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Stupid People

They are here represented as the most stupid, senseless people in the world, that would not be made wise by all the methods that Infinite Wisdom took to bring them to themselves and their right mind, and so to prevent the ruin that was coming upon them.

Idols

Whatever we make a god of but the true God only, it will stand us in no stead on the other side death and the grave, nor for the body, much less for the soul.

ref. Matthew Henry

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• Contrary to popular belief, there are many different kinds of dementia, each with its own unique symptom list.
• One of the most common forms of dementia that surfaces in midlife is called frontotemporal dementia (FTD); this is the form that Bruce Willis was diagnosed with.
• In a new study published in Nature Aging, researchers used spinal tap fluid to identify potential new biomarkers for FTD, which could lead personalized treatments.

While most people lump dementia into one general group, the truth is that there are different forms of the disease, each with their own symptoms.

The most common form of dementia that surfaces in midlife (generally talking 40s and 50s here) is called frontotemporal dementia (or FTD), and it tends to get confused with depression, schizophrenia, or Parkinson’s disease before people are properly diagnosed.

While Bruce Willis’ diagnosis with frontotemporal dementia has put a spotlight on this form of the devastating disease, there still aren’t any reliable biomarkers to detect or even monitor the condition.

But now, new research has helped to pinpoint certain changes that happen in the body due to frontotemporal dementia, and the findings could eventually lead to diagnostic testing for the condition. Here’s what the study found, plus what neurologists want you to know about early-onset dementia.

Meet the experts: Rowan Saloner, PhD, is a study co-author and professor in the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center; Clifford Segil, DO, is a neurologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA; Amit Sachdev, MD, is the medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University

What did the study find?

The study, which was published in the journal Nature Aging, analyzed more than 4,000 proteins in spinal tap fluid from 116 patients with frontotemporal dementia. The researchers compared those proteins to ones from 39 of the patients’ healthy relatives.

The researchers discovered that patients with frontotemporal dementia had changes in the proteins that suggest they have problems with RNA regulation, which is required for the correct gene expression in the brain. (Gene expression can impact how your brain works.) These patients also had certain changes that impacted connections in their brains.

These proteins could be the first markers for frontotemporal dementia that surface when people develop the disease, according to the researchers.

Why are these proteins so important?

There are a few reasons. First, “frontotemporal dementia can be caused by several very different types of brain pathology, making it very difficult to provide an accurate diagnosis to patients,” explains Rowan Saloner, PhD, study co-author and professor in the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. “Right now, we have no way to tell which pathology someone has while they’re alive, especially in non-inherited cases, which make up the majority of frontotemporal dementia.”

But by IDing changes in spinal fluid protein, doctors can detect the disease and track its progression. “That will hopefully lead to more accurate diagnoses and personalized treatments,” Saloner says.

That’s crucial, given that this form of dementia tends to be missed early on, says Clifford Segil, DO, a neurologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. But genetic testing could help give patients and their doctors a better sense of what might be behind their symptoms, he says.

One thing to keep in mind: This study focused on people with an inherited or genetic form of frontotemporal dementia. “We do not know if genetic frontotemporal dementia and sporadic frontotemporal dementia just look the same in the end but have different paths to development,” says Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, is the medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University. “If they have different paths, then this study has helped us learn about genetic frontotemporal dementia. That is useful but not as broadly applicable.”

What else do we know about early-onset dementia?

Early-onset dementias like frontotemporal dementia usually impact people in their 40s or 50s, Saloner says. “They can be difficult to diagnose, as early symptoms are often misattributed to stress or psychiatric disorders,” he says. “Compared to Alzheimer’s disease, which now has biomarkers and FDA-approved treatments, frontotemporal dementia remains behind.”

Segil says that early-onset dementia should be considered “if someone loses the ability to talk or express themselves and other neurological conditions like a stroke, seizure, or infection have been ruled out.”

Ultimately, Sachdev says that more information is better with the disease. “It is important to know as much as possible about how these diseases arise,” he says. “It gives us something to work from in everyone else.”

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Ah, it’s a lovely night for enjoying the outdoors. You go outside in the warm summer air to listen to the crickets and breathe in the scents of verdant life, and then turn your head to the heavens. You see hundreds of stars in the sky, and the brightest are conspicuously twinkling and gleaming.

Some are even shifting their colors across the rainbow, delighting your eyes and mind—unless you’re out there to do some observing with a telescope. That twinkling is lovely for any average stargazer to behold, but scientifically, it’s a pain in the astronomer.

Twinkling is the apparent rapid variation of brightness and color of the stars. It’s technically called scintillation, from the Latin for “sparkle,” which is apt. While it is admittedly lovely, it’s still the bane of astronomers across the world.

For millennia, twinkling was misunderstood. As with so many scientific principles, it was misdiagnosed by ancient Greeks such as Aristotle, who attributed it to human vision. At that time, he and his peers believed that the eye actively created vision by sending out beams that illuminated objects and allowed us to see them. But these beams were imperfect, so the belief went, and the farther away an object was, the more the beam would be distorted; stars, being very far away, suffered this flaw greatly, causing them to twinkle. It was Isaac Newton, through his studies of optics, who finally determined the true cause.

A fundamental property of light—true of all waves, in fact—is that it bends when it goes from one medium to another. You’re familiar with this: a spoon sitting in a glass of water looks bent at the top of the liquid. This is called refraction, and in the case of the spoon, it happens when the light goes from the water in the glass to the air on its way to your eye, distorting the shape of the otherwise unbent spoon. The amount of refraction depends on the properties of the materials through which the light travels. Density, for instance, can dictate the degree of refraction for light moving through gas—so light traveling through air alone will still bend if the air has different densities from one spot to the next.

If Earth’s atmosphere were perfectly static and homogeneous, then the refraction of starlight would be minimal. Our air is always in motion, however, and far from smooth. Winds far above the planet’s surface stir the air, creating turbulence. This roils the gases, creating small air packets of different densities that move to and fro.

Starlight passing through one such parcel of air will bend slightly. From our point of view on Earth, the position of the star will shift slightly when that happens. The air is also in motion, so from moment to moment, the starlight will pass through different parcels on its way to your eye or your detector, shifting position each time, usually randomly because of the air’s turbulent motion. What you see on the ground, then, is the star rapidly shifting left, right, up and down, and all directions in between, several times per second—in other words, twinkling.

The amount of the shift is confusingly called “seeing” by astronomers, and it’s actually quite small. It’s usually only a few arcseconds, a very small angle on the sky—the full moon, for example, is about 1,800 arcseconds wide. Stars, though, are so far away from us that they appear to be a minuscule fraction of an arcsecond wide, a tiny point of light to the eye, so even this minuscule arcsecond-scale shifting makes them appear to dance around.

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I am standing outside an ordinary house in a tree-lined street on a midsummer afternoon, about to change my life. I glance through a  window and see the reassuring domestic ephemera of books, a computer monitor, a child’s drawing. Next to the front door is a small, typed sign with the details of a psychotherapist. I draw myself up, feeling both grown up and childishly nervous, and ring the buzzer.

It is June 2012, and I am nearing 38. The country is preoccupied with whether the Olympics will be ready on time and if England might crash out of the Euros. I have other things on my mind. A few weeks earlier, I made a call. The woman on the end of the line was polite, warm, and to the point, and we agreed to meet. Waiting for her to answer the door, I start to sweat: will I like her? Will she think I am a time-waster? What am I going to say?

I feel like an outlier: in 2012, therapy carries something of a stigma. Beyond one or two close friends, I haven’t told anyone I’m here. The open conversations we have today around mental health weren’t happening. Now, Covid has sharpened everyone’s awareness of their own mental health struggles: according to a report by Mind last November, over a third of Britons say they don’t have the support or tools to deal with the ups and downs of life. Ten million people will need support for their mental health as

a direct result of the pandemic, according to the Centre for Mental Health. Demand for therapy is outstripping supply. A study by the New York Times in December 2021 revealed that therapists in the US, where it has always been more accepted, are turning away patients. Even in the UK, demand for mental health advice has soared since the start of the pandemic.

It hasn’t taken a crisis for me to seek help. I’m doing so because I feel stuck: at work, in life, and certainly in love. I feel there is a braver, happier, more fulfilled person inside me trying to get out, but I don’t know how to reach her. I am existing with a low-level frustration, without being able to pinpoint what I am frustrated with, let alone find the tools to address it.

I have been wondering for a while if talking to a professional might help. But something has always stopped me: who am I, with a loving family, good friends, a roof over my head, and food on the table, to need therapy? I don’t come from a family of therapy-seekers. My Yorkshire-born parents, from working-class homes, would no sooner have sought out something so self-indulgent than joined a circus. In the world I’ve grown up in, therapy is seen as a  rather shameful last resort for someone in need of help, not for someone with a functioning life who’s feeling a bit directionless. Just cheer up and get on with it was the message I learned.

As a result, it has taken me a long time to convince myself that, even though I am not suffering from what my friend (and also a therapist), Ellen, calls “capital T trauma”, it could be helpful. As Stephen Grosz writes in his 2013 book The Examined Life: “At one time or another, most of us have felt trapped by things we find ourselves thinking or doing, caught by our own impulses or foolish choices; ensnared in some unhappiness or fear; imprisoned by our own history. We feel unable to go forward, and yet we believe that there must be a way.”

I want to change. In fact, I want to be a different person altogether. I am like an old house whose electrics keep shorting in the same place, and I want someone to rewire me. I have a very strong sense that unless I do something, I’ll be stuck here for ever. So here I am, sweating on a doorstep, asking for help. I am about to learn a huge amount.

Tears Are Useful

As I sit down for my first session, I notice a box of tissues on a table within arm’s reach. I get through a lot of them that afternoon. The release of talking, of being listened to, is an emotional experience.

We sit in a book-filled room; I am on a comfy sofa, my therapist is on a chair. Light pours in. Over the years, I can almost memorise the titles behind her, so long will I spend gazing at them when stuck for words. Likewise, the tree outside her window becomes as familiar as the view from my own flat: I will witness its full cycle – from summer fullness to bare winter branches – many times over.

In these early weeks, I do a lot of talking as my therapist gets to know me. When she speaks, it is often to affirm what I’ve said: “It sounds like you’ve always … ” or, “It’s OK to feel … ” At first, I sit upright; as I start to feel more comfortable, I sometimes curl my legs under me.

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Images of inhumanity and atrocity are burned into our memories. Jewish men, women, and children being herded into gas chambers. Entire villages destroyed by rampaging gangs in Rwanda. The systematic use of rape and the destruction of communities as part of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. The massacre at My Lai in South Vietnam, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and most recently, the carnage wrought by suicide bombers in Baghdad, Jerusalem, London, and Madrid. Reflecting on these events, we inevitably ask: What makes people so brutal? Are they mentally ill? Are they the products of dysfunctional families or cultures? Or, more disturbingly, is anyone capable of taking part in collective ruthlessness given the right–or rather, the wrong–circumstances? Now, the latest research, including possibly the largest social-psychology experiment in three decades, is providing a new window on these conundrums.

Initially, theorists sought answers to group pathology in individual psychology. In 1961, however, German-born American historian and political philosopher Hannah Arendt witnessed the trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust. She concluded that far from the defendant demonstrating a perverted and sadistic personality (as psychiatrists for the prosecution claimed), he was utterly unremarkable and disarmingly ordinary. Arendt pronounced Eichmann to be an embodiment of the banality of evil.

Everyday Evil?

First published in 1963 in the New Yorker, Arendt’s analysis was considered shocking and heretical. But a series of studies conducted around the same time supported her observations. In experiments at U.S. summer camps during the late 1950s, Muzafer Sherif, a Turkish-born American social psychologist, learned that normal schoolboys became cruel and aggressive toward former friends once they had been placed in different groups that had to compete over scarce resources. Even more striking were obedience studies carried out at Yale University in the early 1960s by Stanley Milgram. Ordinary, well-adjusted males who took part in a bogus memory experiment were told to deliver electric shocks of increasing magnitude to another person who posed as the learner. (In actuality, the learner, an accomplice of the experimenter, received no shocks.) Amazingly, every single teacher was prepared to administer intense shocks of 300 volts, and two thirds obeyed all the experimenter’s requests, dispensing what they believed were 450 volts. Participants continued meting out punishments even after hearing the learner complain of a heart condition and yell in apparent agony. Milgram concluded: Arendt’s conception of the banality of evil comes closer to the truth than one might dare to imagine.

The vivid culmination of this line of inquiry was the Stanford prison experiment, carried out in 1971 by Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo and his colleagues. The researchers randomly assigned college students to be either prisoners or guards in a simulated prison in the basement of the campus psychology building. The goal was to explore the dynamics that developed within and between the groups over a two-week period. The study delivered these dynamics in abundance. Indeed, the guards (with Zimbardo as their superintendent) exerted force with such harshness that the study was halted after only six days.

The experimenters concluded that group members cannot resist the pressure of their assumed stations and that brutality is the natural expression of roles associated with groups who have unequal power. Accordingly, two maxims, which have had immense influence at both a scientific and a cultural level–and which are taught as received knowledge to millions of students around the world every year–are routinely drawn from the Stanford experiment. The first is that individuals lose their capacity for intellectual and moral judgment in groups; hence, groups are inherently dangerous. The second is that there is an inevitable impetus for people to act tyrannically once they are put in groups and given power.

Reexamining Group Power

The weight of the Stanford prison experiment lies in both its dramatic findings and the simple, stark conclusions that have been drawn from it. Over the years, however, social psychologists have developed doubts about the resulting received wisdom.

First, the idea that groups with power automatically become tyrannical ignores the active leadership that the experimenters provided. Zimbardo told his guards: You can create in the prisoners… a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us…. Theyll have no freedom of action, they can do nothing, say nothing that we dont permit…. Were going to take away their individuality in various ways.

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 Tyranny

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Have you ever done a deep clean of your fridge and noticed that the shelf doors have essentially turned into time capsules stashing condiments way past their expiration dates?

Obviously, it’s time to toss the mystery mayo that’s leftover from a long-ago barbecue and the forgotten-about jar of salsa that’s turned into a science experiment. But there are all kinds of other scenarios that are more befuddling: Do you need to get rid of the sour cream that has a pool of liquid on top of it, but hasn’t reached

its expiration date? (You’ve probably got a couple days, btw, but the end is nearing for your taco topping). And what about ketchup and mustard from last summer’s cookouts?

If you find yourself in a condiment conundrum, and you’re deciding what to toss and what to keep, there are a few general rules to be mindful of, says nutritionist Mary Sabat, MS, RDN, LD.

First things first: Is the bottle opened? Unopened condiments are generally going to have a longer shelf life compared to open ones since they haven’t been exposed to potential contaminants that can speed up bacteria growth, Sabat says.

“Once a bottle is opened, the shelf life can be significantly reduced due to increased exposure to bacteria,” Sabat says.

Proper storage is also a biggie. Many condiments need to be stored in a cool, dry place away from sunlight and heat, while refrigeration is necessary for things like mayo and creamy salad dressings that will otherwise spoil.

Expiration dates printed on the condiment bottles are really meant to tell you when the product is at its peak quality, Sabat says. Expired sauces, spreads, and dressings will likely lose their flavor over time, and, worst-case scenario, could make you sick.

With that info out of the way, here are 13 condiments you should never eat after their expiration dates (and in some cases, may even need to toss earlier).

Mayo Needs to Be Tossed Two Months After Opening

A safe rule of thumb is anything that contains mayonnaise should be tossed at the time of its expiration, especially if the jar has been opened, says dietitian Bess Berger, RDN, with the New Jersey-based company Nutrition by Bess.

Store-bought mayo usually contains acids which help prevent spoilage and kill off bacteria. But you may need to toss a half-full bottle of mayo before its expiration date if it’s been sitting out in the sun all day during a backyard barbecue, Berger says. Also, after it’s opened, it should go in the fridge for up to two months, according to the USDA.

Keep Close Tabs on Mayo-Based Dips, Too

From garlic aioli to remoulade and tartar sauces, there are all kinds of dipping sauces and spreads that contain mayo, and Berger says it’s best practice to toss them when they’re expired.

“Another general rule of thumb is if a dip or condiment tastes different from when you first open it, throw it out,” she says. “Same holds true if it’s discolored or extra watery.”

Horseradish Loses Its Zing

“As soon as the jar of horseradish is exposed to air, that sharp, spicy flavor begins to fade,” says Jared Kent, a sous chef at Good Roots in Akron, Ohio. By the time it reaches the expiration date, it’s better to opt for a fresh jar and get the whole experience, he says.

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