Antihistamines are Deadly

For those of you who might be under the impression that Benadryl or other antihistamines are handy sleep aides with no ill effects, I'd like to offer some input.

They are deadly in overdose, and overdosing is incredibly easy. One of the side-effects often ignored is short-term memory loss. Adults who live alone or already suffer from some dementia can readily continue to dose themselves to attempt to use it as a sleep aid only to overdose on an over-the-counter medication unintentionally. Anticholinergic syndrome can be the result, exacerbating any proclivity to seizure and causing an agitated psychosis which can cause a delay in seeking treatment.

They should never be used as sleep aids, especially in conjunction with benzodiazepines . Benzodiazepines, which include many anti-seizure and anti-anxiety medications, are also prescribed as sleep aids. Benzodiazepines already have a memory-interfering and hypnotic effect, so adding available over-the-counter antihistamines (diphenhydramine, otherwise known as "Benadryl") is a multiplier for fatal overdose on either medication, increasing the multiple effects of disinhibition, agitation, and short term memory loss.

To this end, I think that antihistamines should have a black-box warning or other information explicitly outlining the effects of overdose and the symptoms of toxicity, and the conjunction of benzodiazepines and antihistamines should be contraindicated (similar to SSRI and alcohol warnings).

Truly Crazy Ideas

Space is not my area of expertise. Matrix math even less so. I'm not even remotely conversant on cosmological physics. So take the following as the cranky meanderings it truly represents.

Have you ever had an idea that won't let you go? I've got one. I'm not sure what to call it, but it is the idea that the expansion of space is uneven. Couple to that the idea that dark matter is an illusion created by negative pressure created by this uneven expansion. Finally, speculate that this expansion is sensitive to matter, and the more matter there is, the less expansion.

So, why is this an idea at all? Well, it started out as a concept looking at what a negative pressure field would look like. You know, "antigravity." I'm not a crank in that regard, and I don't believe in free energy or a lot of the kooky malarky that gets dredged up by a lot of folks. Still, my idea is probably cranky at that, because I don't have good numbers, or much idea of where to look.

The depiction of galaxy distribution looks vaguely like a foam. Accumulations of dark matter appear to be "hollow." Dark matter continues to evade direct detection. The falloff in inflation after the big bang, the reheating issue, the accelerating expansion, there are a lot of issues that appeal to my urge to problem solve. So I throw together a bunch of what-ifs, and then mull it over.

So, I'll mull it over. Maybe someday I'll do some math analyzing the behaviors of inverse-gas in a foam.

Jurassic Park

The current financial crisis has re-awakened an idea in me.

Extinction, and why it happens.

Now, it's generally agreed that changes in environment can cause extinction. So, then, why do organisms go in directions that make them vulnerable to extinction? I think there are two poles - one goes for maximum energy accumulation, the other hedges on not being left out of accumulating energy. Maximum efficiency says grow large, that way you're pricing yourself out of the market of most predators. Or better yet, get an energy source that nobody else can touch and that you own exclusively so you don't have to grow large.

This is all speculation, of course - but these strategies only work if the environment is stable. In instability, what were assets become liabilities. Generalists and smaller creatures survive while large creatures and extreme specialists suffer.

Now, look at the companies in the most trouble right now, and it turns out they are large, large companies. Large specialists companies are virtually dead (all of the investment banks were subsumed or liquidated), while other large companies continue to suffer and threaten to go under.

Going back to biology, what would it take to keep a diverse environment stable? More generalists, smaller organisms. In the massive habitat destruction that has taken place since industrialization, smaller organisms (mice and pests) and generalists (skunks, foxes, coyotes and so on) survive and even thrive. In a free market - a limit on consolidation (company size and market share) and diversification of production would serve the same purpose. Consolidation has put a massive hardship on company survival (auto, banking, even farming) requiring inordinate amounts of cash to pull organizations through. Effectively they are on life support, sustained as their own massive bulk threatens to crush them much like beached whales.

I'm going to espouse an unpopular opinion. Break up the largest companies. Put the brakes on consolidation. Push innovation and diversification as company assets, as desirable market properties.

Let the dinosaurs go. We don't need another Jurassic Park.