BIOLOGY 103 FALL, 2002 FORUM 1

Ok, sorry I ranted. Also wanted to comment on Chapter 34 in the book, specifically the assertion that Gorillas are herbivores. This is not entirely accurate of either gorillas, or indeed any primate. Most primates also have insects, frogs or other small animals in their diet. Also, an interesting note on Gorillas, studying male behavior has revealed a disturbing trend toward infanticide. While sometimes this appears to be because a new group of males has taken control of the group, it also happens in groups in which the leaders have been established for some time, many times with reasons unknown to those observing. Perhaps most disturbing is the practice of playing with and torturing the infant before actually killing and devouring it. In contrast, Bonobos release there violent aggression through sexual stimulation, regardless of age, sex, or heirarchy.

1. Try to cut back on taking naps. They may disrupt your sleeping pattern at night.
2. If you find you are having an especially hard time falling asleep, try going to bed the same time every night to establish a pattern of sleep.
3. Avoid caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol late in the day. While caffeine and nicotine are stimulants, alcohol may also cause you to wake up in the middle of the night.
4. Regular exercise promotes good sleep, however, don't exercise at least 3 hours before going to sleep because it may stimulate your body and make it hard to fall asleep.
5. Don't eat heavy meals too late in the day. (I guess ordering food at 1AM isn't such a good idea.)
6. Try to follow a routine to help you wind down at the end of the day. Listen to music, read a book or take a shower.
7. If you find you are worrying too much about what you have to do the next day, then make yourself a "to do" list. This might actually help relax and let go of some of your worries for the time being.
If you think your problem is more serious there are many internet sites to read more about insomnia and whether you should consult a doctor.
One website is the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sleep
or the National Sleep Foundation : http://www.sleepfoundation.org/

Across the nation, doctors (particularly women doctors) and female patients are realizing that the pain of women is underrated, underdiagnosed, and undertreated. The real upset is that women are usually more upfront and specific about their pain. Studies and interviews suggest doctors don't take women's complaints seriously, or they feel women over exagerate the level of pain they have, or women are over-emotional and even have psychological issues instead of physical ones.

The only good thing about this article, is that it suggests that the country is recgonizing the bias in treating women's pain. Other than that, I find it very upsetting.

~mhoyt

Science is a process of inductive reasoning: through the learning of particulars, people make generalizations about what is going on in the world, and continually gather new information, to test and affirm their inductions. Every creature with any sort of capacity to think does this: those that don't think in a traditional sense still operate on the same sort of inductive plane (i.e., plants sensing a source of light and growing in that direction), in a way gathering through observation the knowledge necessary to live. If all life does demonstrate--as it seems to me that it does--this capacity for inductive reasoning, then I am fine with the assertion that life is science.

Also, just because there are observations and summaries to be made doesn't mean that anyone is making them: the evolution of science may be being witnessed by humans, but were all the records to suddenly be erased, science would continue. And it wouldn't mean that science hadn't gone on before, that the observations hadn't been made. Science is not an operation carried out by one singular human race but more of a unifying method of reasoning common to all individuals. It doesn't follow from the definition of science as life that life is being carried out by one Someone: the model doesn't require Someone because science is carried out through a multitude of someones.

Viruses are obviously highly improbable assemblies of DNA and a protein coating. They are bounded and reproduce with variation. But to reproduce viruses must use another organism, injecting their DNA or RNA into a host cell. The virus DNA/RNA is replicated and new viruses are formed. Evenually the host cell bursts and the new viruses are released to reproduce. Because viruses can change and adapt, some consider them semi-homeostatic and semi-autonomous. Viruses are only dependent on host cells energy to reproduce.
The means by which viruses reproduce separate viruses from living organisms. Living organisms depend on energy to live not just to repruduce. Living organisms can reproduce by themselves or within their species.

Anyway, I didn't really follow too much of what the guy was saying about the Sun being alive because it was a rather complicated argument. But part of the argument was that the Sun breathes. What?!? Well, according to the article, the sun has a bunch of pores on its surface that emit gases, and this is sort of like humans sweating. Also, the article mentioned that like humans breathe the air of our Earth, the Sun breathes the gases of its own Milky Way galaxy and uses the gases in its own chemical reactions etc. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this part of it, so I suggest you read the article instead. :-)

The other part of the article, in which the author argued that the Sun is a kind of deity, was much more interesting. The article states that on earth all elements remain what they are: carbon stays carbon, hydrogen stays hydrogen, etc. The elements all have the potential to be part of many different things (eg: a table, a pillow, butter, ...) but they remain individual elements making up part of a whole. On the Sun, however, the elements have the ability to change: carbon can change into oxygen can change into nitrogen, etc. And therefore the Sun contains all possibilities, which is more or less the human conception of God. And, "... while the world of Nature contains Man's time and the world of Earth his recurrence, the Solar World must represent the sixth dimension for him, that is, the Sun contains all possibilities for man. ... Go out and stare at the sun in the sky." (Personally, I don't recommend actually doing this.) "Why are you blinded? Why are you unable to define or describe what you see? Why is the impression incomparable with anything else you know? It is because you are looking through a hole in our three-dimensional scenery, out into the six-dimensional world."

It may not be true, but it's still something to think about...

Here's the link to the article: The Physical Being of the Sun from The Theory of Celestial Influence by Rodney Collin

I just read most of the first part (called "The Physical Being of the Sun") and the last part (called "Possibilities in the Sun") and skipped the part in the middle (called "Hydrogen into Light"). The last part is the most interesting (and the shortest). :-)

First off, sleep. I know most college students don't think about getting a good night sleep, or at least that's a stigma. I do, however, know many people who are very aware of their sleep patterns. I have one friend who gets 8 hours of sleep every night, regardless of how much work she has left. Yes, she does the occasional all nighter, but it's not a common occurance with her, and she's healthier for it. She's the person who, during midterms and finals, you want to smack because she has so much energy. I myself know my own limits. I can't go too long with bad sleep patterns because I have Epstein Barr. I don't know how to explain how I know how much sleep I need, but I do. When I feel myself start to get run down the first thing I do is change my diet and make sure I get enough sleep. If I don't, I basically get a bad bout of mono. So people can get enough sleep if they just listen to their bodies.

The second thing I wanted to comment on was being interested in life outside our sphere of knowledge. I don't know, maybe I'm a strange person, but hasn't anyone else been kept up at night wondering what's really out there? I remember doing an astronomy section in my earth science class...wow, it must be six years ago now. Anyway, during that section my teacher put up a poster with a picture of a galaxy. The galaxy had an arrow pointing to the edge, with words saying, "You Are Here" written by it. Seriously, that week I must have gotten like three hours of sleep a night because I would think about that.

Like I said, I'm probably just abnormal on that count. This class is messing with my mind worse than any philosophy class ever could.

Over the summer, I read a book entitled "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (by Jared Diamond). His theory was that the world was a massive Pangea, but then after the break up, humans were also split apart from each other on these different continents. As a result, they grew and evolved in different climates, making them very different peoples after thousands of year.

But Diamond also mentioned the affect that humans had on their different environments. He claims that the reason there are no large mammals on Australia is because they were all decimated by humans. And since Australia is relatively small in comparison to Eurasia or the Americas, it seems reasonable (to me at least) that humans caused large Australian mammals to "go extinct."

So what are the implications? I am not sure. But it does (in my mind) render Australia less "unique" as a biological entity and more victimized by the evolution of man.

1) Find matches, a lighter, etc...LEAVE YOUR DORM
2) Pour the gel (or make pretty patterns) on a sidewalk
3) Light
4) Enjoy!

It burns blue, and for a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally long time too, lots of fun!! Not that I'm a pyromanic or anything... hehe

This is a funny article that Gloria Steinem wrote in the 80's about women's health and how things would be different if men had more of the "problems" that we have. Enjoy!

http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html

I know less than none html, so I think you're going to have to copy and past the link if you want to read the article. Sorry.

1) although things seem like random order up close (much like examining a sample of human blood under a microscope might seem like random order, with cells strewn all over in no particular visible pattern) but as we pan out and look "closer" i.e. further, we start to see patterns every few screens.

2) it's a pretty commonly accepted scientific theory (as far as i know) that the universe was created from the big bang - that is, it was a miraculous explosion that lead to a body full of seemingly infinite planet/etc content that began to grow and expand, and is ever continuing to do so.

3) i've heard it said in a not entirely un-scientific context that scientists wonder if there aren't parallel universes, all experiencing hte same thing ours is in their own realm or whatever. i dont know much about this but i know it's a theory, or at least that it makes it into cheesy sci-fi productions.

what do these three things suggest, you ask? well.... #1 shows that, even at great distances, and it could be argued ESPECIALLY at great distances, the universe seems to display the same IMPROBABLE ASSEMBLY that is so typical of LIFE.

#2 shows that the universe is undergoing a constant GROWTH, most likely dependent on some form of ENERGY as most traditional movement is according to our laws of physics, which is pretty darn similar to ANY LIFE FORM.

#3 (the slightly wishy-washy one, i suppose) could suggest that the universe is in fact in a NETWORK of other living breathing moving growing organisms like itself, and that perhaps htey are some sort of interdependent species in a larger still ecosystem...

now i'm not ACTUALLY saying the universe is some big living breathing growing organism, but i'd love to challenge all the hotshot cosmologists and astronomers to prove that it isn't.

Why do people kill themselves?
Most of the time people who kill themselves are very sick with depression or one of the other types of depressive illnesses, which occur when the chemicals in a person's brain get out of balance or become disrupted in some way. Healthy people do not kill themselves. A person who has depression does not think like a typical person who is feeling good. Their illness prevents them from being able to look forward to anything. They can only think about NOW and have lost the ability to imagine into the future. Many times they don't realize they are suffering from a treatable illness and they feel they can't be helped. Seeking help may not even enter their mind. They do not think of the people around them, family or friends, because of their illness. They are consumed with emotional, and many times, physical pain that becomes unbearable. They don't see any way out. They feel hopeless and helpless. They don't want to die, but it's the only way they feel their pain will end. It is a non-rational choice. Getting depression is involuntary - no one asks for it, just like people don't ask to get cancer or diabetes. But, we do know that depression is a treatable illness.

Depression is a disease that affects the entire body. Changes int he brain chemistry make it happen. It´s a brain disease. According to Joseph H. Talley, M.D. no one knows what causes depression although I will make sure to look into that some more. He does say however that depression can strike normal healthy happy people, people that have "no reason" to be depressed.
I would like to leave you with some interresting stats.
The number one cause of suicide in untreated depression.
30,000 suicide deaths occur nationlly in one year and that number is rising.

"For me, the personal revelation of Gaia came quite suddenly - like a flash of enlightenment. I was in a small room on the top floor of a building at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It was the autumn of 1965 ... and I was talking with a colleague, Dian Hitchcock, about a paper we were preparing ... It was at that moment that I glimpsed Gaia. An awesome thought came to me. The Earth's atmosphere was an extraordinary and unstable mixture of gases, yet I knew that it was constant in composition over quite long periods of time. Could it be that life on Earth not only made the atmosphere, but also regulated it - keeping it at a constant composition, and at a level favourable for organisms?" (1991)

However, I later got to thinking about some readings from my old environmental science class in high school. In one of the text books were chapters on r- and k-strategist species. K-strategist species, as I recall, are those which reproduce at slower rates with fewer offspring, are generally larger in size and have a longer life span.. Examples include humans, elephants, horses, etc... R-strategist species are those which constantly reproduce, have large numbers of offspring, reach maturity levels faster, and have a shorter life-span. Examples include most insects like cockroaches, mosquitoes, etc.

With this in mind, if ever the diversity of an environment were endangered and wiped out (through fire, drought, nuclear bomb, etc..) the specialized species (mainly k-strategists) would not survive and in effect, only the cockroaches would roam the earth. Because they are very adaptable and generalized to their environment, and also hold the properties of an r-strategist, it would be significantly easier for them to survive and endure. It would take a considerable amount of destruction in order to kill off "pests" such as cockroaches. They are such a generalized and highly adaptable species that bug killing toxins and pesticides are constantly being altered in order to keep up with their adaptability.

The question then becomes, If an environment were destroyed and mass extinction occurred, only leaving such animals as the cockroach, how long could such an organism sustain itself? It almost seems that some living things were "created" for this very reason, to withstand homogeny and adapt themselves to live without diversity; making the property not so essential to life after all.

So...yeah. That was my awkward moment of affirmation for the day. And, now back to more lazy Sunday activities. Maybe next Sunday, I'll try a more "scientific" approach to this forum.

People who are depressed do not ask for it, as was already stated. They're affected by both internal chemicals (or lack thereof) and outside influences. Every one has been, or will be, depressed at some point in their life, but not to a horrible extent if you're lucky.

When someone's depressed they do know that there are ways to cure it. However, this is where most people become confused. If it can be treated, why don't some people get treatment? It's the nature of the beast, really. They think people will look down on them if they admit to being depressed. They feel ashamed that they are depressed and that they can't take care of it themselves. Most people don't know why they're depressed so they don't think they have any reason to be so. It feeds the depression even more, an I'm-not-worthy attitude that feeds insecurity. Add this to the fact that therapy doesn't work fast and is up to the patient more than the therapist, and you have what's seemingly a dead end.

Suicide directly feeds off of this. Most people who are suicidal are scared that they are. The dead end of their emotions gets to be too much, and it's like being in a stagnant pool. SOMETHING has to happen, they don't want to stay in that place anymore but they don't know how to change anything. So they try to kill themselves. For the most part, attempts will thankfully not be successful and can sometimes lead to others finding out. This solves a problem: Others know and can now help and the suicidal person didn't need to tell them.

But suicide attempts do succeed. One of the worst parts is that these people are showing signs, trying to tell those around them whats going on in the only way they can, but the people around them don't want to admit that it could happen.

I believe there's more to biology than the facts we're given. The thoughts of someone who is depressed affects them as much if not more than the chemical factors that help to cause the depression. But how do we explain thoughts in biology? How are we supposed to deal with the grey areas that are so hard to explain but that really matter the most?

Laura


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