On A Cellular Level

I've just spent an hour reading about oil. About intentional spills in Dubai and punitive damages in California...

But here's what I've learned today -- from headline from Science Daily:

"Toxins in Oil Spills And Cigarette Smoke Prevent Stem Cells From Becoming Cartilage."

The new study released March 4 from the University of Rochester Medical Center asserts a common toxic pollutant spread by oils spills, forest fires and car exhaust slows healing by impairing bone growth from a cellular level. The study is focused on showing the negative effects of smoking on healing -- but I am amazed at this internal altering...

healing prevented
healing slowed
by what we breath
by our exhaust
by what we put out into the air
by the effects of disaster
the effects that disaster takes into the body
the effect of the body
and its inability to regenerate

"Gene expression is the process by which instructions encoded in genes are followed for the building of proteins, the workhorses that make up the body’s organs and carry its signals. In the current study, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique that measures gene expression levels, revealed the genetic changes caused by exposure to BaP in mouse stem cells."

will our grandchildren look back and study us as the strong ones --
how children heal we do now

we are becoming weak we are making our bodies weak by what we dump we breathe

"We believe this new research will establish for the first time the mechanisms by which polyaromatic hydrocarbons interfere with the healing process.”

how does one live unable to heal

Hearts and Other Gushers

Well, I set out to be holidayish this morning. I tend to like Valentines Day -- my mother used to put out lots of sparkle and glitter and hearts and things -- also yesterday I really was sick of everyone.

But look what I found --
A few months ago in Houston there was a huge conference which put heart surgeons and oil industry researchers in the same room to brainstorm!

Pumps, valves, coursing liquid.

Everyone wants to be more efficient.
Everyone wants to be less intrusive.
Everyone knows that what they provide is crucial.

Pumping -- transferring -- embedded imposed passages -- corrosion -- clogged lines...

It's kind of cool -- all the power point material is on-line!

One presentation was called "Top 10 Reasons we Are Really in the Same Business." The number one reason was the cool uniforms. Can you imagine a room full of brain surgeons and oil executives laughing at slapstick power point presentations?

One new breakthrough in angioplasty is a bioabsorbable stent -- after six months the whole thing deteriorates and is absorbed into the body.

In one of the presentations Exxon says,

"The pumping system we use are familiar and have been around a long time. The challenge is in the techniques used to transfer energy to deeper pumps efficiently in the face of the increasingly hostile and sensitive environments we face."

Well -- they are Exxon, after all. Can't get too gushy.

Interesting to think about how one looks at their environment -- and how you behave in one you consider both hostile and fragile... I've known hostile and fragile people from time to time -- generally I try to stay away from them... especially on Valentine's Day.

I first came across this story on a blog titled, Applied Imagination. That's what's so cool -- just the idea of bringing people together to think together -- to parallel industries in a way most people would never think of. That's what Einstein did, wasn't it... people are pretty amazing...