Hip Hop as Intellectual Stimulation and More CSI:Bugs

Today on CSI:Bugs we have two cases. The first involves an apparent accidental overdose - of pollen. I first spotted this beetle in a tulip trying to escape up the sides of the flower. When I went back a few minutes later with the camera, it was gone. But a third inspection a day later revealed the creature(or one like it) had returned to the tulip and died there. The flower was now a crime scene.

I removed the body for closer inspection (of course) and found a very pretty substance covering most of the insect:



At 60 X magnification, the substance appears to be pollen:

As there was no evidence of use of force (no broken legs or antennae), it was concluded that the beetle died after covering itself in pollen (perhaps interfering with the animal's ability to fly) and then was trapped in the closing petals of the flower at night. Unable to find a warmer spot it froze to death (it has the same appearance of bugs I have deliberately frozen - for scientific seasons). Not really an overdose of pollen, but if it hadn't returned it might have lived.

The second case is still an ongoing investigation. In the front of the building we have a plastic container that holds a garden hose and nozzles for the hose. I open it up on a regular basis and have on more than one occasion removed some wasp, bee, or other bug from inside. Today, a mother paper wasp was in there tending to her nest. She had already made 12-14 hexagonal cells and placed a number of eggs in them and was preparing to make more. Not wanting to be stung this summer while retrieving gardening tools, I gently nudged the mother out (luckily she was woozy from the cold) and removed the under-construction nest:



At 60 X magnification:


I toyed with the idea of raising these babies on my own, but soon realized in a few weeks I will have about 10 hungry larvae demanding bits of caterpillar and other insects for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What I will do instead is watch the eggs until they hatch into larvae, take some pics and then release them next to an ant hill. This will be a bit of an experiment to see if the ants will take them. The paper wasp secretes a substance on the stalk of the nest (the stalk is the bit that attaches the nest to a structure from which it hangs) and sometimes on the cells. It is apparently an ant deterrent and protects the larvae from being carried away when the mom's not around. If the ants aren't interested in them, then we'll know that the stuff works. If the ants carry them away, then it means that the substance must be regularly applied.

Since I have kidnapped the larvae, and none are dead yet, then the case is ongoing.

Cool, eh?

On a completely different topic, I received an e-mail from my high school friend, Welli. She's a married mom of two teenage boys and she recently started taking hip hop dance classes. She told me it's one of the most intellectually stimulating things she's done in a few years. On the surface that might seem a bit bizarre to hear. After all, Welli is one of the most intelligent people I've ever known and she has a career that required a great deal of education. As well, a lot of hip hop music is lost on our generation (actually, every generation has its own types of music lost on others). So why is this type of dancing so intellectually stimulating?
Welli says learning the steps and routines has been a workout for her mind. And that's the key. I have been extolling the virtues of stimulating your mind while you exercise. Simply going through the motions is not enough to maintain or improve brain fitness. Your brain thrives on novel experiences; that's why I tell you to change up your exercise routine, take different routes on your runs or rides or walks, listen to different music or books or radio stations while you do it (not while riding a bike though, that's not safe), even mixing up the exercises you do. Lately, I have been stepping up onto and over the boulders that line one of the paths I regularly walk. This takes concentration and making judgments about where to put my feet at the same time that it is using different muscle sets than just walking. I am also climbing and walking along benches and hanging from monkey bars on my walks. It is the new, different or novel things that our brain pays attention to and those are the things that increase the number of neurons. That is brain fitness. And that is why a hip hop class can be an intellectual stimulator.

Thanks, Welli.

S.

Busy Week

The past several days have gone by like a blur. A friend of my family passed away over a week ago and my mom has been dealing with our friend's home and contents, leaving my dad without transportation to and from skating (Dad skates at least 3-4 times a week) so I was helping out with that. Of course there was the funeral to attend as well. I used to house and cat sit for Norma and her husband John when they took trips. Norma was a really neat lady, kind and gentle, and will be greatly missed.

Of course, the clean-up has continued on the Little Sackville River after the oil spill. I went out Saturday morning with one of the other members, Sebastien, to collect certain plants that are useful in this sort of thing. Sadly, it's so late in the year, that most aquatic plants he wanted were long since gone. We ended up gathering two garbage bags full of cattails, though, so the search wasn't wasted. The rest of the morning was spent meeting up with other members, running errands for supplies, and ferrying said members to the spill site. I couldn't stay for the actual "work" (I timed that well, didn't I?), but they spent a couple of hours setting up stakes and burlap as filter material. I hope to get to the site again tomorrow to see how well our rainfall and mild temps today dispersed the clumping oil. It was clumping because of the cold.

Here's a picture from 3 weeks ago on the morning of our last River Ranger group. My location was in the shade and after spending 20 minutes in the shade, in and out of the river to get rocks to find bugs, I was frozen and stood in the sunshine to try and thaw out. My face was frozen to the point where I was beginning to lisp. And I had two more groups to work with at that point! You can just make out my breath coming out as a cloud:



The Wookie and I also attended the AGM of the MS Society Atlantic Division on Saturday afternoon. One of the Board members' term is finished and we wanted to say thanks; he's also a founding member of our Bike Tour Team , The Cycle Delics. And there was a presentation by Dr. John Fisk, who is leading the end MS Regional Research and Training Centre for Atlantic Canada. 5 of these centres were set up in May of this year as part of the endMS campaign in Canada. I had wanted to meet Dr. Fisk as he's conducting one of the studies I'm currently enrolled in. He spoke about a number of activities that have occurred since the centre began including the exciting work by some of the med students. One of the foci of this campaign is to attract new people to the field of MS research. There are scholarships and grants being set up to retain some of these talented people and as they have a chance to do first hand work with current top notch researchers, it should help. The picture below is the first group of endMS summer students in Halifax this year:



After the AGM, we headed back to Lower Sackville to a pool hall where a fund raiser was being held for the Sackville Rivers Association. I wanted to just make an appearance, bid on some silent auction items and go home. Which is exactly what we did. I'll find out tomorrow if we won any of the items we bid on.

And I have managed to get in 4-6 kilometre walks almost every morning. Now, it may seem like I'm kind of pushing myself a little too hard, and you're probably right....but get off my back. The past week was an exception to my usually more laid back schedule. I'll behave better this week. I promise.

S.

More bug Love

Knowledge is one of those untouchable things like love or hate. Yet, it is vital to our growth as individuals. Some of us struggle through school learning only what we need to pass to the next level, learning what we need for a job, learning how to work the remote, learning perhaps the bare essentials to keep us alive. Some of us learn every day and make a point of doing that, looking things up in the dictionary or on the internet, asking questions, taking continuing education courses.

Since I was diagnosed with MS, I have been able to take everything I have learned and continue to learn and apply it to the issues of MS: my knowledge of epidemiology, chemistry, biology, socio-economics, mathematics even, have all been enhanced since my diagnosis. I had always been curious and a life long learner, but for the past 11 years even more so.

As many of you know from reading this blog, or from knowing me personally, I have a fondness for bugs. I love the onset of spring because it means the bugs will come out to do buggy things. The sounds of cicadas on the hottest days of the year are sweeter than the sounds of Mozart, the colours of beetles and butterflies more intense and pleasing than any Van Gogh, and the design and mechanics of how these creatures are and live, more ingenious than anything da Vinci could invent. And I continue to be amazed and amused by what I see and learn.

Some people question why other people study seemingly innocuous subjects. The people who ask those questions haven't learned the basic idea behind science: to learn more about our world and thus, understand it. They also haven't learned how to apply what they have learned to the wider world around us.

About 2 months ago, I attended a lecture about the source of funding for neuro science research. To begin the lecture, the speaker talked of why we do research in the first place. On the most basic level, it's because we want to know things, we are a curious species of animal. But the general public doesn't want to fund research just because one guy or gal is curious about something. The general public wants to fund research for a specific outcome, perhaps to eliminate a disease.

I want that as well. But I really enjoy reading about everything that leads up to that. Like this article I came across yesterday: Insects' Sex Scents Can Save Lives.

Just two days previous I caught two dragonflies in the throes of bug love, in the middle of the biking path I was on. I could have run them over!



S.

Eating Worms

As MSers we're all aware of T-cells. They are the immune cells believed to be responsible for an autoimmune response in our bodies that results in MS. But we also have B-cells. They are also immune cells responsible for identifying foreign invaders and marking them for destruction by creating antibodies.. They do this with the help of T-cells.

A recent study has come out that indicates the B-cells may also be responsible for more action than previously thought. The B-cells must be present for the T-cells to mature and operate the right way. Chemicals the B-cells produce are necessary for the immune system.
B cells' effects on T cells may open a new window on such diseases as lupus, asthma, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes, where doctors know that T cells are active. Maybe manipulating B cells offers a new way to affect the activity and survival of the T cells that cause disease.

The study I'm speaking of is one conducted on mice. Researchers exposed the mice to a certain type of parasitic worm that plays havoc on the immune system and watched how the immune system fought off the parasites. This is how they discovered the different roles of the B-cells. Researchers have been speculating that the presence of parasites triggers some sort of immune response that in some people helps reduce the symptoms of MS. This research is another step towards figuring out how and why.

Just before this study was released, was the announcement of a major study of MSers who willingly are exposed to certain parasitic worms to determine the value of them as a treatment. It's not so much the worms that could prevent MS relapses or worsening symptoms, but what those worms cause our bodies to do to protect ourselves from MS. I've written about this before. I don't have a problem with eating worms. I'm quite sure I have a veritable cornucopia of bugs and other creatures in my system as it is. What's a few more?

S.

Deer Poop or Something More Interesting?

The Wookie grew up in southern California and his father, being a geologist, spent a lot of time in the field, examining rocks and the like. Most summers found the family camping with Dad in the field. The field being the desert, mostly. With poisonous snakes and spiders and scorpions. The Wookie and his brothers learned very quickly to not automatically reach for or pick up things. The Wookie and I had a conversation the other day about my instinct to touch things and pick them up. I rarely think about it, I just do it. Or I poke them with a twig first. I don't think I would have survived past my fourth birthday had I been a member of that family.

I attended Seoul Foreign School for my final year of high school. Located in Seoul (of course), it is an international school for kids of foreigners in that city. It's also the alma mater of Jeopardy superstar Ken Jennings (who began attending the school the year I graduated).

Every year, during the first week of May the school had what was called "Korea Week". The students would participate in one particular group activity geared to getting a better understanding of the country. One group spent the week touring all the cultural spots of Seoul. One group went to Cheju Island, home of the famous pearl divers. One group hit all the art galleries. I joined up a camping group to visit the southern area of the country. It was led by my biology teacher, Jack Moon, originally from Kentucky, I believe.

We spent six hours on a train getting to the town, then had a 3 hour hike up a mountain to our camping location. There were about 20 of us in the group and about 5 very old men carried our gear to the camp site. They had these special frames they wore on their backs that could accommodate the packs and food. After we reached the top, the men unloaded then went back down the mountain. The site was two large chalets owned by a church group and used as retreats and vacation spots for church members. It wasn't true camping, but it was pretty basic. Girls in one chalet, boys in the other. It was a wonderful experience.

On the first day at the camping site, Mr. Moon and several of us went on a little exploratory walk. There was a round beige ball of something on the ground that Mr. Moon picked up to examine. After a few minutes, he told us that it was an egg casing for an insect. I was impressed (as you knew I would be). 5 days after we arrived, the little old men came back to carry our gear down. As we were going down the mountain, Mr. Moon asked one of the men about the egg casing he had been carrying around for the week. "Deer poop", was the answer. He threw it away.

We had a grand laugh over that one, as did the little old men, and I will never forget it as long as I live. Nor can I forget it, as I am always coming across things on my travels that I pick up to examine or put in my pocket to take home for later perusal. One of those things are galls and they kind of look like balls of deer poop. About 4 years ago, I found a gall on a leaf on a tree. Knowing that deer poop wouldn't be on a leaf, 5 feet from the ground, I took the leaf and gall and put them in a jar. A week later a tiny little gall wasp emerged, less than a quarter of an inch long. Cool!

In the past month I have come across 3 more galls. One of which was on a leaf on a tree, the other two just loose on the ground. Of course I took them home. They will be put in the fridge for the winter and in the spring I will attempt to see what emerges from them.

Gall wasps, perfectly harmless creatures, lay eggs on a leaf. When the egg hatches, the larva becomes encased in a gall, which is the leaf's chemical reaction to having a visitor. The larva eats away at the inside of the gall and transforms into an adult. When it's ready it makes a tiny hole in the gall to escape.

There are about 800 species of gall wasp in North America and the great majority of them use oak leaves on which to house their young. The next time you're out for a walk, take a closer look at those leaves. There is also a species that use rose leaves and stems. Those galls are quite pretty with little fuzzies coming out of them.

Before I pick up a gall from the ground, I take a really good look at it to make sure it's not deer poop. That's what Mr. Moon taught me.

One of the most difficult things about MS is figuring out what is deer poop and what isn't. Is this sensation a new symptom or did I just sleep on my arm funny? Is my optic nerve affected or did I just put on someone else's glasses? Is my fatigue related to the MS or did I just push myself too much this week? Like Mr. Moon, we have to carry around the deer poop for a few days before we make that determination. As much as I like discovery, here's hoping for more deer poop that we can just toss.

S.

300

A big round of congrats to Charles as he's posted his 300th Podcast. And since today is Wednesday, when he usually features some silly thing I've written and recorded, go check out today's Podcast about the movie 300 and the connection I made between ancient Spartans and MS. Or just click on the link on the right.

There was much excitement in my household late last night as I discovered some interesting goings on in my aquarium. I even have a picture or two to share but it will have to wait until later today. My remaining cannibalistic caddisfly is morphing as is one of my wasp larvae, and at least one of the feeder guppies is about to explode with a bunch of babies(I certainly hope not 300). Gotta do the work thing first but will be back this afternoon to let you know what's happening. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves...

S.