oyvindeh

Human feces hasn't been an area with much prestige (and money to be made), so few used to care about it. But, if I remember correctly, the growing interest has partly been caused by geneticists who were initially studying the genome of e.g. humans, but who switched target as the original work was done much quicker than anybody though was possible.

From what I know about the research so far, it seems like our bacterial flora, especially in the gut, is tightly connected to quite a few diseases. However, for many of them, it is still unclear what is cause and effect: Does the altered flora cause the disease, or does the disease cause the altered flora? External factors like stress is known to alter gut flora. On the other hand, bacteria in your gut may affect your mood and personality. Figuring out what is what is tricky, and I suppose there can be feedback loops here as well.

There is much more research to be done. You should be careful with experimenting, as there is risk involved: You may get bacteria that you don't want, and you don't know what the changed flora will do to you. An acquaintance of mine is a researcher in this field, and he does not recommend taking probiotics for e.g. IBS, as he think we still know too little about what types of bacteria to take, dosage, and potential negative long term effects. "Good" strains can do bad things in some contexts, and interaction/symbiosis between different strains (and us) may complicate things. That being said, afaik, probiotics is generally thought to be safe (although I am not sure all manufacturers are trustworthy).

Personally, I think this field has the potential to really change the way we think about health, disease, and medicine. Another field, which I think is related, is diet and fasting: food, and lack of food, alters our gut flora too.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029470.700-fresh-air...

Saving money on office space is money saved. People being distracted and doing poor work is money lost. I wonder how it sums up.

However, I am curious about the research showing that users will leave a website after 3 seconds. Where was this measured? On desktop, or on a low-end/low-bandwidth device? With low-end devices and/or low bandwidth, most websites will load slowly, and my guess is that performance expectations will be different than on desktop.

(That being said, I wonder if the extreme types of workout many people promote is actually good, or if it does more damage than good in the long run. I guess some people believe that one extreme can out-weight another extreme.)

Also: Getting out the door is good: Five minutes of "green exercise" turns out to be good for your mental health[2].

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/16/news/ecanomy/annie/fortune_a...

[2] http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/201...

The solution is to get up and move around often, i.e. every ~20 minutes or so.

Exercise is still good even if you stand/move around often. And standing all day also has its problems, like others have mentioned.

[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829233.200-dont-take...

(edit: wording)

By the way: Gut flora may play a role in anxiety[2], at least for some. It seems to play a role in many different mental, as well as physical, illnesses.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Living/d...

[2] http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/09/gut-feeling.aspx

I think this is bad. Not because the technology isn't good, but because small companies (or idealistic organizations, or others with a small budget) will have to implement useful apps for several platforms. Perhaps they cannot afford it (or think it's too much hassle, or don't care).

E.g., say that there is a product made to make life easier for people with a certain disease. Perhaps some users will have to switch device in order to use it. And maybe there are other apps they need which are available only for their old device. (And don't forget that are other platforms than iOS and Android as well, including desktop.)

Web apps (either run on the web, or natively) solves this problem, even though I agree that JavaScript, with it's myriad of ways to shoot yourself in the foot, is not ideal.

Like another commenter pointed out, there are options for compiling to multiple platforms. But it often doesn't seem to happen that way, and perhaps it's not always possible or feasible.

Gluten is most likely not the problem for most people with digestive problems, although there is a strong belief that gluten is bad.

The most likely reason why many people have problems digesting wheat, is because it contains fructans. Nobody can digest it, but it causes more problems for some than for others, e.g. if you have IBS (which about 1 in 7 people has). Spelt, an ancient variety of wheat, also contains gluten, but has low levels of fructans, and is thus more easily digested.

There is a pretty well-researched diet for people with IBS, called the Low FODMAP (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols) diet. It tries to reduce the amount of complex carbohydrates (which are not easily digestible) from the diet to a level where they do not cause digestive problems.

Unfortunately, it is not widely known yet, so a lot of people buy into all kinds of wishful thinking (that often comes with a price tag).

The rest are here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-...

(This, of course, doesn't go for everybody.)

Edit: Note that becoming rich and famous isn't the only way to feed your ego.

There is tendency today that everybody wants to accomplish so much. I know this from myself: Compared with many of my friends, I have accomplished quite a lot - but it doesn't satisfy me, I need more to be happy. I agree with the author that we should focus more on just being. Because, if you think of it, what happens when you have accomplished whatever you had aimed for? It feels great... for a little while. Then, life is back to normal. We often believe the fallacy that happiness is available somewhere in the future, not here and now, and once we get this or that - THEN we will be happy[2]. And so you risk rigging your life in order to always reach for the next mountain top you have in sight, thinking that it's the final one.

An Australian nurse interviewed people on their death bed about their regrets in life[3]. The second biggest regret was that people had worked too hard.

Think about the real motives for what you do: If you do something to prove yourself for others (e.g. fame and glory), you're fooling yourself. First of all because it will most likely not make you happy, second because you will be forgotten anyway (especially today when everybody claims their 15 minutes of fame). If you strive for something because you think it will make you more happy, you are fooling yourself to believe that happiness is somewhere in the future and not available now.

On the other hand, if the road is the goal, you are more likely rigging your life for lasting happiness. In the end, what is the use of accomplishing things if you are, and continue to be, unhappy?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6k6DMp1TxQ

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRISCK7pmE

[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-...

Although there is no shortage of rooftop space, you could still fit them into places where there currently isn't so much space. Perhaps, at some point, we could put them on top of electric cars, making them less dependent on charging sockets.

AFAIK, worry is the main reason for poor sleep. And encountering posts like this at HN and in newspapers all the time may add to the problem.

For example, I had almost gotten back my sleep a couple of months back. And then, every newspaper (and HN) was full of this new research saying that lack of sleep alters genes. I didn't even have to read the articles, the headlines were enough: "Too little sleep is bad for you, it alters genes! My, oh my!". Thanks! Welcome back, sleep problems.

But on what grounds can they conclude that altered genes is bad for your health? The research sure says that things is happening in your body, and that some processes related to e.g. the immune system has been altered. But how bad is it really? Will you die earlier?

There are many things altering your genes. If I look at a picture of a cute kitten, I am pretty sure you can see that in my genes. Also, meditation dramatically alters you genes. (There are stories about monks who hardly need to sleep at all, because they get the rest they need through meditation.)

So, are there big problems with sleeping too little, are there really reasons to worry? I don't know. But like in in many other fields (e.g. nutrition), results of early studies have been stated as "facts", while later studies show that things are a bit more complicated. Antioxidants comes to mind.

There are research suggesting that too little sleep causes heart disease. (Note the word "suggests".) But, if there is a link, is the reason lack of sleep? Or does other factors add to it or cause it, e.g. eating more junk food, that you get more easily annoyed (increasing blood pressure), etc.?

I am not suggesting that you should sleep less, and I believe sleep is important. But I am unsure about how much you should worry if you sleep poorly.

In general, I believe more and more in eating balanced, exercising moderately (walking is good!), and most importantly, taking a break when my body tells me it's time to rest (listening to your body is underrated, and we learn from early childhood to suppress what it tells us). And, very important, stop reading health news. Because adding to almost any problem, is how media (and others) report findings to sell more of their products. They skew reality, and you probably end up worrying more than you should.

This is just speculation, but perhaps you sleep better on your side, so that you don't remember your dreams as easily? E.g. if you wake up several times a night, you will remember more dreams than if you don't wake up during the night.

When you toss a coin, you are already in a superior position. You toss the coin to be nice, and/or to affirm your position as superior (depending on your personality).

That's totally different from agreeing to work over the weekend to save somebody's ass. It's OK as a one-off, but if you do it more often than others, that's when you put yourself in an inferior position.

It's important to keep in mind that the other party may feel superior, even though you don't feel inferior.

However, for many people this whole thing will never become a problem, because they are good at protecting their integrity.

At least when things are reasonable. Rather to the contrary: I feel stronger for being able to help.

That may very well be the case. But people (and situations) are different, and if you have a problem saying no, things may get very unhealthy.

Of course, in an unhealthy situation where help is required but not appreciated, and the person who help is not respected, then it's different. Fortunately, not my case most of the time

I guess that is often the case in stories like this. If you never say no, at some point your help gets more expected than appreciated.

If you help someone out, you put yourself in an inferior position. If you're always the one sacrificing yourself, people around you will feel more and more superior to you. At some point, they will start expecting that you sacrifice yourself whenever shit hits the fan.

This doesn't mean it's bad to help out, or to sacrifice yourself once in a while. But in order to keep sanity and self dignity, it's extremely important to learn to say no as well.