Dynamics - Arthur De Vany Members

Recent articles

The Fractal Dimension of Physiology Nov 14, 2011: I measured mine. You can think about yours using these tools. My fractal dimension is just below 4, well into the healthy range.

Aaron Blaisdell and Brent Pottenger in Frontiers in Physiology Oct 23, 2011: This is just the place where Aaron and Brent should publish this article about fractals in physiology. You may know, they are the organizers of the Ancetral Health Symposium; Aaron being a professor of psychology at UCLA and Brent being a first year medical student at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

The Fractal Heart Beat Jul 13, 2011: More on this topic, one of my favorites. Fractal scaling in all things natural. This paper has a nice discussion of that topic and shows that resistance training restores the heart to the healthy chaos it needs. Subjects with too much order in their heart beat (dimension 1.5 which is Brownian motion) moved toward a more healthy pattern, and those with too little order (dimension 0.5 random white noise) moved toward a more healthy pattern.

In contrast to the view of homeostasis as health, living systems strive for dynamic adaptation and operate far from an equilibrium state. The heart beat "plays" over many frequencies rather than beating like a metronome. That way it can go to many different stable, dynamic attractors that are adapted to any stress. A metronome can not adjust and has only one behavior. A playful, chaotic heart has many.

The Complex Life Inside the Cell Jun 14, 2011: I first saw these images at ZURICH.MINDS when David Bolinsky, the brains behind this vivid movie, gave his talk there.

Primal transhumanism Jun 7, 2011: Primal is catching on even with those who strive to use advanced technology to extend life and human capabilities. They call themselves transhumanists; check SentientDevelopments website.

A Gem or a Rock from the Archives May 12, 2011: We are working on getting all the old posts from the archives up.

Meal Frequency, Weight Gain and Loss, Convexity and All That May 6, 2011: I have been often asked about meal frequency and weight or muscle gain and loss. The research literature simply has not theory and is conflicted. Supplement makers certainly like to recommend that you eat 6 times a day. No one really benefits if they tell you, as I do, that you can just eat when you are hungry, without any planned regularity. 2 to 3 meals a day will do just fine and now and then you might eat nothing or just one meal. You will have clean proteins in your muscle rather than aged ones, a gene expression profile that will keep you young, higher mitochondrial density and activity, and it is easier to lose weight that is mostly fat rather than lean tissue. it will help you gain muscle without piling on fat.

Deaths in diabetes trial challenge a long-held theory Mar 30, 2011: It is becoming more clear that the glucose homeostatis theory is wrong. In this trial run by the NHLBI to test the benefits of tight regulation of blood glucose among diabetics, the death rate increased for those whose blood glucose was more tightly managed. The trial was suspended at these alarming results.

Learning as a self-organized, emergent process Feb 26, 2011: You have to see the results Sugata Mira is getting by letting children learn and teach one another.

Competition or Goals for Fitness Nov 22, 2010: I came across a study done in a Swedish hospital that created a contest among the staff; the winner was the one who made the most steps as measured by a pedometer. Guess what made the contestants walk more---a goal or a contest or encouragement?