Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Thunderstorm Asthma

In November 2016, emergency departments of Melbourne, Australia, were overwhelmed by a sudden surge of patients with asthma exacerbations. There was a 672% excess of breathing-related emergency presentations, with 992% more asthma-related admissions than normal. Many of these patients had never had asthma attacks before (72%), but most had a history of hay fever (95%).

The dramatic flood of patients put significant strain on hospital systems, highlighted by some hospitals running out of stocks of inhaled medicines for asthma exacerbations or rooms to treat patients in.

The cause of this bizarre epidemic – dubbed thunderstorm asthma – is still not clear, but it has been theorised to be related to pollens. It has been known for over 30 years that thunderstorms can pick up large volumes of pollen from one area, then dumped on an urban area far away. Because the pollen were exposed to high levels of moisture, they can burst into very small fragments that make it easier to be inhaled into the lungs, bypassing the natural filter systems in the nose.

There is also a possibility that these thunderstorms introduce pollen from species such as rye that are more allergenic than typical pollen found in residential areas, causing worse reactions.

The drastic increase in pollen density and increased penetration to the lungs can trigger a severe asthma attack, particularly in people whose immune systems are sensitive to pollen (hay fever). In the case of the 2016 Melbourne event, ten people ended up dying, while more than 500 excess people were admitted to hospital compared to the normal asthma admission rate.

Instances of thunderstorm asthma have been recorded throughout the world, but scientists have not been able to prove the exact cause. It is a staunch reminder that nature and the environment have direct impacts on our health, in ways we may not even be able to imagine.

Posted in History & Literature

Destroyer Of The Environment

In the history of mankind, who could be considered to have done the most damage to the environment? Although many names may pop up, no one comes close to the destruction that resulted from one man: Thomas Midgley Jr. While working for General Motors in 1916 as a chemist, Midgley discovered that adding iodine to kerosene reduced “knocking” in engines – where pockets of air/fuel mixture explode in the engine. The effects of knocking on engines range from negligible to destructive. However, he found that the iodine only reduced knocking slightly. To improve on this, he tried adding different elements to fuel until he found the magic solution – lead. And so, the leaded petroleum was born.

Leaded petrol was an instant commercial success and it became the most popular choice of fuel. This resulted in cars, buses, planes and almost all motor vehicles pumping out billions of tons of lead into the atmosphere for over seventy years. Unfortunately, lead is a highly toxic metal that causes symptoms such as muscular weakness, pain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue and madness. Lead poisoning is particularly dangerous to children as it can cause irreversible retardation of physical and mental development. Even though the effects of lead poisoning were recognised since the late 19th century (with many workers and even Midgley himself suffering from it), it was only after the 1970s when fuel companies stopped adding lead to their fuel. Thanks to Midgley’s idea of adding lead to petrol, who knows how many children would have suffered a crippling illness due to lead poisoning.

But Midgley’s “accomplishments” did not stop there. In the late 1920s, Midgley decided to tackle the problem of using sulfur dioxide, propane and ammonia as refrigerants (possibly out of guilt over the whole lead fiasco), which were effective but prone to combusting or exploding. Within three days, he developed an alternative – dichlorofluromethane. This amazing gas was inert, non-toxic and did not have the risk of exploding. It was the first of the chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), which was named “freons”. We now know that freons are responsible for destroying the ozone layer.

In 1940, Midgley contracted polio, causing him to be disabled. Poliomyelitis causes paralysis due to the destruction of motor neurons. Being an inventor, Midgley devised a clever device that would help him off the bed using pulleys and strings. Unfortunately, one day the invention twisted in a certain way, leading him to become entangled in the ropes and being killed of strangulation.

Such was the sad life of Thomas Midgley Jr, who environmental historian J. R. McNeill dubbed “[someone who] had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history”.

Posted in Science & Nature

Goldilocks

In the children’s story Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the protagonist is found trying out various porridges, chairs and beds until she finds the one that is just right for her. Because of this, the name “Goldilocks” has become a symbol for something that is “just right”. A Goldilocks economy is one where there is high growth but no inflation; a Goldilocks planet is one which is not too hot or too cold, making it an ideal planet for life; the Goldilocks effect is when success is achieved because something was not too great or too little.

The Goldilocks effect is a law of nature that is far more important than you would think. Nature always seeks consistency, as shown in the human body. For something as complex as life to exist, a cell must maintain its internal environment in a perfect, ideal state. French physiologist Claude Bernard observed that a cell’s internal environment does not change even with changes in the external environment, and commented that “The stability of the internal environment is the condition for the free and independent life”. This is the basis for homeostasis. Without homeostasis, life cannot exist and all living things put in all their effort in keeping homeostasis. Our body constantly strives to keep various factors such as pulse, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, temperature, blood glucose, electrolytes and numerous hormones etcetera in a stable range. One could possibly argue that the meaning of life is “to maintain homeostasis” – a rather cyclical argument.

To understand the importance of homeostasis, let us look at how changes in the external environment affect us. Our core temperature is maintained in a tight range around 36.5 degrees. If it is altered even a couple of degrees, we exhibit symptoms of hypothermia or hyperthermia. If the weather is too hot, we sweat to cool ourselves; if the weather is too cold, we shiver to raise our temperature. After a meal, we secrete insulin to lower our blood glucose, while we secrete glucagon when starving to raise our blood glucose. Failure of either system leads to either diabetes or hypoglycaemic shock respectively. Homeostasis is an extremely complicated and intricate self-repair system that cannot be imitated.

The Goldilocks effect can be applied beyond physiology to our lives. Everything in moderation; to go beyond is as wrong as to fall short. If we have too little money, it is a problem. If we have too much money, it causes other problems. Whether we work or play, doing too much or too little of either can be bad for us. Medicines become poison in excess and even love in excess becomes obsession. In the marathon that is life, if you run too fast you end up collapsing from exhaustion, while running too slow will mean you never get anywhere.

The secret to happiness lies in understanding what is “just right”.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Fugue State

Any computer user would have had an (unfortunate) experience where their computer crashed and all the information there was destroyed in a second. You may still be able to format it and use it without problems, but the data you had on the computer and any customisation you made would be lost. But what if this exact thing could happen to a human being?

There are many types of amnesia, with causes ranging from neurobiological (where trauma to the brain, a drug or some other pathology causes memory loss) to psychogenic (where there is no apparent biological cause for the amnesia). With psychogenic amnesia, one only experiences retrograde amnesia, where they cannot recall memories from the past. However, anterograde amnesia, where you cannot form new memories and keep forgetting what happened, is absent in psychogenic amnesia. Psychogenic amnesia is often caused by extreme stress or a traumatic event. One type of psychogenic amnesia is situation-specific amnesia, as seen in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that occurs after a severely stressful experience such as war, rape, child abuse or witnessing a brutal death. In this case, the patient tends to only lose memories regarding the event, as if the brain is trying to protect the person from the hurtful memories.

A more interesting and much rarer type of amnesia is global psychogenic amnesia, also known as a fugue state or dissociative fugue. Unlike situation-specific amnesia, patients in fugue states have absolutely no memory of their original identity and personality. Simply put, they (usually) retain all their functions such as speaking and social interactions, but their persona has been wiped out like a formatted computer. Fugue states often develop after severe stress and can happen to anyone. Similar to situation-specific amnesia, the brain blocks all memories of the past in an attempt to protect the person’s psyche. Due to the “deletion” of the previous persona, patients in fugue states often generate new identities and begin wandering (sometimes even travelling to another country) away from the place they lost their memories. This is most likely the brain attempting to leave the environment to avoid the stressor that caused the event. 

Fugue states are often short-lived, lasting from days to months. However, very rarely they can last for years. Once out of a fugue state, the patient recovers all of their past memories but have no recollection of what happened during the fugue state. This creates a hole in their memory. For obvious reasons, this usually causes intense confusion and distress in the patient and treatment is often based around helping the person come to an understanding about the episode and cope with the stressor that caused it.

Posted in History & Literature

Economics

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

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

Posted in History & Literature

Whaling

The Faroe Islands are a group of islands between Scotland and Iceland in the North Atlantic Ocean. Although a small nation, they are known to the outside world for their tradition of whaling – specifically pilot whales that are native to the North Atlantic Ocean. The media often show photos of bloody shorelines with a line of whale carcasses, decrying the so-called “inhumane hunting” of the whales. The dramatic scene and cuteness of the whales seems to appeal to the masses and has caused quite a controversy regarding the Faroese tradition, known as grindadráp. However, the media often tells a misinformed story regarding the whaling. One thing to know is that Faroese whaling is fundamentally different to whaling seen in other parts of the world, such as Japanese whaling. 

The Faroese have been killing pilot whales for food for the past millennium and have done so in the most humane and sustainable way possible. Despite popular belief, the pilot whales are not endangered and in fact overpopulated in the North Atlantic Ocean. As they are carnivorous, an overpopulation of the whales causes a shortage in fish. Fishing is the major industry in the Faroe Islands and constitutes their livelihood; so ironically, the pilot whales can endanger the Faroese people by consuming all the fish in the surrounding sea. Thus, the Faroese kill a small portion of the whale population (roughly 0.1%, a completely sustainable rate) to balance the ecosystem while protecting their most important industry and their livelihood.

Faroese whaling is not commercial and only enough whales are killed to provide enough food for the people (equally distributed to the participating families). The killing is not for fun or money, but simply to support the lives of the people. As such, the Faroese have also come up with the most humane way to kill the animals.

When whaling season starts and the pilot whales come near the shore, “drives” are initiated where a semi-circle of boats herd nearby whales towards the shoreline (only whales near the shoreline are killed). When the whales approach the shore, the people use blunt blowhole hooks that catch the whales without causing wounds (unlike harpoons and spears) and draw them closer to shore. Only adult males are drawn in (no females or babies) and only enough that can be killed swiftly are drawn in.

Once drawn in, the men quickly use their knives to cut the spinal cord and artery supplying the brain, killing the whale within 15 seconds of being beached. It is the quickest and most painless way to kill the whales and only those who have been trained to do it properly are allowed to kill. As a major artery is cut and whales are big mammals, a large volume of blood is released, dying the sea a bloody red colour.
The whales are then divvied up equally, with no part of the whale going to waste. As only nearby whales are killed, sometimes no whales are killed for years.

Unfortunately, due to pollution in the ocean, there have been increasing levels of heavy metals such as mercury found in the whale meat. This is endangering the health of the island population and the deeply engrained tradition of grindadráp. The saddest part is that the pollution is from industrialised countries such as USA and European countries, not the Faroe Islands. Yet the Faroese have to put up with bigotry from those who do not understand the culture, process or the reasoning behind the tradition. If anything, it is by far more humane and sustainable than killing animals after a lifetime of captivity then sending them to a slaughterhouse.

It is extremely important to see the truth behind controversial issues such as this, as more often than not the truth is shrouded by bigotry and subjective comments by people who have only seen the issue through some photographs on the internet.

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(Notice the single, deep horizontal slash through the dorsal aspect of the spinal cord, just before the brainstem. Such a cut would immediately sever any pain signals and cause almost instant unconsciousness due to ischaemia of the brain.)

Posted in Science & Nature

Urban Paradox

A few years ago, a theoretical physicist studied population growth in cities to find the mechanism of how cities operate. What he found was an astonishing law.
Wherever the city, as the population doubled in size, the average income, number of patents, number of educational and research facilities and other important numbers all increased around 15 percent. Although it is normal for such statistics to increase as a city grows, it is interesting to see that almost all of them increasing at a similar rate, despite being so different sometimes.
More fascinating is the fact that not only do the above “good” statistics increase equally, but so do crime rates, pollution, smog occurrence, stomach flu and AIDS prevalence all increase approximately 15 percent.
Therefore, a city can be seen as a double-edge sword that is both the source of fast growth, wealth and ideas, but also waste, pollution, stress and disease.

Biologically speaking, an organism has a tendency to have slower growth and pace of life as it gets larger. For instance, an elephant’s heart beats slower than a mouse, and its cells do less work on average too. However, a city exhibits a snowball effect where it grows faster as it gets larger. To achieve this extremely high rate of growth, it must consume an immense amount of resources, which ultimately ends up as large quantities of waste and pollution. Also, as people get busier, the overall “quality” of the society falls, leading to increased stress and disease prevalence.

If so, should we abandon our current productivity and live a slow, village life and ignore our potential as a species? Or should we continue our exponential growth at the cost of using up nature’s well-maintained resources like no tomorrow?