Tag: dead

Cotard Syndrome – Walking Dead Disorder

By Anupum Pant

Neurological conditions can be bizarre. Now I know that there is a condition that can delude patients to such an extent that they start thinking they no longer exist, or are dead. It’s called the Cotard Syndrome or the walking dead disorder.

Named after a French doctor Jules Cotard, the Cotard syndrome is a neurological condition in which severe degeneration of neural synapses occurs and messes with the facial recognition and emotion centres of the brain. Their brain creates a totally impaired perception of the self. As a result, patients suffering from it some times get convinced that their body parts no longer exist, or have started decaying.

Often times, patients think that they no longer need to eat (because they are already dead), and they starve to death.

There have also been cases in which patients have tried to get rid of their body parts using acid because they felt doing this was only the way to free themselves of being zombies.

Graham, a person who got caught up by this bizarre disorder was totally convinced that his brain did not exist. He had lost all his senses, he thought he was in a state between life and death, and saw no point in continuing to live this way. He tried to kill himself by getting electrocuted in a bathtub. Graham got cured to some extent, but the disorder completely messed up the rest of his life.

Another person who suffered brain injury due to a motorcycle accident was first cleared as health by doctors initially. After which he went on a vacation to South Africa. By the time he came back, he was totally convinced that he had died and had gone to hell.

Thankfully, it is an extremely rare disorder.

via [NewScientist]

An Incredibly Simple Way to Kill A Tree

By Anupum Pant

Background

Of course, killing a tree is something I’d never want to do. I see them as old and wise people who have grown and matured for years. Plus they give us so much in return. And yet sometimes, they say, there are good reasons to kill a tree. I’ll probably never understand.

Anyway, I thought it’s good to know, just for the sake of knowing that there is an incredibly simple technique that is often used to kill trees (for legit reasons) and is widely known among horticulturists. I learnt about it just today, and I felt it was worth sharing.

It’s called Girdling (also known as  ring barking or ring-barking). Or, a technique which involves removal / peeling of a ring of bark from a tree, and the phloem layer (Like shown in the picture above). Yes, that’s it, this kills a tree. And it’s slow death. A tree which gets girdled dies gradually in about a year or more.

This is why it works…

The central part of the tree trunk (wooden part) is involved in taking the nutrients and water up to the leaves. The leaves then get exposed in the sun and mix in carbon dioxide to make sugar and other reduced carbon compounds. Most of us know that. But this is what not many know…

The outer part of the trunk – the bark and the phloem layer – also has a solid function that sustains growth and function. It’s responsible to carry the sugar (and other stuff) made by the leaves, back to the root. That is basically food to sustain growth and function of the roots. If that doesn’t reach the roots, the roots don’t receive what is required for their growth and function. Girdling does exactly that – cuts off the down-flow of food. As a result, the root dies and with it dies the whole tree. All of this happens very slowly.

To be noted

Jumping the Girdle: Some times, trees are able to repair this damage. It’s called a jumped girdle. To prevent that from happening, often smear herbicide over the girdled area.

Better Fruits: This technique is also used by some farmers to force the tree to bear better fruits – as no sugar goes down into the roots – the fruits are usually bigger and better if they come from a girdled tree. Of course these better fruits come with a price.

Girdling is particularly a good way to end trees like Aspens because as we know from Pando, many other Aspens can sprout up from the roots and cause a bigger mess if just the top part of this tree is cut off.

Girdling is a better way to kill a tree because it gives the environment time to adjust, also it is cheaper and prevents damage to the other delicate plants around the tree.

[Source]

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Wood Frog Dies and Comes Back to Life

By Anupum Pant

Ice Kills

Everybody knows what extremely low temperatures can do to our body. If you aren’t well protected from the cold, unable to retain the heat, the core temperature of your body may drop below 35 degree C and can cause some serious problems, even death.

At even lower temperatures, ice crystals can form in the tissues and puncture blood vessels. Ice crystals may even squeeze, deform and break cells. Otherwise it can leave behind shrunken and destroyed cells by sucking out water from them to form ice. Probably leaving you with a permanently damaged body part.

Due to ice formation inside the cells, this disastrous structural damage that is caused in human bodies, or most other organisms is unavoidable. We were not built to endure horrendous cold. But there are a few organisms who are built to live, or if I may say, die and then live again in extremely cold temperatures.

Meet the Wood Frog

Wood frog, a small variety of frog found in north america is one such creature. You ask what’s so interesting about them?

It is probably one of the most freeze tolerant beings. In other words, extracellular freeze tolerance and intracellular freeze avoidance enables the frog to do what it does.

Well, when it is really cold out there in the Arctic circle or the upper parts of America, they can freeze themselves for weeks, even for months. It does this by first finding out if it is really cold out there. When it touches the first bits of winter snow, a signal sets off in its body and the signal starts the blood freeing process.

All the water is pulled away from the core of its organs and the water gets frozen. Putting all the organs in a shell of solid ice. The whole frog becomes hard as a rock and sits there like that for weeks. Till it sees the spring time.

The most amazing part is that, during this time, the frog doesn’t breathe, its heart stops beating and even kidneys stop functioning. In medical terms it could be called dead. In reality, it is only temporarily dead.

Just like a dead man – without a hear beat – walking.

And then spring comes. It thaws itself out without any cellular injury and starts jumping again. It dies in winter and comes back to life in the next season.

This is probably how carbonite from Star Wars works.

Hit the like button if you learnt something today.