I do realize that from the way I blog people can start to think that all the research scientists put out there on the Web is for bloggers like me to synthesize on bipolar disease.
I mean, if you read too much of me, you might get to thinking:
“Very nice about BD and therapy, and BD and medical compliance, and BD and apps (multiple times)—but what about things like. . .well what about Romantic Relationships? Who is studying and publishing on that?” (Should you truly be curious–it’s my brother. I can hook you up if need be.)
Or maybe you’re wondering about the latest in sequencing the DNA. You’d like to know if anything new has been decided about the order of those nucleotides. And has all this gotten has any further in finding out the sequence of individual genes? While I, myself, don’t have the foggiest clue, I’m glad you asked—I think it is important that somebody (translation: anybody but me) write about it.
Or, perhaps you’re thinking, “Who’s keeping up with the latest in Nanotechnology? It’s true I never fully understood it, but I know it’s about manipulating really tiny bits of. . .stuff. You know, atoms, molecules, moving them around. . .right? I know people are doing this all the time—where’s that in this chick’s blog?”
But, as the author of this blog, I thought about it hard: what scientific discovery on the Web was there that I really owed it to my readership to take just a few moments to cover? What if I could just pick three scientific discoveries out there that I had shortchanged by concentrating solely on mental health?
And they came to me almost in a vision.
This is what I really I bet this is what you’ve been wondering all along:
You’ve been asking and asking the following: “What in the world would happen to blood flow if you stimulated the oculomotor nerve–intracranially–of not just a rabbit, but a cat and monkey too?”
Am I right? Did I hit it on the head? You can fess up-it’s what you’ve always wanted to know. And Stzjernschantz and Bill (1979) published work that answers all of your questions in a mere three pages (do you know how long the articles I read on BD are?). They conclude that that “in the ciliary body the oculomotor nerve affected blood flow in different ways in the three species: vasoconstriction dominating in rabbits and vasodilation dominating in cats and monkeys.” It’s just what you always thought, right?
And—and this is my point (I do have one)—this is one of the truly great things about the Web. There’s a piece of research that may seem to some of us—how do you say this politely—obscure? Not fully relevant to daily life? But someone out there finds it fascinating, and the answer to all their questions.
Wait. What’s that you say? That this isn’t what you’ve always wanted to know? Aha—I understand, and I’m ready for you, with a piece sure to engage you, by Roguinsky in 1977, entitled (are you ready?) “Comparison of Streptococcus uberis and S. infrequens. Pathogenicity for cow udder.” It’s almost too exciting to keep to ourselves.
Now I know there are some people hanging on to every word if this article. I have not the slightest clue what goes on in what I’m sure is a compelling piece, but it’s clear to all those who hang on Roguinsky’s every word that the pathogenicity of the Streptococcus actually differs among species, if you can imagine. Streptococcus uberis is, we find out, “chiefly involved in cow mastitis” –which is what I suspected all along—while Streptococcus infrequens is located in—any guesses here?—pig abscesses. The link’s good—you can read the whole article—and it ends with a real crescendo, although we’re slightly disappointed to learn that “from a taxonomic point of view, it is not possible to differentiate the two species but the pathogenicity of the bovine udder.” But still.
Are you getting the idea of how great scientific discovery is, and am I hitting on the head the points you felt you’d been missing with all this health talk? I mean, these articles are just too good to be true, right?
But for those of you who aren’t yet impressed, and are wondering when I’m ever going to get to the real interesting scientific material on the web, your moment has arrived. You’ve known all this time that discussing health and wellness on a blog is just a way not to deal with the big scientific discoveries, like the one below.
When Meyer-Rochow and Gal published their work in 2003, and there it was, for all to Google, you knew at last important issues that piqued your interest were out there on the Web. So reading “Pressures produced when penguins pooh—calculations on avian defaecation” jogged your memory, right? Aware that penguins clearly “generate considerable pressures to propel their faeces away from the edge of the nest,” this publication confirmed your deepest suspicions.
When you learned that “the process of defaecation commences with the highest pressure initially and then rapidly drops to zero, hence producing faecal streaks (and not “blobs”),” you were just stunned to silence, right? So that’s how come penguins don’t poop blobs! It’s really what everyone’s always wanted to know.
Well, I know that’s a lot to digest (forgive the pun; it’s dreadful), so I leave you to contemplate the infectivity of Streptococcus uberis, the vasoconstriction in the anterior uvea of monkeys, and the physical parameters used for calculations of the maximal distance reached by penguin faeces.
But I warn you. Come next blog. . .it’s back to bipolar, without a hint of penguin poop.
