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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (48392)	4/27/2005 2:15:00 AM
From: JD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

"That punctuality we saw in the previous post pays some big dividends too..." ------------------------------ Yes, one of the tenants of the Japanese manufacturing success is the application of 'just in time' inventory flow. It is a lesson which still needs to be learned by some 'US businesses. The harsh, unfortunate lesson taught by the train crash just outside Osaka this past Monday was learning how very high the price of failure can be when a 'just in time' policy is applied to a system where humans are the inventory... ...And we should not forget the recent news of an international effort led by NIH's Institute of Mental Health and UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging which shows the human brain does not fully develop the ability to properly assess risk until about the age of 25. I read where that train's conductor was only age 23 - another lesson not to be ignored: ------------------------------ Brain Immaturity Could Explain Teen Crash Rate Risky Behavior Diminishes At Age 25, NIH Study Finds By Elizabeth Williamson Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 1, 2005; Page A01 By most physical measures, teenagers should be the world's best drivers. Their muscles are supple, their reflexes quick, their senses at a lifetime peak. Yet car crashes kill more of them than any other cause -- a problem, some researchers believe, that is rooted in the adolescent brain. A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation's driving laws... ... Sitting in his closet-size office in NIH's sprawling Building 10, he turns to his laptop, where the fruit of 13 years' work appears. It's an eight-second, time-lapse image of the brain, swept by a vivid blue wave symbolizing maturing gray matter. The color engulfs the frontal lobes and ends in "a direct hit," Giedd said, with the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex, just behind the brow. About as thick and wide as a silver dollar, this region distinguishes humans from other animals. From it, scientists believe, come judgments and values, long-term goals, the weighing of risks and consequences -- what parents call wisdom or common sense and what science calls "executive functions." While society and tradition have placed the point of intellectual maturity, the "age of reason," years earlier, the study -- an international effort led by NIH's Institute of Mental Health and UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging -- shows it comes at about age 25. The process is generally completed a year or two earlier in women but varies greatly from person to person. Why that is, Giedd said, "we still don't know." washingtonpost.com