I'm Seeing Floaters

I explained to my mother that I can see dead people and she just told me to stop wiping my eyes with dirty hands. I'm trying to catch black dots that fall in every direction I look. Every time I try to focus, they begin to drift off. Is it floating spiritual energy or just some dirt in my eye?

Photo Courtesy of Google

A. Doctors call them eye floaters, which are circles, spots, or cloud-like objects that appear in the field of your vision, are only seen by that person and nothing is seen on the eye. The floaters are small, dark, shadowy shapes that you can not focus on because they dart away when you look at them, and they usually don't follow the eye movement since they drift only when the eye stops. Eye floaters can be seen if looking at a plain, light-colored background; To see them clearly look at a white piece of paper, a white wall, a clear sky and even light. Most people have had eye floaters before, but we learn to ignore them even if they become more prominent.


Photo Courtesy of The National Eye Institute

Floaters occur when the vitreous humour, a gel like substance that fills the space between the retina and the lens as well as other vertebrates and helps stabilize the eye, slowly shrinks. When the vitreous begins to shrink, it becomes stringy and the strands can create tiny shadows on the retina. As we get older the more the vitreous humour degenerates and can detach causing more floaters. If you have an eye injury severe enough that it changed the structure of the vitreous humour, you are likely to have retinal detachment along with more eye floaters. Flashes of light may appear as one gets more eye floaters. High blood pressure and migraines can also contribute tot the flashes of light. However, there are much more serious causes of floaters such as infection, inflammation, retinal tears, pregnancy, hemorrhaging, and other injuries to the eye. Floaters are very common in people with diabetes, near-sighted and people who are cataract operation.


Eye floaters are simply annoying and no treatment is really recommended because they are usually ignored. People do go to eye care professionals to see if there are more complicated issues. For extreme cases in which the floaters are so dense and numerous that they affect vision, there are laser treatments and surgery to remove them. This surgery is called vitrectomy, which is the removal of the vitreous gel along with the floating debris inside the eye. The vitreous is usually replaced with a salt solution and because the vitreous is mostly water, you would not know the difference.

http://www.eyecaresource.com/problems/eye-floaters.html
http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/floaters/index.asp

Can Men Produce Milk?

Q. Can men produce milk?

A. If men have the ability to get breast cancer, why wouldn't they be able to breastfeed?

Generally, everyone thinks men have nipples for no reason -- They're wrong. According to lactation consultant, Jan Barger, men can put those nipples to work. When a baby is conceived, the embryo follows a female template, so males inherit female traits such as milk ducts, some mammary tissue, oxytocin and prolactin, which are the hormones responsible for milk production.

In some cases, men have been reported to undergo intense breast and nipple stimulation producing drops of milk (That's disturbing). However, not all men have the ability to lactate. Men who suffer from diseases or other conditions that require hormonal treatment are much more likely to stimulate their mammary glands successfully producing milk. Though this may not be as good as mommy's milk, it's still appetizing, for hungry babies at least.Men don't need to develop breasts to breastfeed, but they can lactate under extreme circumstances. Jack Newman, a breastfeeding expert, says putting a baby to its father's breast won't necessarily promise a lactating father.

"It would be the same reason- increased prolactin levels&mdashin the one case drug-induced, in the other due to a tumor or some sort of neurological problem," said Newman.

Extreme stress, demanding physical activity and starvation, which inhibits the functioning of hormone-producing glands, also can increase lactation. Survivors of Nazi concentration camps and Japanese POW camps in World War II have experienced the untimely lactation.

This may seem very abnormal, but this just might be a societal norm soon. Mothers who plan to work after their children are born will most likely face the stressful demands of balancing work and family, so those lactating dads will come in handy. Men get ready to trade places.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-males-can-lactate&sc=rss
http://web.archive.org.nyud.net/web/20040909091015/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n2_v16/ai_16051177
http://www.babycenter.com/404_can-men-breastfeed_8824.bc

Discover: Stephen Hawking Is Making His Comeback

"But was the Big Bang a singularity. Or was it a concentrated, hot ball of energy – awesome and mind-bending, but still describable by the laws of physics?”

Could Hawking be making a comeback or losing his iconic status? Journalist Tim Folger does a spectacular job covering both angles of the article. The profile of the “master of time,” Stephen Hawking, touched on topics like the false rumors about Hawking retiring, “the capstone to his career,” and his possible setbacks when trying to “reclaim the aura of youthful genius.”

Ironically, Folger creatively compared Hawking’s future and comeback to black holes – “The master of black holes is himself becoming steadily less visible.” It is saddening to know that the person “popular media had likened to Albert Einstein” now has to try to regain the influence he once had on cosmology and physics. Hawking no longer has the ability to keep up with what is now happening to the field because of his thin body and fatal condition. Quite frankly, Hawking could be headed towards the black hole.

A) Lede: 20 out of 20. Folger was the eyes and ears for readers as he described exactly what was going on during the convention, what Hawking looked like, what he said, and the music that played. The narrative lede with its descriptive set of words definitely drew in me in.


B) Content: 17 out of 20. As I said before, I feel both angles were represented well, but I still feel there should’ve been more information about his comeback. Instead, the article focused on if Hawking was well enough to reclaim his status. The background information serves its purpose and solely supports the rest of article: explaining Hawking’s achievements and life.


C) Organization: 18 out of 20. The separation of his previous achievements and his comeback is acceptable, but I prefer that information be intertwined with the rest of the article. The transitions worked smoothly and most of the time I knew what I was reading.


D) Quality of writing: 19 out of 20. I loved how Folger wrote an interesting, easy-read article/profile on a physicist who studies black holes: He turned something not so appealing into something one would enjoy reading. He spoke to associates and co-workers of Hawking, which help support some of Folger’s points. There were also humorous parts in the article: Folger felt the need to plop in the quote when speaking of Hawking having three children -- “The disease only affects voluntary muscule.” Hoiwever, there was occasionally a bit of jargon scattered around.


E) Clarity of exposition: 19 out of 20. The scientific language was certainly kept at a minimum and that was one thing I enjoyed about the article. Folger was very descriptive and in-depth about the theories along with the happenings of the universe.

Why Humans Alone Have Pubic Hair?

Q. Why humans alone have pubic hair?

A. "Hey, nice pubs!"

Pubic hair developed as a sexual ornament, said Robin Weiss, virologist at University College London. After our ancestors split from non-human primates, we lost most of our hair. So when things down there got bushy, it served as a visual sign of sexual maturity. The hairier and coarser it was, the sexier you appeared to be.

Pubic hair has also been known to be around for plenty of reasons: warmth, a visual maturity indicator, to reduce friction during sexual intercourse, and to hold the scent of pheromones (designed to make you sexually attractive towards to the opposite sex). While other animals have fur and feathers designed to protect and attract, humans only have armpit hair and hair in the genital area to rely on.

Weiss was studying and comparing gorilla lice to today's pubic lice, which crossed back into the human lineage about 3.3 million years ago, and he discovered gorillas pubic hair is much more finer and softer than any other place on their fur-filled bodies. When humans begin to grow pubic hair, it starts off as smooth fur, but later evolving it something much more bushier and coarse -- total opposite of the great apes.

"Human pubic hair is different and probably unique, both in its evolution and in its physical appearance and purpose," said Weiss.

Good news is bushy and coarse is no longer fashionable. Bare skin seems to be in and shaving off pubic hair is a must in today's culture.

"There may be a health benefit to this emerging sexual lifestyle -- the extinction of crabs," Weiss said.

The Amazing Moby Dick

Common Name: Sperm Whale
Scientific Name: Physeter catodon

In some of the deepest waters of the world's ocean lies a Moby Dick -- a sperm whale.

Weighing up to 59 tons and up to 70 feet in length, the sperm whale is the largest toothed whale. In Greek, the name means "spouter with teeth on the bottom." The lower jaw contains 18-25 teeth, which helps them successfully disgest squid and other cephalopods. Since squid is the whale's primary food, much of thier behavior and biology can be credited to the search of squid.
Since the past two centuries, one million sperm whales have been killed; Hunting being the primary source of their deaths. There are no other threats and hunting is currently no longer a contributor; however, the past catches up to us. An estimate of 20,000-100,000 sperm whales are remaining.
According to New York State's DEC, whales are often sighted in Long Island waters and occasionally become stranded or wash up dead mainly along the south shore of beaches. Sperm whales can be found anywhere in the world's most largest, deepest oceans from California to Hawaii (north of the Bering Sea) and from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, bascially everywhere except the Artic region. Sperm whales sleep 3,000 to 6,000 feet under and go up to 8,000 feet in depth when diving.
The well-known sperm whale is generally being symbolized in toys and drawing, as well as books and movies -- Moby Dick. The most distinguishing part of the mammal is its massive head that contains spermaceti, a substance that was once used for candles and ointments. Sperm whales has the largest brain compared to any other mammal: the brain's weigh ranging from 15 to 20 pounds.
We adore the 1851 great American novel written by Herman Melville, and the 1956 motion picture, but we fail to realize these creatures are harmless to humans. They don't sink ships, bite off sailors' legs; however, in many countries people still tend to hunt the whales. Thanks to the Save The Whale movement in the 70's, the whales are believed to be saved.

Interesting Facts:
-Sperm Whales are often found to have thousands of beaks in their stomachs; Giant squid have beaks similar to those of a parrot.

-They swim at 550 feet per miute.

-In the 18th ad 19th century, New England "whalers" sought out for the rare spermaceti oil, which is known to make fine lubricant.

-Sperm whales can hunt complete darkness using echolocation: the whale produces a series of loud clicks that travel through the water and bounce of objects, reflecting the sound back to the whale.

- The blowhole is at an angle on the left side of its head. The blowhole looks like a pair lips and it works like one,too -- closing when the whale dives in order to keep water out.

What Do Urban Sounds Do to Your Brain?

We live in a sonic world, immersed in vibrations that stimulate microscopic hair cells deep inside our ears. This unseen energy influences our mood, our learning, even our health. We experience it as comforting music, as information-laden speech, or—all too often—as irritating noise, a by-product of our increasingly mechanized world. Despite all the ways sound affects us, we often let it slip unnoticed into the background of our lives. Hoping to understand it better, I set out to explore the mysteries of sound in the course of one day.

Dragging the reader in with an interesting fact automatically gives the journalist a handful of points. Not just any old fact: It was a fact that incorporated every reader. Our ears are something we don't really know about. This pulled me in and as I continued to read on I was intrigued and wanted to know what she had to say. She listed how it influences us daily -- the possible ways people perceive noise. There was no generalization of the subject. The journalist has a voice and personality in her writing, making the lede much more conversational. There weren't any intellectual words, so it wasn't intimidating. But it is also very misleading since the rest of the article consisted of words that the average person wouldn't understand. The last sentence had an adventurous tone to it and lead me to the narrative article. "I set out to explore the mysteries of sound in the course of one day," made me feel as if both of us were on this road of exploration. I couldn't wait to find out what she had discovered.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/24-what-do-urban-sounds-do-your-brain

Lede of the Week: To Explain Longevity Gap, Look Past Health System

If you’re not rich and you get sick, in which industrialized country are you likely to get the best treatment?
The conventional answer to this question has been: anywhere but the United States. With its many uninsured citizens and its relatively low life expectancy, the United States has been relegated to the bottom of international health scorecards. - NY Science Times

The lede relates to nearly everyone that is reading it. The biggest issue of today is healthcare and controversial topics like this should be approach with that angle of writing --- refering to the people and having them think. It appealed to me because after I read the lede, I wondered what country would give the best treatment [I even guessed]. The lede makes a smooth transition to the nutgraf which lets the reader know excactly what the rest of the article is about. The nutgraf also had a bit of humor in it --- "anywhere but the United States."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/22tier.html?ref=science