Today’s NYTimes asks, “Is Sitting a Lethal Activity?” Only 2.4% of Americans over age 60 move around for at least 30 minutes per day. Our bodies are designed to be farmers, or hunter-gatherers, not desk-bound knowledge workers. In a study of people who were forced to overeat and prevented from exercising, some gained weight and some didn’t. Why?
“The people who didn’t gain weight were unconsciously moving around more,” Dr. Jensen says. They hadn’t started exercising more — that was prohibited by the study. Their bodies simply responded naturally by making more little movements than they had before the overfeeding began, like taking the stairs, trotting down the hall to the office water cooler, bustling about with chores at home or simply fidgeting. On average, the subjects who gained weight sat two hours more per day than those who hadn’t.
We know that dopamine controls movement and mood. People often eat to feel better. Sometimes they go for a walk/jog/run to feel better. Dance or make love or other pleasurable vigorous activity. We know that exercise elevates mode.
Did you know that obese people have lethargic dopamine receptors? The top left image shows the brain scan of a normal person eating. Next to it is the cooler, bluer scan of the obese person eating. Not as much excitement. See article.
The two hot images below them show that, overall, normal weight and obese people have similar brain metabolic activity. The big difference is whether eating lights up their pleasure center (dopamine receptors).
The bottom chart shows Body Mass Index (BMI) from low (skinny) on the left to high (fat) on the right. The number of dopamine receptors that are lit up by food PLUNGES the fatter you get. In terms of getting a dopamine boost, the more you eat, the less you get. Does fat lower dopamine receptors or the other way around? Could this be nature’s way of taking the fun out of eating? See this article from about a year ago.
The results support the notion that type 2 dopamine receptors (D2DR) — brain receptors that have been shown to play a key role in addiction — also play a key role in the rats’ heightened response to food. In fact, as the rats became obese, the levels of D2DR in the brain’s reward circuit decreased. This drop in D2DR is similar to that previously seen in humans addicted to drugs like cocaine or heroin.
We know that movement and non-verbal play lifts mood (increases dopamine). Isn’t it interesting to learn that using food to lift mood becomes a dull weapon the more we use it? This is the paradox that to get more energy, you need to spend more energy.
Nature can be harsh.
I’ll never look at orchids the same way after hunting for the elusive Ghost Orchid with John Kalafarski, a brilliant botanist and all around genius. 
We were seeking the elusive Ghost Orchid which blooms at the start of the summer rainy season. After a long dry winter, this leafless orchid appears briefly in just a few rare locations where the conditions are just right. John, our guide, visits this area often and has a botanist’s eye for the details that lead to the tiny but dramatic wild orchids that flower in the 
The most exciting part was hearing the rumble of an alligator as a jet plane went overhead. John explained that alligators are not afraid of humans, but they don’t understand the sound of the jets overhead and it agitates them. A few steps further and we could smell the alligator who had created a Gator Hole in the black swamp muck. The muck itself was actually clean smelling, just decaying leaves mostly, John dug up a handful for us to sniff. It looked muddy but was actually rather crumbly. We circled around the gator hole so we upwind of the gator and Howard got a pretty good photo. 
John explained that the early Spanish visitors called this critter a lizard “legato” so The Lizard is El Legato. Ellygato. Corrupted to ellygotta, then alligator. 
The Everglades are beautiful. We kayaked in a mangrove tunnel with a bird guide and watched a little gator flee. The next day, an ex-Marine power boated us out to the 10,000 islands so we could kayak in salt water to see manatees and turtles and to visit a small island with a sandy beach, hardwoods at the center and a portapotty. While we were on the island, some canoe campers landed, planning to spend the night. They were touring and camping in the islands (that looks like a fun trip!). The following day we spent several hours in the Fakahatchee strip, a botanists paradise, with a Ph.D. naturalist looking for Ghost orchids. Didn’t find any, but heard, smelled and saw a gator at his hole. Very gushy hike.
Karen Clark is a 
Safari froze on my new iPad2. Screen grayed out, nothing worked. Turns out, this is a common problem. Glad I found 
This suggests that a party-girl mother is likely to have a party girl daughter. People who are more sensitive to dopamine get a greater boost from dopamine-triggers like cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, money, sex, food, gambling… you know the list. Because they are more sensitive to the highs and lows, they are more likely to get hooked. And we all know that addiction runs in families, too.
Specifically, the research shows that people with conservative tendencies have a larger amygdala and a smaller anterior cingulate than other people. The amygdala — typically thought of as the “primitive brain” — is responsible for reflexive impulses, like fear. The anterior cingulate is thought to be responsible for courage and optimism. This one-two punch could be responsible for many of the anecdotal claims that conservatives “think differently” from others.
In the same episode, the interview at the end (about :20 in) is with physicist Brian Greene who wrote “The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes” said “Everything around us may be a hologram. You are a bag of particles governed by the laws of physics.” Short clip of the interview only:
