27 replies to this topic

[scottl]

Think Fast: Reaction Time And IQ May Predict Long Life

http://www.scienceda...50204215523.htm

Posted on avant by turoati

Guess this means we should all dig out that post from last fall where nootropes for video games were discussed.

[susmariosep]

The ingredients of IQ

They thought IQ tests might relate to physical health because people with higher IQs typically are more likely to be in occupations with safer environments.

I have not read the article carefully, but the above line seems to confirm my own suspicion about the essential ingrdients of IQ, and why people with high IQ's stay alive longer than people without.

For me, although I don't qualify to apply as a prospective candidate to the Mensa brotherhood, IQ consists in quick seeing: of the whole picture, and the details of the whole picture, and the boons and the dooms of the potential combinations of the whole and the details and among the details themselves, in regard to quick response for keeping safe and alive.

In every potentially deadly situation, quick reaction time is of the essence in staying safe and alive. Everyone can see that, if a grenade is launched into a crowd, the ones quick to take cover will survive.

Thus seeing the whole picture and its details and quickly at that, also very important the beneficial and the hazardous combinations of the whole and the details and the details among themselves, that certainly takes very good intelligence pull off.

Here are two news accounts I read some time back, which can happen to anyone, but the people with the high IQ's most probably would not come out the tragic victims.

Item 1: A guy came home in his newly purchased helicopter, landing in his front yard. His infant son came running toward him as he came down from the copter, he grabbed the child, both of them in an excited mood. Now, here is the tragedy, he gleefully threw his child up into the air to catch him as the child would come down; but the child got hit by the copter's rotary propeller blades.

Item 2: A guy wanted to remove the greasy stains of his baby girl, so he siphoned out some gas from his car, and wiped the girl using a towel drenched in gas and with the pail of gas beside him and the baby girl. Then he nonchalantly from habit lighted a cigarette.

This one could be an urban legend but I assured you it has happened time and again: a guy wanting to electrocute a pesky beast like a mouse he caught, to electrocute namely the mouse in the bathtub: and got himself electrocuted in the process.

This one really happened to the son of a very rich family. This guy would go up to the roof of their mansion with his cell phone, to call his girl friend in another country, with a metal rod for an extended antenna tied to his cell phone short one. On this occasion he went to the tip of the roof to get the signal even better, and in the process his extended antenna touched the high tension wire passing over their mansion. Luckily, notwithstanding very severe burns, he survived.


That's why even though DonSpanton and a good number of people here would pooh pooh high IQ's or the concept of IQ itself; notwithstanding it's political incorrectness, I would if my money permits surround myself with high IQ guys.

In popular man in the street language, high IQ is what I would call quick presence of mind and response time.

Susma

[brooklynjuice]

Please post a reference to ANY one of those stories.

Sound like complete utter bullshit to be frank. A metal rod to a cell phone then sitting on top of a mansion? Are you kidding me? You believe that?

[susmariosep]

Please think, don't emote.


I usually don't produce cites, because most of my ideas and sources are from my stock knowledge and personal witnessing of events.*

You can look them up in the net if you want.

You seem to be angry at me for the events I have narrated.

The first three ones are from reading in news accounts or in published news journals. Of course not everything published is to be taken as reliable, but I think the events could have happen -- and did happen, for they are quite common enough, owing to the general absent-mindedness or stupidity of people.

If you prefer, since you are angry at me, don't take them for actual historical events, that did take place in time and in space and with people. Yet as illustrations of my concept of IQ I think they are relevant.

About the fourth event, the guy who would call his girlfriend on the roof of his house and by cell phone with an extended antenna tied to the cell phone's short one, that really happened, and my wife and I visited him in the hospital.

Electrocution from high tension wires happens regularly in my place of the planet, specially in a construction project, to workmen who are careless and do not have the presence of mind about being near such wires passing overhead.

I think government requires that such wires be enclosed, insulated with some kind of big plastic tubing which can be pushed to points where the wire is above a construction site.

In that particular event, the guy's house is in the same big compound as their lumber yard; and I imagine that is why they have high tension wires passing their compound above their house and plant installations.

As an aside, I was talking with my wife whether the guy would still be sexually functional; so I asked around from medical personnel in the hospital and did some reading and more asking around, and this is what I learned about electrocution from high tension wires above one's house or building:

Contact of the human body with one wire will cause the current from that wire to pass to the earth below on the ground by way of the human body, if the body is in contact in turn with conductive structures all the way to the earth on the ground below.

Danny, the guy's name, was on a metallic roof which is very common in my part of the planet; we call the metal sheets used locally as GI corrugated roof sheets, which can be ordered on different sizes but popularly I think in stores can be bought on the size of four feet by eight feet. GI stands for galvanized iron.

Okay, so the current goes to Danny's body to the metal roof, and from the metal roof to the metal roof gutter and from there to the gutter's metal downspout or drain pipe, and from the end of the drain pipe the current jumps to the earth or ground, which it can do easily for being of high voltage and the distance between the pipe's end and the ground is usually very short, and as a matter of fact the drain pipe usually goes all the way underground to the storm drainage canal network below the ground.

I really enjoy writing about such matters from personal knowledge, stock knowledge that is from actual self witness and from stock reading which I can take to be reliable, unlike Buddhist ideas and a lot of dense philosophical writings.

Do you do some house wiring by yourself in your home? If you do so, take the trouble to do some reading about house electrical installations, for your safety and also your culture of electricity knowledge. About what I have described, if you can't accept it, ask around from among electricians in the neighborhood, or even non-professional guys who are in the habit of doing their own house electrical trouble-shooting -- you might find one who is knowledgeable enough although a layman otherwise.

Now, I was saying something about Danny's sexual functionality. It is intact and he had gotten married and had already two kids.

Electric current seeks the easiest and quickest path to the ground or to the other wire. What kills in an electrocution is not the burning, but the heart stoppage, they call that cardiac arrest I think.

Now, the current will not go to the heart, it will stay on the skin on its way to the ground or the other wire. So this is what happened to Danny:

The current from the high tension wire entered the make-shift extension antenna to his cell phone, to his hand, to his body skin down to his foot, to the metal roofing, to the metal drain pipe, and to the earth ground as its final station.

I imagine he was able by effort or by luck to let go of his cell phone, because otherwise he could have been burned much more seriously and eventually his heart would come to a stoppage, the cardiac arrest that is, owing to all that current passing by his body. No, the idea that a person can't let go a live wire he happens to be in contact with, that is not true; a live wire has no 'magnetic' glue quality to stick to a person's hand or body part which happens to be in contact with it.

Okay, back to Danny's sexual function being intact from the electrocution, the current could not have gone to his sex penile rod and jump from there to the metal roof; why? too much trouble. The current has an innate intelligence: it prefers to cruise along the skin to the foot and thus to the metal roof, that is less effort.

Thanks for this occasion to write on something enjoyable, and from stock knowledge sourced from my self witness of events and from also stock reading.

I don't have the habit of producing cites because I presume a reader can see that what I write about as a rule can be common stock knowledge of people who live and work and run a home or do a business, and who do read and are intelligent enough to know when they are reading are reliable reportages and when pure bunk for entertainment.

Besides, readers who are seriously critical look for cites themselves, when they read something they can't take to be reliable stock knowledge of the common intelligent, experienced, and reading person.

Back to my idea of IQ, are you one of the people here who are not happy with all this idea of IQ? The fact is that IQ is with us, so better learn about it at least in order to familiarize yourself with the taking of IQ tests, which will come your way as you go about life and relate with institutions.

Susma

*I usually write from stock knowledge and stock reading which I think most people also possess; and therefore with a little thinking people will see the sense in what I write, as I have seen the sense in what I keep in my stock knowledge and reading as to belong to sensible ideas -- and also of course I have a lot of things in my memory database which I know to be nonsense ideas.

[brooklynjuice]

You are literally saying you have the power to read my mind!

You are think for me and saying Im angry meanwhile as I read that post I was laughing, thank you for that. To say this is commonplace is even more laughable. I guess a REALLY stupid person would build a tub on top of a mansion try to electrocute a mouse in it while talking on a cell phone (that doesnt give quite that clear sound that a metal rod attached to it produces)to a person telling them how hes gotta clean his greasy kid with gasoline while smoking.... can we throw in a lighting storm? One bolt could ignite all 3 events (pardon the pun).[lol]

[jolly]

Going back to the thinkfast issue, I've played with it extensivly, its pretty cool software...

Actually, thinkfast got me onto nootropics in the first place. I researched intelligence, found out about thinkfast, and found out about people using thinkfast to check effects of nootropics =)

[eternaltraveler]

just go read the darwin awards. There are plenty of verified stories of people being really stupid

[susmariosep]

Messing up text and context

I had always wanted to read that book by an editor of the Great Books of the Western World and also an edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, on how to read a book, but never got to it.

But even without reading that very well patronized work, I think, Brook, you could have done better than getting all mixed up the text and context of my post, explaining acts of people done without good presence of mind, owing possibly to non-egregious IQ.

Please go over that post again.

Susma

You are literally saying you have the power to read my mind!

You are think for me and saying Im angry meanwhile as I read that post I was laughing, thank you for that.  To say this is commonplace is even more laughable.  I guess a REALLY stupid person would build a tub on top of a mansion try to electrocute a mouse in it while talking on a cell phone (that doesnt give quite that clear sound that a metal rod attached to it produces)to a person telling them how hes gotta clean his greasy kid with gasoline while smoking....  can we throw in a lighting storm?  One bolt could ignite all 3 events (pardon the pun).[lol]

[lynx]

I imagine he was able by effort or by luck to let go of his cell phone, because otherwise he could have been burned much more seriously and eventually his heart would come to a stoppage, the cardiac arrest that is, owing to all that current passing by his body. No, the idea that a person can't let go a live wire he happens to be in contact with, that is not true; a live wire has no 'magnetic' glue quality to stick to a person's hand or body part which happens to be in contact with it.

I believe this effect is caused by muscle contractioins from the current, not "magnetism". DC electrocution usually causes one giant contraction, whereas AC, alternating contraction/realease, but the cycle is too fast to allow the grip to be lost.

[susmariosep]

Thanks, Lynx, for the explanation.

Actually, I was using magnetism as a figure, not the real magnetism of electromagnetic substances, devices.

Can I ask you now and then about matters electrical? I have many questions on electricity.

Susma

[lynx]

I am not a real expert on electricity, I just play one on TV.

[stellar]

I am not a real expert on electricity, I just play one on TV.

Did you stay at a Holiday Inn last night?

[wraith]

I have a hunch that the reaction time / longevity correlation has its causal roots in physiology, not behavior. Something to do with the nervous system and production of growth factors. There was a recent study showing enhanced longevity in animals given a certain class of anti-seizure drugs. Will post a link when I have time.

~~~

Here's a link to some info on the anti-seizure drug research:
Epilepsy Drugs Slow Aging in Worms


(edited to add link)

Edited by wraith, 10 February 2005 - 07:53 PM.

[brooklynjuice]

lynx: I am not a real expert on electricity, I just play one on TV.

lol and that explantion was on the money. I work alot with eletricity and magnets I might be able to answer questions you have.

As per live wires or any conducting wires for that matter a small potential life saving tidbit to remember is to touch them (if you hafta w/o being to test them properly of course) with the BACK of your hand. If its live the muscles will contract as lynx described and will naturally pull you arm in and away from the current.

[brooklynjuice]

susmario they just seemed like urban legend type stuff that you hear in school yards and such. That tongue in cheek response was just making light of said topic. Didnt mean to bring out of context nor am I looking to exchange flames... peace

[susmariosep]

I am glad to have come across two knowledgeable guys about electricity.

I believe this effect is caused by muscle contractions from the current, not "magnetism". DC electrocution usually causes one giant contraction, whereas AC, alternating contraction/release, but the cycle is too fast to allow the grip to be lost. -- lynx


lol and that explantion was on the money.  I work alot with eletricity and magnets I might be able to answer questions you have.

As per live wires or any conducting wires for that matter a small potential life saving tidbit to remember is to touch them (if you hafta w/o being to test them properly of course) with the BACK of your hand.  If its live the muscles will contract as lynx described and will naturally pull you arm in and away from the current. -- brook

I will put up a thread on questions about electricity matters, for guys like you to answer my questions as coming from a layman.

In the meantime, taking the liberty of a digression here, may I pursue the matter of why a person can or cannot let go of a live wire he is in contact with?

First, I am not an electrician by training, but by self-reading and by practice at home with my own home electrical appliances, lighting installations, and useful experimentations.

I said that guy, Danny, luckily let go of his cellphone by which he was electrocuted through an extended phone antenna accidentally touching the high tension wire passing over the roof, where he situated himself to get a stronger signal for his link-up with his girlfriend in another country.

That part about why he could let go of his cellphone, and did not appear to be stuck with it owing to the electric current coursing through the phone, that part is my own speculative explanation, namely, that electric current does not possess any 'magnetic glue' as to prevent a person touching a live-wire from shaking loose from it.

I had myself experienced accidentally touching with one hand a live wire of 240 AC volts, and my bare feet were on a concrete floor; I felt the not so strong electrical shock of the current I assume passing through me to earth. I was able to instinctively pull my hand away from the live wire. No, I was not grabbing that wire.

Had I been grabbing the live wire, like say grabbing a cellphone, could I have been able to open my hand to let go of the live wire, under the circumstances as described?

Now, from my own speculation, may I address these two questions to professional or knowledgeable electricians:

1. If it were a DC 240 volts live wire, according to Lynx and implicitly Brook, my hand muscles would contract and thus be beyond my 'brain-mind' control and thereby I would not be able to loosen up my hand-fingers to release and let go of the live wire; the end result being death by electrocution?

2. If the live wire were carrying a current of AC 240 volts, contraction of the muscles would also ensue, even though the current goes first in one direction and next in the opposite direction, because in either direction the muscles would contract, and not in turns contract and 'de-contract'; is that also the explanation how a person in such a situation cannot let go of the live wire?

Is that why we see in movies guys holding a live wire can't let go of their hold of the live wire, and would appear to be shaking uncontrollably until they die from electrocution?

These are the kinds of questions I like to ask from people genuinely knowledgeable about electricity.

Good for me; no, I don't experiment with electricity except when I am sure of what is going to happen and I have taken the safeguard against electrocution, following that warning I read once in a book about doing self electrical installations at home, namely, if you don't know what will happen, don't do it -- understanding unless and until you have made sure you won't burn down the house or destroy the appliance, and absolutely you yourself don't get injured thereby!

Well, Lynx and Brook, can you give a fellow DIY guy some good illumination?

Susma

[lynx]

Susma, my understanding is that DC causes one massive, whole body contraction which results in the person being "thrown" across the room. AC is 60 hz, the cycle is too fast to allow a person to lose their grip. That's all I know, maybe Brooklyn can throw in some more.

[brooklynjuice]

My work is mainly in X-Ray, Cat Scan and MRI but I did have to takes classes to electricity, physics, magnetism, etc...

I agree with Lynx but I would have to look back at some texts to get more in-depth.

[susmariosep]

What is knowledge, a propos electricity? 1

I guess we are back to the very metaphysical question of what is knowledge in a person.

Knowledge from personal experience and knowledge from hearsay, essentially that is the big critical distinction.

Knowledge from personal experience can be direct with the involvement in the experience of the person himself in the gist of the experience, for example, sex. There is no substitute for such a knowledge.

Knowledge from hearsay is almost of infinite kinds and reliability, as many as the eye can see and the ear can hear.

Right at this point I can say that in the multimedia world we can say that knowledge by hearsay is dependent upon video and audio or both combined, I mean the targets of the eye and the ear. I will not go here into so-called interactive link-up with multimedia targets.

Concrete video target is for the eye, concrete audio target is for the ear; if we have a target that has both concretely video and concretely audio features, then we can say that the hearsay knowledge of that target is much more dependable than otherwise. And I think in courts such a knowledge is usually acceptable on a par with knowledge from personal experience.

But somebody can tell me that reliability has validity insofar as the experience of the video and audio representations is concerned. So, there are endless questions...

Abstract video and audio targets of the eye and ear, respectively, what are they? Language representations in writing and in speech, respectively. They can be combined and simultaneously, like those guys attending a conference witness, where they have already the lecture in writing in paper in their hands and at the same time they are hearing the lecturer delivering the lecture on the stage, or they can see-read the lecture part by part on a big screen in front above the stage as they see and hear the lecturer delivering his lecture: all which are in video and audio representations of language.

I guess a lot of so-called knowledge is of the hearsay kind, some more reliable but a lot also very questionable. And generally hearsay knowledge is not dependable where matters are of a crucial import as to impact on rights to life, liberty, property, and good name.

Now, as regards knowledge from personal experience where the knowing subject is in his body or brain or mind undergoing the experience of the target of experience, for example sexual copulation, or eating, or a concrete object like a live wire; if we have several persons who have similar experiences, then we can or they can among themselves be in a good manner and extent sure of their knowledge of what is sexual copulation, what is eating an apple, and what is touching or grabbing a live wire; plus all the consequences of the experiences they can agree among themselves to be connected to and consequential from the experiences themselves.

Proceed to next post.

Susma

[susmariosep]

What is knowledge, a propos electricity? 2


But even the knowledge of the consequences can be a bone of contention already, among the subjects experiencing what they assume to be similar experiences.

And even as regards personal knowledge of the kind described, we cannot take for gratned a person's account of his personal experience, for we can always ask if the guy is lying or he is in crude terms, crazy, though with some kind of experience at least all in his brain-mind. Take all those reports by guys who claim to see things or to have encounters with beings, which others can't or don't see, don't experience.

I am having on and off discussions with a fellow poster here who experiences encounters with what he calls gods and goddess or more modestly spirit guides. And so far as I can gather from his posts, he is not lying and he is not crazy.

But I have been trying to find out what concrete mundane conveniences the gods and goddesses can provide for him; about which up to now he still cannot be very specific -- except that he feels some unspecified but important to him effects in communings with such entities, which he claims to see also outside his mind.

So I conclude as of now that he belongs to the class of a very small minority which some guy two thousand years ago or more tells us that some old guys dream dreams and some young guys see visions, and all of them are into arcane revelations.

But for me no one can get these guys to cajole their spirit guides to help in quickly and easily locating a small screw I would now and then drop on the floor, and have a terribly difficult time locating, and most the time end up not finding at all.

Next post, please.


Susma

[susmariosep]

What is knowledge, a propos electricity? 3 and last.

Back to body contact with live wires, first we are sure people or biological creatures do die from body contact with electricity of enough voltage and current, which quantity enough to kill is dependent on the quality and quantity grades of the victim. Proof of that: a guy strapped to an electrocution chair does get killed by electricity -- for an execution of a death sentence, by that method.

Next question is whether the victim dies from heart stoppage first, and the burning or roasting continues, giving the appearance that the victim dies from burning.

Another question, do muscle contractions take place and why and how?

Still another question, does a human body or body part get thrown or moved away on contact with electricity of enough voltage and current; or does a body get paralyzed owing to muscle contraction and remain fatally in contact with the source of electricity?

Finally, do we have enough reasons to doubt the movie representations of bodies adhering to electricity sources upon contact or contrariwise being thrown away?


Moral of this digression on electricity: don't fool around with electricity unless and until you get to know for sure what is going to happen, and you have taken the caution to not get killed or hurt, and your house not get burned down, nor your electrical appliances get destroyed or put off commission.

Susma

[enemy]

If I recall correctly, (and I may well be dead wrong), but AC is the preferred method of transporting power because frequency may be interchanged with voltage using step-up/step-down transformers.

Thats why electricity never really caught on until Tesla invented the AC dynamo.

Back to the topic at hand: AC power has both an "on" portion of its phase and an "off" portion (sinusoidal function, e.g. y = A sin (x), whereas DC is strictly always "on" (constant function e.g. y=110V).

It was my impression that DC could grab you and hold on because your muscles would contract for as long as the juice is still on.

AC would shock the shit out of you, but at the moment the phase reversed itself, you had a chance to release your grip because there would effectively be no juice flowing.

Take this with a grain of salt, though I got an "A" in electromagnetic theory last semester. Then again, its pretty fundamental physics and doesn't really offer much insight into engineering applications...

[susmariosep]

From 1.5 hours of research in the Web


I have just spent 1.5 hours researching the web on electrocution, electric shock, experiments.

First, I have not come across any accounts in those 1.5 hours of research where a living person is systematically subject to electrical contacts in various possible manners and degrees and being interviewed about his experiences.

That I have not come across any such accounts in my 1.5 hours of such experiments, means that I am a poor researcher, or a hasty researcher, or I had not been lucky; but not necessarily that there are no such accounts in the web, and certainly not that there are no such records anywhere of such experiments.

I am almost sure that state sponsored torture researchers must have such studies, for example Japanese and Nazi German researchers in WWII, and also American CIA or generally US military intelligence (think Abu Ghraib).

All I have read in the 1.5 hours search of the web brought me to what are essentially empirical observations and mind speculations on how electricity kills or injures a living human body.

Electric current -- and here is the paradoxical effect of electricity on the heart -- causes the heart to stop (largely speculative, I think), but high voltage electrical shock on the chest is supposed to bring an 'arrested heart' back to pumping.

Medical doctors deal with electricity from the post trauma aspects of its effects on the body: burns, other kinds of tissue and organ damages, disruption of the heart rhythm, called fibrillation; so that as the heart is a pump, imagine a pump all awry in its rhythmic pumping. Their information of how electricity kills or injures is to my impression mostly speculative. But dnd't take me for an authority.

It is not easy to kill with electricity right away and directly from electricity. Please read observers' accounts of how horrible and time-consuming and troublesome it is to effect electrocution death on a guy strapped to the electrocution chair.

Okay, here is my own speculation on electricity and its contact with the human body or biological entity.

For electricity to get anything done, it has got to be in a circuit, meaning there is a source of electricity, a path to the object to be electrified, and a path from the object back to the source. The source can be man-made or nature as the atmosphere in the sky.

When your body is in the circuit, as when you hold with one hand one live wire and with the other hand the other live wire, then you complete a circuit, and you can get burned or have cardiac fibrillation in this particular case of your two hands each holding to one and the other, of the two opposing charges from a current source like a battery or an electrical current producing machine.

If the current does not cross your chest from one side to the other, say from one arm to the other, then your heart is safe. But don't try it!

And that is why people working with electrical devices are always told to very strictly use only one hand, keep the other hand away, behind in your back. How does a guy work with only one hand? Use your imagination -- use a vise or anything to hold the article being worked on, but put on some insulation if the holding device is metallic -- on the holding device, that is.

We have people telling us that a person can be stuck fast to a live wire or an electrified object; and contrariwise, he can be thrown off. The explanation for being stuck is contraction of muscles from electric shock causing paralysis. But unless there is an explosion occasioned by a short circuit of very high voltage, I can't see any explanation for being thrown off.

The moral of all these observations and speculations is Don't do anything with electricity if you don't know what is going to happen!

And please don't do any experimentations from what I have said here about electricity and its effects on the human body! I will not be responsible for any body injuries, deaths, or damages to properties.

Susma

[lynx]

Susma,

I think you need to hone your research skills.

http://www.medscape....rticle/410681_3

The string I used to get that as the second hit on google was:

"electrocution muscle spasm DC AC"

[susmariosep]

No, it's not a research report of laboratory experiments.


Dear Lynx:

I had read that article as you referred to.

But I searched in vain for any indications telling me that it is based on actually carried out laboratory experiments on live humans.

So, I would rather consider it as speculations of doctors, from the injuries and autopsies of deaths from contacts with electricity.

Maybe they were writing for men in the street like myself who are always insisting that things be BEQ, i.e., a writing must be brief, easy, and quick.

Let's have a good laugh, and take care with electricity just the same.

And also continue to exercise quick presence of mind with our cerebrum in all cirumcstances of life and work, specially in the presence of electricity.

Susma

[lynx]

[b]

We have people telling us that a person can be stuck fast to a live wire or an electrified object; and contrariwise, he can be thrown off. The explanation for being stuck is contraction of muscles from electric shock causing paralysis. But unless there is an explosion occasioned by a short circuit of very high voltage, I can't see any explanation for being thrown off.

The reason I posted the search results and string is that the mechanism for being thrown/glued is clearly explained.

[systemicanomaly]

Going back to the thinkfast issue, I've played with it extensively, its pretty cool software...

Actually, thinkfast got me onto nootropics in the first place.  I researched intelligence, found out about thinkfast, and found out about people using thinkfast to check effects of nootropics =)

Note that ThinkFast (TF) is no longer commercially available. Cognitve Labs, who now owns the right to the software, has licensed it to MyBrainTrainer (MBT) for their online brain gymnasium.

TF definitely renewed my interest in nootropics for a couple of reasons. Firstly, TF and now MBT, euips the user with a barometer to quantitavely measure the effects that brain-nutes have on cognitve performance. Secondly, software such as MBT provides, thru repetitive training, an additional means to improve memory, reaction time & other visual/cognitive skills.

MBT is really cheap... a mere $9.95 for 4 months of online access. You can preview one of their cognitive exercises free of charge by trying the MyBrainTrainer Challenge. Right now, the Challenge is their exercise #2. However in early April, the free Challenge will change to one of their other brain exercises.

You can also try the Cognitive Labs implementation of MBT's exercise #2 at the following link:

www.CognitiveLabs.com/sightspeedtest.htm

~gr

[xanadu]

Electrocution usually results from either the heart stopping or from lack of respiration or both. An electric current causes muscles to contract and this happens whether it's AC or DC. In AC, the current does reach zero 120 times per second but as has been said, that's not long enough to get loose from it. The back of the hand trick is a good one and has saved many lives. It's actually the current that kills, not the voltage though you need enough voltage to generate the current. As little as 6 volts could kill. Static electricity may be many thousands of volts but the current is so low that you only get a jolt from it.