Secret to intelligence? New link between brain cell size and IQ may help scientists find a way to enhance human intellect

For the first time, scientists have discovered that smart people have bigger brain cells than their peers. 

As well as being bulkier, the cells are better connected to their neighbours, allowing them to process more information at a faster rate.

If results of the study are confirmed, it could help researchers find a way to enhance our intelligence.

A study, led by Natalia Goriounova at the Free University Amsterdam, gave an IQ test to 35 people who were due to undergo brain surgery, according to report in New Scientist.

During surgery, doctors took a small sample of healthy brain tissue from the temporal lobe of the volunteers. This piece of human brain was then kept alive for testing in a lab.

Dr Goriounova compared the size and shape of the brain cells with volunteers' IQ scores. They found that the brain cells are significantly bigger in people with higher IQs.

Brain cells from smarter people also have more dendrites, which are short extensions of the main neuron that connect to other cells. These tiny projections are important in transferring information from one cell to another.

The study is the first to ever show that the  physical size and structure of brain cells is related to a person's intelligence levels. 

Christof Koch at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle told New Scientist:  'We've known there is some link between brain size and intelligence. The team confirm this and take it down to individual neurons.

The concept of intelligence being derived from brain structure could ruffle feathers among some in the academic field.

Dr Koch said: 'Some people will say intelligence is so elusive and complex that the idea it can be tied to individual neurons is implausible.' 

The research team also tested people's ability to transmit electrical signals, mimicking the processing of information.

What they found was that people with a low IQ coped at a low frequency, but rapidly became fatigued. The smarter people did not slow down and continued to transmit even at a high rate of stimulation.   

'What they did here is extraordinary neuroscience,' says Richard Haier at the University of California, Irvine. 'It's the beginning of being able to study intelligence neuron by neuron, and circuit by circuit.

'This research could lead to neuroscience-based ways to enhance human intelligence – perhaps dramatically. 'We might be able to treat intellectual disabilities or prevent them from occurring.'

'Theoretically, we can say that with both pluripotent and embryonic stem cells that we can create larger brain cells which, when combined with this recent research, would indicate that we could increase intelligence,' Michele Giugliano, co-author and professor at the University of Antwerp told MailOnline.

'This was shown in rodents as we grafted these cells into the brain of mice.

'The problem is that we do not know if the size of the cell is from genetic cause or neurophsycical cues.

It does seem that it would be theoretically possible to restore human brain matter in the next 50 years to restore cognitive deficit. Ethically, I am not sure if that would be allowed.'

SOURCE 

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Wisconsin and Welfare: Work Works
   
“It’s so evident that work is the only way to get people out of poverty.”

Chris Kapenga, a Wisconsin state senator, said the sentence above in regard to welfare reform legislation recently passed in the Badger State. “We’re going to help people get 30 hours of work and move them closer to being self-sustained.”

Of course, the state senator is only half right; the other steady road out of poverty is a healthy marriage. But the basic facts about the gains of work and marriage still seem to elude some people.

Promoting work and marriage are the goals of welfare reform. Contrary to the caricature painted by liberals, conservatives don’t lack compassion for the poor. Quite the opposite. We know a failure to institute work requirements robs those in poverty of their dignity — that if they’re able to work, we do them no favors by engaging in a simple handout. And the collapse of marriage in low-income communities has had devastating effects on men, women and children.

That’s why Gov. Scott Walker and his state deserve credit for taking the lead on reform issues. Among other things, the latest reforms establish work requirements for housing programs and strengthen already existing work requirements in food stamp programs.

It may surprise some people that such requirements are even necessary. Don’t we, they may ask, already have them at the federal level?

We do, but it’s not as widespread as they may think. There are more than 80 means-tested federal welfare programs, yet only two have substantial work requirements: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

And of the 3,000 federal housing authorities, only 39 require any sort of work as a condition for housing assistance.

That’s where the Wisconsin reforms come in. They expand work requirements to all work-capable state residents who receive federal housing assistance.

“The generosity of federal housing subsidies and the expense of the program make it a good target for reform,” writes welfare expert Marissa Teixeira. “This measure will help those who utilize housing vouchers to reduce their dependency on government.”

Another new Wisconsin measure that would encourage self-sufficiency: Increasing the number of work hours required of able-bodied adults without dependents from 20 a week to 30. The state is also expanding work requirements for parents with children above the age of six who apply for food stamps.

Some critics paint this an unreasonable. But if we’re interested in actually lifting individuals and their dependents out of poverty — to break the crippling cycle that often ensnares multiple generations — this is what we need to do.

Consider the success of the 1996 reform, which the Wisconsin one is built on. “That law, among other things, introduced work requirements to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program,” Ms. Teixeira writes. “The result was a 50 percent increase in employment among never-married mothers and a one-third decrease in poverty among that group.”

Wisconsin’s latest reforms offer a model for other states. Its efforts, in fact, remind me of a key recommendation in “Solutions 2018,” The Heritage Foundation’s latest policy briefing book: that when it comes to welfare reform, we should return fiscal responsibility to state governments.

Those governments administer many federally funded welfare programs, but inefficiency abounds — which is hardly surprising, considering that it’s not their money on the line. But if we began to shift things so that states not only administer but pay for the programs with state resources, we can expect that to change.

The final crucial element of reform, courtesy of “Solutions 2018”: We need to do much more to promote marriage, which is a proven weapon against child poverty.

Marriage reduces the probability of child poverty by a whopping 80 percent. Children in single-parent homes, by contrast, are more than five times more likely to be poor, compared to their peers in homes with both parents.

As President Lyndon Johnson said of the War on Poverty, “Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it.” Wisconsin is pointing the way. Will other states follow?

SOURCE 

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Leading Economist Now Says Trump Policies Are Restoring America’s Economy

Sean Snaith is not a household name but he is one of the nation’s top economists and highly regarded in economic circles for the depth and accuracy of his projections.

So much so that he is on multiple national economic forecasting panels, including The Wall Street Journal’s Economic Forecasting Survey, the Associated Press’ Economy Survey, CNNMoney.com’s Survey of Leading Economists, USA Today’s Survey of Top Economists, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Survey of Professional Forecasters, Bloomberg and Reuters.

All this is stated upfront because what he says rightly carries weight in a lot of influential circles, and probably should outside those circles. And he is now supremely optimistic about the American economy going forward.

He made projections last year he said were based on the assumption of a Hillary Clinton victory and her policies being instituted — because that is what all of the political pundits told him. When Trump won, he says, he had to re-think things. He went back to the drawing board and began a new set of calculations which he is constantly updating. The differences are dramatically better for the American economy and the American worker.

In fact, to hear Snaith speak recently to a large Florida economic development group, its almost jarring how much of a MAGA Trumper he sounds like — well, on economic policies anyway. And the projections he announced were almost goose-bumpy good.

Snaith said the tax cuts and deregulatory efforts will generate a 3.5 percent national GDP this year — much higher than at any point since before the Great Recession — and will remain very strong at least through 2020. He said this is more where the American economy should be and will be (barring any major, unforeseen disruptions.)

That has positive implications for American workers. The jobless rate is hovering at about 4 percent right now, but he predicted that as policies really start generating economic activity, the unemployment rate will fall to 3.4 percent by late 2020 — and that is even as the labor participation rate increases. So even as more Americans re-enter the job market after giving up for the past six years or more, they will all be absorbed into new jobs, plus some.

This tight labor market means there will be competitive market pressures driving wages and salaries specifically at the lower ends to begin with. In fact, that is already beginning to happen.

“Markets are magical and will solve the labor problem” by increasing wages to attract workers, he said. “The lowest end jobs are seeing the fastest income growth rate right now.”

Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness, said there are two driving policies at work here. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act and the ongoing regulatory relief.

The key elements of the tax reform package boosting the economy include: lower income tax rates; higher standard deductions; expansion of the child tax credit; reducing the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world from 35 percent to 21 percent; tax breaks for small businesses; and a one-time tax break to 15.5 percent to repatriate American companies’ offshore profits — which Apple already announced they will take advantage of to the tune of $252 billion.

The tax package will increase take-home pay for American workers — something that has not happened since President Bush was in office — and will generate more consumer spending, stimulating the economy and GDP growth. American companies will be more apt to keep their profits at home and reinvest a portion of them — several have already announced their intentions with plant expansions and sharp increases in employee pay.

But Snaith sees deregulation as every bit as important because of the tremendous drag that excess regulation places on companies and the economy. “Deregulation is the special sauce that will juice the economy,” Snaith said.

The Code of Federal Regulations exploded from 140,000 pages in 2005 to 185,000 today, he said. Those endless rules strangled the economy by trillions of dollars as companies spend so many resources on compliance rather than innovation, expansion and employee pay. Last year, the Trump administration took 22 deregulatory actions for every one new regulation, saving about $8 billion in regulatory compliance costs alone.

Interestingly, Snaith is not worried about a trade war undercutting his economic projections because he does not think there will be one.

“Are we going to have a trade war? My answer is no. Everybody knows that no one wins in a trade war,” he said. However, he thinks that some of the nation’s trade deals do need renegotiating because they were unbalanced, and China was cheating on them.

“If you are a manufacturer, you are not on an even playing field with China,” he said.

Snaith is about as mainstream as you can get in the economics field. And his projections record is stellar. His optimism is worth paying attention to.

SOURCE 

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