Dendrites Merge on a Wordless Wednesday

points of interest, vol 2, #3

And we’re back.  It is time once again for my semi-regular offering of the choicest gems I found scouring the internet for all things mind, soul, and body.  Today I have virtual reality, depression, doctors, some crucial playing around, the endowment of power, medicinal goats milk, courage, one ton snakes, how one can actually buy happiness, and child brought into an alternate reality by his neighborhood dentist, to name just a very few.  So dig in and enjoy the very best of the internets-

Points of Interest, #39

   It’s Ba-ack.   I have searched far and wide to bring you the very best of the mind, soul, and body, to my mind anyway, as found in my meanderings through the streams of the Ethernet.  Today I have shyness with big egos, the power of positive emotions, your brain on spirituality, the folly of a just world,  dancing in the OR, tickling and belly button lint, some beautiful diseased brains, and the solution to the World’s economic problems, to name just a few.   So without further delay, I present, especially for you, the reader, the absolute best of the internet-

Building a better you

“Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor his own brain“.

             Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)

                             Spanish Neuroscientist

  Life is distinguished from the inanimate by its ability to recreate itself and hold a pattern.  Throughout our lives, The very material we are made up of is recycled or regenerated.  Every few weeks we completely change out the cells that compose our skin.   The body is constantly in a state of regenerating itself.  Even the bones are borrowing or depositing calcium throughout our lives.  The machinery of our cells are constantly disposing of waste, replacing damaged portions, killing cells that are old or dysfunctional and making new ones.  All this processes are kept in order by our genetic information.  In essence the only thing that holds our form and keeps it from weathering away and degenerating is our DNA.  This is the master set of instructions that our cells use to replace, rebuild, and develop us into the body we now have.  It is the ultimate difference between the collection of elements that is us, and a rock.

     However, there is much more to what we are than just the DNA blueprints.  I remember a moment at the beginning of my very first year of medical school that really brought this home to me.  In anatomy we had to memorize every crater, every bump, every nodule, line and crevice in every bone in the body.  As we learned about these landmarks, we learned that they form not as part of some genetic program, but as a reaction to stress forces from pulling tendons and ligaments, triggering a reaction that caused the cells in that part of the bone to duplicate and reinforce the bone as needed.  In other words, our actions determine the shape of our bones every bit as much as our genes.

Points of Interest, #17

It’s back, while I may not have time to come up with anything worth reading out of my head, I am more than happy to share the wealth of what someone else wrote. Meanwhile, I continue to tread water on the wards.