Astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly are no longer identical twins. After almost a year on the International Space Station, tests have revealed that some of Scott’s chromosomes have been altered – becoming longer. He is also about 2 inches taller. Medical science is not sure if these changes will be permanent.
You just came back from space. What change would you like to experience in your chromosomes?
Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown.
A couple of weeks ago our neighbor, while out walking her dog, went down on glare ice – that sort of fall where you are suddenly flat on your back staring at the sky, and don’t know how the he** you got there. This was worse than usual though, as she cracked her skull on the ice. Pamela actually passed out for a bit; there was a lot of bleeding, a trip to the ER, and a concussion. She’s almost back to normal now, but is taking an afternoon nap (which is tricky at work), and was told she must not hit her head again. Just saw her (carefully) walking the dog for the first time today.
Traveling on foot is particularly treacherous in this season, due to a lot of melting and freezing. And here in Winona, we keep getting a new dusting of snow, which is fine in some places but hides the ice in others. I fell last week after a concert, because of an uneven sidewalk that wasn’t really visible – “just” went down on my knees, but was OK mostly.
Have you had any really bad falls, either out- or indoors?
Got any tips for prevention?
I frequently run into children in my psychology practice who have issues with how things feel, taste, or sound. These children do not have diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorder (although many of those people have significant sensory problems). No, the children to whom I refer are just really irritated and bothered by things in their sensory worlds. They have problems with the textures of foods, with seams in their socks, and with dirt on their hands. They crave tight clothes and heavy blankets, or else they don’t like wearing clothes at all. Some can’t abide loud noises. Some can’t bear to have anything like a tooth-brush in their mouths, or else they have an intense need for oral stimulation and need to chew on things. I refer them to Occupational Therapists who do all sorts of mysterious and wonderful things with them to reduce their sensory stress and make them less irritable.
I, too, have some sensory issues. I remember as child that I wouldn’t wear any article of clothing that had a tag in it. Mom had to cut them off. They were itchy and scratchy and I couldn’t stop thinking about them if they were still inside my clothes. I also remember wearing what are called “rumba pants” as a very little girl. They were decorative panties with lace on the backside. They itched like crazy and it was impossible to sit down without having them scratch my legs.
I prefer loose clothes to tight clothes. I never liked it when my mom would wash my bedding, since I liked things soft against my skin, and the freshly laundered sheets were scratchy. I can’t stand to feel that there is anything under my fingernails. This partially accounts for my unbreakable bad habit of chewing my nails. My son tells me that whenever he touches cardboard with his fingertips, it is like hearing nails on a black board for him.
I don’t know why I am seeing so many children with this issue. I think other children had sensory issues when I was young, but that no one asked the right questions to find out. Perhaps life wasn’t quite as complicated then and it was easier to learn to cope. Perhaps we are doing something environmentally or in our child rearing practices that is causing more problems like this. I don’t know the answer. I just know I am glad there is help for all that sensory irritability now.
What sensory issues do you have? Do you know someone with sensory issues?
I know that anecdotes are not science. Just because you know two people who know two other people who have had something happen to them doesn’t mean it is science. When the anecdotes don’t agree with your own world view it’s pretty easy to refute them. But when it happens to you, it’s a little harder.
For many years I didn’t get a flu shot because they were made with thimerosal as a preservative and I’m sensitive to that. Then about 8 years ago, they started making the shots without the preservative so I signed up at work and got the shot. A month later I was as sick as a dog; since I’d had the flu shot I was sure I had food poisoning and that was when I got a lesson in flu coverage by my doctor. The flu shot is an educated guess about what will be coming around each flu season; sometimes they work, sometimes they miss the mark. But the memory of being that sick made me hesitant to get a flu shot again.
Fast forward to last spring when I had pneumonia (ick). My doctor told me that the flu shot would be a helpful preventative against pneumonia so I dutifully got the shot this year.
You know where this is going, right? As I sat in Urgent Care yesterday with chills so bad I could hardly drive and a temperature over 103, the doctor (of course) asked me if I had gotten a flu shot this year. I said “yes, and a lot of good it’s done me”. She repeated to me that every now and then the current flu serum for the year really doesn’t help that year’s flu strain at all. This is one of those years. And apparently 8 years ago was one of those years as well.
I understand that this is a complete coincidence that both years I got the flu shot were the only two years that I’ve gotten the flu in the last couple of decades. My brain knows that getting the flu shot didn’t really give me the flu…. but just the same, my hearts thinks it’s going to be really hard for me to go get that shot next year!
Has your brain ever disagreed with your heart?
Last summer I read a string of books that I didn’t enjoy – all from my self-imposed “lists”. I beat myself up for a bit and then went to the library website and typed in “dragon”. All kinds of books came up, from all the Ann McCaffrey books to The Black Dragon River (a book on a journey down the Amur River) and then Dragon’s Teeth by Michael Crichton. I’d never read anything by Crichton (not sure how I managed that) so I put it on my waitlist. This was the book that his wife found among his papers and published posthumously.
I just finished it and really enjoyed it. The postscript shed light on which characters were fictional and which were historic. Charles Marsh and Edward Cope were real people – famous in paleontology for their 19th century rivalry.
Fast forward 24 hours. I just started A Brief History of Almost Everything by Bill Bryson (about the only Bryson I haven’t read yet – but that’s another blog). As I got to Chapter Three, suddenly he is talking about Marsh and Cope and their rivalry.
I understand in my head that coincidence is just coincidence, but sometimes in my heart I wonder how I can go six decades and never discover something, then within a day or so, run across it again. And we’ve talked about it here before – including pointing out that it is common enough that there is a phrase for this – Baader Meinhof. We’ve even put this phrase in our Baboon Glossary.
But it still amazes me when it happens.
Any coincidences in your life lately?
I didn’t have the television switched on too much today but I think I saw Marie Osmond at least three times. It occurs to me that I haven’t seen her hawking her diet system since before Halloween. Interesting that the diet ads start up right away on January 1.
Weight loss is the number one resolution in America these days (and has been for decades). And I read something recently that says most folks have blown through all their resolutions after six weeks. I’m guessing that means we’ll have plenty of Marie Osmond until Groundhog’s Day.
I also saw recently that PETA wants to replace Puxatawny Phil with an animatronic groundhog. This seems absurd to me; would we really be able to program it to recognize its own shadow and forecast the end of winter? Of course, we could always program it to monitor diet ads; once spring and summer arrives, the ads drop off. This made me wonder if we replaced Marie Osmond with an animatronic dieter, maybe SHE could tell us when winter is ending and save PETA the trouble of replacing Puxatawny Phil!
What robot would be useful in your life?
Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown
Just as “sound pollution” makes it difficult in most of our country to find a place where there is complete quiet, “light pollution” means it’s difficult to find a place that is totally dark. You may have seen a map like this of the United States, showing our light-polluted spaces. Some of the ramifications in my life:
– The only time I have really seen the Milky Way was on a trip to Utah in 1995.
– I’ve learned to use an eyeshade in the times of more daylight, allowing me to sleep better. And when I get up in middle lf night, I don’t really need a night-light to find my way to the bathroom.
A dancer friend writes a couple of blog posts a month, and her November 28 post is about what she calls “holy darkness”. I quote:
– “Darkness is the absence of light but it is not the absence of the Divine.”
– “Years ago friends told me about a lecture exploring how electric lights have completely changed our relationship to night and experience with darkness. Our conversation inspired us to experiment with fasting from electric lights for an entire night. We call it our holy darkness practice. We bring out candles and get very cozy. “
I hope to find a night soon, at this darkest time of year, when I can spend at least a couple of hours with just candle light, and experience what I can of darkness. How long I will last without my lamps, lighted screens, and phones I cannot say. I might read a book by candle light, or find someone to tell stories with. I will be sure to do this AFTER supper… I don’t feel like cooking over a candle flame.
What would you do with an evening of “total” darkness, except for candle light?
The news is in. DNA scientists have tested the Yeti “relics” – samples that believers have kept over the centuries. All turned out to be some type of bear DNA (and one dog). So I’m thinking that Yetis are busted.
What’s your favorite mythical creature?
Yesterday I had to stop while a small flock of turkeys took their time crossing the road. Then today it was a fairly large gaggle of geese that slowed me up; I’ll admit I gave my horn a couple of quick toots to hurry them along.
It made me think about the animal crossing system that they have in Canada along Banff National Park. All along the Trans Canada Highway through the park, they built overpasses and underpasses for the animals to use. According to Parks Canada, they have documented hundreds of thousands of animal crossings and saved thousands of animals from becoming roadkill.
Apparently coyotes, cougars and black bears figured out the crossings the fastest. Grizzly bears and wolves took the longest. But no one answers my question. Did they just open them up and wait for the animals to give them a try or did they try to “train” wildlife, perhaps using bait? Maybe it was it just a “build it and they will come” kind of thing?
It occurs to me that I’ve had animals in my life that would learn something like this quickly, like the black bears and I’ve also had animals that would be trailing behind the grizzlies.
Have you had a particularly smart (or not) animal in your life?
Have you ever been waking up in the morning and hear the phone ring, then become fully awake and realize you just imagined it? If so, you may have experienced an auditory hypnagogic hallucination.
In August of 2015, Dr. Laurence Knott of the UK wrote: “Hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations are visual, tactile, auditory, or other sensory events, usually brief but occasionally prolonged, that occur at the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic). The phenomenon is thought to have been first described by the Dutch physician Isbrand Van Diemerbroeck in 1664.[1] The person may hear sounds that are not there and see visual hallucinations. These visual and auditory images are very vivid and may be bizarre or disturbing.”
And Wikipedia describe it this way: “Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep in humans: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Mental phenomena that occur during this “threshold consciousness” phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis.” As you can see, there are several other “conditions” mentioned, that I don’t have the time to explore here.
I love what is sometimes called the “twilight time” as I drift off to sleep, and frequently have little vignettes play out before my eyes. Rather than thinking of it as a medical condition to be “treated”, I often wish they would last longer.
Do you experience any sort of hallucinations upon waking or falling asleep?
