SAVE THE WORLD

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

ICU

Each Morning when Larry was in the ICU his medical team including doctors, nurses and therapists would make their rounds to discuss his case. Mark or Paul joined the group to learn what they could. I stayed in the room with Larry behind the glass wall of sliding doors. After the conference in the hall his doctor would visit with Larry to see how he was responding. His primary doctor for several days had been Dr Ang. Since he would not be the doctor in charge the next day, I thanked him for all he had done for Larry and for what the unit was continuing to do. His gracious reply was that we were good people and that he liked helping good people because they would save the world. My heart was warmed to know that he showed that kind of love for us and recognized that saving the world was in the hands of good people working together in whatever capacity they found themselves in.

BIRTH CERTIFICATE

________________________________________________________________________________
 

MERCHANT SEAMAN

SUN'S ENERGY

  

Hi adoring grandparents! 

Ryan -- and we -- are very proud of this great explanation of how the California condor gets its energy from the sun. Maybe we have a budding biochemist here!

Rob

Dear Ryan,

I was so impressed with the paper you wrote on the movement of energy from the sun to the California Condor that I copied it into digital form. I like the fact that you are learning various scientific disciplines and fitting them together to understand phenomena in the world you are acquainted with. I see in your statement a synthesis of biology, chemistry, physics and ecology. Any of these fields offers opportunity for you to continue study in depth.

I hope you recognize your own unusual abilities to remember data and to synthesize facts and processes into reasoned analysis. You will eventually have to choose a specialization. For now you can absorb as much information as your brain can store and keep seeking to learn from everyone and everything  that comes your way.

Always Be Grateful and Never Be Discouraged,

ellie

Life Properties by Ryan Clayton (Jan 2, 2017)

    The energy that the California Condor uses in its cells is originally created in the sun by fusion. This energy is released from the sun. It is trapped by the chloroplasts and chlorophyll of the California Aster. The sun energy (and CO2 taken in by the plant's stomata) joins up with water taken to the leaves by osmosis and is used to make glucose. This is called photosynthesis.

    When the plant is eaten by the Giant Kangaroo Rat, the glucose (a carbohydrate) is taken to the rat's mitochondria(s). The mitochondria breaks the glucose apart in a process called cellular respiration and releases ATP (aclenasine triphosphate) energy. This can help the rat survive (breathe, pump blood, etc.) until it is eaten by the San Joaquin Kit Fox.

    When the rat is eaten by the Kit Fox, its glucose is taken the kit fox's mitochondria. This does cellular respiration by breaking atoms off the glucose molecule, which releases ATP energy. The energy is sent to the fox's ribosome and is used to make proteins out of amino acids. When the glucose is broken up, it also releases CO2 and H2O making it the reverse of photosynthesis (CO2+H2O>C6H12O6+O2).

     When the Kit  Fox dies and is eaten by the condor the glucose is taken to the condor's mitochondria, cellular respiration takes place. It is broken down into energy, which came from the kit fox, which came from the rat which got the energy from the flower that got its energy from the sun.  

Ryan Clayton

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

Sunday, December 31, 2017

THE GRAVE 3

When we think metaphorically, death in the physical world connotes entry into the unknown void. But life beyond physical death is no more of a mystery than life in the physical world. The 'events' of one's life are pointers to, or tracings of, what is experienced in another realm. If life were just the passage from material birth to material death it would easily be discarded, but we cling to it tenaciously because it contains more than is revealed externally. When we are aware that we have received life as a gift, we have the responsibility to live purposefully. So death is a metaphor for relinquishing the known, just as life is a metaphor for affirming the unknown.
 
If one enters the Door of Death one assumes the responsibility of looking within, of exploring the recesses of the grave for the purpose of discerning what cannot be learned in the outer world.

THOUGHT

Wikimedia Commons

Illustrations of the Book of Job

 Job Confessing His Presumption to God Who Answers from the Whirlwind

My thought: Life teaches us how much we can do, and how little we can do.

Is this about 2 levels of experience? We may be able to do little materially, much spiritually. To the contrary we may be able to do much materially and little spiritually. As we lose capabilities in our material bodies we trust that the spirit grows stronger as God prepares us for the transition to the non-material realm. The life of the spirit is no more confined to the mind than it is to the brain.

 

 

HAPPY OLD MAN

Friday, December 30, 2011

Ageing

For many years I used to say, "this is the best year of my life".
But everything comes to an end.

2012 looms ahead as a stopping point.  There will be many challenges; there will be triumphs-- and failures.  This is par for the course, but right now with greater intensity than ever before.

Two years ago, when Ellie took up Blake, a great new vitality came into our lives. What had been my (occasional) obsession became a primary interest for us. For two years we have posted on William Blake: Religion and Psychology, one or the other each day (ramhornd.blogspot.com).

That was a new discipline for me; heretofore I did Blake sporadically for a few months and then something else for a few months.   But every day!! No way, until two years ago. A salutary development.  (It occurred to me that this
might have been the shape of my life, had not ten wartime years intruded over most of my twenties.)

However this intensive mental activity came at a cost.  After an intense two hours doing research I discovered I was sleepy (you might say my brain started getting sluggish).  Strangely enough it was much like what happened to me after two intense hours of tennis.

Wow! a Discovery! Intense mental activity and/or physical activity led to a diminution of energy- for one or the other.

 For an old man the challenge of this is to learn balanced habits that use the appropriate amount of the two activities-- to go from one to the other.  Perhaps this was simple second nature to many people much younger that my (advanced) age, but for me it was a Revelation.

Memory is the greatest problem.  Strangely enough a fairly large vocabulary was still in force, but I was frequently guilty of making up a sentence with appropriate words, only to the find the appropriate words forgotten before I got around to writing it;  like going to the bathroom for something and forgetting the purpose before I got there.)

Memory is something to fight for.  There are in fact two levels: the immediate memory continually diminished, but a (largely) unconscious reservoir exists available under certain circumstances.  The challenge is to learn how to use it more consciously.  Memory loss is one of the primary concomitants of Alzheimer's disease and similar disabilities.

How can we learn to remember?