pay off highly placed insiders.

Previously published on Al Fin Energy

Extra bonus just for loyal Al Fin readers: China apparently has vast shale gas reserves. China is vigorously pursuing the development of these gas reserves.

In the early phases this will help the North American engineers and drilling companies who assist in China's learning curve for shale gas production. It will also help China negotiate more favourable gas prices with Russia's Gazprom.

In the long run, these huge natural gas reserves will help reduce China's oversize demand for imported crude oil. This down-shifting of global oil demand will occur due to China's increasing use of an up and coming coal -- natural gas hybrid liquefaction process. This process of synthetic fuels production should become particularly economical when using cheap nuclear process heat as the primary heat source.

Russia itself will be forced to adopt GTL technologies as it finds some of its best customers turning to their own shale gas reserves, and turning away from Gazprom.

Do Oil Wells Re-Charge Themselves?

There have been numerous reports in recent times, of oil and gas fields not running out at the expected time, but instead showing a higher content of hydrocarbons after they had already produced more than the initially estimated amount. This has been seen in the Middle East, in the deep gas wells of Oklahoma, on the Gulf of Mexico coast, and in other places. It is this apparent refilling during production that has been responsible for the series of gross underestimate of reserves that have been published time and again, the most memorable being the one in the early seventies that firmly predicted the end of oil and gas globally by 1987, a prediction which produced an energy crisis and with that a huge shift in the wealth of nations. Refilling is an item of the greatest economic significance, and also a key to understanding what the sources of all this petroleum had been. It is also of practical engineering importance, since we may be able to exercise some control over the refilling process. _Recharging of Oil & Gas Fields

RigzoneOf course we all understand the concept of "repressurising oil fields" using gas injection and other means.

As the oil or natural gas in a formation is produced, the hydrocarbons remaining in the reservoir may become trapped because the pressure in the formation has lessened, making production either slow dramatically or stop altogether.

...gas injection is used on a well to enhance waning pressure within the formation. Systematically spread throughout the field, gas-injection wells are used to inject gas and effectively sweep the formation for remaining petroleum, boosting production.... gas injection can serve as an economical way to dispose of uneconomical gas production on an oil reservoir. While in the past, low levels of natural gas that were produced from oil fields were flared or burned off, that practice is discouraged in some countries and against the law in others.

...Gas Injection, Gas Lift & Gas Miscible Process
Although the terms are sometimes interchanged, gas injection and gas lift are two separate processes that are used to increase production. While gas injection is a secondary production method, gas lift is a type of artificial lift.

Artificial lift is another way to increase production from a well by increasing pressure within the reservoir. The main types of artificial lift include gas lift and pumping systems, such as beam pumps, hydraulic pumps and electric submersible pumps.

While gas injection is achieved by injecting gas through its own injection well, gas lift occurs through the production wells. In gas lift, compressed gas is injected down the casing tubing annulus of a production well, entering the well at numerous entry points called gas-lift valves. As the gas enters the tubing at these different stages, it forms bubbles, lightens the fluids and lowers the pressure, thus increasing the production rate of the well.

Furthermore, a type of EOR employed on a well in the tertiary production process, a gas miscible process can be used to increase production. The difference in this recovery method is that the gases introduced into the reservoir are not naturally occurring. In a gas miscible process, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and LPG are injected into the reservoir. _Rigzone Gas Injection

Most of the oil in existing wells remains underground, waiting for people to become smart enough to retrieve it. Better enhanced oil recovery techniques will inevitably be developed to extract more and more of the residual hydrocarbon -- until it is no longer economical to do so. Then the remaining oil will wait for further developments.

Thomas Gold argues (here and here for example) that oil wells are charged and re-charged with new oil & gas from below. He claimed that most new hydrocarbons are generated deep in the crust, rising into geological traps at several different depths for particular parts of the crust. That is the abiogenic theory of hydrocarbon production, which is supported by astronomical data and by lab data simulating conditions in the deep crust and upper mantle.

Rapid charging of oil fields -- such as is suggested here -- would require deeper secondary reservoirs under pressure, feeding into the primary reservoirs as they are depleted.

There is another way in which oil & gas fields are re-charged -- via the biogenic production of oil & gas. But biogenic production via geologic heat and pressure is generally a much slower method of re-charging than Gold's abiogenic method. But it inevitably occurs all the same. Biogenic oil is a renewable resource, but it is renewable on a different time scale than humans generally use.

And yet, there is a way in which biogenic oil can "rapidly" recharge a depleted oil field. In the case of multiple communicating oil reservoirs at different depths, heat, and pressure, a deeper biogenic reservoir could re-fill a more superficial reservoir at variable rates, depending upon a number of factors. Oil & gas migrate upwardly, when given the opportunity. In this case, instead of "turtles all the way down," it is "oil & gas reservoirs all the way down." ;-)

Biogenic Oil FormationThis image illustrates the conventional idea of biogenic formation of oil. Imagine it taking place over and over again, during the 3 billion + years that photosynthetic life has been converting CO2 into various biological carbon polymers, layer stacked upon layer etc etc . . . . .

Abiogenic Hydrocarbons Forming in the Mantle

This image illustrates the likely abiogenic formation of hydrocarbons in the upper mantle. These hydrocarbons then can migrate upward into the crust, and become trapped under impermeable minerals. Abiogenic hydrocarbons almost certainly mix with biogenic hydrocarbons.

Abiogenic hydrocarbons are also modified in various ways by deep crust microbial populations. In other words, the predominately short-chain abiogenic hydrocarbons from the mantle can be converted to longer chain hydrocarbons on the way up.

Finally, there is the ocean crustal tectonic activity which feeds a constant supply of partially processed organic material to the deep crust and mantle via constant subduction of ocean crust beneath continental crust. This is a slow but steady pipeline which supplies feedstock for production of oil & gas on a constant basis. The Earth's huge gas hydrate resource likely owes a great deal to this tectonic process.

Previously published on Al Fin Energy

Barack Obama: A Fashionable Failure?

The Presidents and the Forgotten Man
Of all US Presidents, Obama is the one most noted for the crease of his pants and the cut of his suits. Mr. Obama is well-suited for fashionable vacations, retreats, and hideaways, and is always among the best dressed on the golf course. When he was elected US President in 2008, he was riding a veritable wave of fashion.

But now that the world has had a chance to see the man in action, as the leader of the world's richest and most powerful nation, it is clear that the current US president leaves much to be desired. Take Obama's energy policies:

President Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, have all made it clear they want to make fossil fuels more expensive. And after their failed attempt to crush fossil fuels in one fell swoop with cap and trade legislation, they’ve turned to federal agencies to impose a long list of selective and foolish regulations on America’s oil and natural gas producers.

Of course each of these regulations on their own won’t be the death of fossil fuels. But combined, they’re setting the stage for a chilling ending that will mean the loss of millions of jobs, billions in tax revenue and weaker national security.

...In 2010, the EPA slapped a remediation order on a natural gas producer in Texas while the state’s oil and gas regulation agency was still conducting tests regarding alleged water well contamination. After testing was complete, the contamination was found to be naturally occurring and in no way related to drilling. But the EPA’s arbitrary and shameful actions proved the agency can target any company at random and force them to clean up, at their own expense, a problem they had nothing to do with.

And more costly regulations are on the horizon with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services now considering the addition of 100 Texas species to the endangered species list. It’s estimated that one species alone, the dune sagebrush lizard, could cost oil and natural gas producers, and state and private royalty owners hundreds of millions of dollars over the next ten years.

But perhaps most troubling could be the reporting of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions on oil and gas facilities in the field. And at what cost? Training, consulting fees, data tracking and ultimate reporting will cost one large independent an estimated $10-$20 million per year. The EPA definitions and thresholds will encompass the smallest to the largest domestic producers.

And to what end? Take your pick – regulatory cap and trade, curtailment, or a new carbon tax. The Obama administration will do through regulation what they could not accomplish through legislation.

...you could look to the Administration’s decision to deny the Keystone XL pipeline permit. That decision not only deprives American consumers of oil from a friendly neighbor, Canada, but also means most of the 500,000 bbls per day of oil from the massive Bakken field in North Dakota and Montana will continue to be transported by truck or rail at a much higher cost; ultimately resulting in higher gasoline prices. Of course it’s just a coincidence that Berkshire Hathaway, run by Warren Buffett, one of Obama’s biggest supporters, owns the railroad transporting significant amounts of that oil.

So who’s the ultimate victim in this tale of mounting regulation? The American people. The administration knows that by increasing regulation, it also increases the cost of doing business and ultimately, the price consumers pay at the pump. And by making fossil fuels artificially expensive, they’re clearing the path for their friends in the so-called “green” energy industry.
What’s even more alarming is that all of this comes at a time when America’s abundant supply of oil and natural gas could play a significant role in solving our nation’s most pressing problems—unemployment, debt and national security.

...Any way you slice it, the Obama Administration is out of touch with reality. _Forbes_Mike Cantrell

Obama's suicidal national policy of energy starvation is all the more amazing when one understands that it is based upon the discredited carbon hysteria fad. Mr. Obama's dysfunctional carbon hysteric policies of energy starvation have hamstrung all forms of reliable energy -- from nuclear to coal to oil to gas to oil sands to oil shale kerogens.

High powered economic societies require a large amount of reliable energy, fuel, and electrical power. Mr. Obama's favoured providers -- big money wind and big money solar -- are not reliable. In fact, most European nations which have tried these expensive and unreliable forms of energy production on a large scale, are being forced to back off very rapidly -- for the sake of their economies.

The energy starvation policies of President Obama represent just one aspect of the man's war against the US private sector. When looked at in their entirety, Mr. Obama's economic policies spell doom for the American economy.

Mr. Obama is no doubt still considered a very fashionable president -- particularly by the thug-monkeys of the US skankstream media, and by powerful special interest groups and lobbies. But anyone with clear vision and an honest voice would have to admit that the president is a fashionable failure, best-suited to be sent out to the fashion pasture of former presidents, where he can do much less harm than he is doing in his current position.

Creativity Is Dangerous -- The Absence of Creativity Is Fatal

When we encounter new creativity, the work of someone who is really trying to bring something new to the game, our first reaction won’t be, ‘Oh, that’s lovely’, but rather, ‘Oh my God, that looks dangerous’. Maybe even that it’s disgusting.

We need to recapture the edge that creativity is supposed to have and inject that back into the discussion about it. _CreativeTimesUK

Removing danger and risk from life necessarily involves removing creativity. And without creativity, human life on the scale of modern times, is impossible. In other words, the engineers of modern societies are grooming their populations for oblivion, by removing risk, responsibility, and creativity from their childhood and adult lives.

As a general rule, we dislike uncertainty. It makes us uneasy. A certain world is a much friendlier place. And so, we work hard to reduce whatever uncertainty we can, often by making habitual, practical choices, choices that protect the status quo. You know the saying, better the devil you know? That about sums it up.

Creativity, on the other hand, requires novelty. Imagination is all about new possibilities, eventualities that don’t exit, counterfactuals, a recombination of elements in new ways. In other words, it is about the untested. And the untested is uncertain. It is frightening... _SciAm "Why So Afraid of Creativity?"

Democracies are all about keeping the voting masses relatively calm and satisfied. If this involves the wide scale infantilisation of mass populations from the cradle to the grave, then so be it. Humans are unpredictable creatures. Best to keep them fat, dumb, and happy.

If you are considering putting yourself out there creatively/emotionally, or are already doing so, you have a potential audience that is much, much larger than just your parents. It is true that the world can be a cruel and punishing place, but it is also large and welcoming. It is just a matter of when you will be heard and who will be there to hear you. _PsychologyToday

Okay, the last quote is a bit touchy-feely psychobabblish. Of course there is no guarantee that taking creative or emotional risks will turn out well in the end. That is the point: There are no guarantees, either way.

Complacent people will choose not to take the risk, not to create or innovate into a new and unfamiliar world. They will choose a wide choice of home entertainment, alcoholic beverages, and prescription drugs. Lots of prescription drugs.

Perhaps you have guessed by now that dangerous children are not about staying in the safe zone, and avoiding risk and responsibility. Dangerous children learn that the best way to become trapped in the stun-stall of the abattoir is to play it safe, and stay inside the prescribed lines.

Al Fin social analysts suspect that most persons living in modern social democracies will choose the path of mass oblivion. But just in case there are some who would choose differently, we are exploring the concept of "the dangerous child."

If you are interested in learning more about the concept of "the dangerous child," we are running a series of postings on that topic at Al Fin, the Next Level. Feel free to drop in anytime.

First published at abu al-fin

IQ Research: Limited Lasting Benefit from Early Childhood Intervention

Approximate Average IQs by Nation / Region
It is generally felt among IQ researchers that the heritability of IQ is somewhat lower in children from families of low socioeconomic (SES) status. If true, the possibility for raising IQ through early childhood intervention provides hope for narrowing IQ gaps between groups that statistically tend to populate different SES strata.

A recent UK IQ study by SES, of 8716 twin pairs, suggests that we should view earlier research on this topic critically -- particularly if it was performed with fewer than 5,000 twin pairs.

If heritability is lower in lower-SES families, it suggests that environmental interventions might be more effective in boosting cognitive development for children in lower-SES families. The present study, which is based on a large UK-representative sample of children followed longitudinally, leads to a similar implication. Although the genetic influence on IQ is the same in lower-SES families, shared environmental influence appears to be greater in lower-SES families, suggesting that family-based environmental interventions might be more effective in these families. However, two further aspects of the results temper the policy implications of this finding. First, shared environmental influence is found in both lower- and higher-SES families and the difference in shared environmental influence between them is modest. Second, shared environmental influences on IQ decline from childhood to adulthood so that these influences might not have an impact in the long run. _PLoS: SES and Children's IQ

The above study when combined with an earlier study by some of the same authors, looking for the quantitative effect of specific genes on IQ, suggests that we should not expect to develop any magical intervention for permanently raising IQ in the near future -- from either environmental or genetic interventions.

This is bad news for groups which occupy the low rung of the SES ladder -- either as sub-populations within a particular country, or as low ranking countries within the community of nations, eg sub-Saharan African countries.

Hope springs eternal, however. Here is a look at the prospects for development in sub-Saharan Africa from an Indian perspective:

Samir Brahmachari, Director General of India's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR, knows that intellectually, Africa is a goldmine. "Of every thousand Africans, one has an IQ of 140" he says. That sort of brilliance can't be put down, all it needs is a push in the right direction.

But he also knows India is in the best position to help. "I was part of the team that first mapped the Indian genome", he says. "And we found that among all the ethnic groups of the world, Indians have the maximum number of genes similar to Africans". _ibnlive.in

Is it true that one out of 1,000 sub-Saharan Africans has an IQ of 140? Let's try to find out.

Below you will find a Z score probability calculator which will let you test this assertion for yourself. Set the calculator to compute the area under the "right" tail (rather than the default setting of "left"). Now you will need to enter a "Z" score -- what should you enter? The Z score is simply the number of standard deviations from the mean for which you are seeking a probability. So we want to know what the mean IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is, so that we can calculate how many standard deviations from the mean the score of "140" happens to be.

The most likely IQ mean for SS Africa is 75 points, which is 65 points away from 140. Dividing 65 by a standard deviation of 15 gives a Z score of 4.333... But the calculator does not allow you to enter a value higher than 4, so enter 4 as the Z value. The result for the area (probability) of the curve at or above approx. 140, is given as 0.000032.

Is a probability of 0.000032 the same as 1 in 1,000? No, 1 in 1,000 would correspond to a probability of 0.001. The actual likelihood of finding a sub-Saharan African at random with an IQ at or above 140, is about 3 in 100,000. Not exactly the "gold mine" which the CSIR's Brahmachari claims -- more like tin.

What if Brahmachari was referring to North Africans, with an average IQ of 85? That would put a score of 140 about 55 points from the mean of 85, giving us a Z score of 3.666... If we enter a Z score of 3.67 in the box, we obtain an area of 0.000121, or a probability of about 0.0001. Is that 1 in 1000? No, it is about 1 in 10,000. Still not a gold mine, but perhaps copper.

For Brahmachari's assertion to be true, he would have to be referring to a population with a mean IQ of about 95 -- where a score of 140 would have a Z value just above 3. That is very close to the mean IQ of the United States or Russia, and considerably above the mean IQ of any part of Africa -- or even India. I wonder what Brahmachari was thinking? Does the CSIR have secret plans to colonise Russia or the US?

By zscorecalculator.com

The average population IQ of a nation leads to important consequences in terms of national GDP, and national competitiveness. The map at the top of this entry suggests one reason why some nations have better economic prospects than others.

Unfortunately, it looks as if will be a matter of decades, at least, before science can do anything to change that picture.