Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
8.29.2008
8.28.2008
8.14.2008
Got that itch - no, not down there, in my brain
P sent me this wonderful article on the neurological basis of itching and other sensations like phantoms limbs:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all
Please read it, then let's discuss! Continue to read my thoughts (ha ha, that sounds funny)...
Thoughts on itching article:
-I can feel pain sometimes by thinking about it, but only certain thoughts. Not stubbing my toe or bumping into something, but thinking about paper cuts or sharp things under my nails and slicing of the skin makes me feel it - I will often have a tingle reaction in the tip of my tongue and in my teeth!
-"Richard Gregory, a prominent British neuropsychologist, estimates that visual perception is more than ninety per cent memory and less than ten per cent sensory nerve signals." Amazing! Love it.
-"Children have used phantom fingers to count and solve arithmetic problems." Amazing!
-I was under the impression the phantom limb experiences only happened to people who had lost a limb, not to people who had never experienced the limb in the first place. Mirroring?
-I love proprioception! This is your sense that tells you where you are in space as you move or remain still. This is what gets all screwy when you get drunk and you have a hard time touching your finger to your nose. It is second only to balance as one of my favorite senses. I mostly like balance because when it gets f'ed up, your world is turned upside down and you are rendered almost helpless, it is so essential and so taken for granted. And also because we have rocks in our ears. Close your eyes or cover your ears. Now stand up and walk around. Sure, you might bump into something, but you can still walk around. Now spin around twenty times, get plenty dizzy, and try walking around - very difficult. Spin around and try to look at something, try to focus on a noise, even talking can be difficult - you are probably shouting! The vertiginous attacks of a disease like Meniere's is debilitating whereas blindness and deafness are not (not that I would want either).
-I love the plasticity of the brain. It is so beautiful, provides so much hope. The study involving phantom limbs and mirrors and retraining the phantom limb over a few months is inspiring, much like the stories of rehabilitating seemingly-paralyzed stroke victims. Love it!
BTW, I guess I should mention that for a few months now I've been thinking about a multi-part blog posting on Sound and Balance. I love sound and balance; I love that the ear houses both; I love that they are so intricately tied. There were two things I wanted to study in physical anthro grad school: evolution of intelligence and creativity (so the biological basis for both and possible fossil/ancient-dna evidence and primate neurological and hormone and behavior study/testing) and the evolution of the inner and middle ear in primates and euprimates. People: we wouldn't be able to walk upright if we didn't have the types of semi-circular canals we do! (and pelvis shape and knee joints, et cet-air-ah)....So, maybe in a few months you'll get to read my musings on Sound and Balance, including a post on secret government attempts to control us with sound waves!
Technology Vortex Dissipating...
Crap! My A/C broke, I lost my iPod, my TV broke just before the opening ceremonies were starting, my computer has been running slow and having a few issues, and the internet connection I piggy-back on disappeared a few days ago!
~~~~~~I have been in a technology vortex~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BUt I think it is dissipating. My A/C was of course fixed week before last, still haven't found the iPod, 'puter still heading to a crash, BUt my TV is working intermittently and that generous/lazy/uninformed person with the open internet connection has returned! Maybe they're stealing my info? Well, if so, they haven't done much damage since March, so we're good for now.
Maybe I'll find my iPod??????????????????????????????????????????????????/
5.27.2008
4.27.2008
Only 248 days to go!
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, people.
Visit the website to learn more about initiatives and programs, etc.
Watch the trailer-style announcement:
I'm super excited!
4.06.2008
I've got your polar coronal holes RIGHT HERE!
in my pants.
vive l'eruption solaire:
Blogger's Note: No polar coronal holes are visible in this video. Use your imagination or follow this link: http://a1862.g.akamai.net/7/1862/14448/v1/esa.download.akamai.com/13452/mpeg/2008-03-28-hinode_NAM-Feb20-08.mpg
This is neat, too:
2.15.2008
12.27.2007
3.26.2007
For Twinkle Toes
You asked what is shaking. Here it goes:
Up at 6 AM. Work at 7. Very, very sore from practicing Wii baseball so oneday I will beat Pandy Bear. Listened to Martha Wainwright Martha Wainwright (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her), Kate Bush Aerial, Tori Boys, PJ, pet shop boys, Transformers soundtrack, and assorted podcasts. Spinach salad with tomotoes, salmon, cucumber and dressing for lunch. Scanned and cleaned scanner. More soreness, black ink on nails (which are longer than ever because I am too lazy to cut them. Good thing my toe nails don't grow so fast!)
Deposited check from Pandy Bear (for services rendered), got change to do laundry.
Thought about grad school, job, my This is Good Shit! Chocolate Cake that I will be making for this weekend (for future reference: do not buy chocolate for a cake a week in advance because I will consume most of it), and should I wait for it to stop raining before I take Friedrich out?
Read article from New York Times Magazine about adaptationist and byproduct views of evolution of belief in God (just in time for conversation mom and I had last week. Mom: So why do people believe in God and religion? Me: Um, well, if it has a biological basis, which I believe it does, it is somehow tied to evolution and principles of natural selection. It has to be beneficial or be linked to something beneficial... Mom: Like what? Me: I don't know. Mom continues asking questions with no answers, I continue saying more or less the same thing over and over). I like this Atran guy. Dawkins strikes me as unnecessarily defensive, explosive. Can't we all just get along?
Read other thesis students' two page summaries of thesis. Alton Brown is making things in parchment pouches. I wish Pandy Bear ate fish.
Will I ever be able to enjoy a glass of wine or good martini with little physical problem again? Annual salary: 21, 264. Wtf? It seemed like so much when I wasn't working. I would love to have another bunny, but evidentally, male rabbits are prone to fight with each other, and they molest female rabbits constantly. Dell wireless is fraught with problems.
Coconut sorbet is yummy. Antony and the Johnsons is waiting for me at the library. Library instead of Netflix? I could save about $13 a month. I haven't read a novel since January. I love this neighborhood. I want lots of fruit trees! I prefer rain to cloudy sky.
I tried to include pictures, but for some reason uploading one small photo of Mr. F was taking over 10 minutes, so you'll have to be patient.
PS Kelly broke down when the guy tried to rape her at the dealer's where she was buying coke. Brandon *sigh* rescued her, and she's in rehab now. I know you all were wondering.
9.23.2006
Research is hard (boring post)
At least it is easy for it to be overwhelming. This undergraduate thesis is the first major research project I've undertaken. In the end, I will have written 30 - 60 pages, complete with graphs and cladograms and phylogenies and tables, and a bibliography of 20 - 30 sources, primarily from scientific journals. Phew! I do have fun searching in databases for articles, but so far I haven't done a good job organizing what I find. As soon as I download it to my desktop, I forget about it. There's around twenty on my desktop, and about 30 more in various folders from various stages of the research problem. I talked to a professor the other day who had some resources to give me. I really liked his system: four or five file cabinets organized by topic, then the articles alphabetized within. It was very easy for him to find exactly what he wanted to give me.
Wow. Thrilling topic, I know. I'll start a new, more blog friendly post.
8.22.2006
sleep paralysis
I think everyone has had this experience: You're dreaming and wake up suddenly only to discover that you can't move. Maybe your eyes are still closed, maybe they are open, but your arms, legs, head, even fingers and toes are immobile. Within a minute, you have regained your ability to move, but it is a very uncomfortable and sometimes scary situation.
This is called sleep paralysis and has happened to most people. At dinner last night, the topic of the ghosts at the Driskill hotel came up (some guests were staying there). This led to a conversation about personal scary experiences, and someone brought up waking up and feeling paralyzed. I thought I had read before that during REM sleep (or some phase around there), the brain signals for some kind of chemical to be released that in effect (affect?) paralyzes the body, allowing for a more restorative sleep. A woman at the table said she had heard differently: at night, our souls leave our body to go travelling around, presumably to the land where they come from, maybe to run around the Driskill and scare people. When we wake up and feel paralyzed, it is because our soul (maybe "subtle body" is more accurate. she didn't say soul, but I can't remember) has yet to return to our body.
Whatever the cause, sleep paralysis is sometimes accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations that can be quite scary. I found this on a medical definition website (http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9810):
Sleep paralysis goes by a number of names, including the "old hag" in Newfoundland (for an old witch thought to sit on the chest of the paralyzed sleeper), "kokma" in the West Indies (for a ghost baby who jumps on the sleeper's chest and attacks the throat), "kanashibari" in Japan and "gui ya" or ghost pressure in China (because a ghost is believed to sit on and assault the sleeper). Medically, sleep paralysis is sometimes called waking paralysis, predormital (before-sleep) paralysis, postdormital (after-sleep) paralysis, and REM sleep atonia.
I like that! Kokma sounds spooky - a ghost baby, holy shit! Actually, they are all pretty terrifying. There is another interesting article on answers.com and wikipedia (I think it's the same one).
8.09.2006
Must get work done...
It sucks not having internet access at work. As some of you may know, I have a bit of flexibility at work - my job is such that I don't have to commit 100% of my brain power to the task. However, playing a computer game or looking at a magazine is quite different than reading an article on abnormal spindle-like microcephaly associated blah blah. This means, after I numb my brain listening to the tapes and playing diner dash or whatever at work, I have to come home, snap myself out of it and somehow focus on a very difficult (for me) subject of which I know little about. And the words are so big!
I have a meeting with my professor tomorrow. My goal was to have an idea of which direction I want to go in for this year's research/thesis: genetic study or cognitive experiment. I still don't know! I've done hardly anything. I have been very unwise with my time. Deep breath...
I have done some fruitful things. I am beginning to rewrite my proposal and I am gathering a bibliography together to turn in to the honors advisor. I have almost finished a group of related articles on ASPM. But it's so daunting. The voices of self-doubt are so loud. How will I come up with a research problem that is original, within limited budget and facilities, and something that can be answered accomplished in nine month's time?
Any ideas about how to deal with stress or manage my time? Words of encouragement?
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