Mark M. Green
A fundamental mechanism by which cells in our bodies and that of other creatures, large and small, get rid of damaged components is called autophage, which translates to “self-eating.” A membrane forms a lysosome, which could be seen as a container, which takes up damaged cell components and degrades them to relieve the cell of the problems the damaged components would cause. This is autophagy. I’ve seen some literature calling the lysosomes “suicide bags.” A very important component of a cell is the mitochondria, which is the source of the energy keeping us alive. Damaged mitochondria can do serious harm to the cell so that autophagy can have an important health benefit. Now there is strong evidence that a benefit of exercise increases autophagy or, in other words, that exercise helps us clean up components of our cells that are bad for our health. Get on the treadmill—walk up those stairs. Get going.
A research group at McGill University in Canada had discovered to its surprise that the pain response of mice depends on the sex of the researcher near the experiment and even on the smell of the researcher, as for example by leaving a sweaty undershirt around. If the researcher is a woman, the animal feels far more pain then if a man is around. The explanation offered is that we are seeing a primordial response. The male is more likely to be hunting or in an aggressive mode and therefore it is best not to show weakness. The pain-killing male does not have to be one of us. The odor of a male dog or cat or guinea pig elicits the same pain relieving response compared to a female of the species. The experiment at McGill is not so surprising in being a recent example of something I remember from the late 1960s and onward where one realized that equality does not mean identity. It’s taking awhile for this idea to reach into the world of science and medicine. Only fairly recently has it been widely understood that the pharmaceutical industry must test drugs independently for men and women. Here’s a headline from an article sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse: “Gender appears to influence biological responses to nicotine, cocaine and alcohol.” In a paper published in the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology in 2011, which was co-authored by National Institutes of Health scientists, the point is made that men and women must be evaluated differently for administration of pharmaceuticals.
Here are some strange observations. When dogs do their duty, Czech and German researchers looked more closely than we usually do and discovered a tendency for the animals to align themselves along the Earth’s magnetic access. About a year before the finding on dogs published in 2013, the leader of the research, Hynek Burda, who is a specialist in animal “magnetoreception,” discovered that carp align themselves with the Earth’s poles while waiting to be purchased in water filled barrels in the Czech Republic.
In a very interesting article in Chemical and Engineering News on page 24 of the March 16, 2015 issue, we learn that the electrical power industry in the United States had been influencing many State Legislatures to limit the amount of locally generated electricity, including solar power, which can be sold back to the power company. This appears to be backfiring because of innovations in battery technology allowing homeowners and others, such as Walmart, to install solar panels in sunny locations and holding the excess in batteries to be used when the sun is not shining. Their electric bills to the grid are lowered. One force pushing battery technology is Tesla, the manufacturer of the all-electric car, a company now constructing a huge plant in Nevada making lithium ion batteries.
Let’s finish up on a lighter, but maybe important note for somebody reading this. Also in Chemical and Engineering News but in the February 9, 2015 issue, we find short blurbs on chemicals reported to be aphrodisiacs and helpful with erectile dysfunction. The two winners out of six possibilities seem to be Ambrein (from sperm whale’s intestines) and Yohimbine (derived from the bark of a tree in Central Africa). On a wikipedia site I found the Yohimbine to be available via prescription under trade names: Erex, Testomar, Yocon, Yohimar, Yohimbe. There is an Amazon site for Ambrein, so you can make a comparison of your own.
. http://www.sciencefromaway.com .
near the experiment.
