Tag: science

Changing Daylight Saving Time Might Reduce Obesity

I knew it was because of Daylight Saving Time that I’m overweight! I just knew it! Okay, perhaps that’s a slight embellishment. My slightly-more-than-ideal weight might be partly due to what I eat and how much (or not much) I exercise. But according to a new study at Stanford University, if our government gets rid of Daylight Saving Time, it could provide incredible health benefits:

The researchers estimate that permanent standard time would prevent about 300,000 cases of stroke per year and reduce the number of people with obesity by 2.6 million, compared to biannual changes. Permanent daylight saving time would also be positive, although with a smaller impact.

So it’s the changing of time that matters, and to some degree, having more daylight. So apparently even if the government never changes the system officially, one could just ignore the time change and be less fat. Works for me! I could switch my sleep habits an hour if that helps me be less overweight. That would surely be easier than eating healthy and exercising more! 🙂

So far I’m having fun with this. However, it is an actual scientific study, and they used mathematical models to simulate this, trying to find the impact of time policies on light exposure and circadian rhythm (your body’s internal clock). But I’m skeptical. Normally I’m all for the use of math and the scientific method, but I think those numerical claims are vastly exaggerated. There might be a real benefit — I’m not arguing that — but preventing 2,600,000 cases of obesity? Whatever.

If we’re not going to change Daylight Saving Time, I’ve got some ideas to improve it, which I’ve discussed before: a better way to fix Daylight Savings Time. Most people would be for one of those plans, I think, but so far it has been ignored.

As far as reducing obesity in America (which is a big problem), I wish changing the clock would be a solution. But I think the best solution is still eating less and exercising more. That strategy is no secret, but perhaps we need a fresh approach to promoting it… (I have an idea, which will be in a future post.)

Could time travel remove itself?

Do all time travelers drive a DeLorean? Seems unlikely, although it was cool.

I doubt that time travel could ever really happen. But some scientists like to ponder it, and I agree it can be interesting to think about. There are many paradoxes that it creates. A new hypothesis is that if time travel ever gets invented, that it would create its own destruction by introducing instability into certain realities which would eventually lead to the most stable possible timeline — that is, one without time travel at all.

It’s true that time travel would definitely create instabilities. People would go through history and wreck it, whether for their personal gain or just for fun or to be malicious or even without trying to. Facts and historical events would get altered, which would change the future. But with multiple people changing the past, they could create a future that cannot exist due to being incompatible with itself. The universe automatically makes things be in balance. We’ve defined this as the laws of thermodynamics. Objects will return to their most stable state, to keep equilibrium. So by that reasoning, it’s possible that even if time travel were to exist, it might lead to a future where it cannot exist. That leads to a paradox which might make your brain hurt if you try to understand it. 🙂 If it removed itself, would we forget about it and keep reinventing it? Wouldn’t that cause some distortions in the time-space continuum? What if someone somehow created a future that required time travel to exist? Would our universe just go poof?

BTW, the article linked above is called “Where Are All the Tourists From 3025?”, which seems like a good title for a book…

Bonus: Time travel becoming confusing reminds me of several episodes of Milo Murphy’s Law, which is an awesome show if you don’t know. Don’t think it’s just a kid’s show because it’s animated. It’s clean and family-friendly, but hilarious and full of parody references and inside jokes. And the lead character is voiced by Weird Al Yankovic, who does a great job with it. Part of an ongoing side story in the show involves two time travelers, who see a lot of clocks in the timestream. One of them says the clocks was probably someone’s idea of a joke. I don’t want to spoil it, because it’s fun to see how it all plays out, but if you just want to know without watching, click here and look for “Floating Clocks” (which is a common trope for showing that time travel is happening, and here they explain it… kind of). Or, if you want to see just that clip: Clocks in the timestream. (It’s a weird clip to start with though, because most episodes are more realistic and don’t involve alien pistachios.) There’s another time travel paradox in this episode involving a letter someone put in the past for their future self. (Think about that one.) There’s also a peach paradox in the show, and there’s a video clip of it on that page.

Anyway, that’s a lot of rambling about time travel, but you also got a show recommendation. I think it’s laugh-out-loud funny, and my kids like it, too. (It was created by the same guys who created Phineas and Ferb, which is another great show I recommend.)

Do dinosaurs taste like chicken?

Let’s continue the last post about having dinosaurs in my backyard. Supposedly all birds are dinosaurs. Even chickens. So you can say that dinosaurs taste like chicken. 🙂

To consider all birds to be dinosaurs seems crazy to me, but what do I know? So I did an internet search about whether birds are dinosaurs. (Are you ready to go down a rabbit hole filled with dinosaurs? Read on!) Check out this answer to whether birds evolved from dinosaurs or reptiles:

The answer is both, but with a crucial clarification: birds evolved from dinosaurs, which themselves are a subgroup of reptiles. Think of it like this: all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Similarly, all birds are dinosaurs (specifically theropod dinosaurs), but not all dinosaurs are birds. And both birds and dinosaurs are within the broader group of reptiles.

So dinosaurs were reptiles, which then became birds. Except not all dinosaurs are birds. And birds are reptiles. Got that?

I’ll admit it’s been a few years since I was in school, but that’s not what I learned. Still, I read on, and saw this on the same page:

The closest living relatives of dinosaurs (excluding birds, which are dinosaurs) are crocodilians (crocodiles, alligators, and gharials). They share a more distant common ancestor with dinosaurs than birds do.

So crocodilians are more closely related to dinosaurs than birds, but birds are dinosaurs. I think I’m getting more confused… But I’ll keep reading. Maybe it’ll all make sense soon.

What about the pterodactyls, the flying dinosaurs? Is that where birds draw their lineage?

Pterosaurs, including pterodactyls, were flying reptiles, but they are not directly related to birds.

So there were flying dinosaurs, but they’re not related to birds. Apparently the flying birds came from dinosaurs that didn’t fly. I don’t know if they had useless wings or if they somehow developed wings and learned to fly. Honestly, there’s a lot about the theory of evolution that just doesn’t make sense. I know it’s often taught as fact, but it doesn’t add up and there’s a lot of missing evidence. I suppose you just say “over millions of years” and it’s supposed to be acceptable. Nonetheless, let’s continue this rabbit hole. There’s more weirdness you probably don’t know.

The chicken is currently considered the closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. This is based on genetic and anatomical evidence.

That’s interesting! So not only does a T-Rex taste like chicken, it WAS a chicken! Or rather, it became a chicken. So the next time you watch the movie Jurassic Park, imagine a giant chicken chasing them in the Jeep. 🙂 Or, we can let AI imagine it…

Now you know a great conversation piece — you know what dinosaurs taste like! You can ask people what they think dinosaurs (or specifically a T.Rex) might taste like, or tell them you ate a dinosaur the other day (if you eat chicken), or that you saw a dinosaur in your back yard.

brewing tea reduces heavy metals from water

glass of sweet, iced tea, plate of fried chicken and sides

You really don’t need any extra reasons to drink tea other than it tasting good. Having a glass of sweet tea is a great experience and makes your day better. But fortunately, tea is good for you in numerous ways, like providing antioxidants. This is already known.

New research has shown that brewing tea reduces heavy metals like lead and cadmium from the water, making it safer for you. That’s convenient! A quote from the article:

“Across a population, if people drink an extra cup of tea per day, maybe over time we’d see declines in illnesses that are closely correlated with exposure to heavy metals. Or it could help explain why populations that drink more tea may have lower incidence rates of heart disease and stroke than populations that have lower tea consumption.”

If it makes me healthier to drink an extra cup of tea per day, I can do that!

It’s nice to hear good news once in a while…