Why Alzheimer's is like Osteogenesis Imperfecta

Why Alzheimer's is like Osteogenesis Imperfecta

A few days ago, I read a phrase in a book. Not a very philosophical or intellectual one, but a rather easy read. Yet, I could not stop thinking about it. For the entire day, I found myself searching for a possible interpretation. Being able to truly understand the meaning of aforesaid phrase would allow me, to get a better look into the mind of the character, who uttered it.

 The phrase was: Memories are the bones of our soul.

The thing is that – somehow and somewhere between reading it for the second or eighth time -  there was this idea in my head: If memories really are the bones to our soul, then Alzheimer's must be the brain’s equivalent to the body’s brittle bone disease, also known as Osteogenesis Imperfecta! Comparing these two illnesses, one a physical and one a psychological, you can detect a very similar concept. What I mean by that is simply that the loss of memory for a normally functioning brain is like the diminishing strength of the bones for the body. Both are supporting and vital foundations without no human would be able to live a “normal” life.  I definitely am not a doctor, nor do I know enough to understand the full extent of those two diseases; However here I am philosophizing about such complex topics, only by stumbling across this strange metaphor, which at a first glance only appeared to me to be a cheesy filler where otherwise an unreasonable silence would have followed.

Without intention, I created an analogy to decode this seemingly harmless and flat semantic figure. Apart from my confusion in the beginning I have to admit that I very much enjoyed how this thought experiment turned out and I hope someone who read this did at least too.

Bellies full of plastic

Glimmering like a shoal of sardines whirling close to water’s surface, plastic waste is often mistaken for food by marine birds. However, the reason for a severe increase of plastic consumption by tube-nosed seabirds does not only stem from the iridescent appearance of plastic waste but also from misidentifying the smell, as scientists of the University of California have found out only recently. According to the University’s study, plastic waste that remains on the ocean’s surface for a couple of weeks becomes covered in algae. Due to the algae, DMS is produced. DMS stands for dimethyl sulphide and contributes to the distinct “smell of the sea”. This particular smell is also produced when phytoplankton is consumed by zooplankton, such as some species of copepods, cladocerans etc. These micro-crustaceans are the seabirds’ favourite food hence DMS has the same effect as a bait on a fish hook has on cod or herring. Albatrosses, diving petrels, storm petrels, and petrels and shearwaters are lured into believing that the DMS is related to a high density of zooplankton and feed the “food”. As a consequence, the birds’ stomachs fill up with plastic instead of crustaceans, resulting in finding carcasses on beaches whose insides bear more resemblance to a waste disposal facility than an actual organ. For most people, who are fond of nature, this issue is a bête noire but only few have courageously accepted the challenge to solve it. One of them is 22-year-old Boyan Slat from the Netherlands who created a floating barrier, called “Boomy McBoomface”. This barrier reaches one and a half metres above and below the waterline and is intended to clean up the Pacific Ocean. Slat claims that, due to the natural movement of the waves, plastic waste floats towards the highest point of the V-shape, which is aimed to be a 100 km long in total. The collected waste is then to be removed and recycled on shore. The floating barrier is a prototype by Slat’s organization “The Ocean Cleanup” and currently tested in the North Sea. Among other benefits, reducing the plastic waste in the ocean would contribute to reducing the number of birds dying from plastic consumption.

Happy Newton’s Day instead of Merry Christmas

In the past I studied Electronic Engineering and Energy and Environmental Engineering at the University of Technology - at least for three years. My keen interest into science and questions that would expand my knowledge had driven me to study technology for three years until I reached my dead end in science - I hate advanced math - which brought me to the point where I had to change my field of study. Now I should write these preposterous blog entries - but such as I already described in my former post, I will write about every idea and thing I come up with. Now to get back to my “round-the-corner-logic”, at my previous University I attended classes in physics. Obviously, I learned something about gravity and one apple, but I also learned something about a cat that is in two conditions simultaneously, it is dead and alive. My question now is, what do Sir Isaac Newton and Erwin Schrödinger and his “Cat” have in common? Nothing, as it first seems, except their profession - they were both physicists, aside from the “Cat”, obviously. I began with the headline Happy Newton’s Day (that idea originally came from The Big Bang Theory) instead of Merry Christmas. What are the odds? Sir Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Eve, and he was not born on Christmas Eve. Like “Schrödinger’s Cat” being both dead and alive. On the one hand, Sir Isaac Newton was born on the 25^th December 1642 - in that case, Happy Newton’s Day!  - on the other hand, after changing the calendar from Julian counting to Gregorian, Sir Isaac Newton was born on the 4^th January 1643.

We can all decide what this time of togetherness with friends and family and candles, and sweets from the Christmas Market means to us, and how we prefer to call it.

But please, do not call it Merry Xmas!

Unbroken Ribs

The Concept of a Broken Rib

You know if and when you broke a leg. And in every instance of not breaking it, you would never have said: “It feels like I broke a leg.”

The other day, however, two people on two occasions in no way related to each other uttered sincerely: “It feels like I broke a rib.” One of the aforementioned was me. I never broke a rib, or any other bone. Neither did the other person. Yet the concept seems strangely familiar and clear cut. And applicable when clearly not applicable.

I would not feel the difference between a severe cold and a mild pneumonia, even though I certainly experienced the former and probably the latter, too. The concept is fairly unfamiliar, not as distinct and clear as a broken leg, or the imaginary broken rib. What happens in our brains when we feel like having broken a rib, whilst evidently untrue?

It seems to be a rare form of infantile reality, where a primal creativity meets an ignorance regarding contradiction. A reality that adult people nevertheless can relate to. Now how could we use the concept of a broken rib to foster our creative writing?