greese007

This reminds me of stuff I have been reading about pulsed electromagnetic fields. Known in the trade as PEMF, mostly used for inducing rapid bone repair in racehorses. No good theories about why it works, but it is widely used because it works. Another case of experiment leading theory. Now I see PEMF being advertised by chiropracters, massage therapists, etc. These are not the most renowned of scientists, but they seem to be onto something which requires more investigation. One paper I read described the biological effects of high electric fields applied for ultra-short time periods. With a rapidly rising EM pulse, polarization of the cell walls can occur, leading to increased porosity of the cell wall... allowing transfer of ions not typically allowed through the lipid wall. For example, transfer of medications from the bloodstream. Adjusing rise-time and voltage can tune the cellular porosity to particular ions. This part sounds like science, to me. My doubt arises about the penetration depth of externally-applied PEMF fields. Can you really direct a high-energy pulse into deep tissue?

Most scientists make a rough equivalence between brain size and intelligence, or at least the ratio of brain mass to body mass. It seems to have decent predictive power, with a few notable exceptions such as parrots and cetaceans. We don't really have a good handle on "intelligence" when it comes to animals without language. We seem biased toward animals who appear to communicate with each other, or who appear to understand our efforts to communicate with them, and that is not strictly correlated to the size of their brains. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-brain-size-doesnt-correlate-with-intelligence-180947627/?no-ist Brain size in humans topped out about 20,000 years ago, but we are arguably more sophisticated now than they were then. That may have less to do with the capabilities of their brains. than the vast amount of technical and social knowledge that has been accumulated and is available for us to learn through our highly developed skills of social learning and communication.We stand on the shoulders of the giants who preceded us. A clever Neadertal born into our society might fit right in, after being subjected to the same education. What is clearly different about us vs. our 10,000 year old ancestors is our physical shape. The people who survived that environment would be elite athletes in our society. None others could survive.