Wednesday, June 05, 2013


Room zy exp ln 15




                                          
                                                                    
The author in a less shaven state!






         

                                                         

That here [BELOW], re The Universe, is from my old book called 'An Outline of the Universe' (Pelican) by J. G. Crowther written about 1937! But the fundamental realities of the universe are still consistent as, the universe (reality itself?) has been around a vast time in relation to human "advance" etc and in fact Crowther's references to Relativity Theory as the basis of theories of the universe are true enough fo most of us, if we are lucky to understand any of it.

What I liked (I am being a bit "transparent" here) was his sometimes poetic ways of describing the sun. I want to quote from various of my small collection of (mostly tatty, and new and old Pelicans). The other books I used to read when I was a teenager included many of those in The Scientific Book Club, which covered a wide range of subjects (Gorrillas, mating rituals, astronomy, one on drugs (the only one ever to be stolen, it included stuff on LSD and psilosibin etc), Asimov's history of Biology.

In my late 20s to mid to late 30s I studied telecommunications and electronics at MIT and AIT (used to be MTI and ATI when I was there). I also did a course in Accountancy and business etc as I have in fact been involved in some small business ventures (ca 1988 and at various other times). Later I did some (fairly basic) study of Computing although I had fairly good knowledge of digital electronic systems in the 80s.  

More recently I have read books variously on neurology, cell biology, experiments at the molecular of substance level,  a theory of the cell as kind of computer (Dennis Bray in Wetware), and more or less popular books on mathematics as well as books by Richard Dawkins and J. D. Barrow's various books on maths, cosmology etc e.g. The Science of Limits and the Limits of Science.

I think a writer or artist who shuts his or her mind to any area of study etc is limiting her or himself. That said I have my own prejudices, old ideas, misconceptions, fixed ideas, and likes and dislikes...

So we strike a balance. I studied philosophy in the 90s and one area that interested me was epistemology and the problem of knowledge.

Initially I was using these (somewhat) for the specific "language" exhibited in each (and the more or less mysterious signs and symbols used in those areas) but I was also interested.

So, this is thus the KNOWLEDGE component of EYELIGHT (although of course dividing things up in this way is quite arbitrary and necessarily limited but then everything is limited...

I also have to concede that their are areas that are, as far as I can see, are almost beyond my understanding. I think I was fascinated in the idea of this reality and was always very far from understanding it all. The "use" of it all to me is the way I can cut it all up and "feed" it into other aspects of what I am doing - of course if someone wishes to discover these things more they can do what I did for blood and take if from Wikipaedia (I have given money to them). But I think (possibly) my reasons for cutting and pasting in many (not all, as what I also love, are the words, the phrases, and thus the act of copying these mysterious and often almost incomprehensible, and almost Infinite potentials of knowledge at least in some small "packets" is something I do in every book I read. (I once copied an entire book, word for word, by hand [this was in the early 70s and it didn't occur to me that there were such things as copying machines!) but I have since had a desire to do as  Goldsmith
does with his "uncreative writing" and copy out say, an entire philosophy book or a novel...or maybe an abstruse mathematics book (that I would probably only have a vague idea of what it is about)



                                                        A view of the human circulatory system.




                                      The Universe and Blood

The Universe is finite, but unbounded. The surface of the earth is also finite and unbounded. [It can be shown if someone or something traverses a sphere in decreasing spirals, then the person will continue infinitely. ]

    Matter, space and time are organically inter-related. If matter changes, space and time change too. Since matter is always changing, so must space and time. We have to imagine the Universe as a plastic, palpitating complex of matter, space and time. It is more like a trembling soap-bubble than a crystal scepter. When a particle of matter moves the strains and bends of space in its neighbourhood are changed.

…[There are millions of galaxies called nebulae (except for those nebulae that are gaseous inside our galaxy or inside others etc)]…

…the [galaxies] island universes are seen to be hurtling bodily through the tenuity at speeds at speeds of the order of 1000 miles per second [ x kilometres per second ]
and probably there are many millions more beyond the range of our telescopes [there are, since seen on radio telescopes] … they appear [to us] as nebulae. They are scattered throughout space fairly evenly…
  The immense speeds at which they recede may be due to the continuous expansion of space itself as if it were being blown up like a balloon, a possibility allowed by the theory or relativity…It has been estimated that  space doubles its radius every [1.4 billion years]…If this is true the island universes are ephemeral objects racing out of our sight…Oddly the recession of the spiral nebulae enables the number of particles in the universe to be estimated; it comes out at 1.4 x 10 exp (base 10) 79.

…All stars visible to the naked eye are members of our local island universe. … It is a disc-shaped Galaxy [many are spiral shaped etc] mainly of stars, for the Milky Way reveals the section to be seen when a being inside this Galaxy looks towards the rim…
    The island universe usually rotates around about one of the short axes…

     …It is estimated that the Galaxy rotates once in 300 million years…[Space is mainly uniform and constant in nature although this is only assumed, but seems to be consistent with most current theories]. …


Blood is a bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells.
In vertebrates, it is composed of blood cells suspended in blood plasma. Plasma, which constitutes 55% of blood fluid, is mostly water (92% by volume),[1] and contains dissipated proteins, glucose, mineral ions, hormones, carbon dioxide (plasma being the main medium for excretory product transportation), and blood cells themselves. Albumin is the main protein in plasma, and it functions to regulate the colloidal osmotic pressure of blood. The blood cells are mainly red blood cells (also called RBCs or erythrocytes) and white blood cells, including leukocytes and platelets. The most abundant cells in vertebrate blood are red blood cells. These contain hemoglobin, an  iron-containing protein, which facilitates transportation of oxygen by reversibly binding to this respiratory gas and greatly increasing its solubility in blood. In contrast, carbon dioxide is almost entirely transported extracellularly dissolved in plasma as bicarbonate ion.
Vertebrate blood is bright red when its hemoglobin is oxygenated. Some animals, such as crustaceans and mollusks, use hemocyanin to carry oxygen, instead of hemoglobin. Insects and some mollusks use a fluid called nemolymph instead of blood, the difference being that hemolymph is not contained in a closed circulatory system. In most insects, this "blood" does not contain oxygen-carrying molecules such as hemoglobin because their bodies are small enough for their tracheal to suffice for supplying oxygen.
Jawed vertebrates have anadaptice immune system, based largely on  white blood cells. White blood cells help to resist infections and parasites. Platelets are important in the clotting of blood.
Blood is circulated around the body through blood vessels by the pumping action of the heart. In animals with lungs, arterial blood carries oxygen from inhaled air to the tissues of the body, and venous blood carries carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabloism metabolism produced by cells from the tissues to the lungs to be exhaled.
Medical terms related to blood often begin with hemo- or hemato- (also spelled haemo- and haemato-) from the Greek word αἷμα (haima) for "blood". In terms of anatomy and histology blood is considered a specialized form of  connective tissue, given its origin in the bones and the presence of potential molecular fibers in the form of fibrinogen..
The albumins (formed from Latin: albumen[3] "(egg) white; dried egg white") are a family of globular proteins the most common of which is serum albumin. The albumin family consists of all proteins that are water-soluble, are moderately soluble in concentrated salt solutions, and experience heat denaturation. Albumins are commonly found in blood plasma, and are unique from other blood proteins  in that they are not glycosylated. Substances containing albumins, such as egg white, are called albuminoids.
A number of blood transport proteins are evolutionarily related, including serum albumin, alpha-fetoprotein, vitamin D-binding protein and afamin.[4][5][6]
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is an organelle organelle of cells in eukaryotic organisms that forms an interconnected network of membrane vesicles. According to the structure the endoplasmic reticulum is classified into two types, that is, rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) and smooth endoplasmic reticulum (SER). The rough endoplasmic reticulum is studded with ribosomes on the cytosolic face. These are the sites of protein synthesis. The rough endoplasmic reticulum is predominantly found in hepatocytes where protein synthesis occurs actively. The smooth endoplasmic reticulum is a smooth network without the ribosomes. The smooth endoplasmic reticulum is concerned with lipid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism and detoxification. The smooth endoplasmic reticulum is abundantly found in mammalian liver and gonad cells. The lacey membranes of the endoplasmic reticulum were first seen by Keith R. Porter, Albert Claude, and Ernest F. Fullam in the year 1945.[1]

Functions

 

Haemoglobin, a globular protein
green = haem groups
red & blue = protein subunits



Heme
Blood performs many important functions within the body including:

Constituents of human blood

   

            

                                


                                     Two tubes of EDTA-anticoagulated blood.                 
                                Left tube: after standing, the RBCs have settled at the bottom of the tube.
                                Right tube: contains freshly drawn blood.

Blood accounts for 7% of the human body weight,[2][3] with an average density of approximately 1060 kg/m3, very close to pure water's density of 1000 kg/m3.[4] The average adult has a blood volume of roughly 5 liters (1.3 gal), which is composed of plasma and several kinds of cells. These blood cells (which are also called corpuscles or "formed elements") consist of erythrocytes (red blood cells, RBCs), leukocytes (white blood cells), and thrombocytes (platelets). By volume, the red blood cells constitute about 45% of whole blood, the plasma about 54.3%, and white cells about 0.7%.
Whole blood (plasma and cells) exhibits non-Newtonian fluid dynamics; its flow properties are adapted to flow effectively through tiny capillary blood vessels with less resistance than plasma by itself. In addition, if all human hemoglobin were free in the plasma rather than being contained in RBCs, the circulatory fluid would be too viscous for the cardiovascular system to function effectively.

Cells

 

 

Further information: Complete blood count
One microliter of blood contains:
  • 4.7 to 6.1 million (male), 4.2 to 5.4 million (female) erythrocytes:[5] Red blood cells contain the blood's hemoglobin and distribute oxygen. Mature red blood cells lack a nucleus and organelles in mammals. The red blood cells (together with endothelial vessel cells and other cells) are also marked by glycoproteins that define the different blood types. The proportion of blood occupied by red blood cells is referred to as the hematocrit, and is normally about 45%. The combined surface area of all red blood cells of the human body would be roughly 2,000 times as great as the body's exterior surface.[6]
  • 4,000–11,000 leukocytes:[7] White blood cells are part of the body's immune system; they destroy and remove old or aberrant cells and cellular debris, as well as attack infectious agents (pathogens) and foreign substances. The cancer of leukocytes is called leukemia.
  • 200,000–500,000 thrombocytes:[7] Also called platelets, thrombocytes are responsible for blood clotting (coagulation). They change fibrinogen into fibrin. This fibrin creates a mesh onto which red blood cells collect and clot, which then stops more blood from leaving the body and also helps to prevent bacteria from entering the body.
Constitution of normal blood
Parameter
Value
Hematocrit
 45 ± 7 (38–52%) for males
42 ± 5 (37–47%) for females
pH
7.35–7.45
base excess
−3 to +3
PO2
10–13 kPa (80–100 mm Hg)
PCO2
4.8–5.8 kPa (35–45 mm Hg)
HCO3−
21–27 mM
Oxygen saturation
 Oxygenated: 98–99%
Deoxygenated: 75%

Plasma

Main article: Blood plasma
About 55% of blood is blood plasma, a fluid that is the blood's liquid medium, which by itself is straw-yellow in color. The blood plasma volume totals of 2.7–3.0 liters (2.8–3.2 quarts) in an average human. It is essentially an aqueous solution containing 92% water, 8% blood plasma proteins, and trace amounts of other materials. Plasma circulates dissolved nutrients, such as glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids (dissolved in the blood or bound to plasma proteins), and removes waste products, such as carbon dioxide, urea, and lactic acid.
Other important components include:
The term serum refers to plasma from which the clotting proteins have been removed. Most of the proteins remaining are albumin and immunoglobulins.

Narrow range of pH values

See also: Acid-base homeostasis
Blood pH is regulated to stay within the narrow range of 7.35 to 7.45, making it slightly basic.[8][9] Blood that has a pH below 7.35 is too acidic, whereas blood pH above 7.45 is too basic. Blood pH, partial pressure of oxygen (pO2), partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2), and HCO3− are carefully regulated by a number of homeostatic mechanisms, which exert their influence principally through the respiratory system and the urinary system in order to control the acid-base balance and respiration. An arterial blood gas test will measure these. Plasma also circulates hormones transmitting their messages to various tissues. The list of normal reference ranges for various blood electrolytes is extensive.












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