Oviparity, Viviparity, Masupialization and Mammalian Evolution

It is a fascinating story how placenta came into existence from an unprotected egg to marsupian duck bill platipus to the nursing mother.

I won't go into evolution but write a few lines about the placenta for posterity.

The placenta is a big parasite.

It evades maternal immune rejection and we have not yet worked out its mysterious ways.

It is discarded with only a cursory look,  at the time of birth, since the baby is the center of attraction.

After 1970s only a few have done any in depth studies.

I am not going to land with list of questions but take a little pause and write few lines.

I have done some basic investigations which are published for perusal but never bothered to write a few line of its mastery in evasion of hostility in evolution.

Placental HLA or human leukocyte antigens are different from maternal antigens.

It is intimately associated with maternal blood and maternal antibodies and lymphocytes.

Its HLA antigens arise early in embryonic development and it projects a potent barrier while invading the maternal uterus.

It has two layers one foetal and one maternal.

Amnion and Chorion (from which the placenta develops) are foetal.

It has only two layers of cells, the cellar cytotrophoblast layer and the multicellular syncytiotrophoblast layer.
Only the multicellular counterpart is seen when the placenta becomes mature.

It does not become old but gradually  disintegrates after 40 weeks.

It resembles the symbiotic cell at the beginning of evolution, all mucoprotein but no nuclear material and a few fragments of nuclear material arranged as syncytial knots.

How does a large syncytium works in a all pervasive cellular world?

That is the only question of mine in this piece.

Basalis is the maternal mesoderm that gets vascularized gradually and extensively.

Basalis is maternal where spiral arteries empty its contents and filter all foetal blood to maternal venous sinuses.

It grows up to 40 weeks of gestation and wither off by 42 weeks.

It provides all the foetal hormones and control the maternal pituitary gland.

That's all about it.

HCG or Human Choriogonadotrophic Hormone is foetal and no counterparts in adults except its oestrogenic and progesterone actions.

My only contribution here is the large and mysterious Fibrinonection, mucopolysaccharide and protein molecule that are seen in the placenta especially up to 36 weeks of gestation which provide a ground base of nutrition and virtual mop up molecule  or barrier for maternal antibodies present and in evolution, over the course of pregnancy..

This is almost same to the Fibrinonectin that exudes at the site of injury before granulation tissue of healing invades it.

Almost the same Fibrinonectin that provides a scaffolding for the cancer cells to form an angiogenic front.

So in my view, Fibrinonectin which I call the molecular glue does all the work by itself without a nucleus.

So it may be the grand old evolutionary molecule equal in potential to heat shock protein that started the life on this planet.

Nobody has done any worthwhile work on Heat Shock Protein (HSP) that are present in prokaryocytes and eukaryocytes.

My View of Theory of Space

My Theory of Space is very strange.

Nobody should take any cue out of it and try to develop a new or alternative physics.

Only for perusal and no critical analysis.

Just let go with Buddhist detached and unentangled approach.

If entangled it is your own misery.

Simply, I do not like the current physics and since I cannot destroy the current physics, just like the existing religious theories, I would like to take Micky Out of my own imagination gone riotious.

It is just like our mind.

Mind exists (I even contend that mind can exist in very subtle form without a brain base. If it exists only with brain base telepathy is impossible ecomplish) in relation to brain and we cannot pin point where it is located, just like our memory.

Mind is a form of energy and it can exist irrespective of material base.
Outrageous but true.

This analogy is not exact, since space just like mind we cannot see but it exists.

My bone of contention is the world is an infinite spectrum of energy forms, including mind energy and the beauty of any energy form is if any freedom or space is given it will be taken by an energy of higher form.

The current expansion of the universe can be explained without any difficulty if that ploy is used.

The existence of matter and it's spin on various axical points can also be explained and that energy of spin comes from the expended space energy as it move past the objects of matter.

Space cannot exist since any available space or freedom is taken up by some form of energy from the whole spectrum of energy including energy of space.

In this scenario, one does not envisage the boundary or limit of the universe.

Equally putative space in a nucleus of an atom can be discarded with no space but spectrum of energy concept.
UpThere are subtle gradation of energy forms invisible in submicroscopic or atomic range.

The putative theory that something comes from nothing (Almighty God is also done away with easily) is also discarded easily.

Every thing is nothing but energy including what we call space which is expanding.

From where does the energy of expansion comes from?

Equally energy cannot be destroyed but converted to more subtle energy forms innumerable both measurable and not measurable.

What we have is energy forms visible and detectable and energy form invisible and undetectable.

The current physics is based on detectable and visible energy and just like we cannot measure mind energy space energy cannot be varifiable but expressed by my imagination gone wild for that moment of theoretical analysis.

This is totally outside of the dark matter and dark energy and space energy exists on its own accord.

Dark matter and dark energy are an entirely different ball game and outside the scope of this entry.

Now I want to add few more spins into this space game.

There are entities without space and they are called black holes.
They cannot be seen and their presence can be surmised by the tangential reflection of light at its borders.
Even the light is absorbed or consumed and in that process some sort of reflection does take place.

Blood Grouping and Blood Transfusion Protocol

This was a procedural protocol and instructions, leading to blood Grouping and Blood Transfusion, I made while (to ensure Quality Control) working in a private medical institution.
I detected many systemic errors and finally recruited a medical graduate to supervise the procedure.
Most of the young guys and girls were poorly trained and ultimately computer typists were wrongly  incriminated when something goes radically wrong.
The medical  graduate was under my direct supervision, luckily for me she had worked briefly at the Colombo Blood Transfusion Center.
Happy to say, the short period of Quality Management Guidance, I did, nothing untoward happened.

Purpose
              1. Eliminate errors at all levels
              2. Streamline Procedure

Requirements and Objectives
Request Form, Report and the Computer Database should tally 100%.
Duplicate should be recorded separately for checking with the in ward entries.

01. Design customized Request Form for Blood Grouping and Blood Transfusion.

02. Only Blood Grouping and Transfusion needs should be entered in the form and nothing else.

03. It is necessary to develop a dedicated computer program for this purpose at the end of the initial observation period.

04. Any other investigation ( eg. Antenatal, VDRL, HIV status and Hb should be requested in different forms)

05. Person who does the ordering should be clearly stated.
Ideally he/she should fill and sign the request form.

06. Naming and labelling should be done by the same person.
Ideally the person who ordered the request should sample but if delegated to another person that person should cross check with the person who ordered the original request and sign appropriately.

07. At the reception and at the cashier's point, patient identification should be 100% accurate.
Full name should be entered and speckling should be correct.
For some such as medical examination and visa purposes National ID and Passport Number were required before payment and sampling.

08. When Grouping blood related donors the relationship to each other and to the patient should be clearly stated (father, mother, son, daughter etc).

09. A patient dedicated identification code should be designed and retained in the computer memory.

10. Identification details should be double checked  before payment is obtained.

11. Whether testing is routine or urgent should be clearly stated.

12. Samples properly labelled and checked should be sent to the laboratory as soon as possible.
There should not be any delay.

13.  Duplicate computer request form should be obtained as soon as possible.

14. The original and duplicate computer request form should be stapled together and not with clips or pins.

15. The seal should be eliminated.
What' the point.
Rubber stamping errors?

16. The computer request form and the original request form should have appropriate printed caging for entering results in detail

17. Testing should be done by the most experienced MLT.
If for any reason delegated to a junior MLT  he/she should be supervised appropriately by the senior MLT.

18 As far as possible individual samples should be tested.

19. The report should go as a simple dedicated report and not grouped with other reports.

20. Unlike other reports when report is handed over it should be documented with a signature to avoid producing duplicate reports for misplaced of lost reports by the requested patient.

Now you wonder why this was posted.

I know nobody will read this.

One who is a care giver only should read from beyond this point.

With Coronavirus pandemic lot of errors of  omissions and commission are committed in the intensive care units often affecting the first responders and care givers.
I used to say with 10 items (it is posted elsewhere) I could manage a rural hospital, which I did during Pan Polling days of Sirima and NM.

Saline
Pain killers IM
Diuretic Frusemide IV
Hydrocortisone then but potent dexamethasone derivative now

Nebulizer with Controlled Oxygen supply (28%) not avaible then but only a face mask

Plasma
Blood I never had

Broad spectrum antibiotics rarely used.

Good old days we realized some patients needed intensive care, often for post surgical patients.

Surgical Intensive Care was born.

Blood Transfusion Unit was the major supply unit.

I was a link man between the laboratory and blood bank and had lot of time to spare unlike other guys.

Girls were very few then in intensive care barring of course nurses.

I / we often lost lot of patients but saved a few important guys like retired old Prime Ministers and Venerable monks.

Lost was due to initial delay in recognising the very sick from the sick.

The patients in SHOCK or end organ failure.

Then we developed medical intensive care units.

Lastly the renal unit.

No liver transplantation units then.

I used to love teaching metabolic shock and organ failures.

1. Heart Failure
2. Respiratory Failure
3. Renal Failure
4. Liver Failure
5. No brain failure but management of the unconscious patient

The Shock or End Organ Failure was my favourite in later years as a pathologist, which I used to see under the microscope often in babies and infants without a diagnosis at hand.

Lately of course I migrated to interleukins in disarray.

In the private sector never had proper intensive care units now and then.

If they had they were poorly equipped with trained staff.

The medical institution I did my above observations did not have any.

The entry to the proposed emergency unit was permanently blocked by service lorries and it never functioned.

All the despairately sick we lumped together in a unit with absolutely no organisational principles.

Nobody wanted to take the responsibility and were shunted to the general hospital at the gate itself.

I took some interest and saved a young guy with Gillian Barre Syndrome or ascending encephaliomyelitis.

Three solid months of supervision and the duplicates of all his reports were with me.

I duly handed the duplicate file to the parents on discharge.

The hospital records were in tatters.

Incidentally university guy I befriends later had his surname and he told me that was his elder brother's son.

Life have many surprises!

NO MORE on this BLOG POST.
I go into hibernation!

Exit Stage

This piece touches the tone of philosophy but has a little flavour of Buddhist outlook.

By the way, Buddhism is not a philosophy as propagated in the West but an advanced life style not seen in the Capitalistic World. 

My animal.analogy is the most appropriate to describe the current human tragedy exposed by a tiny but powerful m or t RNA virus.

First 35 years is the dog stage where one tries to achieve his or her goal but many fail  in this exercise and settle in the highest level of incompetency, where as described in Banking Principles (Peter Principle) one settles in his or her highest level of competency.
There is no upward climb but usually a downward slide.

The next level is the donkey stage and one only does the delegated work of his or her superior but boring nevertheless.
This lasts for 35 years.

The third stage is the Bird Stage (I entered this well before 70) where one reflects on self and on others and basically non judgemental.
An extremely difficult to achieve if one is married.

The birds are the best example where they are either in the free stage chirping on the tree tops or in escape mode from the seasonal rain, monsoon in particular.

Our Mynar is the classic example where he/ she has a beautiful malady even on a rainy day.

A happy chirpy guy but equally dominating the atmosphere.

Very few humans can enter Bird Stage but they slip prematurely into the next stage which is the fox stage and remain their until one kicks the bucket.

This Bird Stage lasts for only 10 years and  one enters the vermin or fox stage, thereafter.

The worst of all and generally all World Top Politicians fall into this including President Biden.

My mother even went past this fox stage until 90s and luckily she passed away a decade before Coronavirus.

This I called the Bats Stage where one precariously hanging on to the failing heart or lung on a ventilator.

My advice for one is the kick the bucket well before entering this stage, since in Buddhist Samsara Cycle, the death is the beginning of another cycle but may not be human but lower down in the animal Kingdom.

Lot of our politicians end up there whatever the beneficial Karma, they try to acquire, (wearing the mantle of the head of state or Prime Minister post), or try to achieve by going from one papal tree to another.

Regards to the Buddhist monks of Ceylon, who literally over indulge in TV Banana Bana or sermens, most of them become TV stars in their next life usually in Bollywood and not in Hollywood due to the lack of their competence to put Dhamma to the Western audience crisp and clear in English.

One should not apply this to married life and one is either in dog stage or donkey stage eternally.

This piece will exit me from the Internet.

I am in Bird Stage anyway and watching Internet is boring now that Biden is up there,  boring to say the least to see him hugging to a dog.

He should enter the donkey stage where he was for 45 years and was very comfortable.

Happy Mind and Solitude

The complete Faith in the system one believes,
An absolute Mindful Focus on the task at hand,
The Shame of discovery of shady deeds
The Fear of doing the  wrong deeds
No Greed at all for any gain,
No trace of Hate or envy,
The balance and Equanimity of the mind culture,
Tranquility,
Lightness.
Malleability,
The Quality of Performance,
The Steadfast Control of a given circumstance,
An Upright Mind (Rectitude) are the most beautiful accompaniment of Happy State or Solitude.

Then one need not have to isolate oneself in a meditative stance.

The Meditative Trance makes one to be born in a happy state of existence but without total realization.

The Insight or Vision comes from the understanding of the Truth of the Three States of Flux.

Anitta
Dukka
Anatta or NO Soul entity.

The Fourth and the most important is the Realization or Understanding of the State of Flux of all Conditional Things.

Beautiful Factors of the Mind Base

This is coming from Abhidhamma.
Hold fast and digest.
Abhidhamma is an exegesis and classic academic exercise.
It loves classification in duality but lacks practical application.
So I would simplify the factors.
Before that I will highlight the most important factor.
It is called thatramanjjhattata.
This Pali word has no synonym but the closest is equanimity.
But it has three features of impartiality, detachment and balance of mind and its accompaniments.
These three factors makes the mind uniformly happy and peaceful which all politicians of all shades lack and inculcate the same feeling of madness on the livid followers.
The beautiful mind is well balanced and devoid of prejudices.
The opposite is the recently concluded American election reporting by CNN and Fox News.
That is the nearest of the barbaric instinct of mankind presenting as lovely and favourable but quiet the opposite of reality but brings hate, disrespect and unhappiness.

1. Balanced peaceful mind is beautiful.

2. Trust and Faith in reality (politicians are vulgar) is another beautiful expression of mind.

3. Presence of mind or attention to task at the moment is a beautiful mind.

4. Fear of doing wrong

5. Absence of greed

6. Absence of hate

7. Balanced mind described above

8. Tranquility

9.  Lightness

10. Muduta or the malleability

11. Wieldiness or firmness of the mind

12.  Quality and proficient action of mind

13.  Rectitude or the uprightness of the mind

These are all shades of beautiful states of mind that need constant attention and cultivation.

One cannot achieve this by only meditation but by constant attention to vagaries of the mind and bringing it into focus, the reality at the present moment, not before, not in the future but now  now of the present now we only have to live with.

This Earth is Precious

All American including immigrants should read this.

This land America belonged to Red Indians and where are they now?

No different to Aboregenes in White Australia?

White man including church men are hypocrites and wherever they land they leave a trace of wanton destruction.

He (now the yellow man of China) is the major contributor to the sixth extinction which we are currently marching and embracing aggressively.

In 1984 the Great White Chief in Washington made an offer for a large area of Indian Land and promised a Reservation for the Red Indian people.

Chief Seattle's reply reproduced here in full is a classic in American history.

It is described as the most beautiful and profound statement on the environment ever made.

The Paris accord becomes a bogus record and would pale into insignificance by many a mile.

Instead of signing it, President Biden should have sent a few phrases of this statement to the European Commission.

Whatbthe white man has done globally is irrepairable and with global warming in its peak, the rhetoric and grand speeches have no value but real action on the ground needs to be done and the world have to make sure China fall in line with principles and prevent it becoming the global enemy number one.
By the way,  with virus as a gift we have to  pay through our noses for the wanton destruction, not only in China but wherever it undertakes globally expansion of its influence.

President Biden should not let China a  Scot Free Ride.

TEXT

How can you buy or sell sky, the warmth of the land?

This idea is strange to us.

If we do not own the freshness of the air and sparkle of the water how can you buy them?

ALL SACRED
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy show, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and the humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the Red Man.
The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars.
Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the Red Man.
We are part of the earth and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters and the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.
The rocky crests, juices of the meadows, the body heat of the pony and man --- all belong to the same family.

NOT EASY
So when the Great Chief in Washington sends words that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us.
The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.
He will be our father and we will be his children.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land.
But it will not be easy.
For this land is sacred to us.
This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is just not water but the blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred and you must teach your children that it is sacred and each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people.
The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

KINDNESS
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst.
The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children. If you sell you our land you must remember and teach your children that the rivers are our brothers and yours and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you give your brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways.
One portion of land is same to him as the next, for he is stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.
The earth is not his brother but his enemy and when he has conquered it he moves on to the next.
He leaves his father's grave behind and he does not care.
He kidnaps the earth from his children and he does not care.
His father's grave and children's birthright are forgotten.
He treats his mother the earth and his brother the sky as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright heads.
His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do not know.
Our ways are different from your ways.
The sight of your cities pain the eyes of the Red Man.
Perhaps, it is because the Red Man is a savage and does not understand.
There is no quiet place in the white man's cities.
No place to hear unfurling of leaves in the spring or the rustle of an insect wing.
But perhaps, it is because I am a savage and do not understand.
The clatter only seems to insult the ears.
And what there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the argument of the frogs round the pond at night?

I am Red Man and I do not understand.

Indians prefer the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by the midday rain or scented with pinon pine.

PRECIOUS
The air is precious to Red Man, for all things share the same breath---the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.

The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes.

Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.

But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that air shares it's spirit with all the life it supports.

The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last breath.

And if we sell our land you must keep it apart sacred as a place where even the white man is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

ONE CONDITION
So we will consider your offer to buy our land.
If we decide to accept I will make one condition.

The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and I do not understand any other way.

I have seen thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairies left by the white man (big question who is the savage, if not the white man as shown in America today) who shot them from a passing train.

I am a savage I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo we kill to stay alive.

What is man without beasts?

If all beasts were gone, man would die of great loneliness of spirit.

For whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man.

All things are considered.

THE ASHES
You must teach your children the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfahers.
So they will respect the land, tell the children the land is rich with lives of your kin.
Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.

If men spit upon the earth they spit upon themselves.

This we know.

The earth does not belong to man.
Man belongs to the earth.

This we know.

All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls on sons of the earth.

Man did not weave the web of life (neither the god did); he is merely a strand in it.

Whatever, he does to the web, does to himself.

Even the white man's God who walks and talks with him as a friend to friend cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

We may be brothers afterall.

We shall see.

One thing we know which the white man may one day discover--- our God is the same god.

You may think now that you may own Him by your wish, but to own our land cannot.

He is the god of the man and His commission is equal to the Red Man and the white.

The earth is precious to Him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

The whites too shall pass sooner than of other tribes.

The Coronavirus is the kill all solution to the white man's problems.

Contaminate your bed and one night you suffocate in your own waste.

But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose save your dominion over this land and over the Red Man.

That destiny is mystery to us, for we do not understand, when the buffaloes are slaughtered and wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with scent of men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.

Where is the thickest. GONE.

Where is the eagle. GONE.

The end of living and beginning of survival.