Genetic Cause Of Collapse Of Learning Ability In Humans

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Scientists discover what causes us to stop learning and no, it isn't summer vacation. And Chinese scientists say, skulls shrank 4,000 years ago, roughly when we became 'civilized.' And another pesky scientist claims dolphins are dumb. Well, I know they are but what are we?

Resisting learning things is deeply human.

By Hannah Devlin

THEY say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And scientists have discovered why.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School believe that they have found the biological mechanism that makes people become set in their ways as they get older. They have identified a protein that stops new neural connections forming in adult brains.

The link between ageing and intransigence is commonly put down to a combination of world-weariness, experience and impatience. The scientists say that a mechanism involving the protein, called PirB, may explain the change in attitude.

They found that it settled the highly adaptable brains of children into a more stable, less flexible state by adulthood.

The last tool remaining in our box is memory. We must remember the past so we don't repeat mistakes! And propaganda exists to erase the past so we learn nothing from it and if one doesn't keep notes and I certainly keep notes...one forgets or gets confused and accepts lies as truth.

Wisdom is the ability to correctly remember the past and keep its lessons clear in the mind. So the elderly are supposed to have some wisdom as a consolation prize for losing the ability to learn new tricks.

Alas, some people mix up holding nostaligc images of a dimly remembered past with remembering important incoming information. For example, when America was losing the Vietnam war and to pay for it, we debased the currency and inflation roared and then the Middle East exploded into war and we had an oil crisis and Nixon did the wage/price control stuff, I was struggling to make a living! And I remember the cascade of events for I wrote leaflets about everything---sort of like this blog! So I remember what happened after each other and ain't we in the middle of a 'Total Recall' event now!

Obviously our collective ability to learn anything is pretty shallow.

Evolutionary-wise (I couldn't resist that!), we dumb humans had to stop learning or we would go nuts! This is why many geniuses are also called 'mad scientists'. Most chimps and gorillas like to live a life of Reilly---hanging out in hammocks, eating bananas and watching football. And beer. And some free sex thrown in.

So we evolved from couch potatoes.

Children can't sit still. They poke around, they play, they imagine things, they argue back and they also like to start fights all the time. The older primates would reduce this boisterousness by introducing them to hammocks, bananas and beer by age 8 or 9.

Humans have a much longer teen-hood. So there are these gruelling years until around 21 when the young primates raise hell. Humans dealt with this by creating armies, religions and MTV. And videogames, can't forget that!

Some of us are doomed to keep on learning. This can be an increasing burden as the years pass. I know that keeping up with computer technology and fresh interfaces is very daunting. Damnabbit! Got to get out the old buggy and whip Sparky into town and get a new printer.

Chinese scientists claim their skulls are getting smaller each generation.

BEIJING, August 18 -- Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) at the Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, a branch of the Chinese Academy of Science at Jilin University, have found that in the last 10,000 years, the physical characteristics of Chinese people have undergone many changes.

Dr. Wu Xue Jie from the IVPP said experts in the research team tested, analyzed and compared 718 skulls belonging to Chinese adult males who lived during the New Stone Age, the Bronze Age and modern times. They discovered that Chinese people's craniums and viscerocraniums are getting smaller; their noses and eye sockets are becoming narrower; and their skulls are becoming more rounded.

It would seem to me that all grain eating people would suffer a reduction in size. There was little advantage for bigness when one is working in fields or herding animals. Indeed, it would seem a deficit! I know my oxen and horses hated big people on them. And big people are scary while smaller farmers look less menacing, too. And a diet of grass-based nutrition is not conductive to fast growth of bones. Indeed, the milk/cheese/beef eaters of the plains tended to be bigger. This is probably why my son is over six feet tall.

Indeed, Asians are all getting much taller and bigger thanks to the milk/cheese/beef triple decker burgers they are now consuming. My own acquaintances who are Asian, there is a direct progression from grandparents, parents to present children which is a straight line upwards as each is bigger than the previous generation.

Talking about bigh heads and brains, a scientist says dolphins are dumb.

Thursday 17 August 2006, 16:29 Makka Time, 13:29 GMT
Dolphins may have big brains, but a South African-based scientist says laboratory rats and even goldfish can outwit them.

Paul Manger of Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand says the super-sized brains of dolphins are a function of being warm-blooded in a cold water environment and not a sign of intelligence.

*snip*

Brains, he says, are made of neurons and glia. The latter create the environment for the neurons to work properly and producing heat is one of glia's functions.

"Dolphins have a superabundance of glia and very few neurons... The dolphin's brain is not made for information processing it is designed to counter the thermal challenges of being a mammal in water," Manger said.

Mice have to outwit cats. So they have to be smart to survive. Cockroaches have to outwit all sorts of hazards and are fast learners. They must be animal intelligence personified. If Iwere a god, I would say, they are the pinnacle of creation, right?

Predators tend to live simple lives. Dolphins are predators. They, like dogs or cats, know a free meal when they see one and happily live with lots of fish and some fun. Most predators, after eating, like to goof around. Heedlessly. Snakes, after eating, sleep. So do lions. This isn't due to stupidity, it is because they know little fear!

Horses doze but never sleep, for example. Humans not only sleep, we snore. And we surround ourselves with dogs and cats who are also predators and fear nothing since they have human slaves working for them, so they also snore alongside us. Or purr. Whatever, they certainly don't bother being very alert. I often complain to the dogs about this, they fail to patrol the premises as promised.

The look at me quizzically. After all, when the cats patrol, they bring me dead mice and leave the severed heads on the rug next to my bed so I can step on them in the dark.

I think I am not able to learn anything as I age. And cats are not dumb. I suspect Fluff does this deliberately. He is always watching to see if I yell. Ditto the puppy whose bed is next to mine. She sees Fluff eating and doesn't warn me.

I got to get to the bottom of this conspiracy. Are animals really dumb? Ask the cockroaches if you can catch one and get them to spit out the truth.

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Comments

[Ouish]

Cats do the dead mouse thing with their kittens. Fluff is trying to teach you to catch mice. You are a very poor study but he will not give up. Cats are more patient than humans. He would beat you at Go but he is too serious to play games.

[JSmith]

"Some of us are doomed to keep on learning. This can be an increasing burden as the years pass. I know that keeping up with computer technology and fresh interfaces is very daunting."

But you have to keep doing it. Learning new things - preferably complicated things - is an excellent way to stay sharp as time passes, hopefully to avoid drooling old age.

This is why there is always an interesting book in my briefcase for lunchtime reading. Currently we are working away at "Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems". Sprightly stuff! Moves right along.

Our cats don't "patrol", thank you. You know what they say: dogs have owners, cats have staff.

Dog: "These people feed me and pet me. They must be gods."

Cat: "These people feed me and pet me. I must be a god."

[M.E.Brown]

This must be why my parents have so much trouble wrapping there heads around "peak oil". Their wisdom from the 70's tells them that everything will be just fine. I find this alot in most older people I talk too about the subject. It's so far out of their comfort zone of thought and experience that they cannot think about it. Too bad, because they vote in droves for other mush brains.

[DeVaul]

"Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems"

(sigh) I usually just go for the turkey on rye for lunch, but I do remove the fake piece of swiss cheese. Would this be a differential equation or a boundary value problem? Do you know?