Hacker News Reader

matznerdon SupermealX, India’s Soylent

Even with a varied diet, it is likely that almost everyone can benefit from supplementation, especially of precursors required for complex processes, such as ubiquinol.

Also, for those eating, a safe measurement of food diversity is to try and eat all of the different colors.

matznerdon Lyft Announces Strategic Partnership with Didi

Is it just me or did the phrasing in the following sentence make it seem like they were helping with rides from the US to China...

> We are partnering with China’s largest rideshare company, Didi, to make it easier for people to get friendly, safe and reliable rides when they travel between the U.S. and China.

matznerdon Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

As a note, they are talking about the "glymphatic" system and not the "lymphatic" system. The name is a play on the lymphatic system, but it is specific to the brain.

Another paper by the author cited in the NPR story, is my favorite paper on the system: "The Glymphatic System: A Beginner’s Guide" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25947369

In it, they do not mention melatonin or CoQ10, but norepinephrine as a major regulator of wakefulness. (Although I do take 400 mg a day of the reduced form of Coq10 called Ubiquinol).

matznerdon Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

The brain only conserves 15–25% [1] of energy during sleep and does not appear to be a reason sleep evolved. It seems that the pressure between the cerebral spinal fluid and the interstitial fluid cannot build up to the required level while the brain is awake and fully active.

[1] http://jap.physiology.org/content/70/6/2597

matznerdon Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

Caffeine directly effects the adenosine receptors [1] which are what regulates sleep and wakefulness [2].

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20164566

[2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301008204...

matznerdon Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

Modafinil is designed for narcoleptics, people who are theoretically getting too much sleep. It is not actually intended for people to use to stay up beyond the recommended range. If you stay up for multiple days you are increasing the build up of these plaques, because the brain is not able to clear them out while you are awake.

matznerdon Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

There are already substances out there that can protect against the build of up of amyloid plaques...but it is something that people and companies SHOULD spend a lot more money on. Most pharmaceutical companies do not focus on creating preventative treatments, they focus on treatments for the symptoms of existing conditions.

matznerdon Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

This shows the importance of sleep, but also adds to the question of what we can do to facilitate this process while awake. It seems the best we can do when we are awake, is to use neuroprotective substances to prevent the build-up of the plaques or to sequester them for easier breakdown while sleeping.

For example, Noopept, the di-peptide form of the nootropic piracetam, has been shown to lower levels of amyloid plaques via "hydrophobic interactions with toxic amyloid oligomers, [which] prompts their rapid sequestration into larger fibrillar amyloid aggregates." In the linked study, researchers concluded that the "mitigating effect of noopept against amyloid oligomeric cytotoxicity may offer additional benefits to the already well-established therapeutic functions of this new pharmaceutical."[1]

The abilities of substances like this to protect the brain as we age, are examples of why we need to move major parts of the medical field to focus on preventative and rejuvenating medicine, instead of just treatment for the final symptoms of a disease that has been in progress for decades...

Background info:

This is a process of what is now called the glymphatic system. The scientest quoted in the article (M. Nedergaard), previously coined the term "glymphatic" in her paper[2] "The Garbage Truck." She was a follow-on author on the paper referenced in the NPR story, "Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain." It is a pretty interesting paper and I have a full-text copy available in my private research vault [3].

[1] http://nootroo.com/researchvault/neuroprotective-and-nootrop...

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3749839/pdf/nihm...

[3] http://nootroo.com/researchvault/sleep-drives-metabolite-cle...

matznerdon YC Fellowship

I think yours is a very selfish attitude. The people and the atmosphere in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are some of the biggest assets and they cannot be found in the same way in any other cities.

matznerdon Grooveshark co-founder, 28, found dead in home

So sad to hear this, he was a very nice guy and extremely friendly.

matznerdon Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice in iOS is

That is good to know. Is there a way to check whether an app is utilizing it or not?

matznerdon Most Exclusive Website

I've been in line for 24 hours and still have tens of thousands of people in front of me...

matznerdon Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice in iOS is

Without being jailbroken it is nearly impossible to properly utilize alternative browsers. I particularly enjoy being able to choose my default browser (and mapping choice) for links. If when I click a link it always opens In safari, I end up using that browser a lot more than I would given a choice. Apple also hamstrings alternative browsers by not allowing them the ability to utilize the nitro JavaScript engine. The tweak nitrous allows chrome and other apps with in-app browsers the ability to do so, but it shouldn't have to be this way!

matznerdon Yahoo Pipes End-Of-life Announcement

Who is working on a pipes replacement and where can I sign-up? Maybe this will be like when google killed Reader and RSS replacements became a hot area...

matznerdon Ask HN: Am I missing out by not being in sillicon valley?

I think SF + SV have the highest concentration of interesting people in the world. Just sitting at a run-of-the-mill meetup on a Tuesday night, you might have one of the world's leading experts casually sitting next to you. I haven't lived in any other place where it is like that.

matznerdon iPhone 6 Case Which Harvests Electricity from the Air

Why didn't the judges ask about interference? How can the antenna determine what RF is ambient and what RF is being used in transmission? Seems pretty cool. 30% gain in battery would be game changing...

matznerdon Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

Really? Because there doesn't' seem to be a definitive answer here and lots of conflicting information...

matznerdon Test drive of a petrol car

Also, the first cohort of Model S' are coming off lease to certified pre-owned and the price is right around $60k with some dipping below it.

Edit: here is a link to the fan made sortable spreadsheet of available cars http://logmysc.com/cpo-reports.php

matznerdon The Nature of Inhabited Planets and Their Inhabitants [pdf]

This paper basically suggests that any extraterrestrials are likely to be much larger than us, at around 300 kg, which is kind of scary...

matznerdon Elon Musk wants to bring the Internet in space

There is lots of money to be made in global business communications. The plan is to use the funds generated by this global communications network to fund a future colony on Mars.

matznerdon Elon Musk wants to bring the Internet in space

Elon covered all of this and more during the launch of the SpaceX Seattle offices. He pretty much goes over the entire game plan in this video -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4

matznerdon Elon Musk wants to bring the Internet in space

It's faster and more direct to go earth->satellite->earth for certain routes/types of data, than traversing through various routers and undersea cables.

Roughly paraphrased quote from Elon Musk SpaceX Seattle Office Opening: "The speed of light in vacuum is 40-50% faster than in fiber. So you can do long distance communication through space(vacuum), a lot better than if you route it through fiber and use far fewer hops. Lets say you want to communicate from Seattle to South Africa, the path is extremely convoluted, follows outline of continent, goes through 200 routers and repeaters, if done with satellite network, it can be done in 4 hops"

Video link to time of quote -> https://youtu.be/AHeZHyOnsm4?t=209

matznerdon How a robot pharmacist wound up giving an overdose

Serious cliff hanger on this article, with the second part of how it actually made the mistake held off until tomorrow. Reminds me of one of those old tv shows...

matznerdon 1,000-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA

Just want to make a note for you guys on allicin and garlic. Allicin doesn't exist in garlic, but is created when alliin and a heat-sensitive enzyme called alliinase come in contact with each other.

They do not mix until you slice, chew, cut or press the garlic and rupture the barriers between them. They key is to wait 10 minutes after this process has occurred until you cook it, or you will remove most of the benefit of allicin. For example, putting freshly chopped garlic in the microwave for 30 seconds will take away 90% of the potential allicin content due to the heat destroying alliinase.

matznerdon 1,000-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA

The story was more about the combination of the ingredients called "eye salve." Which includes more than just garlic, but also wine and cow bile.

matznerdon Ask HN: Moved from Windows to Macbook Pro – How can I get up to speed quickly?

I am aware of that, this is more to switch between the individual windows without bringing up all of the other windows of that program. Make sense?

matznerdon Ask HN: Moved from Windows to Macbook Pro – How can I get up to speed quickly?

One thing that took me a while to get up to speed on was the different in alt+tab here switching between entire apps vs individual windows as on a PC. To be able to get that functionality back, install Witch http://manytricks.com/witch/

matznerdon Why Are Carrots Orange? It Is Political (2009)

There are a lot of other interesting food facts out there, especially how our food has changed dramatically in the last few thousand years. People consider vegetables and fruits as healthy because they fall under those categories, yet we have completely altered the levels of sugar and other factors to make them more marketable and desirable. For example, wild bananas required a machete to open and had such large seeds and low sugar content that no one really ate them. Another example is corn, the original corn had 5-12 kernels per cob and was in a hard shell as hard as an acorn, it was high in starch not sweet at all, around 2% sugar and 20% protein. The corn in the store today is 2-4% protein and up to 40% sugar. So just because you are eating a vegetable doesn't necessarily mean it is healthy.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/07/10/195592468/eating... http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/11/29/2013/eating-wilde...

matznerdon Artemis pCell: Wireless Reinvented [pdf]

Here is a video demonstration of pCell. It essentially works by creating a personal cell or "pCell" around your device. Whereas other cell technologies degrade as the number of devices increases, pCell claims to solve that major problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxNntxVWC1g#t=62