Body Gifts to Stop Taking for Granted
There’s more going on in our bodies than we know.
We should exercise more gratitude.
You’re walking down the sidewalk looking at your smartphone or thinking about something else. Do you realize how fantastic that ability is?
Humans walk efficiently even with their heads in the clouds (Nature). Scientists at Queen’s University ran some experiments on human volunteers. They outfitted them with exoskeleton devices that altered their usual gait. The subjects adjusted automatically to the change in the most energy-efficient way. “The suited walkers then took on the distracting task of listening to a series of tones and evaluating their pitch. Even while distracted, participants still adapted their stride to the most energetically efficient way of walking.” What this implies is that walking efficiently is automatic, not requiring much thought. Phys.org adds that the automatic programming works to conserve energy, to minimize the calories needed.
Walking with coffee is a little-understood feat of physics (Arizona State University). People should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, politicians say, but carrying coffee is harder. ASU scientists think we should consider “the balancing act it requires. In fact, there’s a lot of physics preventing the coffee from spilling over.” The coffee is sloshing around in a cup that is being jostled by each footstep. Slight motions in pitch, yaw or roll of the hand could result in a spill. The ASU scientists tested participants carrying balls inside teacups that allowed them to measure the adjustments made to prevent the ball from rolling out. The participants used one of two strategies, and were able to switch between them, apparently without having to think about it. It’s natural for us, but hard for robot designers to implement this ability.
“A systematic quantitative understanding of how humans interact dynamically with their environment will forever change how we engineer our world, and may revolutionize the design of smart prosthetics and usher in [a] new age of manufacturing and automation,” Wallace said. “By mimicking the dynamically favorable behaviors adopted by humans in handling complex objects, we will be able to automate processes previously thought to be impossible.”
Thousands of tiny anchors keep our cells in place (University of New South Wales in Sydney). Did you know your cells are chained together? It’s hard to see the chains, scientists at UNSW found, because they are “only a few nanometres thick – about 1/10,000th the size of a human hair.” In this era of super-resolution microscopy, one method of which is cryo-electron microscopy, the researchers were able to see these tiny anchors made of a protein named tropomyosin in tissues. It’s good we have these little anchors, because “If these attachments fail, the cell could be more prone to moving and invading tissues, like cancer.”
Fast and nonuniform dynamics of perisaccadic vision in the central fovea (Intoy, Mostofi and Rucci, PNAS Sept 14, 2021). We think we are staring at an object, but our eyes are constantly moving. Tiny movements called saccades keep the rods and cones in the center of vision from being saturated, so that we can see sharp (C#).
Humans shift their gaze more frequently than their heart beats. These rapid eye movements (saccades) enable high visual acuity by redirecting the tiny high-resolution region of the retina (the foveola). But in doing so, they abruptly sweep the image across receptors, raising questions on how the visual system achieves stable percepts. It is well established that visual sensitivity is transiently attenuated during saccades. However, little is known about the time course of foveal vision despite its disproportionate importance, as technical challenges have so far prevented study of how saccades affect the foveola. Here we show that saccades modulate this region in a nonuniform manner, providing stronger and faster changes at its very center, a locus with higher sensitivity.
Putative Exercise Hormone Irisin Boosts Mouse Brainpower (The Scientist). There’s a wonder protein that may someday make us stronger and smarter without the need for exercise. Named irisin, it is manufactured in cells in response to exercise, but scientists debate how it works and what it does. Adding to the intrigue are studies at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School that suggest irisin may slow cognitive decline for those with Alzheimer’s Disease. In the healthy, it may boost brain function. Can we get more of it? Watch this space.
Reversing aging of skeletal muscle (University of Buffalo). Another promising protein, named NANOG, could be a fountain of youth. Researchers at UB found that this protein rescues muscle cells from deterioration and increases the number of muscle progenitor stem cells. The aging process leads to senescence (the inability of cells to divide), cell death and autophagy. When the gene for NANOG was overexpressed in aging mice, it “ameliorated some of the primary characteristics associated with age-related deterioration of cells,” the press release says.
Baby in the womb (Illustra media)
Is anybody out there? Human embryos make contact with mother-to-be (University of Manchester). Expectant couples will find this story to be lovingly intimate. In just six days, babies in the womb are making contact with mom. Signals in the form of toll-like receptors (TLRs) help both the baby and the mother communicate so that they cooperate and do not fight each other. This is important for the mother, so that she does not treat the baby as a foreign invader, and for the baby, so that it learns not to fight non-self molecules in the placenta. “Our data also suggests a balance between suppression and stimulation of the innate immunity response in embryos,” the press release explains. “That may reflect the need for embryo survival in the presence of benign foreign cells, versus the need for the maternal tract to respond to infection.”
An article like this could be a million pages long. We already know so much about the body that should inspire awe. Scientists keep finding more things every week, every month, every year. If any people should be grateful for our earthly dwellings, it should be those of us living now. There are billions of tiny wonders at work, and billions more to be discovered. Gratitude is not only proper in response; it is also a great strategy for staying joyful and confident in our Creator’s wisdom, even when suffering in a broken world gone mad. Mutations and diseases take their toll now, because we live in a world cursed because of sin. Our God is in control. His plans will be fulfilled, leading to ultimate happiness for all who trust Him.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” —Revelation 7:9-12