Looking around, Cortisol is one of those good/bad things.
http://www.south-florida-personal-trainer.com/stress.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol
Looks like it's mostly understood on a physical level with only a little understood about it's neurological impacts. Physically, it sounds like it tells your body to 'break down and rebuild'. A little bit of cortisol, it works like growth hormone. A lot of cortisol, your body ends up useless mush. I can imagine no cortisol means your body is basically incapable of new things; Wikipedia lists low-cortisol impacts like Addison's_disease, Hypoglycemia , and learning impairment. Sounds like the researchers are taking a physical effect and applying it mentally as well.
You mean these things:
http://64.81.113.250/robertson/100_1734.JPG
http://64.81.113.250/robertson/100_1732.JPG
http://64.81.113.250/robertson/100_1731.JPG
Saw them outside of Amarillo about two years ago after a few weeks of heavy rain. Damn things were chest high and there were millions of them.... My co-workers had to explain what triffids were after I showed them the pictures. Supposedly these were a type of Yucca.
You don't expect to see this in the middle of a damn desert, or anywhere for that matter...
I think techies ought to appreciate this, it's entirely Murphy's Law. If he can lose it, he will. A great example is that once Bill Clinton walked out on a check. (Might have been after he was out of office) He just assumed someone else had it. A reporter picked it up. That reporter managed to make a name for himself by covering a $20 tab. Now, imagine if a reporter got ahold of Obama's blackberry. I'm sure the reporter would return it, eventually....
Unless people believe Obama is incapable of getting distracted....
Then again, I'm pretty sure he could ask RIM for a blackberry with a thumb scan and get one custom made....
Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.