All life started from procaryotic cells. The step from macromolecules to the first cell cannot be big, otherwise it could not happen spontaneously. On the other side, it must be big enough so that the cell have enough flexibility and functionality to support complex life.
That is, the cell is small enough in order to be produced directly by molecules but large enough in order to be a full living organism (reproduction, metabolism etc). This sweet spot seems to be the cell size we observe.
Later in evolution the size disparity grew because a procaryotic cell swallowed another one to become an eucaryotic and the eucaryotic ones specialized even further.
A population ceiling is not a serious decision for a modern country like Switzerland, esp given their 1.29 kids per family. They could cap by proffesion, region or even origin nation. But a hard cap reminds something between One child policy of China and Brexit, which both didn't go well. First problem will be the shortage of workers in specific fields or regions.
I believe the single common caiae of increase for all types of cancer is immunosuppression. Immune system might clear a cancer cell that would otherwise evolve to fulminant disease, every few days. A slight immunosuppression might explain a astonishing increase. All the environmental factors referred are candidates for that but the most important is chronic psychological stress, which is rampant in modern adults and not measured, so not studied, in research.
I've heard people speculate about the opposite actually: psychological stress causing the an overactive immune system, resulting in chronic inflammation and a prevalence of auto-immune disease.
I'm a layman though, would like for someone to clarify.
You probably refer to the psycho-immunology, a different aspect. I refer to onco-immunology which is even less explored. In the past many proposed a connection between stress and cancer but without evidence and ground. I think it's time to approach it with enough scientific rigor.
Immunosuppresion is not a global epidemic. If anything it is the complete opposite; an excess of inflammation, which is directly correlated with all-cause mortality, organ failure and heart disease.
There is the light headed assumption that any time propr software can be replaced by open source. By regulation, by being fed up with closed source, by saying so etc. It cannot, it's very hard.
In this realm, software is like a car. Would you buy an open source car? You might know any aspect of it but where would be the professional support, the strict safety regulations, the security feeling that you are under the wing of a company? I am full OSS, but I am not sure for the average Joe and Mary or better for the Oliver, Lucas, Matteo and Sofia.
I was hovering over PC forums since 2000 until in 2018 I stumbled upon here. My first thought: where the hell was this treasure hidden all this time? Second thought: are there such gems for other fields (my field-medicine, sports, travel etc)? I found none with so high quality, curration, expertise.
Forget about reasonable arguments about wealth distribution. Human greed is infinite and the belly is insatiable, so they will stop at no amount of money. The ultimate goal of a totally capitalist society, like the US, is to create a single mutli-trillionaire, while all others starve.
Oh, the good old reflex that is activated in panic situations but never realised. Then the revolution was from capitalists against kings. Now the former are already in power with their servants (CEOs) and there is no alternative. So no change, no revolution.
Very rare disease, expected to be misdiagnosed as psychiatric. I admit I would (neurologist here) But you were luckily treated by an excellent neurologic center.
The lesson learned is that there are rare diseases (<1/10.000-100.000) but as they are so many, they form an important minority next to common ones (1/100-1000). Just don't forget them when data don't fit well. Such estimations is a hard dexterity of doctors that cannot be rivalled by AI.
I asked my wife about it since she has more context on the chance encounter with a neurosurgeon who was ultimately responsible for the transfer into Brigham and Women's. She said there were two things of note that led the neurosurgeon to step in (according to the neurosurgeon):
Decompensating at an increasing and alarming rate, not typical from a psych perspective. Also not in a healthy young male with no history. My wife was able to substantiate this claim with my detailed timeline. (I had some emails and wrote a lot of stuff down, as is my nature, during this time.)
I don't mean direct this specifically at you, but aren't there databases that can look up diseases by symptoms? Are doctors not trained to consult those, maybe after ruling out common causes? Why is forgetting relevant in this context?
I'm asking because I've had frequent encounters with doctors whose process seems to be, literally, "remember if there's anything like the described symptoms that I learned in medical school" which, if they were somewhat older, was probably 30+ years ago.
Esp in mental health there is a large overlap of symptoms between diagnoses. So doctor's experience is needed to get the right diagnosis. No database and, hell, no AI assistance yet.
It all boils down on how deep a doctor goes diagnostically: for common diseases (1/100) an interview is enough, for rarer (1/1000) an MRI/blood test are needed and for very rare you need extensive and expensive genetic and immune exams. Because of cost, the 'art of diagnosis' is to be able to filter the cases that should be referred downward. Classic type I/II error due to binary misclassification happens all the time.
After my abnormal brain MRIs, my understanding is that the diagnosis came down to either some kind of encephalitis or multiple sclerosis. But test results have to come back first. I was even set up with a follow-up with an MS specialist. Once my anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis test came back positive though, that follow-up got cancelled and replaced with a neuro-immunologist that specializes in these sorts of things.
Psychiatrists are tourist guides for the Paris catacombs who try to get around using an underground map.
When you do cluster analysis of the symptoms of psychiatric patients, the empirical clusters don't match the DSM entries.
Schizophrenia is at least 8 distinct diseases (see GWAS), so orphaned that they don't have a name.
Psychiatry is an epistemic mess, and medicine uses it as a garbage bin for the patients it doesn't understand (because blissful ignorance is the norm over there).
Health care in the US is the field that functions with the ultimate values of the country: totally free market (read capitalist jungle), without any state/public support, where only the fittest literally survive. But everyone can (read hopes to) become one.
In order to reach density living you need three things: space, water and food. The first was possible through the Roman cement, the second through the monumental Roman aqueducts and third due to the large share of slaves in relation to free people (it might be 10:1)
That is, the cell is small enough in order to be produced directly by molecules but large enough in order to be a full living organism (reproduction, metabolism etc). This sweet spot seems to be the cell size we observe.
Later in evolution the size disparity grew because a procaryotic cell swallowed another one to become an eucaryotic and the eucaryotic ones specialized even further.
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