The Heartland Institute, and those they target, are deniers, not skeptics. There are certainly some climate skeptics out there, but most people I have ever seen, heard, read on the subject made the same tired arguments that have been refuted time and again. Those people are deniers. Read here for an engaging and thoughtful article on the distinction and tell me where you come out:
"What traits distinguish a rational, pro-science "skeptic" -- who has honest questions about the AGW consensus -- from members of a Denier Movement that portrays all members of a scientific community as either fools or conspirators?"

Partial skim:
"Skeptics first admit that they are non-experts in the topic at hand. And that experts tend to know more than they do."
"Skeptics go on to admit that it is both rare and significant when nearly 100% of the scientists in any field share a consensus-model, before splitting up to fight over sub-models."
"Deniers glom onto an anecdotal "gotcha!" from a dogma-driven radio show or politically biased blog site."
"We cannot say too often that, just because nearly all of experts are in consensus, their paradigm might still turn out to be wrong. Still, the Skeptic admits this is rare in science history."
"[The skeptic] openly admits who the chief beneficiaries of the current status quo are: those who spent two decades delaying energy efficiency research and urging us to guzzle carbon fuels like mad."
etc

The second to last section is entitled "So what's a sincere and enlightened skeptic to do?".

Thanks for the clarification. Now I'm remembering that acceptability voting is a distinct and slightly different system. You've made me curious though, how many candidates do you usually have in the federal elections?

Part of the reason campaign finance reform is the most difficult issue is that there is a real concern with regards to freedom of speech. SCOTUS is wrong IMHO that money=speech, but there is still a relationship between money and speech that must be dealt with. I'd rather not get into details on that in this forum, but I do think it is important to recognize that it isn't difficult just because of those who benefit from the current system.

I don't feel like there is anything wrong with political parties per se, so long as the number of them is flexible and not dictated by entrenched interests. Political parties are a natural feature of any democratic system, in that like-minded individuals come together to form a power block to achieve more than they could individually. My suggested solutions wouldn't dissolve the Republican and Democratic parties, but it would force them to actually compete, and enable other valuable viewpoints to emerge and gain support more easily.

I'd hesitate to call any one thing the root of the problem, only because we're dealing with a complex system with feedbacks, however I'll certainly agree that this is a major problem in our society. On the other hand, the number of people voting fluctuates greatly from one election to the next, and there are a lot of people on any given day that do give a shit. The real challenge in my mind is getting them to all focus on one or a few things (and particularly the ones I suggested in my prior post) at any given time.

That's why I prefer to put the focus on local and state elections, where individuals tend to have greater power when they choose to come together. While the power of corporations is strong, we do still live in a democracy. We're currently being divided in an effort to short circuit democracy, but momentum can be built around these issues if enough people realize that in order to advance their pet issues they need to focus on the core electoral problems preventing progress. If smart, charismatic people are drafted to run for state delegate and senate positions, from both parties, with the core issue to reform the electoral system to make their constituent's vote matter more (and there's a great marketing point), there is hope. Change has always appeared difficult, and it has always happened when people were motivated enough and kept fighting. The corporations don't have more power than the people, what they have is consolidated power against the people's diffuse power. If enough people join together in our system, they will prevail.

My favored solution is for grassroots organizations to stop banging their heads against the wall on issues that aren't going anywhere under the current system and focus on electoral reforms. 1) End political redistricting. 2) Enact some sort of acceptability voting (e.g. instant run-off), starting with local and state elections and building support for federal elections. 3) Enact campaign finance reforms of some sort (the biggest and most challenging issue, though one in which there are many avenues along which to make advances).

I could add more (like somehow modifying the primary system, rotating which states vote first in presidential primaries, media ownership reforms), but those 3 I think deal with the bulk of what's preventing progress in terms of true representation of the people and resistance to corporate special interests. (1) reduces individual power consolidation and polarization, (2) reduces party power consolidation, polarization, and provides an opportunity for the public to express their preferences in more dimensions (this might make it easier to push back against the advancing security state), and (3) reduces the power of wealthy donors and corporations (who aren't people), or in the case of greater transparency at least allows us to know who is spending how much on what/whom.

You mean, something like a bell? Yeah, that'd be novel.

We choose to be a courteous society; something you might appreciate when a disease or accident takes your sight or hearing. Blind people don't have a choice about whether to not to be on the road, unless you want to pay for every blind person to have a servant who does everything for them. I'm quite certain most blind people would prefer their autonomy over being forced from streets due to a preventable danger though. If you want to argue about whether a particular practice or technology is sensible, fine, but you're just being a troll.

There is substantial scientific evidence for the carbon model in global warming theory. In M-Theory it is pretty much all theory for now. In either case it would be unscientific to challenge (note the distinction between challenging and asking for clarifications) a theory without actually understanding it and its relation to the data.

Much appreciated, and you're welcome. Hopefully it makes sense to most. I don't know if the average reader here will know much about phosphorylation states or not, but that post could have doubled or tripled in length if I'd allowed myself to explain much more. I have a tendency to go on if I don't restrain myself :)

Good point on the idea of mutations, though under either theory (direct vs indirect impact on memory storage and computation) there would be a deficit in memory at some point. Both theories would need to be firmed up to actually make a prediction as to how a given mutation would impact memory in a given task. And while I am highly skeptical that those degrees of phosphorylation encode memory in the way they suggest, I wouldn't be surprised if the specific phosphorylation states do have functional implications at some level. There's plenty more to learn down there, I'm just not sure it's absolutely necessary to know all of it to understand learning and memory. Granted, it may be important to understand specific diseases.

"Now, a team of scientists believe that they may have figured out what's going on. Their findings could have huge implications for the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer's."

This statement is utterly absurd, but the authors of the PLoS article appear to have done some important work here. I'm not a physicist and can't evaluate the quality of the modeling and measurement, but assuming that is all legitimate (and I have no reason to doubt it), then their findings could prove useful to furthering theories on memory formation and stability. Basically they found a series of potential mechanisms by which activated CAMKII (via synaptic activity) can interface with microtubules to update their phosphorylation states. In what I would consider heavy speculation, they suggest that these phosphorylation states, along with the structural and electrostatic properties of microtubules, can produce and modulate information processing along/within the microtubules.

Keeping Occam's Razor in mind, to me it would be simpler if these interactions simply increase or decrease microtubule stability, and possibly affect shape to promote dendritic bifurcation versus elongation or retraction. Not to say some kind of information processing can't be happening in the microtubules, but we already have some pretty good theories regarding information processing in dendrites based on membrane voltage propagation. With changes in microtubule phosphorylation state there is also the possibility of making cross-linking tighter or looser, making it possible to fit in more or fewer microtubules and change a dendrite's diameter. All of these changes are important for signal processing, but by impacting the propagation properties of the membrane rather than through the microtubules directly. I base these comments on other research that have found changes in dendrite morphology and physiology concurrent with synaptic plasticity. One must always keep in mind though that anything as complex as memory is going to rely on multiple mechanisms. Any claim that "the mechanism for X" has been found is always hyperbole.

I would say that some of that speculation, as well as the fact that this is all highly theoretical (no experimental work) are the major reasons this wasn't published in a journal like Nature or Science. Still PLoS Computational Biology often has some very good and important articles.

This is a drastically different reaction than what I have, but I find it just as intriguing. While we tend to focus on the neural effects, most drugs interact with a variety of receptors in the body. Do you get that sort of response after drinking soda? I know the amount of caffeine in soda is relatively little compared to coffee, but with the severity of reaction you have I'd expect you'd notice something. These sorts of different responses are why I'm excited about the idea of "personalized medicine", though I'm not expecting much anytime soon.

With luck though we'll have some caffeine free coffee to enjoy sometime in the near future.

Over analyzing is what I do :)

I don't have a detailed understanding of ADD, but I do recall being told that the increase in brain activity due to medication (amphetamines) is about promoting a proper balance of excitation and inhibition. Promotion of that balance may enable a particular part of the brain responsible for "control" (some part of the prefrontal cortex) to exert itself and reduce the conflict between other brain regions. On the other hand it may just help synchronize brain regions allowing them to be less in conflict. Or it may do both. There are many ways to bring excitation and inhibition into balance, and having experienced a positive effect of Adderal I know that it acts very differently than caffeine, though caffeine may still aid others with slightly different brain chemistry.

Also, having further considered jimbolauski's idea, I realize this may be the sort of effect he was thinking of. If so, then it doesn't fit for me, as ADD medication calms people by promoting balance and increasing the ability to focus, not by making people sleepy.

And I should stop now, because once I start analyzing, I may never stop...

That is an interesting theory. I'm certain I'm not full blown ADHD as I know I can focus better than some people who I know have ADD of one form or another. However I do sometimes show some symptoms in terms of difficulty focusing, and sometimes I get antsy. I figure I'd be somewhere on the spectrum, maybe with some shared genes specifically responsible for the different caffeine effect.

I do have a theory about how caffeine affects me the way it does, though I'm sure it's only partly correct at best, and I doubt I'll ever know for sure. When I have caffeine in really small doses and have a particularly clear task to focus on it can work really well. Give me just a bit more caffeine or a less well defined task and I struggle. More than that, with even half of a cup of regular coffee my head feels noisy, like the firing in my brain got turned up but it's all heat and no light. This then causes me to feel sleepy (and I have a fatigue problem as it is, with an inability to stay awake during afternoon seminars if I haven't gotten a nap first). Since I tend to have a pretty good memory and adaptability to various things (like food preference, which might partially explain why I like coffee), I figure maybe my set point for neuron excitability is higher than average, which makes my synapses a bit more plastic on average. One of caffeine's effects is to increase neuron excitability by blocking an adenosine receptor responsible for regulating excitability. My theory is that for most people that puts their neurons, and in effect their brains, in a sweet spot of excitability, but for me to puts me above that sweet spot and puts my networks out of balance.

I would love such a drink. I'm extremely sensitive to caffeine, but I enjoy coffee quite a bit. In fact, the stuff is more likely to put me to sleep than keep me awake, so I tend to enjoy coffee after some dinners rather than early or during the day. Occasionally I have a cup of decaf during the day. If this coffee becomes available I'd drink it much more frequently than I drink coffee now.

I've heard of others like myself, though I doubt we're a particularly large portion of the population, so we are probably not a major reason for this research. Still, why are you so against people having a less processed low-caffeine option? And how is railing against such a possibility with zero facts or specific arguments in any way insightful?