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Showing posts from 2014

Why are we born . . . . . . Young ??

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An intriguing question that was recently asked by one of the scientists at my departmental retreat. Although simply stated I believe this is a rather important question that would be asked by several biologists . If you look deeply into the question it has two aspects to it.  The first one is the basic question of being born at all. Why does life have to propagate and why at all do species give rise to progeny. A simple answer would be that genetic information needs to be propagated and maintained and there is natural adaptation in response the changing environment which could lead to the "survival of the fittest". With increasing age and individual accumulates several harmful signals such as mutations, Telomere shortening, accumulation of Reactive Oxygen Species etc, just to mention a few of these defects, .that eventually lead to aberrant cellular programming and eventually death . But what if we could find ways to counteract these phenomenon? What id nature evolved to

"Sensory Adaptation" at play

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Ever wondered why you are able to hear your heartbeat ofr a clock ticking when you try and focus on it while the ticking just disappears into the background when you are doing your daily tasks. Its the brain receiving the same information for a long time, it stops processing it. The same goes for vision. As demonstrated very nicely in this video below the brain processing information s the key to all form of interpretation to the outer world. Ever wondered if this phenomenon is present only in higher vertebrates including humans or present throughout evolution.  Wow.. It does work... Its amazing how our brain perceives signals... And also amazing is the anatomy ... Does the cellular architecture of the human eye have any evolutionary advantage... But then why the blind spot???