Tag: life

Biological Darkmatter

By Anupum Pant

To most of us, looking at things from a distance, it often seems like the age of exploration is over. It seems like there’s not much left to be discovered. Only a few who strongly believe that the age of exploration is far from over, and work hard to keep exploring, end up finding new things.

Take for instance the part of ocean that remains unexplored and unseen by human eyes today. According to NOAA’s website this unexplored part is about 95%, even today!

In fact, it is estimated that 96% of the universe is made up of some mysterious thing (called the dark matter) which we haven’t even started to figure yet.

If you think that is taking it too far, we don’t even know our bodies completely yet. Just last year (in 2013) a new body part in the human body was discovered!

Nathan Wolfe, a biologist and explorer, talks about how most (as much as 40-50% of it) of the genetic information found in our own gastrointestinal tracts doesn’t classify under any kind of biological form we have ever known – Not plant, animal, virus, bacteria or fungus. Biologists call it the biological dark matter.

genetic information

There are unknowns all around us and they are waiting to get discovered.

Mike The Headless Chicken

By Anupum Pant

Mike, a Wyandotte rooster, born in the month of April (year 1945), was an average male chicken living an average chicken life at some barnyard in Fruita, Colorado. On September 10th 1945 this changed. The rooster was no longer a normal male chicken of some random barnyard. It was making news.

The second world war had ended and families no longer were required to cut down their consumption of meat. So, a farmer’s wife, Clara Olsen decided to treat her family with a nice meal after the numerous sacrifices made in the second world war. She asked her husband, Lloyd A. Olsen to chase down mike and kill Mike for the night’s meal.

Lloyd did exactly that. He took aim and cut off Mike’s head. Normally, like all the chickens make erratic movements after getting cut, Mike with no head on his body started running, spewing blood around too.

Unlike all the chickens who spurt out blood and no longer have enough of it to remain alive, Mike’s bleeding stopped after a while and he stood up. Now Mike was a headless chicken moving around the barnyard. With no eyes, or even a head for that matter, mike started walking around and running into objects.

Mike the headless chicken feedingSoon, Mike adapted to this situation and started living a normal life. Except, he was a chicken without a head. Mike went on to live for 18 months, sustaining on food and liquids that were dropped using a dropper into the hole in his neck. Mike sure had the will to live.

Mike was a celebrity now. Life magazine published a piece on him. People from all over the country came around, just to have a look at a live headless animal walking around like nothing had happened.

Mike, Mike, where is your head.
Even without it, you are not dead!

Was the song little girls then started singing while playing around at school

Confused, the farmer took Mike to the University of Utah to get him checked by researchers. It was found that the brain stem at the top of his neck didn’t get cut. He still had the part which controlled his motor functions, and that was, more or less, enough for a chicken to lead a headless life. Basically, just enough to move around and continue normal body functions – like to digest food and respond to stimuli.

Even today, Mike has a festival named after him –  Mike The Headless Chicken Festival – which is Fruita’s highlight during the year.

via [RoadsideAmerica]

 

 

Do You Feel Alone? – By Kurzgesagt

By Anupum Pant

If you feel worthless or alone, or both, you probably are looking at things very superficially. It’s time to realize who you are and where you stand in this vast universe.

Today, I’m just going to leave you with a brilliantly animated, science + philosophical video by Kurzgesagt.

(Just that because I’m too tired to write and happened to stumble upon this amazing video which I felt like sharing)

Also, don’t forget to check out their other videos. All of them are brilliant. Yes, I’ve watched them all. [Channel link]

Spicy Food for a Happy Stress Free Life

By Anupum Pant

Today I’d like to start with something called Morphine. There is great chance that you already know about Morphine, may be through House MD, or other things. If you do, you could skip if you want to. But reading through a couple of lines never hurt anybody.

Morphine: is one of the most effective drugs used in medicine to relieve severe pain. It acts directly on the central nervous system, relieves anxiety and produces euphoria – intense happiness. That is the reason, it is also widely used illegally as a recreational drug. Wait! It is highly addictive too. But what makes me talk about morphine today?

Endorphins: And then there are Endorphins. Endorphins, short for Endogenous Morphine, is a morphine like substance made by the body – Where endogenous means that it originates inside the body. The amount of it released in the body is completely dependant on how you live your life and the kind of food you eat.

Like morphine, Endorphins have some function in the body too. In simple words, they relieve pain and stress. For instance, in a body builder’s body, these are the natural chemicals which keep them going in the gym, by mitigating pain sensation. And of course, since it is nothing but Morphine occurring naturally in the body, it creates Euphoria, or a state of intense happiness.

Runner’s High: People who are engaged in strenuous activities often have high amounts of Endorphins being released inside their body. As a result, they develop something called a runner’s high – An addiction to exercise and other strenuous activities. May be this is how workaholics are born. I’m guessing, endorphins is the chemical that gives the Tarahumara people the ability to run for 400 miles. And may be Marathon Monks of Japan also have unlocked a technique to produce high amounts of Endorphins in them (meditation!).

Whatever it is, healthy amounts of Endorphins released in the body make you happy, and a greater amount than that only takes you to a super human level. Of course, using morphine without prescription is not legal. But, there’s no law that can stop you from creating it in your own body. After all, it can completely change you as a person.

How to: Now, there are a couple of natural ways you could train your body to make more of it for you. Some of them are – strenuous exercise, a lot of sleep, eating chocolate and meditation (marathon monks!). But, among these techniques, in my view, adopting excessively spicy food is the most accessible and healthy way to go about it. Heck, just eat chillies and be happier. So simple. If you think that is hard, well, the human body can easily be trained…

Among scientists, it is a well-known fact that eating chilli peppers can lead to enhanced secretion of endorphins. It is also noteworthy that spicier the chilli, more endorphins are released. And to find the spiciest chillies, you can probably watch the video below…

So, go, rev it up to 16 Million Scoville Scale unit and lead a happier and stress free life. Use science and get addicted to happiness.

Note: Do whatever, but do not over do it. You don’t want to try the deadly cinnamon challenge to be happy.

Sharks Are Not So Bad After All

By Anupum Pant

Sharks have been on earth for millions of years more than we have been here. Also, they haven’t changed much since a long time. The kind of sharks we see today, were the same sharks that existed 350 million years ago.

That means, modern sharks have lived happily for millions of years without eating humans. Even today, they aren’t very keen on killing us for food. They simply aren’t designed (or haven’t evolved) to do that. Humans were never a part of their normal diet. Instead, they normally feed on small fish. While a few other species of sharks may eat seals, sea lions and other mammals too. In fact, they can go on for months without food.

Funny as it may sound, sharks are scared of humans. When a shark sees a human in water, it gets confused and scared. It goes near to check,  and this usually results in an accidental bite. They don’t kill humans out of aggression. With 15 rows of razor sharp teeth on each jaw, even their gentle bites may kill a person. About only 20 out of 300 species of sharks are reported to have been involved in accidents with human beings.  About 100 such accidents occur every year.

Not being insensitive about human deaths: Can you estimate how many people do sharks kill every year? The answer is 10. Ten people, on an average are killed by shark bites every year. That is about 1/15 th of number of people killed by coconuts every year*
*Note: “150 people are killed by coconuts every year”, is a popular urban legend. The coconut death figure is a crude estimate or just a figure pulled out of thin air.

Nevertheless, the number of people killed by sharks every year is very very less (again, even a single human death isn’t really ‘less’). I’d rather not use statistics to prove my point. [image]

Why are sharks scared of us? … Why shouldn’t they be?
We kill about 100 million sharks every year. That is such a huge number when compared to number of people sharks kill every year. Again, statistics could be deceiving here. But we do get an idea. There is a massive difference in the number.
Why? Humans catch sharks for their meat, internal organs and skin,  to make products such as shark fin soup, lubricants, and leather etc. Some times, fins are cut and live sharks are thrown back into the sea, crippled. This eventually kills them due to excessive bleeding or other obvious reasons.

It is ironically that we move into their natural habitat and in turn blame sharks for destroying our boats, surf boards. Moreover, we are shocked to hear about reports of shark attacks on humans. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? We should stop looking at sharks as if they are the monsters; we are. At the same time, that doesn’t mean you should risk your life by going in shark waters to give it a high-five.

Random Science Fact:  

Only 14% of the Earth’s species are known to us. 75% of all the species on Earth will be gone within the next 300 years. Think about those species which will go extinct while we are here, and we’ll never know about them.