week thirteen

would i agree "to live is to know":

i would agree that our lives are a mutual creation between what we normally view as our selves and the rest of our environment. when we expand the definition of  "cognition", as maturana and varela did, to include perception, emotion and behavior, then yes, we might say to live is to know. and conversely, to know is to live, as these cognitions shape our reality and life experience. i fully believe we are active participants in our daily reality, even when we may appear to be doing nothing. choosing to do nothing very directly affects our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies.  as does what we do when we're doing nothing, for example, deep meditation versus staring at the wall thinking about everything that's wrong with our lives.

i love the idea that different genes are activated by different experiences in our lives. and that "experience of fascination, mystery, and the tremendous", as found in spiritual events, motivate "gene expression, neurogenesis, and the growth of the human brain." wow, these really are expansive experiences. the body truly is a temple to our experiences with the sacred. what we are drawn to, as bacteria moving toward sweet and away from acid, defines not only our momentary experience but our wider perception of reality and it's expression in our bodies themselves.

memory and magic?:

i like the continual reminders of how limited our perceptions are. especially given how we generally cling to them like truth lifesavers and how they may actually be just the opposite. like a magician's trick, it's fun to realize how we delude ourselves, because that awareness opens up so much possibility for conscious change. 

week twelve

connections between cell biology and tcm:

"meiosis was discovered for the first time in sea urchin eggs." just like chinese medicine! oh wait, no, chinese medicine was first discovered in china (or possibly india?).... hmmm, ok, how about: "errors in mitosis can either kill a cell through apoptosis or cause mutations that can lead to cancer." errors in chinese medicine can kill people too!!! but not that often. ok, almost never. and usually we're helping with cancer, not causing it... alright, well, there is this: humans have 46 chromosomes and the ancient species field horsetail  (280 to 350 million years old depending on which completely accurate scientist you ask) has 216! finally! we found the connection. chinese medicine (like horsetail) is a lot older than the science of cell biology (like humans) so therefore it must contain more information. makes complete sense.

link impressions:

nice visual representation and step by step process. i like the replay button!

week eleven

diversity in my immediate environment:

heard a noise in the yard as i was heading out last night and i turned my light, thinking it would be the deer who sleep below my window. instead it was a family of raccoons, with one especially feisty one considering charging me. (it didn't!) squirrels live here too, using the deck railing as a runway while they jump from one kind of oak tree to another. all kinds of birds. woodpeckers. hummingbirds. crows. turkey vultures. small finches. house sparrows. owls. heard a red tailed hawk the other day. squawking jays. lots of little moths and tiny flies and crickets and beetles and worms and ants and termites. many kinds of spiders. little lizards. mice. redwoods and bays towering over sages and lilies and lavender and oleanders. some native ground cover mixed in with yuccas and juniper and bamboo and pampas grass. huh? what a crazy ecosystem. little clover coming up in the dirt and mushrooms and a whole patch of annual flowers planted by my land neighbor. climbing ivy. endless houseplants. this beautiful gorgeous earth herself and rocks from this place, and those brought here from other places. water from the russian river, treated and delivered in pipes to us. humans and cats and dogs and all the insects and microorganisms we don't even really know about.....

cell links:

go bacteria! cells are so cool. where's the enlarge button so we can blow one up in 3d and play with it? i think the animal cell would make a very nice temporary pet.

week nine

ethics of gene therapy:

one huge red flag for me is this idea of doing ivf and messing with the genes before putting the embryo into mama's womb. most conceptions are already limited enough, based on urge fulfillment. sometimes involving a conscious desire to conceive. sometimes involving real love. rarely involving expansive heart opening and ecstatic spiritual connection, with a desire and willingness to receive an incoming spirit through the parents' own human spirit bodies. but at least when babies are homemade, all possibility exists. divine inspiration, heart connection, expanded sensual capacity and just plain love can imprint and activate the new being as it individuates from the whole. that potential just does not exist at this time in the lab. what the new human gains in physical or mental ease, it may lose in spiritual potential and a sense of connectedness to this wondrous adventure we call life.

sorry to be thriller movie minded, but what if governments said home conception is illegal, as is much home birth at the moment. "you're putting the society at risk and burden for caring for a less than perfect human being," insurance companies and governments refusing to ever provide care for homemade humans. sounds crazy yes. is this a crazy world? yes.

i've spent years working with people with different abilities. developmental, physical, metal and emotional. my independent undergraduate degree was focused on working with people with different abilities and integration.  through lots of work in outdoor programs, with people in their homes, and in alzheimer's units, i've gained a few insights. mostly been blessed to witness some of the freest expression and most present moment realities on the planet. of course small children are like this too, which is one of the reasons i appreciate them so much. talk about inspiration. anyone who can be fully alive and also gracefully receive the care of others continually throughout life just amazes me.

as one of my teachers once pointed out, the recognizable differences we see in others, allow us to accept that which is different within ourselves. so if we go about homogenizing all the differences away, what will we be left with? how will the expression and evolution of society as a whole be suppressed?

do i believe any one individual or family should have to live with serious and real health or ability challenges? would i wish that on any one? no. do i believe these realities have value? yes. i certainly feel a lot more comfortable with letting nature and spirit do their dance unrestrained, before playing with genes and attempting to heal any "abnormalities." and really getting down to fully receiving and honoring the gifts embodied by these beings who are different from "normal" would be extremely powerful for our western culture. the preciousness of slowing down and caring for people with different abilities and illnesses as a community would be truly caring for the "abnormal", injured or different aspects of all of us on a deep level. this is the kind of shift i would like to see. then maybe the use of gene therapy wouldn't be so disturbing, because the intention would be clearly about healing, rather than coming from fear of difference, fear of weakness, fear of dependence. we would already understand our interdependence and choose genetic healing out of love.

"chemistry of life" definition: 

"biochemistry is the chemistry of living beings." i guess "living being" has a very particular definition in western science. when i lay on a big slab of granite or walk through the sandstone walls of a redrock canyon and swim in its waters, i feel i am deeply interacting with living beings. the earth, sky, rock, river, and sun all communicate with my being and i feel their lifeforce healing, nurturing, nourishing, and activating my own. hopefully it's mutual. anyway, i think this definition of biochemistry is inaccurate, since, last i heard, they're not studying the rock, river, sun, sky or earth people as beings just yet.

  

animation review:

i looked at a lot of these and would have liked some voiceover or more written description of what was happening. but i have to review the one that said "enzyme-funny." after looking at the plain"enzyme" i was wondering what science humor would be like. hmmm... i guess they might like the movie spaceballs.

week eight

semiconductor of the week:

carbon.

puts the o in organic....

the building block of life, carbon turns out to also be a semiconductor. with the atomic number 6 and the famous atomic mass of .....???..... yep, 12, it has a very special place in chemistry and life as we know it.

it's the fourth most abundant element in the universe, and second only to oxygen in human bodies. it's present in all other forms of life too, or at least all forms of earthly life. i'm not giving up yet on some silicon based aliens coming to town.

and speaking of silicon.... when used as an elemental semiconductor, engineers at princeton university believe carbon could replace silicon in the i.t. industry in just a few years. a new graphene substrate, a few atoms thick, has been created which performs ten times faster than silicon. according to the researchers, future cell phone and wireless devices using this technology will not only be faster, but also smaller and more energy efficient. eventually carbon will also be used in cpus.

one fun thing about carbon is that both diamonds and graphite are carbon, yet almost completely opposite in external appearances. diamonds are translucent, while graphite is a dark grey-black opaque, and though diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring substances, graphite is a soft black-smearing pencil filler. fullerenes, sometimes in the form of buckyballs, are also made of carbon and offer all kinds of exciting new uses for carbon, medical and otherwise. i guess when it comes to carbon, it makes a huge difference whether you're a tetrahedral lattice arrangement (diamond), hexagonal layered lattice sheets (graphite), or some crazy mixed hexagonal, pentagonal, heptagonal (huh? - that's 7-sided) lattice contraption created in a lab (fullerene)..... i think i'll just be ok with being carbon-based.

chembalancer:

fun and pretty easy. nice instant feedback.

balancing equations:

less fun, and less independent thinking. and unless i did something wrong, it's pretty short.

week seven

alkali earth metal of the week:

barium.

i mean, they use it in enemas. what can i say? there's not whole lot else that interests me about this soft, silvery metal with an atomic number of 56 and  atomic mass of 137. i do like the numbers  1, 3, and 7, but is that reason enough for anyone to put a metal in their derriere?

barium is highly reactive with both air and water, so it's rarely found in it's pure form in nature. it's also never found in it's pure form in a barium enema. those are actually done with barium sulfate.  and although barium is a heavy metal with a high level of toxicity, fortunately barium sulfate is highly insoluble, and is not absorbed by the body in the time it takes to pass through the gastrointestinal tract. the barium sulfate particles are "suspended in water" and then either flushed in from the lower end or drunk from the upper end - a "barium meal." yum. maybe i'll have that instead of a happy meal next time... then the barium sulfate serves as a radiocontrast agent for making x-rays of the food tube.

i guess anything is better than thorotrast, the thorium dioxide they used for the same purpose in the 1930's - 50's. that stuff was one of the most potent human carcinogens yet found. yikes!

avogadro's hypothesis:

it's really amazing how the work or mental processes of one person can instigate such great changes in generally accepted reality. and, that it many times takes everyone else a long while to get around to accepting the new ideas. well, actually, maybe 50 years is short for such a major leap in understanding. maybe my mind's on internet time.... anyway, look what has happened since 1860 and the manic (maniacal?) explosion of chemistry. a little idea goes a long way...

what is a mole?:

i thought a mole was a cute little brown furry animal that digs underground and can't see very well. now i find this has nothing to do with that mole. unless we're talking about measuring a mole of a mole. that would be an avogadro's number (6.022136 x 10^+23) of the furry mammal people. look out earthworms! anyway, i guess it works better with atoms and molecules. in their case, a mole is used to help figure out grams of a substance, or the number of atoms or molecules in a sample, and other fun stuff.

week six

halogen of the week: 

astatine.

astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element on earth. it's estimated that there are between 25 and 28 grams of the stuff in the earth's crust at any given time. so i've got more grams of the earth's crust stuck to the bottom of my hiking boots than the earth has natural astatine, period. that's not much. what there is, is produced by the decay of uranium and thorium.

astatine is in the halogen family, and they are quite dysfunctional. or at least extremely reactive. in fact, they are the most reactive elements yet discovered. and even though astatine is the least reactive of the bunch, it's still named for the greek "astatos" meaning 'unstable'. (maybe the halogens could get some counseling from neon and company next door.) 

it's the darkest halogen, assumed to be nearly black in solid form, giving a "dark purplish vapor" when heated. could be fun to have around on halloween - if there were more than 28 natural grams of it!

astatine's extremely short half-life of up to eight hours or so make it challenging to work with. and though it can be carcinogenic, it's being tested on mice for use in radiation therapy. it's isotope At211 has a half-life of 7.2 hours and emits alpha particles which can reduce ascites without being overly toxic to healthy tissues. and if you're wondering how the heck they get those 28 grams out of the earth and use them to torture mice, they don't. i mean, yes, they do torture mice, unfortunately. thank you mice, we love you. but no, they don't use the tiny amount in the earth's crust - how would they find it? and what would they collect it with? instead they make isotopes of astatine by "bombarding bismuth with alpha particles". that part sounds kind of fun, but only 0.00000005 grams of astatine have been produced in this way up to now.

At's atomic number is 85, with an atomic mass of 210.

alchemy?: 

alchemy seems to be practical meditation. the union of body and spirit. the taiji taken apart and put back together again. the quest for ultimate oneness with the divine. this might be a purely internal exercise.  or, as everything is a holistic representation of all that is, playing consciously and with very clear intention with elements on the physical level would have to affect all other levels of the being. holding sacred the intention to transform the physical, that transformation would necessarily be reflected in spirit. and i do wonder about the modern chemical world and the consciousness with which so many transmutations are performed. the intention, presence, and deep purpose - or lack thereof. how does this recklessness reverberate through our reality as we make use of the products of these (al)chemical reactions?