Well I, for one, am glad someone is sticking up for Microsoft. On Slashdot, no less. And telling off the little guy. Linux still sucks as a desktop OS and always will.

But you go, defend the megabillion dollar abusive monopolist who held computer systems back for decades and punch down on the little guy. Speak truth to the powerless!

Oh, bullshit. It's there along with all the other buttons.

Hell, even in America it's rare to find a building when originally designed had an elevator with no 13 button. I remember my Dad pointing one out when I was a kid.

You just praised Adolf Hitler. Good job there. And Mussolini made the trains run on time, didn't he, you vile little racist!

We can't innovate what we don't have.We don't have any HSR.We were supposed to have highspeed rail already. We gave billions to California to build a line between San Francisco and LA. The Californians simply stole the money and did not build one mile of track.

In China they execute government officials who do this.

Nobody has been arrested for the California theft and nobody ever will be.

Good guy CPC.

Remember: America innovates,China duplicates and Europe regulates.

Lithium aspartate, for example

The least-harm principle. There's essentially universal agreement that low (dietary-range) levels of lithium are not harmful, while the research as a whole is strongly suggestive of a benefit (but has not yet met the standards of, for example. an EPA regulatory standard for lithium in drinking water). Lithium, at the doses necessary, costs basically nothing, takes seconds to take, and is orders of magnitude away from the levels where potential toxicity symptoms can arise. To me, that's an easy call. Also, Alzheimer's runs in my family, so there's an extra factor weighing on the scale.

It would be amazing if there was a document that stated in very clear terms just how limited our federal government is and what it can't do at all no matter what.

No issues with aspartate. It dissociates fully upon dissolution. L-aspartate is a building block to proteins. D-aspartate is also naturally found and used in the body.

All of the salts you listed fully dissociate in water.

Nothing weird about sodium fluoride, fluorosilicic acid, or sodium fluorosilicate. Sodium fluoride is a simple salt, dissociates immediately upon dissolution to Na+ and F-. Fluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorisilicate result in a fluorosilicate ion (SiF-2) which rapidly hydrolyzes to Si(OH)4 + 6F- + 4H+. Si(OH)4 (orthosilicic acid) is the form of soluble silicon which plants and diatoms consume and is perfectly normal in water in the tiny amounts from fluoridation (like 6 micromolar concentration). Ocean surface water near Antarctica for example is up to ~80 micromolar concentration. And it goes without saying that minuscule amounts of sodium in water are also perfectly normal. The addition of the fluoride ion is the only actually meaningful impact.

Dial "996" for more information.

Really annoying that lithium orotate became the standard way to deliver lithium, given that orotic acid is toxic and mutagenic :P

TL/DR, it affects the enzymes that regulate these processes.

Lithium is naturally present in the diet, but it varies by orders of magnitude depending on where you get your water and where your food was grown / grazed, with most people today on the lower end of the intake. Mineral spring waters in particular tend to be much richer in lithium than river / lake water, and also the fact that municipal water supplies' range limitations on the quantities of common minerals (sodium, potassium, calcium, etc) will also tend to reduce lithium, could be argued that, on average, the average person in the past might have consumed more. But it still would be quite varied on a regional basis.

Note that drinking lithiated water used to be a popular health trend. Indeed, 7-Up was originally called 7up Lithiated Lemon Soda (though the claim of being lithiated was actually a lie in their case, and they ultimately had to remove it!).

It always strikes me as weird that people would be shocked that a substance commonly prescribed to affect the brain... affects the brain.

Beyond increasing BDNF activity (which promotes neuron survival and new growth), one of the main therapeutic targets is Glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta, which controls a wide range of developmental parameters for neuronal development, including discouraging regeneration and promoting apoptosis, and is pro-inflammatory (CNS inflammation is itself associated with Alzheimers). Lithium reduces its activity, both with direct and indirect inhibition. While GSK-3B is essential to a degree, overactivity of GSK-3B is associated with a wide range of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's.

Lithium also helps promote cleanup (misfolded proteins, degradation products, etc) via autophagy by reducing the activity of IMPase... at least at low doses. At high doses, it can cause the inverse effect, due to its GSK-3B and mTOR impacts. In general, though, it seems to typically be pro-autophagy.