Sunday, December 2, 2012

It's Not a Good Time for String Theorists Who Work Out Strenuously

While there may be few String Theorists who work out strenuously for more than an hour a day, the few there are may be in mortal danger.



First up is the fact that the Large Hadron Collider has failed to find any predicted particles despite being fired up for years now. I first wrote about this in my post Is String Theory Failing?, still our number 1 most read post of all-time. The Standard Model has been cemented with the discovery of the last of its predicted particles, the Higgs boson, better known as the god particle.  Meanwhile not a single confirmation of M-Theory, Super-symmetry, better known as String Theory have been forthcoming from the 17 mile ring in the Swiss/French Alps. Let's hope that doesn't put any Sheldon Cooper types on the edge of the building.

Or into the gym to work out, because...

Any aging athlete that runs more than 20 miles a week or faster than 8 minutes a mile is damaging their heart way more than any training effect it achieves.
 

That's the conclusions of an upcoming report in the British Medical Journal Heart.  One of its lead authors actually gave up a successful career as a triathlete due to the findings. Of course there are opponents of the findings and much more to be done to finalize our understandings of the phenomenon.  Regardless, it's quite clear that extreme exercise among especially aging athletes can damage the heart, leading to not only sudden cardiac death, but increases in strokes and other deadly consequences.  Read the article in the Wall Street Journal preceding the actual release of the entire Study.

Thanks to several of my dozens of readers for submitting this!  Stay careful out there.

1 comment:

  1. Who knew that my inability to run faster than 8 minutes/mile or for more than an hour would now be to my advantage? Next they will tell me that my breakfast of bacon and eggs with coffee is beneficial! (or maybe that smoking is the key to health like in the Woody Allen film Sleepers.)

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