What I Learned Today

Baby carrots go junk. I’m pretty curious how this $25M...

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:30:00 -0400

Baby carrots go junk. I’m pretty curious how this $25M marketing campaign is going to play out. Can Baby Carrot, a $1B industry, compete with the $18B salty snack food industry by repackaging carrots to look like junk food? Per USA Today, the campaign includes:

Packaged in Doritos-like bags. Three different designs are planned.
Sold out of cool school vending machines. Tests are underway in Cincinnati and Syracuse, N.Y.
Sporting slogans like this on billboards and packs: “The original orange doodles.”
Touting seasonal tie-ins. Coming this Halloween: scarrots. (<— my personal fave)
Offering a phone app powered by the sound of folks munching carrots in real time.
Airing TV spots that tout baby carrots as extreme, futuristic and even, yes, sexy.

I quite like the campaign. It made me finally research what I’ve been curious about for a while - baby carrots. What are they really?

Well what we typically see are baby-cut carrots. Which are carrots. Fully grown, adult carrots, that are shaved down to cute, bite-size, baby form. This practice started when a farmer did not want to waste and discard his unsightly, rotting carrots. At the time, about 70% of his carrot crop was too bent, broken, or twisted to sell to consumers. He, instead, cut them down, shaving off the ugly parts, and started a baby carrot revolution! Carrots are now bred specifically to be baby carrots - with more sugar and a brighter and more even orange color. They also are often bathed in chlorine, an antimicrobial treatment to reduce contamination on the skinless product. Ironic that something created to prevent waste seems pretty wasteful itself.

“Things that are made from organic material age and decay,...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:35:16 -0400

“Things that are made from organic material age and decay, especially when they stop being alive. A piece of home-baked bread, say, left on your kitchen counter, will get moldy relatively fast. Lord knows what some ground beef would smell like after a week. But the artist Sally Davies has been photographing one McDonald’s hamburger and fries every day for 137 days. They look basically exactly the same.” via GOOD

on epigenetics

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:11:00 -0400

I recently learned about epigenetics and found it to be super interesting so I thought I’d share. It has long been thought that our genes are our destiny. Our DNA, which we pass onto our children, cannot be affected by our actions. If we smoke or eat poorly, we’re putting ourselves at risk, sure. But certainly not our unborn children, right? Well, actually, a kind of new field of epigenetics shows that may not be the case.

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression that are caused by factors other than the underlying DNA sequence. I’m not the most savvy on molecular biology or gene expression (though I will be soon.. thanks mom), but basically gene expression is governed by a molecular body that is outside of the gene - the epigenome - which determines how strongly that gene is expressed. The epigenome is affected by environmental factors like diet, stress, drugs. It then imprints upon the gene and not only affects the individual, but can be passed on to successive generations.

Per a Time article from earlier this year, ”we all know that you can truncate your own life if you smoke or overeat, but it’s becoming clear that those same bad behaviors can also predispose your kids — before they are even conceived — to disease and early death.”

On a(nother) personal and New York related note - I finally...

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:44:00 -0400

On a(nother) personal and New York related note - I finally lived my dream and went to Montauk. I don’t know what I’ve been doing the last three years.. it is gorgeous out there.

Want to feel insignificant for about an hour? Go see the Hubble...

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:16:24 -0400

Want to feel insignificant for about an hour? Go see the Hubble IMAX movie at the American Museum of Natural History. I sat with my mouth agape the whole time. Here’s the trailer.

Watching the aforementioned biology videos brought back faint...

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:18:00 -0400

Watching the aforementioned biology videos brought back faint memories of my mom making me watch art history lectures as a child. They were narrated by Sister Wendy. She arrives on scene at 0:38 and is pictured below. Amazing.

I think my parents (doctor and medical technician) are dismayed...

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:23:00 -0400

I think my parents (doctor and medical technician) are dismayed that I daydreamed my way though high school biology and, consequently, know little about physiology. My mother recently sent me “a gift” - a box set of lectures entitled Understanding the Human Body: An Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology. It’s a series of 34 college classroom lectures, all about 45 minutes long. I sat down, beer in hand, and watched my first lecture last night. Here’s what I learned!

amazing effects of music

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:58:00 -0400

Interesting piece in the WSJ recently about the amazing effects of music. Here are some of the findings:

Listening to Bach, Corelli, and Mozart is more effective in treating mild depression than is talking to a psychiatrist. per a study published in The Arts in Psychotherapy (more)
Young women are more likely to give out their phone number after listening to romantic music. per a study from the Pyschology of Music (more)
Men buy more roses when a florist plays love songs.
People tend to tip better when a restaurant plays music with “pro-social” or empathetic lyrics. per the International Journal of Hospitality Management (more)

This weekend I visited the Met and was turned on to Leon...

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:02:00 -0400

This weekend I visited the Met and was turned on to Leon Levinstein, a photographer who captured candid depictions of life in New York in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I thought I would share my favorite from the exhibit (left, a woman at Coney Island). I’m juxtaposing it with my favorite of this amazing set of portraits - Orchard Beach (The Bronx Riviera) by Wayne Lawrence - that I recently stumbled upon in Mother Jones.

PBR, marketed as “Blue Ribbon 1844,” a...

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:23:00 -0400

PBR, marketed as “Blue Ribbon 1844,” a “world-famous spirit,” costs $44 a bottle in China. via NewYorker.com

$8 for a dozen eggs? $3.90 for one peach? $50 for 3 pints of ice cream?

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:27:50 -0400

$8 for a dozen eggs? $3.90 for one peach? $50 for 3 pints of ice cream?:

In yesterday’s WSJ, Michael Pollan explains his philosophy behind paying more and eating less, and why he’ll pay $8 for a dozen eggs and $3.90 for the most expensive peach ever.

On a personal note, my business was just highlighted in the NYTimes as selling the most expensive ice cream in the land. And like the farmers Pollan describes in the interview, and my local food purveyor peers who have seen great support from the NYTimes, I’m certainly not getting wealthy from it.

"the United States has been at war for 47 of its 230 years, or 20 percent of its history"

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:36:37 -0400

“the United States has been at war for 47 of its 230 years, or 20 percent of its history”

- NYTimes

The Acceleration of Addictiveness

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:05:22 -0400

The Acceleration of Addictiveness:

via jakelodwick via Ronen Reblogs

Park vs. Park

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:41:00 -0400

Park vs. Park:

Central Park or Prospect Park?

10 under 10

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:24:00 -0400

10 under 10:

In the wake of The New Yorker’s recent “20 Under 40” list of gifted fiction writers who have not yet reached age 40, the literary community has turned its attention to even younger emerging talent. Here is that next generation.

The Brain That Changes Itself

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:09:00 -0400

is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read. It walks the reader through studies of patients suffering from neurological disorders to explain how our brains are constantly adapting. For a long time, neuroscience believed the brain was immutable – fixed - one part of the brain for each body part or function and that’s that. But recently the field of neuroplasticity, the idea that the organization and function of neurons can change, has gained support. The brain, is, in fact, adaptive.

Some fascinating examples:

As we get better at something, the number of neurons required to perform that task decreases, and the whole system becomes faster and more efficient.
In one experiment, a cat’s eye was sewn shut so the eye got no visual stimulation. When the eye was opened they found that the visual area in the brain map that normally processed input from the closed eye had failed to develop. Even further, the part of the brain that had been deprived began to process visual input from the open eye, “as though the brain didn’t want to waste any ‘cortical real estate’ and had found a way to rewire itself.”
Falling in love is like taking cocaine. It lowers the threshold at which pleasure centers fire. Because the pleasure centers are firing so freely, “the enamored person falls in love not only with the beloved but with the world and romanticizes his view of it.” It makes us harder to experience pain and displeasure or aversion. When one falls in love, “millions of neural networks have to be obliterated and replaced with new ones,” and that is why falling in love often feels like a loss of identity.
Interesting description of moving on from a love. “Often people cannot move on because they cannot yet grieve… In neuroplastic terms, if the romantic or the widow is to begin a new relationship without baggage, each must first rewire billions of connections in their brains. The world of mourning is piecemeal, Freud noted… We grieve by calling up one memory at a time, reliving it, and then letting it go”
This one neurologist at UCSD, Ramachandran, does a lot of research on phantom limbs. He has a bunch of Ted Talks, and I highly recommend watching if you want your mind blown.
The work of some neuroscientists shows us that we can shape our genes, or rather our gene expression. This can be done through means of psychotherapy, that goes “deep into the brain and its neurons” and changes their structure. A psychoanalyst can be a “microsurgeon of the mind” to help patients make needed alternations in neuronal networks.
One study showed that muscles get stronger if we imagine they are being exercised!
Neurons that fire together wire together is the main mantra here. This means that the more a thought or action is repeated, the stronger the connection between the neurons. This is known as Hebbian theory, which is a little too much for me but interesting nonetheless.

Super fascinating book. I took notes on nearly every page.

Does Language Influence Culture?

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:23:00 -0400

Does Language Influence Culture?:

Pretty interesting article in the WSJ today. Basically says that language profoundly influences how we see the world. Some examples:

Russian speakers who have more words for light and dark blues are better able to visually discriminate shades of blue.
An aboriginal community in Australia doesn’t use terms like “left” and “right”, and instead uses north, south, east and west for directions. As a result they have greater spatial orientation.
People who speak languages that drop the agent of causality, for example “the vase broke itself” versus “John broke the vase,” don’t often associate blame for events.
One group who uses the words “few” and “many” in favor of actual number words has difficulty keeping track of exact quantities.
English speakers see time on a horizontal plane, with the best years ahead and the past behind us. Whereas Mandarin speakers see new events emerging like a spring of water, with the past above and the future below.

Here’s a bit more on the research. Pretty interesting!

The Big Five

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:32:00 -0400

dimensions of personality. I read this book called Personality about a year ago and thought it was great. It’s book two in my behavior/personality reads.

David Nettle, the same author of Happiness (seriously, if you haven’t read that one yet, try it out), writes about the five dimensions of personality - extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness. Here’s what I got from the book:

There are at least five broad personality dimension. We all have each of the dimensions, but just differ in the magnitude of each. Where we lie on the spectrum of each is what causes us to behave in certain ways rather than others. What happens in our careers, relationships, interests, love lives, and health all occur depending on where we lie on these dimensions. And where we end up on the dimensions is due to how our brains our wired, which is due firstly to genetics (about 50%) and then to early life experiences that shape us.

You can determine where you lie on the spectrum by taking The Newcastle Personality Assessor.

Then he goes through each of the five dimensions in detail and it’s pretty darn interesting. To give you the gist of it…

Extraversion
measures your response to reward. It’s the variation in responsiveness of positive emotions. Those with high extraversion have a greater psychological reaction to positive events - achievement, romance, adulation, even seeing a puppy. They like to spend more time in social activity than low scorers, are more talkative, like parties more, are quicker to form social relationships, and like sex and romance more than those with low. High extraversion scorers report more states of joy, desire, enthusiasm and excitement than low scorers. MRI studies show they have higher metabolic activity in the brain when shown something positive than those with low extraversion.

Those with low extraversion have low responsiveness – thus the psychological benefits of achievement, romance are fewer. They are seen as aloof.

But it’s not all good. Higher extraversion yields more risky and impulsive behavior. High scorers are less satisfied with their current possessions. They can be less dependable.

Neuroticism
measures your response to threat. Extraversion: positive :: neuroticism: negative. It’s the responsiveness of negative emotion systems. Negative emotions – anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, disgust, sadness, are designed to make us detect and avoid things that would be bad for us.

The high neuroticism scorer is constantly ruminating, and wondering about one’s path in life, and often reports several changes of identity and goals even in their mature life. High neuroticism can lead to borderline personality disorder – where one does not know who he is, what could make him happy, and what he really is worth. Other detriments are depression, anxiety disorders, and even health problems like heart disease.

However it does have benefits. Negative emotions are protective systems. If you think about our ancestors, those with low negative emotion responsiveness would not responded appropriately to threats, and thus not survived. The negative self image often pushes individuals to work harder and innovate.

Conscientiousness
measures your response inhibition. It’s basically the opposite of impulsiveness. It’s the ability to inhibit immediate rewards to follow some internally set goal or more deferred gratification.

He makes a distinction between gaining pleasure from certain behaviors, and the inability to prohibit oneself from partaking. “High Extraversion scorers will get a bigger buzz from a drink, a high, or a thrilling game of chance than low scorers. However, if they are also high in Conscientiousness, they will be able to decide not to do it again, however big the buzz was.” Addictions are really about the failure to inhibit a once-rewarded behavior, not about the degree of euphoria that is created.

High conscientiousness scorers set a lot of goals and stick to them. Interestingly, studies have shown that the smarter people are, the less conscientious they are. Likely this is because things come a bit easier, they have been able to get away without being prepared for things too far in advance, and their quick smarts have been able to get them through challenges. They have been trained to not have to inhibit their impulses.

While conscientiousness is good – it helps us maintain relationships, succeed in a career, follow the law, too much is not good and is characterized by obsessive compulsive disorder, perfectionism, the inability to have fun and leisure, and excessive drive.

Agreeableness
measures your regard for others. High scorers on agreeableness are trusting, cooperative and empathetic. Low scorers are uncooperative and hostile.

Interestingly, brain imaging suggests that empathizing makes use of areas of brain that would be involved in if you were the one actually experiencing the situation first hand. I think that’s super interesting. People high in agreeableness help others more, have more harmonious interpersonal relationships and rarely insult people. They are quick to forgive and slow to anger.

Those with extremely low levels of Agreeableness have psychopathy - egocentric, remorseless, dishonest. Those with high levels, however, often lose themselves and are too dependent upon others.

Openness
measures your breadth of mental associations. High scorers are creative, imaginative, eccentric. Low scorers are practical and conventional.

Those with high openness participate in artistic and cultural activities of all kinds. He says “it is not that some people like reading whilst others like going to galleries.” Those with high openness are “keen on reading and galleries and theatre and music,” while those low in Openness are not particularly interested in any of them.” Often, those high in Openness have strong idiosyncratic beliefs concerning supernatural or spiritual activity in the world. They are also apparently more prone to psychosis.

Okay so there you have it. Some final encouragement — he assures us that, while our personalities may be unchangeable, we still may have a hope in changing the way we express our personalities. He says “if your personality is causing you trouble and worry, you need to find alternative and less destructive outlets for the same characteristics. You don’t have to change yourself. You just have to change your self’s outlet.”

Album of the Summer, 1: Phantogram - Eyelid MoviesNothing is...

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:14:00 -0400

Album of the Summer, 1: Phantogram - Eyelid Movies
Nothing is finer than walking through the streets of New York on a muggy summer night listening to Mouthful of Diamonds.

"I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that..."

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 01:11:24 -0400

“I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the questions. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet. I ate this book up this afternoon.