Author: Jinavie

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Pulse

Posted on by Jinavie

Blood, which supplies all the cells in the human body with nutrients and oxygen, flows through the vessels due to the pumping of the heart. Thus, blood flow directly transmits the force generated by every heartbeat. As the blood ejected by the heart causes the arteries to “pulse” by stretching and relaxing. As some pulses can be felt over the skin, they are very useful in patient examinations, especially a clinical exam of the cardiovascular system. Although people commonly know how to take a pulse from the wrist or neck, there are many more places a pulse can be taken from.

  • Radial pulse: Taken from the inside of the wrist on the side of the thumb.
  • Brachial pulse: Taken from the inside of the elbow.
  • Carotid pulse: Taken from where the neck meets the jawline, or 2~3cm either side of the Adam’s apple to be precise.
  • Apex beat: This measures the heartbeats directly, taken on the left chest between the 4th and 6th ribs (around the left nipple).
  • Abdominal pulse: Taken from above the belly button of a lying patient, may be able to see the pulse.
  • Femoral pulse: Taken from the middle of the groin. 
  • Popliteal pulse: Taken from the inside of the knee.
  • Posterior tibial pulse: Taken from the inside of the ankle behind the bone.
  • Dorsalis pedis pulse: Taken from the back (upper side) of the foot along the middle.

When taking a pulse, you use your second and third fingers (and the fourth if you want) and press lightly on the pulse point. If you press too hard, you may stop the blood flow and obliterate the pulse. As a pulse is measured per-minute, it is often taken for 10 or 15 seconds and multiplied by 6 or 4 respectively. Also, it should be noted whether the pulse has a regular rhythm, and if it is irregular, whether it is regularly irregular or irregularly irregular. If the pulse is over 100 beats per minute, it is called tachycardia, while less than 60 beats per minute is referred to as bradycardia. If it is irregular, it is called an arrhythmia.

An experienced doctor can diagnose different conditions such as an aortic stenosis or atrial fibrillation just from taking the pulse of the patient. Taking a pulse is also a crucial diagnostic tool in traditional Korean and Chinese medicine.

image

Posted in Life & Happiness

What Cannot Be Seen

Posted on by Jinavie

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

“Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is important is invisible to the eye.”

(from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry)

In The Little Prince there is a story that goes like this. At the age of six the protagonist, after seeing a picture of a boa constrictor swallowing an animal in a book, draws “Drawing Number One”:

image

He showed it to adults and asked if the drawing frightened them. They replied: “Why should any one be frightened by a hat?”

Drawing Number One was not a drawing of a hat, but a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. However, adults could not understand the true meaning of the drawing. So the protagonist drew Drawing Number Two which showed the elephant inside the boa constrictor. The adults advised him to put aside drawings of things like boa constrictors and elephants that could not be seen and instead take interest in geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why he gave up his dream of becoming an artist.

image

Even after growing up and becoming a pilot, he sometimes showed people Drawing Number One and asked what they saw. But they only saw the hat, never the elephant or the boa constrictor. Unlike when he was young, he did not try to explain the true meaning of the drawing and instead brought up “adult topics” like golf and politics.

Money, status, beauty… Things that can be seen can fool you just as an optical illusion does. Things that are invisible such as the mind, creativity, understanding and love are the only things that can truly bring you satisfaction. So how can we look for things that we cannot see? We can infer that the wind blows from the rustling of leaves. If the leaves are not rustling, it means the wind is not blowing. To find like-minded people, a “password” needs to be used, just as we used leaves to find wind.

The Encyclopaedia of Absolute and Relative Knowledge is like a “password” to me, just like Drawing Number One was for the protagonist of The Little Prince. It is something that can be used to see if the other person shares my way of thinking and beliefs. Whether it be a book, a picture or a quote, such a password that represents you as a whole can be very useful in finding a true companion. If they ask you why you write such a thing, what the meaning of the picture is or why you respect the quote, then they are not the one you were looking for. The person you are desperately looking for will never ask “why” but instead respond with honest curiosity. Yes, the correct answer to the password is an expression of childlike curiosity. Upon seeing that person’s pure smile, you will know: that that person can decode your password, that they understand you, that they will accept your everything. That person is the one you have been looking for to accompany you for the rest of your life.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Conformity

Posted on by Jinavie

We often see people who criticise others for being “sheeple” – people who blindly conform to the majority and follow someone like sheep do. They protest that as human beings, we have a right and duty to exercise free will, sticking up for one’s own opinions. However, according to an infamous experiment from the 1950’s, we know that human beings are bound by our natural instincts to be social creatures, obeying the collective will of the group we are in.

In 1953, Solomon Asch designed an experiment to study the power of conformity. He told participants that they will be taking part in a vision test with a group of people. They were shown a picture depicting lines of various lengths, asking which line on the right matched the line on the left:

It was a simple task of matching the line to another line of the same length with the answer being blatantly obvious. But as with so many psychological experiments, there was a trick. The group of “participants” were actually in on the experiment other than the one subject. During the experiment, the group would all put their hands up on the blatantly wrong answer instead of the actual correct one. How did this action affect the subject’s answer?

Although it seems clear that the answer is A in the given example, when in a situation where the majority of people put their hands up for “B” or “C”, up to 32% of the subjects gave the incorrect answer. No matter how large the differences were between the sizes of the lines, the results did not change. Although 32% is only a third of the study group, one must bear in mind that this experiment only looked at black-and-white scenarios of lines of different length. If the issue at hand was much more “grey” – such as an ethical dilemma – it can be extrapolated that the person would easily sway and conform to the majority opinion.

The reason for the level of conformity exhibited in the experiment is quite simple: it’s the one who is different that gets left out in the cold.

Posted in History & Literature

Noblesse Oblige

Posted on by Jinavie

Noblesse oblige is a French term that literally translates to “nobility obliges”, stating that those with wealth and power must also take responsibility of the society they lead. Also, it requires the nobles to show a high level of morality, acting out the duties of a citizen. The etymology of this term dates back to the 14th century in the French city of Calais during the Hundred Years’ War.

During the war, the city of Calais was under siege from the English army. They fought valiantly for a year but ultimately surrendered to the English. The English desired to execute every citizen for making them fight for so long, but considering the bad press they instead announced that they would let the citizens live on the condition that six people take responsibility for the battle and are executed for it. The citizens were in agony. Who would sacrifice their life to protect the lives and safety of the other citizens? At that moment, Calais’ wealthiest man, Saint Pierre, volunteered to be sacrificed. Following his brave act, five other bourgeois of Calais, including the rich, noble and lawyers, put up their hands and stated that they would gladly give up their lives for the city. Moved by this sacrificial spirit, the queen of England convinced Edward the Third (then English king) to cancel the execution and have mercy. This story became the foundation of the noblesse oblige spirit of “those who are noble should take responsibility first”.

Although it is a very touching story, it is also an uncommon one. Instead, it is much more common to hear stories of the upper class fleeing the country and protecting their own lives when their country is in peril. A true developed nation should have those who lead a wealthy life work harder for the country than regular citizens. We should not be following the social Darwinistic belief of survival of the fittest, but rather show harmony where the strong help out the weak. In the case of the Roman Empire, nobles believed that what set themselves apart from slaves was not their status, but their ability to carry out social duties, having great pride in practising noblesse oblige.

The most common example of noblesse oblige would be the rich giving money to charity, but there are other duties of a citizen other than paying taxes (a way of redistributing wealth). A citizen must respect and follow the law, vote to practise democracy, pay their taxes, receive education and much more (in some countries, conscription is a duty too).

When the Korean War broke out, the first chairman of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, sent his first son to participate in the war. After his son was killed in action and many people asked him why he sent his own son to war, he replied: “How could I as a leader ask my people to send away their sons to war when I am not willing to send my own son away?”.

The higher your social status, the more wealth and power you have, you should thoroughly upkeep your duties as a citizen and help out so that everyone can live happily.

(Les Bourgeois de Calais by Auguste Rodin, a sculpture depicting the six nobles of Calais who stepped up to be executed)

Posted in History & Literature

Economics

Posted on by Jinavie

Early economists believed that a growing economy was a sound economy. Growth was used as a ruler to measure the health of the nation, corporations, markets and all social constructs. But it is impossible to always move forwards. In reality, a growing economy goes through cycles of growth and depression, showing a waveform on a graph. An economy without depression forms a bubble that will burst in the future, bringing a greater economic crisis. Simply put, “sound economic growth” is only achieved by the concept of two steps forward, one step back.

We have reached a point where we cannot grow despite having the potential to. Perhaps there will be no further economic growth. Only a continuous state of balancing powers will remain. A sound society, a sound nation, a sound worker… those are things that do not damage the surrounding environment or become damaged by it. We should no longer try to conquer nature and space. Instead, we must integrate with nature and the universe. Our only slogan is harmony. There should be an entwining of the external and internal world and we must live with modesty not violence. Human beings will become one with the universe. Mankind will meet an age of stability where we do not strive for the future or reach for faraway goals. Mankind will live a simple life in the present. Only then will mankind finally attain happiness.

1 + 1 = 3

image

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Birthday Cake

Posted on by Jinavie

The ritual of blowing out candles on one’s birthday is interesting as it shows the characteristics of human beings very well. This ritual shows that the person can make fire while reminding themselves they can extinguish it with one breath. It is a ritual that helps a baby develop into a responsible, social being that is capable of controlling fire. On the other hand, an old person being so breathless that they cannot even blow out a candle signifies that it is time for them to be socially excluded by the active population.

Posted in Science & Nature

Lemming

Posted on by Jinavie

When you think of lemmings, you are bound to think of two things: a small, round rodent and mass suicide. The reason being, we have been taught as children that lemmings often commit mass suicide. This theory originates from the late 19th century when scientists could not figure out why lemming populations seemed to spike rapidly and then fall just as fast. In 1908, a man named Arthur Mee proposed that they kill themselves, writing so in the Children’s Encyclopaedia. He posited that as an overpopulation of lemmings could devastate the European ecosystem, the lemmings were naturally controlling their own population count. His theory was backed by a documentary made in 1958 called White Wilderness that showed a footage of a herd of lemmings leaping off a cliff to their death.

However, this “fact” has a severe flaw. Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. If you think about it for even a second, the thought of an animal that commits mass suicide (other than human beings) is preposterous as the species would die out. The reason why the lemming population spikes is the same as for mice and rabbits: they pride themselves in extreme reproductive abilities. A female lemming can have up to 80 babies in one year. If the population grows at such an alarming rate, then as explained above, the environment would not be able to support it. This causes the lemming population to plateau, not rising or falling, as there is not enough food to feed all the lemmings. However, due to the shortage of food, the lemmings become desperate and hungry. To find more food, the lemmings begin a migration, but the combination of hunger and being in heat causes them to act irrationally and wild. The result is a massive herd of hungry, stupid lemmings frantically running around all over the place. This leads to some lemmings accidentally slipping off cliffs and drowning in the river while swimming. This is not suicide.

Then what was the strange phenomenon of mass suicide depicted in White Wilderness? The answer is simple: it was staged. The producers tried to replicate Mee’s theory by importing a dozen lemmings and filming them running around the place. Then why did these lemmings commit suicide? Because the producers launched them off a cliff from a turntable.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Six Degrees Of Separation

Posted on by Jinavie

It is said that through a chain of five people, we can be acquainted to anyone in the world. In other words, an Eskimo man can be no less than six steps away from a Parisian lady. This is the concept of the six degrees of separation.

The concept can be explained mathematically. We all know hundreds of different people each. If we assume that we each have 100 friends, then in the first stage we only know the 100 friends. However, at the second stage we know the 100 friends of each of our friends, meaning we know 10000 people. At the third stage we know 1 million people, fourth stage 100 million and fifth stage 10 billion people. As the world population is 7 billion, by the fifth stage we should theoretically know every person on the world. This means that crossing four metaphorical bridges lets us shake the hands of anyone we want. The concept of the degrees of separation came from the idea of the small world phenomenon.

The first person to properly study the small world phenomenon was Harvard social psychologist Stanley Milgram. In 1967, Milgram asked 296 people in the Midwest (USA) to help him send a package to someone in Boston. To complete the experiment, the participants had to send the package to one of their friends they thought would know this stranger in Boston. Milgram found that in half of the cases, the package was delivered to the target in Boston through five people (5.5 exactly), thus giving birth to the concept that we are at six degrees of separation from another human being. 

Of course since 1967 our societies have undergone many changes. One of the most noticeable changes has been the development of technology – specifically the development of the internet and social networking. Nowadays, the younger generations use the internet to communicate with friends and make connections. Knowing this, what degrees of separation exists in modern societies? According to a recently finished study (2011) using data from the social networking site, Facebook, the average number of “bridges” for the world is 4.7. In countries such as the US where there is a bigger proportion of Facebook users, this number fell to 4.4. Ergo, in the past 40 years we have developed more connections to other people, making our world even smaller.

The theory of six degrees of separation reminds us how small a world we live in and how interconnected we are to each other.

image

Posted in Science & Nature

Umami

Posted on by Jinavie

Normally when people think of “tastes”, they think of sweet, salty, sour and bitter (“spicy”, or piquance is not a taste). However, in 1985 the family of four basic tastes were introduced to a new member: umami. Umami, commonly known as “savouriness” is a taste that has had its own word in Asian countries (e.g. 감칠맛, or gamchilmaht in Korean) for thousands of years but has not had a proper English word until very recently (much like piquance). Umami is a portmanteau of two Japanese words: うまい(umai) and 味(mi), which means “delicious” and “taste” respectively.

Sweetness comes from glucose, saltiness from sodium and sourness from acids. Then where does umami come from? Umami is the taste born from glutamates, which is found in high concentrations in meat products, thus leading to the association between umami and the taste of meat. For example, bacon is known to have six different types of umami flavours, creating a unique and addictive taste. Another product high in glutamate is monosodium glutamate, or MSG. MSG is essentially glutamate plus a sodium ion and thus brings out the full taste of umami when added to food. As umami has a powerful effect of boosting appetite and having a slightly addictive property means that chefs like putting MSG in foods to boost sales. Contrary to popular belief that MSG is detrimental to your health, recent researches have shown that unless you have an allergy to it, MSG is safe to consume even in high concentrations.

image