Hank dropped me a note last evening. A nice, short one. Noted that today is National Friendship Day, and wished me well, as a friend. A bit of a surprise, because while I do indeed consider Hank to be a friend, he’s one I’ve never met and only corresponded with occasionally. I get the impression he’s just that way.
I’ve mentioned previously that I have been blessed with a number of good friends. Earlier this week one of them sent me this quote:
Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.
— Honore de Balzac
My response:
Like the Balzac, but as applies to us I think it would have to be tweaked to this:
“Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of each friend that the other is superior.”
Actually, more that I think about it, this applies to most of my really close friendships. Maybe that says something.
My friend responded:
Yes. We don’t gravitate to people so like us that we have identical abilities, but persons from whom we can learn and grow and by whom we can be intrigued.
As it happened, another friend was visiting the next day, and stayed overnight. He and I were sitting up late, as old friends are wont to do, sipping a bit of decent single malt. I hit him with this notion of friendship. After due consideration, he agreed with my take on the matter, and added his own bit, along these lines:
It is only through my friendships that I have come to appreciate some of the things in myself that others admire.
I don’t know about Balzac, but I would have never made it through a somewhat rough and tumble life without my friends. Some have come and gone, held close for a brief season. Others have weathered storms with me, and I with them, establishing deep foundations which have held fast even through years of neglect. And while I am honest about my abilities, and know that on some things I may be more skilled, or knowledgeable, or talented, in no way does that permit a thought of superiority. Lord knows I have an ego – but even I would tire of thinking myself superior to others I consider friends. For real friendship, real love, there needs to be respect and a bit of a challenge. At least for me.
To all my friends, thank you.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Daily Kos, Mars, NASA, Phil Plait, Predictions, Press, Science, Space, Universe Today
You undoubtedly heard that the Phoenix Mars Lander this week confirmed the existence of water ice at the location of the lander. News, yes, but as others have noted, scientists have had little doubt that there was water ice on Mars for quite some time.
However . . .
. . . what if there’s something else going on that will be much more interesting news?
The White House is Briefed: Phoenix About to Announce “Potential For Life” on Mars
It would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists about the discovery of something more “provocative” than the discovery of water existing on the Martian surface. This news comes just as the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) confirmed experimental evidence for the existence of water in the Mars regolith on Thursday. Whilst NASA scientists are not claiming that life once existed on the Red Planet’s surface, new data appears to indicate the “potential for life” more conclusively than the TEGA water results. Apparently these new results are being kept under wraps until further, more detailed analysis can be carried out, but we are assured that this announcement will be huge…
So why is there all this secrecy? According to scientists in communication with Aviation Week & Space Technology, the next big discovery will need to be mulled over for a while before it is announced to the world. In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made these undisclosed findings were kept out of the July 31st news conference (confirming water) so additional analysis could be carried out, avoiding any questions that may have revealed their preliminary results. They have also made the decision to discuss the results with the Bush Administration’s Presidential Science Advisor’s office before a press conference between mid-August and early September.
And from the Aviation Week article:
White House Briefed On Potential For Mars Life
The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the “potential for life” on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Sources say the new data do not indicate the discovery of existing or past life on Mars. Rather the data relate to habitability–the “potential” for Mars to support life–at the Phoenix arctic landing site, sources say.
The data are much more complex than results related NASA’s July 31 announcement that Phoenix has confirmed the presence of water ice at the site.
I can understand the desire to be much more certain of their results before making an official announcement. Remember the debacle of the Martian Meteorite which purportedly contained evidence of fossilized bacteria? That debate is *still* going on, in large part because there are legitimate questions of how to understand the data. No one at NASA, or JPL, or anywhere else is going to want to overstate the results this time around.
So, is there life on Mars? Maybe. I’d guess likely, given all that we know about the planet. But it costs me nothing to make such a statement – scientists with reputations on the line are understandably going to be much more careful in making that case. So, let’s wait and see what the evidence shows.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
I had sent a note to a friend that contained something which I thought may have been of interest to his students. He said thanks in return, and I replied (jokingly): “I live to serve.”
His reply:
Man, we got to break you of that. Is there a 12 step program for former caregivers out there? I kid just a little here ...
Actually, it’s an interesting idea . . .
Jim Downey
(Thanks to Steve, and all my other concerned friends.)
Makes it sound almost reasonable, doesn’t it?
Small problem – the ‘he’ was a 16 year old kid who had fallen from a highway overpass and had broken his back. So, naturally, since he didn’t respond to the authoritah of the cops on the scene, the cops had to Taser him. 19 times.
See, kids, never make the mistake of not instantly jumping up to comply with instructions given by a cop. Just because you’re severely injured is no excuse.
And of course, the multiple “rides” on the Taser didn’t help his injuries. I’m sure there was the usual spasmodic response that happens when about 50,000 volts of juice hit you. And it also delayed surgery to correct the damage of the initial fall:
His dad says the use of the stun gun delayed what would have been immediate surgery by two days.
“The ‘Tasering’ increased his white blood cell count and caused him to have a temperature so they could not go into the operation.”
I smell lawsuit.
But that’s not the only such incident from down this way. Just last week we had a very similar thing happen in my hometown:
Police review Taser use
Captain says device escalated situation.A man injured in a Taser-related fall from the Providence Road pedestrian bridge over Interstate 70 remained in critical condition last night at University Hospital as Columbia police sought to defend their use of force in the incident that began with a man threatening to jump from the overpass.
Phillip McDuffy, 45, suffered two broken arms, a fractured skull and possibly a broken jaw in the fall, Columbia police Capt. Zim Schwartze said yesterday. Police estimate McDuffy fell about 15 feet onto a concrete embankment beside I-70, landing on his right side after the 1½-hour standoff.
Yeah, they didn’t want him to hurt himself, so they Tased him. Gee, too bad that he fell and broke all those bones. Who would have expected *that* to happen?
The police use of Tasers is just simply out of control in this country. Seriously. My dad was a cop, and a lot of my family’s friends growing up were cops. They’ve got a tough job. I know that the use of Tasers have protected the lives of officers. But this is insane. It is no longer just the odd asshole who happens to make the Greatest Hits of Police Abuse on YouTube. It has now become commonplace for the police to grab their Taser anytime someone doesn’t immediately do what they’re told. Time to get rid of the things, nationwide.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos and my blog.)
Filed under: Comics, General Musings, movies, NYT, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, tech, Travel
. . . but the announcement that there is a functional personal flying device to be revealed today is still pretty cool.
Why do I call it a ‘personal flying device’? Because it isn’t really a classic ‘jetpack‘ as we’ve seen in plenty of cartoons and movies. It is a large beast, weighing about 250 pounds, with twin fans each the size of a garbage can cut about in half. And for safety purposes, there is a support frame which allows the pilot to climb under the thing and strap himself to it. Hardly the ‘engine’ of The Rocketeer. But all in all, not a bad start – this is functional, will fly for about 30 minutes (the longest classic jetpack such as James Bond flew could go for about 30 seconds), and is fairly stable. From here significant improvements will be made. And Glenn Martin, the inventor of the device, understands this:
Only 12 people have flown the jetpack, and no one has gained more than three hours of experience in the air. Mr. Martin plans to take it up to 500 feet within six months. This time, he said with a smile, he will be the first.
Mr. Martin said he had no idea how his invention might ultimately be used, but he is not a man of small hopes. He repeated the story of Benjamin Franklin, on first seeing a hot-air balloon, being asked, “What good is it?” He answered, “What good is a newborn baby?”
Exactly.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Genetic Testing, Health, io9, NPR, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Sleep, Writing stuff
Some years back a good friend sent me a postcard from Florida with the image of a tri-colored heron’s head (you can see the image from which the card came here). On the card, the heron is looking straight at you, top feathers standing straight up, and above it in bright blue ‘electric’ lettering are the words “Stress? What Stress?”
It’s been tacked to the wall next to my desk here since. And it has been something of a standing joke between my wife and I. When things have gotten bad from time to time, one of us will turn to the other and simply say in a squeaky, high pitched voice “Stress? What Stress?”
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A month ago I wrote about slowly coming down from the prolonged adrenalin high which was being a full time care provider. Doctors have known for a while that such long term stress was hard on care providers. It’ll drive up blood pressure, screw with your sleep habits, and even compromise your immune system. Now they have started to figure out how that immune system mechanism works. Last night I caught a piece on NPR’s All Things Considered with UCLA professor Rita Effros about her research on this mechanism. What professor Effros said (no transcript yet, so this excerpt is my transcription):
So, in the short term cortisol does a lot of really good things. The problem is, if cortisol stays high in your bloodstream for long periods of time, all those things that got shut down short term stay shut down. For example, your immune system.
…
But let’s say you were taking care of an Alzheimer’s spouse, or a chronically ill child – those kinds of situations are known now to cause chronic, really long-term stress – let’s say years of stress.
…
(These care providers) were found to have a funny thing happening in their white blood cells. A certain part of the cell is called the telomere, which is a kind of a clock which keeps track of how hard the cell has been working. Their telomeres got shorter and shorter, and it has been known for many years that when cells have very short telomeres they don’t function the way they’re supposed to function.
What happens is this: cortisol inhibits the production of telomerase – a protein which helps to lengthen and buffer aging effects. Abstract on the mechanism is here, and it says it succinctly:
BACKGROUND:
Every cell contains a tiny clock called a telomere, which shortens each time the cell divides. Short telomeres are linked to a range of human diseases, including HIV, osteoporosis, heart disease and aging. Previous studies show that an enzyme within the cell, called telomerase, keeps immune cells young by preserving their telomere length and ability to continue dividing.FINDINGS:
UCLA scientists found that the stress hormone cortisol suppresses immune cells’ ability to activate their telomerase. This may explain why the cells of persons under chronic stress have shorter telomeres.IMPACT:
The study reveals how stress makes people more susceptible to illness. The findings also suggest a potential drug target for preventing damage to the immune systems of persons who are under long-term stress, such as caregivers to chronically ill family members, as well as astronauts, soldiers, air traffic controllers and people who drive long daily commutes.
* * * * * * *
io9 picked up on this story, and gave it a nice Science Fiction spin:
Stress runs down the body’s immune system, which is why people with high-stress jobs or events in their lives are vulnerable to illness. Now a researcher at UCLA has discovered the link between emotional stress and physical damage — and she’s going to develop a pill that will allow you to endure stress without the nasty side-effects. And there may also be one good side-effect: Extreme longevity.
It turns out that when you’re under stress, your body releases more of the hormone cortisol, which stimulates that hyper-alert “fight or flight” reflex. While cortisol is good in small doses, over time it erodes the small caps at the end of your chromosomes known as telomeres (the little yellow dots at the end of those blue chromosomes in the picture). Many researchers have long suspected that telomeres would provide a key to longevity because they are quite large in young people and gradually shrink over time as cells divide.
Rita Effros, the researcher who led the UCLA study, believes that she can synthesize a pill that combats stress by putting more telomerase — the substance that builds telomeres — into the body. This would keep those telomeres large, even in the face of large amounts of cortisol. It might also make your body live a lot longer too.
[Spoiler alert!]
Curiously, this clue about telomere length and aging is exactly the mechanism I use in Communion of Dreams to reveal that the character Chu Ling is a clone. Genetic testing reveals that the telomeres in her cells are much shorter than would be expected from a child her age, leading to the understanding that this is due to the fact that she has been cloned.
Ironic, eh? No, no one is going to think that I’m a clone. But I find it curious that the same mechanism which I chose for a major plot point pertaining to the health of the human race in my book is one which has been clearly operating on my own health.
Fascinating.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Health, Hospice, Science, Scientific American, Society
The human mind is a remarkable device. Nevertheless, it is not without limits. Recently, a growing body of research has focused on a particular mental limitation, which has to do with our ability to use a mental trait known as executive function. When you focus on a specific task for an extended period of time or choose to eat a salad instead of a piece of cake, you are flexing your executive function muscles. Both thought processes require conscious effort-you have to resist the temptation to let your mind wander or to indulge in the sweet dessert. It turns out, however, that use of executive function—a talent we all rely on throughout the day—draws upon a single resource of limited capacity in the brain. When this resource is exhausted by one activity, our mental capacity may be severely hindered in another, seemingly unrelated activity. (See here and here.)
Imagine, for a moment, that you are facing a very difficult decision about which of two job offers to accept. One position offers good pay and job security, but is pretty mundane, whereas the other job is really interesting and offers reasonable pay, but has questionable job security. Clearly you can go about resolving this dilemma in many ways. Few people, however, would say that your decision should be affected or influenced by whether or not you resisted the urge to eat cookies prior to contemplating the job offers. A decade of psychology research suggests otherwise. Unrelated activities that tax the executive function have important lingering effects, and may disrupt your ability to make such an important decision. In other words, you might choose the wrong job because you didn’t eat a cookie.
* * * * * * *
Almost a year ago I wrote this:
There’s a phenomenon familiar to those who deal with Alzheimer’s. It’s called “sundowning“. There are a lot of theories about why it happens, my own pet one is that someone with this disease works damned hard all day long to try and make sense of the world around them (which is scrambled to their perceptions and understanding), and by late in the afternoon or early evening, they’re just worn out. You know how you feel at the end of a long day at work? Same thing.
* * * * * * *
We cared for Martha Sr for about four years. Well, we were here helping her for a couple of years prior to that. But the nearly constant care giving lasted for about four, growing in intensity during that time, culminating with nearly six months of actual hospice care.
That was a long time. But my wife and I had each other, and it could have been longer.
That same day, a hospice patient named Michelle passed away. She was only 50 years old. She’d been battling MS for over 20 years. Debra is dispatched to her home.
The little brown house is shrouded by trees. Stray cats eat free food on the rusted red porch. Inside, Michelle lies in her hospital bed with her eyes slightly open. Debra’s there to help Michelle’s husband Ross. He quit his job in 2000 to take care of his wife.
“So eight years,” Debra says.
“She was permanently bedridden,” Ross replies. “This is the way it’s been. But like everything in life, it all comes to an end I guess.”
His voice sounds steady when he speaks, but his eyes are full of tears as he remembers his wife.
“I’ve never seen a women fight something like she did,” Ross says. “She spent years on that walker because she knew when she got in a chair she’d never get out. The pain it caused her.”
Ross talks for more than an hour. Debra listens and commiserates. It’s at these moments, even more than when she’s providing medical care, that Debra feels her work is appreciated.
Appreciated, indeed.
* * * * * * *
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 