Strange Machines

I’m a real laid back Mom. As a teen, danger was my middle name. I have the proud scars and trophies to show for it. And a fond memory of a black Kawasaki trail bike I spray painted myself, whom I named Tommy Ray after a character in Clive Barker’s grand novel The Great and Secret Show.

As a kid, I loved to play in the mud, climb trees, windows, the gate, just about everything and I never fell. I loved the outdoors and I loved risky adventures. We had a small garden filled with lots of plants and trees where a little girl could bring her stuffed animal friends and play make believe. It was a wonderful, happy, stress-free childhood.

I intend for Jack to have the same.

So it is to no surprise that I not only encourage my son to climb, jump, play in mud, I also teach him safety rules. For instance, when he climbs, he must concentrate on what he’s doing, and he must hold on with both hands. If he needs help, he must ask. And I’ll only let him climb places which I deem safe, which is almost anywhere.

These days I am lazy and loathe the sun, but I will slather on sunblock and be prepared to swelter just so my boy can enjoy the park nearby and visit the lovely jungle trails at our zoo. And oh he loves it. He’ll swing like a monkey on the handrails while we wait for the tram and race through the path like a speeding bullet. He’s the most active child I know.

Research agrees risky fun play is critical for survival skills like making judgement calls and assessing danger, especially in this modern world:

According to the study, kids need the adventure of “risky” play: “Risk-taking increases the resilience of children,” said one researcher. “It helps them make judgments,” said another. They list examples of risky play that should be encouraged including fire-building, den-making, watersports, paintballing, boxing and climbing trees.

Arnon Lotem, a researcher at Tel Aviv University, found that modern people have adopted risk-taking behaviors similar to those of animals like rats and bees. And this behavior, Prof. Lotem says might not prepare humankind for the types modern dangers we face every day — like crossing the street, accepting a high-risk mortgage, driving on the freeway, or flying a plane.

(Sources: New Study: Kids Need the Adventure of “Risky” Play; Humans Evolved to Fear Snakes, Not High-Risk Mortgages or Risks at Traffic Lights)

Most recently I finished reading Gregory Benford’s The Sunborn, a hard SF novel about life on Pluto (and other wildcards).

He introduced a new form of life which never occurred to me before and I felt so enthralled about the abundance and diversity of life itself (read Deep-Sea Alien Abode Discovered for starters).

Even though we haven’t found anything alive outside our planet yet doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Now this translates into probabilities rather than concrete proof in the form of Drake Equation. But Benford’s novel does raise an interesting issue - that perhaps other forms of life may be in a form that we are unable to detect with our instruments after all.

My own theory, is that we’re so far in the corner of the Universe, so far from the excitement of the centre that no one has detected us nor us them. The Universe is a huge place, but the laws of physics does limit travel (even as planet-sized beings) through its vastness.

Still, when I think about the magnitude and grandeur of this place we live in, I am grateful to exist even for this microsecond to breathe it in and know that I am a part of it.

Unfortunately for us humans (and cats too, sorry) we’re unable to regenerate any of our parts with our stem cells like our invertebrate relative, the sea squirt. Not yet at least but scientists are working on it.

… regeneration (for the sea squirt) began from dozens of tiny compartments loaded with stem cells, which the researchers dubbed regeneration niches. “In mammals, many adult organs and tissues contain specific stem cells that are involved in repair and some restricted regeneration abilities,” biologist Ram Reshef at Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa said.

Regenerating our bits would mean a longer life as we turn in our old parts for new ones. It’s one of the touted killer apps for longevity and anti-aging advocates. Right now, all we have is calorie restriction and it’s often a tough one to follow (think: pineapple tarts).

While the stem cells the researchers looked at are much like stem cells in adult mammals that give rise to our tissues and organs, “the huge difference is that they culminate in an entire organism,” Reshef said. The most important implication of their finding is the possibility that vertebrate adult tissue stem cells may exhibit the same capabilities to generate any cell in the body, he added.

Reshef and his colleagues are currently teasing apart the molecular mechanisms by which the sea squirt accomplishes its whole body regeneration and to compare that process with similar mechanisms in other invertebrates and vertebrates. “We speculate that vertebrates altered or suppressed parts or all of this ability,” Reshef said.

Hope for us, no?

(Source: LiveScience - Sea Squirt Regrows Entire Body from One Blood Vessel)

I’ve been thinking a lot about flow lately and what sort of activities I do get immersed in, some practical, some not, and that explains why sometimes I get annoyed when interrupted midway of the activity.

* Organising pix of my cats and Jack
* Meddling with my blog or website
* Playing any RPG
* Oil painting
* Reading an engaging book
* Watching an engaging movie
* Watching a happy scene in my mind’s eye

Flow is a sort of play for adults and kids alike which has been proven to bring happiness and fulfillment.

One route to more happiness is called “flow,” an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you’re doing than from how you do it.

(Source: The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don’t Use Them)

For me, it is very therapeutic to immerse myself into something for a while.

Happiness is within our reach. We just have to stretch out and grasp it.