Category: Body & Mind

Obama is Bringing Change

Barack Obama’s campaign was based around the idea of change and now that he’s been elected it looks like he’s getting around to changing things. Yesterday he lifted the ban on stem cell research that Bush put in place.

“Today, with the executive order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers, doctors, and innovators, patients and loved ones have hoped for, fought for these past eight years,” Obama told reporters at a news conference at the White House on Monday.

“We will lift the ban on federal funding for … embryonic stem cell research.”

The long-promised move will allow a rush of research aimed at one day better treating, if not curing, ailments from diabetes to paralysis — research that has drawn broad support, including from notables like Nancy Reagan, widow of the late Republican president Ronald Reagan.

Under Bush, taxpayer money for that research was limited to the 21 stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001. But researchers have said that these lines have, in many cases, had some drawbacks that limited their potential usability.

Learning Disability Treatment Breakthrough

Some Toronto-based researchers have found a way to treat learning disabilities using drugs. This seems kinda weird to me, but let’s see what happens!

To find out how important the protein was to learning, the researchers decided to breed mice that were missing the gene that makes the Neto1 protein and then evaluate the cognitive abilities of those mice.

They found that the altered mice had no obvious physical or behavioural problems but did have trouble learning new skills compared to normal mice.

The mice missing Neto1 failed a simple test in which they were made to swim through a water maze and find a hidden safety platform that would get them out of the water. Normal mice swimming through the maze were able to find the platform faster with each try, but the mice missing Neto1 got lost every time and did not seem to remember how to find the platform.

Gross National Happiness

Another cool thing about Bhutan is that they measure their well being using GNH opposed to GDP or GNP.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is an attempt to define quality of life in more holistic and psychological terms than Gross National Product.
The term was coined by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972 soon after the demise of his father King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk who has opened up Bhutan to the age of modernization. It signaled his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan’s unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. Like many moral goals, it is somewhat easier to state than to define. Nonetheless, it serves as a unifying vision for the Five Year planning process and all the derived planning documents that guide the economic and development plans of the country.
While conventional development models stress economic growth as the ultimate objective, the concept of GNH claims to be based on the premise that true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance.