Filed under: Astronomy, Fermi's Paradox, General Musings, Government, ISS, NASA, NYT, Predictions, Preparedness, Press, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Society, Space, UFO, Uncategorized
Yesterday I wrote a somewhat snarky post at UTI about the Vatican’s Astronomer giving his official blessing (almost literally) to the notion that alien life – even intelligent alien life – probably exists in the universe, and that this was not at odds with Catholic doctrine. A friend this morning sent me a link to this 1996 article in the New York Times:
Does the Bible Allow For Martians?
WOULD the discovery of life on Mars be a blow to the idea of biblical creation? Should the knowledge of alien organisms shatter faith in a God who was supposed to have created heaven and earth and life in a week?
As it turns out, biblical creationists have been touting the existence of aliens for years — and Mars itself has featured prominently in their scenarios.
Ronald Numbers, a professor of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of ”The Creationists,” a history of this movement, was himself raised in a fundamentalist Seventh Day Adventist community where belief in life on Mars was no big deal.
According to the Bible, Mr. Numbers explains, Satan and his cohorts were thrown out of heaven, so the question arises: Where did they go? At his high school in rural Tennessee, Mr. Numbers was taught by his teacher, who was also a Seventh Day Adventist, that they were hurled to Mars. The famous Martian canals were cited as evidence of this habitation.
In turn, that article was mention by another NYT piece yesterday (also sent by my friend) which discussed the Vatican’s stance on alien life. And in it, this is mentioned:
On Monday, Mike Foreman, a mission specialist during the recent Shuttle Endeavor voyage, expressed confidence in the notion, saying “it’s hard to believe that there is not life somewhere else in this great universe.”
Today, TDG also noted that another Endeavor crew member agreed, with this news item:
Astronauts who returned recently from a Space Shuttle mission said on Monday that they expected alien life would be discovered.
“Life like us must exist elsewhere in the universe,” Takao Doi, who had been on a 16-day Endeavour mission to the International Space Station, told reporters in Tokyo.
Mr Doi and his colleagues denied seeing anything that proved the existence of extraterrestrial life forms, but said the scale of the solar system and beyond had impressed upon them the possibility of alien life.
Of course, also in the news just about everywhere is that the British government is in the process of releasing their UFO files, gathered by the Ministry of Defense. As I quoted in my UTI post yesterday:
LONDON – The men were air traffic controllers. Experienced, calm professionals. Nobody was drinking. But they were so worried about losing their jobs that they demanded their names be kept off the official report.
No one, they knew, would believe their claim an unidentified flying object landed at the airport they were overseeing in the east of England, touched down briefly, then took off again at tremendous speed. Yet that’s what they reported happened at 4 p.m. on April 19, 1984.
The incident is one of hundreds of reported sightings contained in more than 1,000 pages of formerly secret UFO documents being released Wednesday by Britain’s National Archives.
And naturally enough, lots of people are just certain that whatever is in those files isn’t the *actual* truth, because you just can’t trust any government with this stuff. As noted (again, via TDG) in this post by UFO investigator Nick Redfern which pre-dated the recent release of documents:
Yes, the Government knows something. It may actually know quite a lot. Perhaps (although I seriously doubt it) it knows everything. But the idea that it (as a unified body) has any interest in telling us the truth, purely because we go knocking on its doors, loftily demanding to be let in on the secret, is self-deluded, ego-driven yearning of a truly sickening “I want to believe” nature.
Call me a cynic, but if the government reveals the truth about UFOs to us, you can guarantee it will be a lie. And it will probably be a lie designed to scare the shit out of us and ensure that we surrender more of our freedoms and rights to old men who wear suits and lack souls. And still the real secret will remain hidden – either in the pages of some hefty classified file or in a cryogenic tank deep below Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Maybe…
OK, I’ve written before about news related to SETI, because it ties in directly with Communion of Dreams. But why mention these reports and comments? Why get into the whole woo-woo land of UFOs?
Well, as I said over a year ago when French government made their UFO files available:
A staple of Science Fiction has always been the question of how humanity will deal with the discovery that we are not the only sentients in the universe. It is, of course, the main theme of Communion as well, and while I am somewhat ambiguous about what exactly is “out there”, I make no bones about the fact that they exist, and have even visited our neighborhood (hence the discovery of the artifact on Titan being central to the book).
Honestly, one of my greatest fears is that before I can get Communion published, we may indeed have such proof, and will get to see just exactly how that plays out in the public sphere. My own private suspicion is that it will not go well.
And I can’t help but wonder what is behind this sudden upsurge in scientists, astronauts, and even religious leaders commenting about how they are sure that there is alien life, possibly even intelligent alien life, “out there.” Sure the UFO community has always been convinced (it sort of goes with the territory), and vocal. But why this interest being expressed from so many other sources? I may have been snarky at UTI, but I do have to wonder whether or not there isn’t some larger agenda being played out here before our eyes. Certainly, were I in a decision-making position in government and we had conclusive and irrefutable proof of extra-terrestrial intelligence, I would advise spending some time ‘preparing’ the public for the release of that information.
Just a thought.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Architecture, General Musings, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Travel
So, I’m curious – given some kind of time-travel technology, what would you like to witness from the past? Let’s say that something about the technology prohibits you from interacting with the past – all you can do is passively watch/listen.
And note I said “from the past”, not “from history”, because while I would want to see some of the famous events, I think I would actually more like to see little things that seldom show up in history books. Like the building of our house (go down to the “Hurst John” house second from the bottom). Or maybe something from my childhood, since I remember so little of it. Sure, everyone would want to resolve some of the mysteries from history, and to witness specific events, but it’s more interesting to hear what personal moments of the time would attract your attention.
When would you go?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Machado-Joseph, Science, Sleep, Society, Uncategorized, Writing stuff
It’s now been three months since Martha Sr died.
You’d think by now that I’d be caught up on sleep. You’d be wrong. As I look over the last few month’s posts I note that time and again that I mention sleep. It is still the default that I want more, more, more. Even when I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep, and am not fighting any kind of cold or flu, a nap in the morning or afternoon tempts me. For someone who thinks of himself as energetic, productive, it kind of goes against the grain. For someone who has a backlog of work running to years, it can be a little maddening.
Yet, sleep is still the default.
* * * * * * *
My sister called the other day.
“Thirty pounds? Wow. Be careful.”
I assured her that I wasn’t trying to overdo anything. That it was just my body moving back towards a natural set-point, as mentioned in that blog post.
But she has a good reason to be concerned: in our family, weight loss is one of the markers for the onset of the family genetic curse, Machado-Joseph disease. To be honest, this is one of the major reasons that I have always felt a little comfortable in being a bit overweight – it provided some sense of protection against the disease (which was very poorly understood or even known as I was growing up). That’s not how it works, of course, but it was always there in the back of my mind. If you’d lived with seeing what the disease does, you’d be willing to risk obesity, too.
* * * * * * *
Go back to any of the entries from last year under the tag Alzheimer’s, and you’ll see that one of the most common things I talk about is just how tired I was. For years – literally, years – my wife and I had taken turns being “on call” each night, lightly dozing while listening to a baby monitor in Martha Sr’s room. On those nights you’d barely get anything which amounted to real rest. When you weren’t “on call” sleep usually came, but wasn’t as easy or restful as it could have been – having your partner there more or less awake next to you all night wasn’t that conducive. Sure, there were naps whenever we could squeeze them in, but I would still say that my average sleep per 24 hour period was probably about 5 hours, maybe 6. Things did improve once we had a health aide three nights a week, but by then we were in hospice care, which had its own stresses and demands.
* * * * * * *
ATLANTA – People who sleep fewer than six hours a night — or more than nine — are more likely to be obese, according to a new government study that is one of the largest to show a link between irregular sleep and big bellies.
* * *
The research adds weight to a stream of studies that have found obesity and other health problems in those who don’t get proper shuteye, said Dr. Ron Kramer, a Colorado physician and a spokesman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
“The data is all coming together that short sleepers and long sleepers don’t do so well,” Kramer said.
The study released Wednesday is based on door-to-door surveys of 87,000 U.S. adults from 2004 through 2006 conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Surprise, surprise.
* * * * * * *
I’ve got a pretty strong work ethic. And it was shaped by conventional standards: get up, go to work for 8 -10 hours, come home. That’s not how I work – hasn’t been for years – but it is still the baseline instinct for me, the initial criteria I use for whether or not I am “getting things done”. So it is frustrating to feel sleepy and want a nap. That doesn’t pay the bills, get the backlog under control, get the next book written or the ballistics research written up.
Three months. Seems like a long time. And our culture doesn’t understand grief well, nor leave a lot of room for recovery that takes time. We expect people to “get over it”, to take a vacation and come back refreshed. It is part of who we are – part of who I am.
But I try to listen to my body. It is naturally shedding the excess weight I put on, now that regular sleep and exercise are again part of my life. Realistically, it is only halfway done – I’ve another 30 pounds or so to go to get back to a point which I consider ‘normal’ (though that’s still about 20 – 30 pounds heavy for me, according to the ‘ideal’). Does that mean I have another three months of wanting naps all the time? Yeah, maybe. Maybe more. I’ll try and give it that time.
I’ll try.
Jim Downey
Via Brian at Liftport, a link to this site hosting the entire series of James Burke’s The Day the Universe Changed. As Brian said in an email:
Jim,
You’re written before that you admire James Burke’s work on television.
While I don’t condone piracy, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out
that a blog is hosting a download of the ‘Day the Universe Changed’.
One episode per day, file will be up for a week and then it’s gone.I put the first episode on my laptop, let it play and .. my kids liked
it. Which is what I expected but .. you never know.I might be kidding myself by I think it was firing off neurons in my
13-year old son’s brain. I have no idea what my eight year old really
thought (he said he liked it) but he’s not the type to just watch
anything on TV; if it’s boring he’ll wander away and play with legos
or his dinosaur collection or go fool around in the backyard.
Yes, I have written about the series, and Burke previously. It really is excellent – and you should either add the thing to your NetFlix queue, buy it outright, or at the very least avail yourself of the chance to see it online.
Thanks, Brian!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Pandemic, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Press, Science, Society
As if my last post wasn’t enough cheeriness for one day, I thought I should also post an update to this post about the outbreak of EV71 in China. From the AP:
China says hand, foot and mouth disease spreading among children
BEIJING – China reported a jump Monday in the number of children sickened with hand, foot and mouth disease, saying more than 9,700 cases have been reported.
* * *
The outbreak is another headache for China‘s Communist government as it prepares to host this summer’s Olympic Games, already tarnished by unrest among Tibetans in western China and an international torch relay disrupted by protests.
WHO’s China representative, Hans Troedsson, said the disease was not a threat to the Beijing Olympics because the disease mostly sickens young children.
Well, I’m glad to know that – can’t screw up our priorities in worrying about kids when there is the Olympics to fret about.
Sheesh.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Emergency, Flu, Flu Wiki, General Musings, Government, Health, NPR, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Writing stuff
Well, we all will, unless there’s some sort of miracle breakthrough in medicine or technology. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Rather, I’m talking about something anyone who has thought about it much has probably already assumed is true: that in the event of a large-scale pandemic, procedures will be put into effect by medical authorities to determine who will be treated and who will be allowed to die.
This is called triage. And to the best of my knowledge, for the first time such procedures are being publicly put forth as being applicable for all hospitals in the US, in recognition that it is better to have consistent and uniform criteria already in place before a disaster hits. The May issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), today carried a supplement titled Definitive Care for the Critically Ill During a Disaster. From the press release on the ACCP website:
(NORTHBROOK, IL, May 5, 2008)—In an unprecedented initiative, US and Canadian experts have developed a comprehensive framework to optimize and manage critical care resources during times of pandemic outbreaks or other mass critical care disasters. The new proposal suggests legally protecting clinicians who follow accepted protocols for the allocation of scarce resources when providing care during mass critical care events. The framework represents a major step forward to uniformly deliver sufficient critical care during catastrophes and maximize the number of victims who have access to potential life-saving interventions.
“Most countries, including the United States, have insufficient critical care resources to provide timely, usual care for a surge of critically ill and injured victims,” said Asha Devereaux, MD, FCCP, Task Force for Mass Critical Care. “If a mass casualty critical care event occurred tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health-care system circumstances may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions due to deficiencies in supply, staffing, or space.” As a result, the Task Force for Mass Critical Care developed an emergency mass critical care (EMCC) framework for hospitals and public health authorities aimed to maximize effective critical care surge capacity.
So, is this just good public health planning? Well, yes. But it is also very sobering to read the following:
The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals “so that everybody will be thinking in the same way” when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.
“When”. Emphasis mine. Not “if”. The news report goes further:
Bentley said it’s not the first time this type of approach has been recommended for a catastrophic pandemic, but that “this is the most detailed one I have seen from a professional group.”
While the notion of rationing health care is unpleasant, the report could help the public understand that it will be necessary, Bentley said.
Devereaux said compiling the list “was emotionally difficult for everyone.”
That’s partly because members believe it’s just a matter of time before such a health care disaster hits, she said.
“You never know,” Devereaux said. “SARS took a lot of folks by surprise. We didn’t even know it existed.”
Again, emphasis mine.
I’ve written many times about the possibility of widespread flu or some other kind of pandemic. Partly this is just because such a catastrophe sets the stage for Communion of Dreams. But more importantly – and this is even part of the reason *why* I wrote Communion of Dreams – is that I don’t think that people give this matter nearly enough thought.
It is good to see that the public health authorities are taking this step. And I was heartened to hear about it on NPR as I started to compose this post. Maybe it will prompt people to stop and think for a moment about what they themselves should be doing to prepare for some kind of pandemic or other disruption. Because I bet that almost no one you know is actually ready to ride out such an event – and by the time you hear of a pandemic starting, it will be too late to get everything you will need to increase the chances of you and your loved ones surviving. This is not fear-mongering; this is taking some reasonable precautions – the same sorts of precautions that have lead to the development of this new triage plan. If you want to know more, check out the Flu Wiki (where they also link to this resource).
Yeah, we’re all gonna die. And I can easily imagine disaster scenarios where I would not want to live. But I sure as hell don’t want to die needlessly from something I can avoid, or ride out with a little advance prep.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Flu, General Musings, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Press, Science, Society, Writing stuff
Communion of Dreams is set in a post-pandemic world, some 40 years after a new flu strain has caused massive death and global disruption.
For the most part, people never really think about the flu or any other virus presenting much of a threat. Partially, this is due to not wanting to think about such things as death. Partially, it is because there really isn’t much in the way of treatment for most viral diseases. As a result, sometimes it is difficult to get much information in the news, unless you really work at it. A good example of this is the recent outbreak of EV71 in China – my wife caught a brief mention of it on the BBC news, told me. I had to really hunt around to find this:
Mass intestinal virus infection up to 1,520, kills 20
HEFEI — A lethal outbreak of intestinal virus in Fuyang City in east China’s Anhui Province has killed 20 children and befallen 1,500 others, the provincial health department said on Tuesday.
Du Changzhi, Anhui Provincial Health Department deputy chief, said the virus, known as enterovirus 71, or EV71, had altogether sickened 1,520 children, claiming 20 lives by Tuesday morning.
Of the sick, 585 had recovered thus far. At present, 412 sick children have remained in hospital for further medical observation. Of the total, 26 are seriously ill.
The Wall Street Journal did have this:
China Suffers HFMD Outbreak
Common Illness Catches Attention Of Global Officials
HONG KONG — A deadly outbreak in eastern China of a common childhood illness that rarely kills people has caught the attention of international health officials.
The outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease, or HFMD, has killed 20 children in Fuyang, a city in eastern Anhui province, and has affected some 1,200 children altogether, according to the Anhui provincial health department. Of those cases, 341 children are still in the hospital.
A report by the state-run Xinhua news agency late Sunday evening said the outbreak began in early March and cited the city’s health department as confirming that the disease was caused by enterovirus-71, one of several viruses that can cause HFMD.
* * *
China’s Health Minister Chen Zhu visited Fuyang on Saturday, according to the Xinhua report. Chinese health officials at the local level in the past have sometimes played down disease outbreaks early on, only to be caught off guard later.
Indeed. There have been a number of such problems with reporting outbreaks in China, as we saw with the SARS virus in 2003. What this means is that a new virus can get established before anyone really knows what is going on. And that could be really catastrophic in terms of implementing public-health plans to limit the spread of any major new disease.
[Major Spoilers Ahead.]
At the end of Communion, I reveal that the new engineered flu virus which has been released comes from China. I did this for this reason – to draw attention to this very real problem. It’s bad enough that some virus could pop up just about anywhere where there is very little public health infrastructure, and so be missed. That a threat could come, and be intentionally ignored, is really dangerous. You really gotta wonder just what people are thinking when they do this.
Just as you really gotta wonder why such things are not covered in the news, rather than the latest celebrity gossip or outrage.
Jim Downey
I’ll turn 50 in a couple of months. It’s a little weird to realize that barely more time than that is required to go back from my date of birth to the first powered flight of the Wright brothers.
But, via TDG, this delightful bit from Scientific American:
100 Years Ago in Scientific American:
The Wright Brothers’ First Flight
An article from the May 1908 issue of Scientific American
Complete with the text and cover from that issue.
Wild.
Jim Downey
Well, as I mentioned in this post, after we did the schedule of ballistic tests using the custom Thompson/Center Encore pistol and had all the “ideal” data relating to barrel length versus bullet speed for a wide variety of ammo and calibers, we still wanted to use the same ammo in a number of “real world” guns – actual handguns from our various collections. That would give us some head-to-head comparisons to see how they would compare to the “ideal” performance.
Well, yesterday Steve and I had a chance to get out and do this additional testing. Here’s a message I sent to our third partner in the previous tests:
Thought I would drop you a note, let you know that Steve and I (with another friend tagging along) went out and shot all the “real world” pistols today, using the full run of ammo available. Lots of good data points on those. About 6 hours, plus a bit for cleaning up. I will get copies of the data sheets sent off to you in a day or two.
Mostly, it went smoothly. The little Berettas in .25 and .32 were a right pain to shoot, and problematic in getting data (we did, but we really had to work for it). The .380 Walther was OK, the .327 Ruger rough, the big .45 Colt and .44 Mag more pleasant than either of us expected. We also supplemented with Steyrs in .357 Sig and in .40 S&W, along with the .357 Python, big .357 S&W, .38 Diamondback, .38 S&W 642, and Para Ord .45. We shot the .357 revolvers with both .38 special and .357 magnums, to have those data points.
Vanes were hit, bullets bounced off the armour plate in front. Sunburns were earned. But we got all the data, done done done. I’ll probably write something up for my blog in the morning, as documentation. I also took pix today, to go along with the pix from the previous tests.
I heard back from Jim, who said that he knew a number of people were eagerly waiting for the data, and that one fellow in particular who has done a lot of ballistics testing of his own using ballistic gelatin was really looking forward to the comparisons between the “ideal” data and the “real-world” data. John, he said, expected some real differences but was curious just how much there would be. My response:
Well, tell him that his expectations will need to be changed. Here’s some quick head-to-head comparisons:
- .45 ACP (5″) – almost no difference, advantage to the Para Ord!
- .40 S&W (4″) – marginal difference (less than 50 fps), advantage to the Thompson over Steyr M40
- .357 mag (6″) – Significant difference, advantage to the Thompson over .357 S&W (by about 200 fps), more over Python (another 100 fps)
- .38 sp (6″) – A little difference, advantage to the Thompson over .357 S&W, more over Python (about 100 fps across the board!)
- .38 sp (4″) – Almost no difference, advantage Thompson over Diamondback.
- .38 sp (2″) – Significant difference, advantage to S&W 642 – between 100 and 200 fps!
- .357 Sig (4″) – almost no difference, advantage to the Thompson over Steyr M357.
I don’t know the barrel length for the rest of your guns, so can’t really say. Interesting, but not too surprising, that the semi-autos seem to be closer to the Thompson “ideal” than do the revolvers, except with the 642. Really odd, that. Oh, wait . . . that could be the difference between the measurement including the chamber and not. We’ll have to be very careful to note that in the data display, with information about the comparisons. Hmm. That would make the revolvers look even worse, since you would effectively be comparing them to a ‘longer’ barrel in the Thompson . . . say between a 3″ and 4″. OK, checking that, the data makes more sense, The 642 falls right there between those, so is fairly comparable, or a little on the underside. Clear advantage to the semi-autos for power, head-to-head barrel length, then, though with a revolver you get “extra” barrel.
Interesting!
And of course, there are variations between ammos, with some up and some down more than noted. Once the data is plotted, be interesting to see what the curve comparisons look like.
So, yeah, very interesting! I do look forward to getting everything entered into the spreadsheet programs and plotted, so that the relationships between one and another are easier to visualize. But now the testing itself really is done!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Book Conservation, General Musings, Health, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, tech
As a book conservator, one of the things I deal with most frequently is problems caused by the embrittlement of paper and other cellulose materials. This embrittlement is, generally, caused by residual acid content from the manufacturing of those materials. For a period of about 130 – 140 years (basically from the start of the American Civil War until just before the turn of the 21st century), paper was most widely manufactured using an acid bath to wash away non-cellulose fibers, which left that residual acid content slowly weakening the paper. This is a process known among conservators and librarians as “slow fire“, since it is essentially an oxidation process akin to the combustion of fire, but on a longer time scale. Perhaps surprisingly, this mechanism wasn’t understood at all until about the time of my birth some fifty years ago, when research started to show what was actually happening to paper at this very basic level.
Now the majority of paper is made using an alternative process, primarily due to environmental needs (less pollution). It is a side benefit, but an important one, that this usually results in a much more stable and longer-lasting paper, one which doesn’t have that residual acid content causing problems. Because paper doesn’t have to become embrittled with age – I have lots of examples of paper made 500 years ago that looks as fresh and supple as paper made last week. The paper we’re most widely using now has a similar stability.
* * * * * * *
Now, it seems, scientists studying evolution and extinction may have stumbled upon a similar stability issue with regards to humans, and it could portend a medical breakthrough which would save countless lives and extend others.
Writing for Seed Magazine this week, Peter Ward notes that of the five major mass extinction events in Earth’s history, one of them was undoubtedly due to a single chemical:
But now, together with Mark Roth of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, I believe we have found a possible biochemical scar, present within living animals, that links Earth’s greatest mass extinction to a single substance: hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Hydrogen sulfide is a relatively simple molecule that gives rotten eggs their distinctive foul odor and is quite toxic–in high concentrations a single breath can kill. And it looks like that is what happened: Hundreds of millions of years ago, hydrogen sulfide probably saturated our oceans and atmosphere, poisoning nearly every creature on Earth.
Yet some creatures, like our very distant ancestors, must have somehow survived this toxic environment. What Roth has discovered is that H2S, incredibly, also has the ability to preserve and save lives. In small doses the chemical puts many animals into a state of “suspended animation,” a useful adaptation that would have allowed creatures to, in essence, hibernate through the catastrophe of mass extinction. If this idea is correct, our understanding of the deep past could lead to a dramatic medical revolution very soon.
What kind of dramatic medical revolution? The Science Fiction dream of suspended animation, allowing people with an illness or injury to be “set aside” for decades until medical science comes up with a cure, or a way of putting their brain in a newly cloned body?
Nope. Something a lot simpler, and probably a lot more useful. This:
When we humans are cut or injured, our bodies naturally produce small quantities of hydrogen sulfide. In essence, the body may be trying to put itself into suspended animation to survive the injury, an instinct held over millions of years in our genes. Yet whenever one of us is dying, say from a heart attack, our first instinct is to give that person oxygen. The problem with this “life-saving” first response may be that the oxygenated red blood cells rush to the damaged cells and act like gasoline on a fire. Oxygen is one of the most chemically active substances on Earth, and though we need it to survive, it can ravage our bodies. The oxygen increases the reactions causing the heart attack in the first place; it tears up more cells and overwhelms the virtual suspended animation that the body-produced hydrogen sulfide created. Then it kills you.
Oxygen. From whence we get the term Oxidation. As in “burning” or “fire”. So, what to do? Here’s the concluding bit from the article:
Perhaps our first instinct in instances of a heart attack should be to cool the body and let hydrogen sulfide do its natural work. To save life, in other words, you may first have to effectively suspend it with hydrogen sulfide. This tactic may just be what got us so far in the first place.
There is no clear understanding yet of why our injured bodies are able to produce hydrogen sulfide or why H2S puts some mammals into suspended animation. But I believe that Roth has found our body’s own memory of the ancient events that nearly killed our distant ancestors. Some proto-mammals may have been exposed to H2S, and instead of dying, they were placed into a state of suspended animation that allowed them to survive until the initial hydrogen sulfide levels subsided and they were reanimated. Some lucky evolutionary accident ensured the mammals’ safety through a deep sleep, and that accident may still be dormant within us. That which allowed our ancestors to survive millions of years ago might also be a means of our survival now.
* * * * * * *
Like paper made 50 years ago, I am not as supple or fresh as when I was born. I too have experienced my own version of embrittlement. There is only so much my body can do to keep up with the effects of oxidation. There are plenty of commercial products out there touting their antioxidant effect, just as there are products I use to neutralize acid in paper, but none of these will return me to my youth, just as I cannot reverse the effects of embrittlement in paper.
But it seems that perhaps we have a new insight into some of the mechanisms at work. I don’t expect to live forever, but I certainly wouldn’t mind having better and more effective medical treatment for what time I have. As a conservator, my best hope is to preserve what suppleness there is still left in paper. I’d be willing to settle for the same thing, myself.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 