Retrospective Ethics

This Friday we finished our second and last part of the biomedical ethics course and next week I will go for final examination, thus I dedicated the whole weekend for reading ethics and have stumbled across some rather interesting and horrifying examples.
I think all of us are aware of the atrocities taking place during WWII in the Nazi concentration camps and the human experimentations performed on the captives. However, what I didn't realise was that just as in any other experimentation these "researches" also resulted in collection of data and conclusions.
   A straight forward examples are the "studies" of hypothermia, a critically low body temperature. This was conducted by putting living humans on ice to see how they reacted to low body temperatures and the following recovery from it - cruel and highly immoral indeed.
   But what perhaps chocked me the most was how this data has been referred to in recent articles and modern studies. The ethical question is of course, whether or not to use such data in the first place.

Ethics of research is really interesting once you dig a bit deeper.
I can recommend some horrible but mesmerising reading on the topic, even for those not interested in medicine in general.
   Another good example is the Tuskegee Experiment, where a dark history of U.S. public healthcare is brought into light.

A Great First Meeting

My parents arrived to Prague this Thursday with 6 of their friends to see me, take a tour in the city, drink beer and eat great Czech food. Me and Kristýna planned to take them all to something more than just city sightseeing and could, with much and appreciated help from her mother, plan a trip to Hrád Karlstejn during the Saturday.
However, first I booked a table for 10 at Ambiente, an amazing Brazilian live restaurant, close to the Old Town Square. I strongly recommend anyone having parents or friends over that want to have a food experience to go there if a restaurant in the more exclusive range is to be preferred.

During Sunday we spent the whole noon walking the Czech nature at Prachovske Skaly with my parents, as the friends already left. It was a nice walk with amazing forests and rock formations not too long outside of Prague.
It felt great to work off the heavy food and beer from Ambiente and other smaller pubs.
However, when we went back to Prague we didn't have much time to rest before we were supposed to meet up with part of Kristýnas family for more food and beer.
This time we went for regular Czech cousin specialities - probably the best I've had so far here.

The weekend was great and it was very nice to see my parents, their friends and to see that they got very well along with Kristýnas family.

I believe that another week of hard work demands this kind of "rest"...

The 'Death' by Kagan

I’ve been looking a lot into philosophy lately.
‘Philosophy’ you might say – ‘what is up with that grown up shit?’.
Well, we all find interest in different things and after getting hooked up on the debate of religion I sort of took a short detour to the subject of philosophy – which, after all, is not very much unlike the former. Together, both subjects play a role in everybody’s life at some point.
For example, when was the last time you imagined death and your chest got all filled up by that dreadful feeling of unease and complete discomfort? Personally I remember that I used to do anything to avoid these kinds of thoughts, not too long ago.


Shelly Kagan during his lectures on the topic 'Death'.


As I think of it I had many periods, especially as a kid, when I found myself thinking about it while falling asleep and almost every time I ended up with a feeling difficult to translate into words. It was, and even to a certain degree today is, a quite uncomfortable issue to wrap my mind around. However, breaking it down help you see it from an interesting point of view.
The topic regarding ‘death’ is just a single fraction of the great philosophical questions raised but it’s a juicy one that I’ve recently been digging my teeth into.

So call it what you’d like but I’d bet you’d also get interested if you were to here out the lectures ‘Death’ by Shelly Kagan, Professor in Philosophy of Yale University. Not only is he a great character, sitting on the front desk with his legs crossed illustrating large questions with tiny schemes, but he is also an extremely great thinker. I don’t just say this because I share his ideas to at least 90% but rather because I think it does not matter whether you agree or not – you just can’t help but to get blasted away by what his and other philosopher minds are capable of stirring up.

English stripped Naked

I very much indeed enjoy studying Latin and its marvellously paradoxical two sides; complexity and simplicity.
By the end of the previous sentence I've used at least four strong words in English with non-English origin. Can you guess which of the following belongs to what language? 

Study
Marvellous
Paradox
Complexity
Simplicity

Study actually derives from Old French estudie, but for our sake lets deal with studium from Latin.
What about marvellous? Latin? Greek? Not at all, to my surprise, it actually is from Old French as well in the basic form merveille.
So, Paradox then, sure this could be Latin but by dissecting the word we can get the Ancient Greek prefix para-, and suffix -orthodoxos, indicating that this is of Greek origin. As commonly seen, many Greek words adopted a Latinized form and Paradoxos became Paradoxum meaning: 

"a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth" or "a self-contradictory and false proposition".

Complexity and Simplicity are English words with pure Latin origin; in its naked form rather complexus and simplex.

Latin at first sight is as complex as any new language (except Czech that is, which seem to origin from the green man "a planeta confusa") but as one embrace it and digs deeper it actually makes a lot of sense.
It's a language of great structure, at least if you have the honour to follow Prof. Svobodova's text book, and it can be broken down in an organized matter with, mostly, strict rules that can be applied to whatever sentence you'd like to create. This is the part of simplicity.

To give a brief indication of how a task and its translation might look like I'll give you an example from the book at page 172.
Translate:
- Superficial wounds in the pubic region.
- Bruises of the soft parts of the body.
- In the state after a severebilateral inflammation of the lungs.
- Sufficient doses for children.
And the solutions, in order:
- Vulnera superficialia in regione pubis.
- Contusiones partium mollium corporis.
- In statu post pneumoniam bilateralem gravem.
- Doses pro infantibus sufficientes.

I wish not to seem posh or act as some kind of Smart Aleck, nor will I in any way conceal my gratitude towards the Latin course - gratitude, when from my side expressed, has mostly been getting dull half-witted responses with little or no enthusiasm.
 Anyone that have had Prof. Svobodova, might not share my view - and so be it. You might even think I am vastly exaggerating by saying that she was indeed the best teacher during the first year. Again - so be it.
My opinion might echo alone but I believe that the facts speak for themselves; the structure and discipline of her lectures were always high and, if ever so often threaten, well maintained. She spent time explaining and made us practice in between - to me that is true teaching.
 The fact that she actually wrote the book, covering more than well the medical perspective of Latin, is something not to forget.
 This greatly shows itself in the way the course is built up, step by step until the rope is tightly shutting the sac closed. Unfortunately, for our group but mainly for the professor herself due to some family matters, we missed out on the last two lessons dealing with numericals and verbs but with some set aside motivation that was a part not too demanding, however, using the word "easy" would be a lie.

Why the "DIET" in Diet Coke is a hoax

I think it's great that someone actually explained this properly.
Not only will it give you the answer of the stated premise but also a great insight in the metabolic activity in the body in relation to pH

The Greatest Show on Earth

Today I woke up (early) at 8 am and after a long search for something to eat for breakfast but I soon gave up, took a glass of water and went for grocery hunting. I usually go to Andel, a shopping mall across the river, and decided to do the regular base ware shopping.

It took me a while to get to the tram. The pleasant part was that I crossed paths with a good friend on her way to her Latin exam and the less pleasant part was that I discovered that I didn’t have coins for the tram ticket.
There Is obviously a revolution going on in the commuting traffic, something called “open card” is on its way and it is going to overtake the old “coin-for-ticket”-system. I also discovered that the price for the ticket option got increased, if just slightly. I believe that signing up for the open card is the next right thing to do.

After some walking I managed to change for some coins and got the ticket.
Shopping is fun, as always, but this time I kept the expenses down a bit. With my groceries packed in my rucksack I dashed for the tram but stopped as I saw the bookshop right next to the grocery store. I went inside for a quick look and to my surprise I found three out of a handful books that I’ve, for quite some time now, been searching for.

Two of them I have already “read”, or rather, listened to as audio books. Some people don’t count this as saying that one has actually read the book although to me it is all the same – the content doesn’t change so to speak. Well, I bought them because I admire the authors and would very much like to read it myself at least once.
I was surprised how low the prices were on non-fictional pocket books and I consider it well spent money.

One of them I have yet to read, and it sure looks promising. Richard Dawkins is an amazing author judging from his earlier books that I have read. The title caught my eye at the first glance:
The Greatest Show on Earth
I immediately understood that this was going to be another book dealing with Dawkins favourite thesis; that evolution is fact and not fiction.
During the short way home at the tram I managed to read a couple of pages and this sentence made me smile, especially after passing my Latin exam the other day.
With the risk of being taken out of context, I quote,:

“Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ‘ignorami’) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed.”

This sentence alone shows how beautifully complex and sophisticated Dawkins writing is and his fine ability to compose the text so that it speaks directly to the reader – simply wonderful.

I will end this post by saying that it is post number 200 in this journal - have I really written that many..?

RainyMood makes everything better

Whenever my head needs to relax I find this stunningly useful. It is a website that loops a thunderstorm and it is a perfect background loop for classical or ambient music. Try it yourself by opening up RainyMood and play your favourite soundtrack on your preferred website or media player.
If the volume is quite unequal just go to your computers audio mixer, usually in the downright corner of PC, upright corner of MAC and get it to equilibrium.

This, for example, is a neat track to combine to RainyMood.

Sit down and let Richard Bona do his wonders...

Science can be HOT!

You all know how we used to burn ants with magnification glasses when we were kids. Don't scold me if you didn't, I know it was a bad thing to do.
In this amazing video Jem Stansfield melts a rock in the Solar Furnace Research Facility in Southern France with what's got to be one of the most powerful magnification glasses ever created.

The 1768ft Tower Climb

This makes my heart beat a great deal faster, maybe due to my slight scare of heights. Imagine doing it for a living(!?) - insane.
I guess it takes a certain mentality to be able to do this.

Laryngeal Nerve dissection in a Giraffe

Can a dissection of a Giraffe prove evolution?
Richard Dawkins belives so, and the arguments presented are hitting hard.
This video is filmed in a real dissection, view it after your dinner.

A Story worth Sharing

Tae-ho was born in 2000, South Korea.
He has no arms but works with what he got - something we all ought to do.
Inspirational to the fullest.

All rights reserved to MBC

Sunshine and Pineapple

Sunset over Anatomy Department...
Some days are just better than others. Today was such a day.
There are not really solid criteria for what makes a good day, I rather find the spontaneous and come-by-chance moments inspirational and "day-seizing".
  Me and my friend Paymon usually talk about this in terms of "highlights of the day" which can take the form of pretty much any random situation.
A completely random thing that might turn into a highlight of the day is for example when you watch a beach saleswoman from Thailand teach the world how to slice up a pineapple on Youtube.

The weather today was like waking up from a shitty dream due to the sunlight shining through your dirty windows - okey, that was what really happened this morning and with that revealed; yes, I really need to clean my windows. I believe it's a good thing that mum is coming here on Friday.
  After waking up, starting off the day with some histology and bio-genetics I went for the first lecture on the interesting topic "cell cycle and its regulation" but it was honestly and most unfortunately not very effective, knowledge-wise speaking. I dare to say and, although this is not the right place, to give the constructive criticism about the Uni power-point presentations that overall, just like in the Swedish Army, are very disappointing from many perspectives. If time allowed I would gladly make a template and convert them all just to get rid of eye burning colours and massive text boxes - maybe an interesting future project - but for now, neither of my concern nor place to complain, which means I'll leave this thought here.

The two and a half hour break before this day's last class in Czech language came as a relief because this meant that I could catch some hours in the blazing spring sunshine.
Right above the Institute of Histology and next (laterally?) to the Institute of Pathology there is a nice sloping park that got to be the cleanest park in Prague. There wasn't much wind at my spot and the sun was facing the hillside just right for maximum exposure - and that we enjoy, right?
  I occupied a bench, took off my shoes and socks and for the first time this season my white, clean soles got to feel grass and gravel - just as my face got the first effective time in the sun.
The books were with me and I eliminated one hour by reading and the second and last one by taking a nice lying position and sleep off the recently ingested salami sandwich.

On my way home I took a right turn and bought a fresh pineapple at the Potraviny.
Not much is needed to create an over-the-average good day...

"We are going to die, thus - we are the lucky ones"

Inspirational words from Richard Dawkins on the fact that we're the lucky ones to die, and more importantly - live...

Out of the Ordinary

A lot of things make me happy:
Waking up early to and get chills from the cold air and then taking a hot shower, having a good breakfast, drawing while listening to relaxing music, seeing the sun set in the horizon along the Swedish west coast, drinking a beer on the cliffs with good company - I can make the list long.
But last Saturday Kristýna completely gave me a new definition of the word "happiness".

I won't give away any details here but believe me when I say that it sure was a surprise to. She took me down to a calm place by the river in the middle of the city light drenched Prague. There I got to open my early birthday present.
She put a box in my hands and when I opened it I found myself speechless.
I usually don't get presents with such a personal touch to them - I believe me and Kristýna share the same frequency.

No, I wont get lost... To be honest, I know exactly where we are...

Detailed Drawing Preview

I have a couple of ideas and this is one of them. I cut it down as a preview showing some details but it's far from finished.
It's a great practice and I think I'm improving each time. So much fun.

How small is the world?

Metaphorically speaking:
Let's say that during your vacation in France you enter a café and are about to order. As you stand in line waiting, the person in front of you turns around and appears to be your old class mate from elementary school.
Most probably, even if that person was only a friend of a friend, you'd start to talk. One of you will either think, or say, "oh, the world is so small!" and then you'd end up drinking coffee together.

That got me thinking, how small is the world really?
I was studying but got distracted by this thought and as I reflected I was looking out the window and saw a small bird sitting on one of the branches of the tree in the garden.
I said to myself: "the world must be so much bigger to that bird, than it is to me..."
Based on the thought that this might just be the case the size of the world must be proportionally smaller for a tall man, lets say 1,91 like myself, than for a child measuring only 1,30 above the ground.
Now, to think that in almost every "normal" case (I don't like the word normal), overlooking the fact that we shrink when we get older, it's true that with age comes height and vice versa.
Another parameter is that with age comes experience and I believe in most of the cases the source of imagination is greater in younger days.

The conclusion must be that the size of the world somehow must be inversely proportional to the size and age of the person.
Back to the initial reflection; the bigger and older we get, the probability of bumping into one of the unexpected meetings must then increase, yes?

I'm growing bigger and undoubtedly I'm also getting older, therefore my world is shrinking - and that means I need to buy more coffee.

Putting it Mildly Quote

"...If you will devote a little time to studying the staggering photographs taken by the Hubble telescope, you will be scrutinizing things that are far more awesome and mysterious and beautiful - and more chaotic and overwhelming and forbidding - than any creation or "end of days" story.

If you read Hawking on the "event horizon," that theoretical lip of the "black hole" over which one could in theory plunge and see the past and the future (except that one would, regrettably and by definition, not have enough "time"), I shall be surprised if you can still go on gaping at Moses and his unimpressive "burning bush."
If you examine the beauty and symmetry of the double helix, and then go on to have your own genome sequence fully analyzed, you will be at once impressed that such a near-perfect phenomenon is at the core of your being, and reassured (I hope) that you have so much in common with other tribes of the human species - "race" having gone, along with "creation" into the ashcan - and further fascinated to learn how much you are a part of the animal kingdom as well.
 
Now at last you can be properly humble in the face of your maker, which turns out not to be a "who," but a process of mutation with rather more random elements than our vanity might wish. This is more than enough mystery and marvel for any mammal to be getting along with: the most educated person in the world now has to admit - I shall not say confess - that he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more..."

- Quote from Christopher Hitchen's Putting it Mildly: Part 3

Biophysics: Day #2

The title isn't really correct since yesterday was more about Latin.
The final Latin test is held on Wednesday and if one pass it's automatically going to reward in a credit and with that, the subject is out of the way for this semester.
I got some biophysics done after all, a bit of reading in the morning before my friends came over and as well in the late afternoon before, and after, the gym.
We had a co-revision in my room and I went through the first two declensions and did some exercises from the book.
The rules and the grammar tables are easy to learn and the major problem is to learn the vocabulary. Easy you might think, it's just memorizing, and yes it is indeed although that takes time and as I've been stated numerous times before time is of great value these days.

Today I'll try a different approach on biophysics because I'm honestly keeping myself from freaking out - it's only 6 days left now and it feels like the things I read wont stick to my head at all which is really frustrating.

I'd just like to add, and this is a great deal off topic, that making sushi and listening to Christopher Hitchen's book "God is not Great" is a really nice and relaxing thing to do.
My sushi turned out to be amazing (even though it was vegetarian and 40% of the sushi was missing - aka the salmon) and Hitchens can also amaze me in many different ways and I think that I'll quote him later in my 5 minute break from biophysics. Another great thing that amaze me and inspire me lately is to make Skype-calls to Finland.

For those who think in a scientific way, like myself, and that isn't very familiar with Hitchens, Russell, Sagan and let's put Dawkin's in the name drop as well, should really "googl'em up".
If it turns out that you are, or after googling them become, familiar with them and it happens to be the very case that they do not amuse you in any way and are in fact not sharing your opinions at all then just drop it and leave it be - I'm not about to start any discussion, not just yet that is.

8:30 and it's time to get some revision done before the anatomy lecture.

"You tried to make amends"

New music video release by Tides of Man, and I like it a lot :D

Population: Zero - Life after Mankind?

Yesterday evening I had a really nice conversation and after one hour I joined Jean and Niyat for some GIT (gastro-intestinal tract) studying.
I've been drawing a lot of schemes since one part of the test on Wednesday is going to be sort of a "surprise!-draw-this-random-scheme"-task, which of course is nothing but a really good practice. After all, that's how the final exam is going to be like.
I'll post my sketches in due time, and that reminds me that I need to go buy a scanning printer.

Life is like exploring a mind field over and over again. If one get through once it doesn't necessarily mean that you will know the way to go. There's nothing preventing the fact that at some point there will be a wicked mean s.o.a.b digging down new mines changing the path. It's part of the game and if one wants to play it one better stick to the rules.
I still fly around in my own little happy world most of the day but sometimes it's just so nice to project, or rather create, emotions of the other kind - to enjoy. Now, that might sound a little narcissistic and strange but my philosophy is that in order for one to have good peaks, one must have bad peaks and projecting problems into thought and emotions is just one way of me dealing with the bad peaks. Rather than suppressing them and build up a pile I like to slice it up in checkpoints.

Thinking and reflecting makes me feel good and since I've been getting into this post-apocalyptic mood lately, especially in the evening, I have to embed this trailer for the "Life after People" series. It's a really interesting predicting theory of how the earth will repair itself once its abusers are dead and gone.

Who will die and who will survive?

 

What will still be left and what will be forgotten?

What will evolve to take our place as dominating
(, abusing) species?