Our Microbiome May Be Looking Out for Itself – NYTimes.com

…a team of scientists has raised a creepier possibility. Perhaps our menagerie of germs is also influencing our behavior in order to advance its own evolutionary success — giving us cravings for certain foods, for example.Maybe the microbiome is our puppet master.

via Our Microbiome May Be Looking Out for Itself – NYTimes.com.

As I’ve changed my eating, my cravings have been radically reduced. It’s still easy to follow the “dark path” to decadent delights, but I don’t have to live there constantly now. I have more control. Interesting to see what we’re discovering.

DST Change Increases Risk for Heart Attack

I knew Day Light Saving time was bad! Now there’s proof! I think we should just stick to one time ALL year. No one wants change, let’s limit change to something useful, like three different ways to get up from the floor or a chair. Maybe it’s time to start one of those Change.org petitions to stop the change. Do we have a Homeland Ministry of Time yet? or a Time Czar? Maybe it’s time!

A number of studies indicate that springing ahead to Daylight Saving Time DST may be hazardous to your health. Although the one-hour time change may seem minor, when it comes to your body’s internal clock, it actually is a big deal.

via DST Change Increases Your Risk for Heart Attack.

The Myth of Muscle Memory – Sports Nutrition Articles – The Cory Holly Institute

“Most people have heard of muscle memory. When a person starts lifting weights after a lay off, it’s much easier for them to return to their previous levels of size and strength than it was to get there the first time around. It also takes less time. Therefore the muscle fibers must obviously “remember” their former state.

Muscle fibers do not remember anything. Muscle fibers do not have a separate independent “mind” of their own. All memory is retrieved from inside the brain which commands all action and response.…

Physiologists know that any skeletal muscle activity that is learned can become essentially automatic with practice. Muscle memory is therefore a common term for neuromuscular facilitation, which is the process of the neuromuscular system memorizing motor skills. We know that repetition is the mother of skill and that practice makes permanent. After repeating the same movement over and over again, the movement seemingly becomes second nature. It’s like we’re not paying attention but of course it’s all coming from the same region of the brain that controls everything.”

The Myth of Muscle Memory – Sports Nutrition Articles – The Cory Holly Institute.

Home After a Stroke: Brain Plasticity Will Blow Your Mind

“New technology confirms that nerve cells can sprout new branches.  For example, Marshall describes cortical regeneration associated with finger-thumb opposition. … New growth is called a neurite until it differentiates into an axon or a dentrite.  Researchers are still learning which chemicals support or hinder the neurogenesis seen in the video.  However, only repeated training makes new dentrites cluster together so they work efficiently as a group.  I haven’t seen research that says how much repetition is needed to produce neuroplasticity.  I’m pretty sure that a few minutes of exercise followed by hours of disuse isn’t enough.”

via Home After a Stroke: Brain Plasticity Will Blow Your Mind.