Mass Extinctions Revisited, Moving Octopuses

We've known about the Capitanian crisis for some time: some scientists have, anyway. What's new is the idea that it may have been a major mass extinction in its own right: a sort of prequel to the Great Dying.

Other scientists solved part of the puzzle of how octopuses coordinate their arms when moving. Their research may help folks design soft robots: useful in medicine and rescue work.

1. A "New" Mass Extinction
   • When the World was Young(er)
   • Igneous Provinces: Lava and Mass Extinctions
   • Life on Earth: Ups and Downs
2. Octopus Arms and Intelligence
   • Mollusk Brains

Reading up on mass extinctions while thinking about doomsday predictions, religious and secular, I wrote stuff that doesn't quite fit in this post. Instead of deleting it, or taking time to work it up to a full-fledged post, I tacked it on as an 'afterword.' I did the same thing last week. Anyway, this week there's —

• Another Afterword: Angst, Assumptions, and Aliens

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Plato and Reality

Grabbing a bit of reality and running in a particular direction, I could assume that spirit and matter aren't the same (true); and that they're at war (not so much).

The notion that 'spiritual' is good and 'material' is bad goes back at least to Plato's theory of forms: the assertion that the highest reality is the realm of ideas, not the changing material world. Plato's cave is probably the best-known illustration of Platonic idealism.

Gnosticism may or may not have its roots in the Platonic Academy, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, or 'all of the above.'

I have no trouble believing that there's more to reality than what we can see, touch, or measure. That's just as well, since that's what the Church says. Humans are creatures made of spirit and matter. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 360-367)

I also don't have a problem with thinking that the physical world, this universe, isn't the highest reality. We've known that it's a tent, something temporary, for millennia. (April 17, 2015)

"He sits enthroned above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; He stretches out the heavens like a veil, spreads them out like a tent to dwell in."
(Isaiah 40:22)

However, that emphatically does not make the material world bad. I must believe that God makes this universe, that God is good: and that God doesn't make junk. (Genesis 1:31; Catechism, 295-301, 337-349, 1955)

As for the idea that 'spiritual is good, physical is bad:' Satan, a fallen angel, is pure spirit; and hardly a poster child for 'goodness.' That brings up free will, and that's another topic. (Catechism, 311, 328-336, 391-395)

Where was I? Plato, reality, Satan, getting a grip. Right.

A few more points that I've been over before, and I'm almost done.

Humans are animals: but we're not just animals. (Catechism, 1951, 1700-1706, 1730)

We don't own the world, but we've got "dominion" over it: pretty much the same way a shop foreman or steward has a degree of authority over the shop or estate. One of our jobs is managing this world's resources: for our reasoned use, and for all future generations. (Genesis 1:26-27; Catechism, 337-349, 355, 373, 2415-2418, 2456)

Knowledge is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Science, the systematic pursuit of knowledge, is part of being human. It's what we're supposed to do. (Catechism, 1831, 2293-2295)

Thinking is not a sin, and that's almost another topic. (April 3, 2015; March 29, 2015)

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1. A "New" Mass Extinction

(From Science Photo Library, via BBC News, used w/o permission/)
("Brachiopods like these dominated the seas prior to the Capitanian extinction"
(BBC News))

"New mass extinction event identified by geologists"
Alex Berezow, BBC News (April 21, 2015)
"Over the past 450 million years, life on Earth has been devastated by five mass extinction events that are widely recognised by geologists.

"Now, an international team of researchers proposes adding a sixth mass extinction to the list.

"The team believes it has accumulated sufficient evidence to promote the Capitanian event to the rank of mass extinction.

"The extinction occurred approximately 262 million years ago.

"Their proposal would elevate the Capitanian, which occurred during the Middle Permian period, to sit alongside the so-called 'Big Five' mass extinctions.

"The researchers, led by Dr David Bond of the University of Hull, presented their case in the Geological Society of America Bulletin.

"The status of the Capitanian crisis is disputed because little has been learned about it since its discovery 20 years ago. The majority of the existing literature is based on evidence unearthed in the tropics...."

Dr. Bond's team headed to Spitsbergen, an island between the Arctic Ocean, Norwegian Sea, and Greenland Sea. It's populated by Norwegians, Russians, scientists, and polar bears.

These scientists worked during July, so they had 24 hours of sunlight each day; and the weather is better for outdoor work. They were studying the Kapp Starostin Formation, rock layers up to 400 meters thick, with fossils from the Carboniferous and Permian periods: laid down over about 27,000,000 years.

Spitsbergen is north of Earth's arctic circle now, but Earth's surface shifts around. A quarter-billion years back, that chunk of land was in Earth's temperate zone, about halfway between the north pole and equator.

When the World was Young(er)

(From Fred Ziegler and others at the Paleogeographic Atlas Project, via Allister Rees Paleozoic/PaleoIntegration Project, used w/o permission.)
(Earth in the Wordian age, Mid-Permian, about 268,000,000 and 265,000,000 years ago.)

The Capitanian age, about two thirds through the Permian, ran from 265,000,000 to 259,000,000 years ago: give or take 400,000. As usual, things had changed.

The Carboniferous rainforests had been replaced by great deserts. Meganeura, insects with two-foot wingspans, were extinct; but Blattoptera, forerunners of modern cockroaches, mantises, and termites, survived.

So had ammonites — relatives of today's octopuses (octopi?), squid, and cuttlefish — and would endure until the end of the Cretaceous. Those critters are Coleoidea. They've been around since the Carboniferous. I'll get back to octopuses, or octopi, or whatever, in a bit.

Paleontologists knew there had been a mass extinction during the Capitanian. Two, actually: Olson's Extinction, roughly 270,000,000 years back; and another at the end of the Capitanian, or maybe during the Wuchiapingian.

Like I've said before, don't bother trying to memorize those names. There will not be a test on this.

Olson's Extinction was bad news for pelycosaurs like dimetrodon, and diadectes, reptile-like amphibians.

On the other hand, therapsids flourished in the bounce-back which followed. That's good news for us, since therapsids included critters that would eventually become mammals.

"Therapsid" seems to be distinct from "theropsid," which means pretty much the same as synapsid, and that's yet another topic. (August 8, 2014)

Dr. Bond's team thinks their analysis shows that the mid-Capitanian extinction event was global, and as significant as the 'big five."

Igneous Provinces: Lava and Mass Extinctions

(From Williamborg, USGS; via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
("This file is an identification of large igneous provinces overlaid on a map produced by United States National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration's National Geophysical Data Center. Intended for use in the Large igneous province page."
(Williamborg/Wikimedia Commons))

"...the team examined fossils of brachiopods and bivalve molluscs (the former resemble the latter but, existing in different phyla, are evolutionarily unrelated). The pre-extinction Capitanian age was dominated by brachiopods....

"...However, in the middle of the Capitanian strata, brachiopod diversity fell precipitously: 87% of the species vanished in a few tens of thousands of years, a mere blip on the geologic time scale. Clearly, something catastrophic had occurred.

"Dr Bond believes the extinction was triggered by the eruption of the Emeishan Traps, now located in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan.

"Volcanic eruptions release enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, which can cause ocean acidification. A depletion of seafloor oxygen may also have played a role.

"Then, Dr Bond's team noticed that in younger rock layers, new brachiopod and bivalve species re-emerged. The post-extinction Capitanian age shifted from being dominated by brachiopods to being dominated by bivalves...."
(Alex Berezow, BBC News)

Scientists are still figuring out how the Emeishan Traps fit into the picture.

The Emeishan Traps are many layers of igneous rock left over from a whole mess of volcanic eruptions that started about 260,000,000 years ago. They're nowhere near as big as the Siberian Traps. That series of eruptions started about nine million years later.

I'm not sure what's going on here. I've read that Olson's Extinction happened about 270,000,000 years ago, then the Emeishan Traps started forming around 260,000,000 years back — and the End-Capitanian extinction would have been roughly 259,000,000 years ago: give or take 400,000.

I'm not surprised that the numbers from various sources don't quite line up. We didn't know that Earth's billions of years old until a few centuries back, and a great deal of what we know of Earth's story has been learned in the last few generations: much of that in my lifetime. Chronological uncertainties amounting to fractions of one percent are — understandable.

Back, briefly, to that BBC News article.

"...But, just a few million years later, these new species disappeared, apparently wiped out in yet another extinction event. Following that, the End-Permian mass extinction, represented by its own unique rock layer, devastated the planet...."
(Alex Berezow, BBC News)

That End-Permian mass extinction was a bad one: the only mass extinction affecting insects. Whatever happened killed off Tabulata and rugose corals, and finished off the last of the trilobites.

But scorpions survived. They showed up about 430,000,000 years ago, surviving every mass extinction since. Cockroaches are comparative newcomers. 'Modern' cockroaches didn't start scuttling around until the early Cretaceous, maybe 100,000,000 years back.

Rats have only been around for about 54,000,000 years, but are almost as notoriously hard to exterminate as cockroaches. We're not as nearly-indestructible as cockroaches: but we're a lot smarter. I'll get back to that.

Life on Earth: Ups and Downs

(From Albert Mestre, Philcha, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
("Phanerozoic biodiversity as shown by the fossil record"
(Wikipedia))

The 'big five' is a somewhat-arbitrary list of major extinction events. Those whacking great numbers is how many years ago each happened:

• Ordovician-Silurian
  (447,000,000 to 443 ,000,000)
• Late Devonian
  (375,000,000 to 360,000,000)
• Permian-Triassic
  (252,000,000)
• Triassic-Jurassic
  (201,300,000)
• Cretaceous-Paleogene
  (66,000,000)

Just to make things more complicated, the Ordovician-Silurian event happened in two pulses; The Great Dying is a more dramatic name for the Permian–Triassic event; and sometimes the End-Capitanian extinction event is called the end-Guadalupian.

Like I said, the 'big five' list is a bit arbitrary.

The Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event, some 488,000,000 years back, doesn't make the list; but it was hard on brachiopods, conodonts, and trilobites. Trilobites didn't survive the Permian mass extinction; conodonts probably got wiped out later, in the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event; and that's yet again another topic.

There may have been an End-Ediacaran extinction, about 542,000,000 years ago, that wiped out Ediacara biota, strange whatsit critters that aren't quite like anything alive today.

They're not Earth's earliest life, though: not by a long shot. Arcaea, single-cell organisms with no cell nucleus, showed up 3,000,000,000 — maybe 3,500,000,000 to 3,700,000,000 — years ago.

The Great Oxygenation Event, some 2,300,000,000 years ago, was a Precambrian ecological disaster — for anaerobic critters. (June 27, 2014)

Some scientists have said that extinction events happen in cycles, with mass extinctions every 26,000,000 to 30,000,000 — or maybe 62,000,000 — years.

My guess is that if there is a pattern to these extinctions, it's nowhere near as regular as today's seasons.

For example — it was smooth sailing between the Late Tithonian, about 145,000,000 years back, and the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction that killed off non-avian dinosaurs: a span of 84,000,000 years. But the interval between the Triassic-Jurassic event, 201,300,000 years ago; and the Toarcian turnover 183,000,000 years back; was less than 18,000,000.

---

2. Octopus Arms and Intelligence

(From SPL, via BBC News, used w/o permission/)
("The study is the first to examine how octopuses co-ordinate their eight, flexible limbs as they crawl"
(BBC News))

"How octopuses co-ordinate their arms"
Victoria Gill, BBC News (April 16, 2015)

"With the aid of high-speed cameras, scientists have revealed how octopuses co-ordinate their arms to crawl.

"Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem filmed crawling octopuses to work out exactly how the animals used their almost limitlessly flexible arms when they move.

"This revealed the surprising simplicity of their motion; they just choose which arm to use to push themselves along...."

Octopuses — or octopi, for folks who like the Latin plural form — are smart critters. We're not sure how smart: yet.

That animated image is from The Octopus Group, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: whose members are humans, not cephalopods. Octopuses are smart, but they're not that smart.

Since animals use neurons to process information, we can get a very rough estimate of how smart a critter is by counting how many neurons are in its brain.

Cockroach brains, for example, have about 1,000,000 neurons. That's plenty for a cockroach's lifestyle, but nowhere near the 760,000,000 neurons in a cat's brain, or 86,000,000,000 in a human's. (August 15, 2014)

An octopus has about 300,000,000 neurons: midway between the count for a rat (200,000,000) and a cat (760,000,000). Looks like those eight-armed mollusks could be at least as smart as the lab rats used in maze experiments. It's also why some countries have protective legislation for octopuses, insisting that surgery performed on them be with anesthesia.

I think that's a good idea. Responsibilities come with being human. Using animals is okay, but making them suffer or die needlessly isn't. (Catechism, 2418)

I've read that octopus intelligence is a subject of lively debate among scientists. That's not surprising: not to me, anyway.

Mollusk Brains

We're vertebrates, mammals, so we've got a cerebral cortex (with roughly 20,000,000,000 neurons in an average human's) that handles most of what we call "thinking."

Mollusk nervous systems aren't wired like ours. Their brain is wrapped around the esophagus, spelled oesophagus in British English; the pipe running from a critter's mouth to its digestive system.

On top of that, two thirds of an octopus's neurons are in its arms. Each arm has 'limited autonomy,' is able to act on its own. Suckers on each arm 'taste' what they're touching, so the arm won't grasp one of its seven partners.

Octopus arm research has a practical side:

"...'People want to build soft robots for medical purposes and rescue operations,' said Dr Guy Levy, one of the researchers involved in the project.

"Such soft-bodied, octopus-inspired arms would not be limited by fixed joints, he explained. This could be useful to access narrow, difficult to reach spaces - perhaps getting help to people trapped at the scene of a collapsed building....

"...To find out the secrets of the octopus's remarkably efficient movement, Dr Levy and his colleague Prof Benny Hochner videoed the animals from underneath as they crawled, and analysed their motion frame by frame.

"This detailed study showed that, by shortening and lengthening, each arm pushed the body in only one direction.

" 'So the octopus only has to decide which arm to use for the pushing - it doesn't need to decide which direction this arm will push,' explained Dr Levy...."
(Victoria Gill, BBC News)

It's a simple, elegant, solution to what could be a complicated problem. All the octopus does is push with the arm that's facing away from where it wants to go. No, I don't think octopuses are people, with our sort of free will: but I'm not going to tie myself in linguistic knots, avoiding words like "wants" or "decides."

Studying the critters' neural circuits to find out how octopuses decide which arm to use is a next step in this research: and may raise more questions than it answers. As Dr. Levy said, "Every time we try to understand something new about the octopus, there are new surprises."

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Another Afterword: Angst, Assumptions, and Aliens

I ran into the Fermi paradox while writing this post: something to do with mass extinctions, as I recall. The basic idea is that Earth's sun is a typical star, and it looks like this galaxy has billions of planets like Earth: but we've found no evidence of visits from other people.

We've found several ways to travel between stars: some of them very nearly ready for flight testing. Even at the ten-thousand-years-per-trip rate of the slower methods, folks like us could easily have reached Earth by now: even if they'd started on the other side of the Milky Way.

So: where is everybody?

A conventionally-pessimistic answer is that civilizations promptly destroy themselves after getting as smart and technically proficient as we are.

That may seem plausible, at least for folks who assumed that we have absolute control over nature. (February 10, 2013)

I've talked about fear, flappers, and Europe flambé, before. (August 31, 2014)

Add Cold War and environmentalist angst, and Yeats starts sounding like a starry-eyed optimist:

"...Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...."
("The Second Coming," W. B. Yeats (1919))

Folks can make monumentally stupid, self-destructive, mistakes: and natural disasters happen.

But knowing that we live on a planet where intermittent continental glaciation, exploding mountains, and the occasional asteroid impact are facts of life doesn't fill me with dread.

Scorpions, cockroaches, and rats have endured here; we're at least as adaptable as they are; and we're a whole lot smarter.

We figured out how to use fire and string without killing ourselves — so I think we'll survive steam locomotives, PVC, and Roombas. (August 15, 2014; May 9, 2014)

As for the Fermi paradox, it hinges on a really big assumption: that folks who aren't human would think and act the way we do.

I don't think we do — or don't — have neighbors in this universe. Right now, we don't know.

But if we do meet non-human intelligence: my guess is that they won't be human. At all. And that's still another topic. Topics.

Not-entirely-unrelated posts:

• "Early Brood Care, Four-Eyed Cambrian Predator"
  (April 3, 2015)
  Particularly
  • Getting Surprised
  • Antennae, Eyes, and Brains
• "The Thumb-Brain Connection, and DIY Robots"
  (March 27, 2015)
  Particularly
  • Brains and Assumptions
  • God, Clay, and Accepting Arithmetic
• "Neurosynaptic Cores and Retinal Implants: Getting a Grip About Tech"
  (August 15, 2014)
  Particularly
  • IBM's TrueNorth Chip and Cockroach Brains
  • Science, Faith, and Autopsies
  • Leaving the 1940s Behind: Heavily Interconnected, Biologically-Inspired Chip
• "Habitable Worlds, Homer, and Haldane — or — Ganymede's Oceans, and Imagining Kepler-186f's Sunsets"
  (May 9, 2014)
  Particularly
  • Space Aliens May Not be Human — or — "the Great Filter" and Haldane
    • Horses, Humans, and Attitude
    • Smörgåsbords and Crazy Uncle Eddy
• "Humans are Animals: But Not Just Animals"
  (August 31, 2011)

The Thumb-Brain Connection, and DIY Robots

Scientists learned how using our thumbs changes our brains by collecting data from 26 smartphone users, 11 users of "old-fashioned cellphones," and electroencephalography.

Building your own robot is getting a whole lot easier, now that RoboCORE is around. It's a robotic central nervous system you can program with C++ or Python.

1. Smart Phones, Thumbs, and a Grain of Salt
2. RoboCORE, Personal Robots, and Movies
   • Kerosene Lamps to DIY Robots in Three Generations
   • No [Advanced] Programming Skills Needed

Build-your-own robots reminded me of garage bands, guitars, and why I don't yearn for the days of cholera and famines. That's why this post has an epilogue of sorts:

• Faith, Famines, and Looking Ahead

I've done that before. (August 29, 2014)

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Brains and Assumptions

When I was in high school, I learned that adult brains were static, unchanging. Neuroscientists thought, or assumed, that once we get past youth — that our brains don't change: no new neurons, no new connections between neurons.

They were wrong.

Rhesus monkeys keep rewiring their brains through adulthood — and so do we. A five-dollar word for having a brain that changes is neuroplasticity. Having a capacity for learning, and learning, aren't the same thing: and that's another topic.

We've got new tech for tracking what goes on in our brains, but scientists have known that electrical impulses happen in brains since around 1860.

We've also learned a great deal since the days of Richard Caton, Adolf Beck, and Vladimir Pravdich-Neminsky.

Since tech like functional neuroimaging and magnetoencephalography is new(ish), my guess is that we'll learn a very great deal more in the next few generations.

The Missing Hippocampus of Henry Molaison

Before today's imaging technologies, opportunities for learning how the brain works were largely limited to studying victims of horrific accidents, like Phineas Gage; or survivors of drastic medical treatments, like Henry Molaison.

Doctors cut out Henry Molaison's hippocampi and other components, in a well-intentioned effort to cure his epilepsy. He lived for decades after the surgery.

Being used as a lab rat and other personal experiences gave me opportunities to learn that doctors aren't always right: but in this case, removing part of the patient's brain worked. Mr. Molaison no longer had epilepsy.

That was the good news. The bad news was that he had serious trouble with memory after the operation. His experiences gave scientists opportunities to study how memory works: by noting how it didn't work for him.

Medical research, even research involving humans, can be a good idea. But 'it's for science' isn't a good excuse for ignoring ethics. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2292-2296)

Balancing the needs and well-being of the subject with our natural curiosity may be frustrating: but it would help us avoid atrocities like Auschwitz, Dachau, Tuskegee, and Willowbrook. (December 5, 2014)

Being curious comes with being human, or should. Part of our job is taking care of this astounding creation: studying it and developing new tools. Science and technology aren't transgressions. They're what we do. (Genesis 1:27-31; Catechism, 31, 355-361, 374-379, 2292-2296, 2301)

God, Clay, and Accepting Arithmetic

Now that we have a better idea of what to look for, scientists have been learning more about how our brains change — how experience gets recorded; how we learn new skills, and improve old ones.

For example: cabbies, folks whose livelihood depends on keeping track of a city's transportation network and planning optimum routes on the fly, generally have oversize hippocampuses. Hippocampi. Whatever.

The hippocampus isn't uniquely human. It's standard-issue for mammals, and most likely developed from the pallium, a structure we share with all vertebrates.

If you're waiting for a rant about the "religion of the Antichrist," evolution — you'll have a long wait. I'm a Christian, and a Catholic.

The idea of being made from the stuff of this world and in the image of God — mind and body, body and soul — is something I must believe. (Genesis 2:7; Catechism, 355, 357, 362-368)

What's changed recently is how much we know about the 'clay' God used. (January 2, 2014; April 4, 2014)

Oddly enough, I have yet to run into denunciations of arithmetic: although the symbols we use for numbers are Hindu-Arabic; and a person can add, subtract, multiply, and divide, without consulting the Bible. (February 5, 2014)

Beware the Robots! — or — Rotwang's Maschinenmensch, H.A.L., and All That

Not all fictional robots are psychotic killers, like "2001: A Space Odyssey's" H.A.L. For that matter, H.A.L.'s behavior was — in Clark's novelization of the movie — a logical consequence of profoundly bad decisions by the mission planners.

Authors have many reasons for writing tales of robots: like discussing human frailties and potential, raising social consciousness through allegory, and paying the bills.

I think (some) speculative fiction is getting more sophisticated in portrayals of robots because more adults are admitting to an interest in the genre — and an increasing number of us have worked with robots and other AI.

I also think that there isn't a technology, real or imagined, from sharpened sticks to Rotwang's maschinenmensch, that can't be misused.

Good grief: string can kill, if we let it tighten around our neck; and after a million years we still have the occasional spot of trouble with fire. (August 15, 2014; May 9, 2014)

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1. Smart Phones, Thumbs, and a Grain of Salt

"Smartphone use changing our brain and thumb interaction, say researchers"
Jim Drury, Reuters (March 25, 2015)

"Typing text messages, scrolling web pages, and checking your email on your smartphone could be changing the way your thumbs and brain interacts. That's according to researchers from the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich, and University of Fribourg.

"Dr Arko Ghosh, of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, led the research which involved using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the cortical brain activity in 37 right-handed people, 26 of whom were touchscreen Smartphone users and 11 users of old-fashioned cellphones.

"A total of 62 electrodes were placed on an EEG cap worn by subjects to record how the brain processed touch from their thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Brain activity was then compared with the individual commands recorded by each individuals' phone logs...."

Scientists have been tracking electrical activity in brains since the 1870s: and in human brains since 1924. Back then we didn't have smart phones, though: which make this sort of research a whole lot easier.

Since smart phones keep a log of the user's activity, researchers got very exact data on how often folks had touched parts of the smart phone — and could compare that to changes in their brains.

I think this research is interesting, and it may indirectly help designers of next-generation smart phones. It also adds to what we know about how our brains work.

However, I take this bit of the article with a few grains of salt:

"...Ghosh says the results suggest that repetitive movements over the touchscreen surface reshape sensory processing from the hand, with daily updates in the brain's representation of the fingertips. He believes that cortical sensory processing in the contemporary brain is continuously shaped by personal digital technology...."
(Jim Drury, Reuters)

Personal digital tech has an effect on our brains. It'd be odd if it didn't. Anything we do, or experience, affects our brains. If that wasn't so, we'd never remember anything, or learn anything.

What's been changing in recent years is how much we know about the neuromechanics — if that wasn't a word before, it is now — of learning and memory work. We've come a long way since the 'good old days,' when experts thought our brains pretty much just sat there.

More:

• Memory
  • Cognitive neuroscience of memory
  Wikipedia
• Neuroplasticity
  Wikipedia
• "London taxi drivers and bus drivers: a structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis."
  E. A. Maguire EA, K. Woollett, H. J. Spiers; abstract; National Institutes of Health (2006)
• "Taxi drivers' brains 'grow' on the job"
  BBC News (March 14, 2000)

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2. RoboCORE, Personal Robots, and Movies

(From Geeky Gadgets, used w/o permission.)
(RoboCORE: plug-and-play reaches robotics, a robotic brain in a box.)

"DIY robotics device developed"
Reuters (March20, 2015)

"It's a revolution in robotics that makes building your own personal robot a reality for the masses.

"The new device developed by Polish scientists Dominik Nowak and Radoslaw Jarema of the Husarion Company, acts as a robot's central nervous system and provides people with the hardware and software to build almost any type of robot they can think of....

"...While RoboCORE contains advanced technology, the designers kept the system simple for users. It's compatible with almost any mechanical system; even Lego's Mindstorm, and uses open system cloud-based software to control the finished construction...."

In the movies, robots are right up there with Godzilla as threats:

• Rogue scientist tries taking over the world with robots
  "The Phantom Creeps" (1939)
• Robots
  • Destroy and/or enslave humanity
    "Robot Monster" (1953)
    "Colossus: The Forbin Project" (1970)
    "The Terminator" (1984)
    
  • "The Matrix" (1999)
  • Wreak havoc and destruction in a luxury resort
    "Westworld" (1974))

That's the movies.

I've talked about robots, the Roomba revolution that wasn't, and conventional angst, before. (August 22, 2014; August 15, 2014)

Bottom line? Artificial intelligence has so far been quite obviously "artificial." But even if a robot passes a Turning Test, I don't think humanity will be replaced. Some of our jobs: that's yet another topic. (August 15, 2014; May 10, 2013)

Getting back to RoboCORE and Reuters, whoever wrote — or edited — it apparently likes this kickstarter. The tone is downright enthusiastic.

Maybe it comes from growing up in the '60s, but "for the masses" seems out of place here.

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform based in America. 'Obviously, from one point of view, a capitalistic imperialistic plot to enslave the world.

Crowdfunding is "the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet." (Oxford Dictionaries) — which I think it s a really good idea.

One of the problems with capitalism, Victorian style, was that it was a sort of upper-crust club: a game played by and for folks with lots of wealth. My opinion. I've talked about wealth, poverty, and social justice, before. (September 28, 2014; March 8, 2011)

Kerosene Lamps to DIY Robots in Three Generations

(From RoboCORE via Kickstarter, used w/o permission.)
("Build your own robots. Connect them to the Web. Develop and share your passion. Building robots has never been so easy and affordable."
(RoboCORE))

My father remembered when a kerosene lamp was new — and potentially dangerous — tech, I grew up in a world where computers were 'science fiction,' and my kids probably know what that thing with a screen is called.

They had a kerosene lamp — my father's family, not my kids. Come to think of it, one of my ancestors was the first person in his part of the world with a telephone. Technophobia does not run in the family. But we aren't stupid, either. Tech does stuff: and it's best to find out what it does before letting it run unattended.

My father told how his folks cleared ground around a stump before test-lighting the lamp under controlled conditions. And that's not quite another topic.

I'm convinced that folks in the Paleolithic, Old Kingdom, and Renaissance got along without kerosene lamps and Roombas. But I'm also convinced that we're not losing our humanity because some animated doorstop can sweep the floor.

I'm also pretty sure that kids growing up in families where DIY robots are a child's — or mom's — toy won't all grow up to be the next Luigi Taparelli, Mother Teresa, or Bill Gates. But some might: and many more will very likely find new uses for this emerging technology.

More about RoboCORE:

• Husarion
  (husarion.com)
• "RoboCORE"
  (robocore.io)
• "RoboCORE: the heart of your personal robot"
  Kickstarter
• "RoboCORE : Designed To Be The Heart Of Your Personal Robot (video)"
  Julian Horsey, Geeky Gadgets (February 12, 2015)
• "RoboCore Is A Core For Your Robo"
  John Biggs, TechCrunch (February 11,2015)

No [Advanced] Programming Skills Needed

The Reuters article says you don't need "programming or engineering skills" to make RoboCORE work. I think Husarion's site is a tad more accurate:

"...you can build your personal assistants from scratch without high­level programming skills and at an affordable price....

"...Use our C++ or Python programming interface to revive your constructions. If you have everything programmed the Arduino, you can easily handle RoboCORE too....""
(robocore.io)

My family might have a blast, playing with RoboCORE. But my son is C+ certified; helped my son-in-law design industrial robots; and is developing a digital game, in cooperation with two of my daughters.

This is not a normal family.

We're not the only folks who kept up with some Information Age tech, though. I'm pretty sure that RoboCORE and products like it will be as well-liked and widely-used as guitars and shop tools. Not everybody's a musician or woodworker: but many are.

If DIY robots get popular enough, we'll probably hear warnings against this 'Satanic' snare for sinners.

Don't laugh. Back when "garage band" was a bunch of kids making music in a gaarage, not music software, a ranting preacher or two denounced guitars — along with commies, Catholicism, and other 'Satanic' plots. I think they were sincere: and set me on my path to becoming a Catholic. And that's another topic.

Or maybe it is vaguely on-topic.

---

Faith, Famines, and Looking Ahead

I've been asked how I can think that my faith has any relevance in today's world. The question makes sense, since some of the louder Christians apparently feel that being Christian means trying to live in the 1820s: or at least before the Seneca Falls Convention.

Folks were Christians in the 1800s: and some of us have an odd nostalgia for the 'good old days' of cholera pandemics and frequent famines.

But I'm a Christian, a Catholic, and I know my faith's history.

We were 'out of step' with contemporary culture in the 1st and 11th centuries: and almost certainly won't be fervent supporters of whatever's fashionable in the 31st.

That's because there hasn't been a society yet that wholeheartedly embraced the idea that loving neighbors — and seeing everybody as neighbors — makes sense. (Matthew 22:36-40, 5:43-44; Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-27, 29-37; Catechism, 1825)

We keep passing the idea along, though: along with the rest of what our Lord told us. And with every millennium that passes, a few more folks get the message: and act like it matters. (January 18, 2015; December 28, 2014; October 26, 2014)


(From JJasso, used w/o permission.)

Stuff, but not nonsense:

• "Mutant Cows, Mass Migrations, and a Brain Gene"
  (March 6, 2015)
  Particularly
  • Science, Competence, and Ethics
  • Another Uniquely-Human 'Brain' Gene
• " 'Months of Misery' and Job's Friends"
  (February 8, 2015)
  Particularly
  • Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries: With Pits
  • Depression and Death
  • Praise the Lord and Pass the Prescriptions
• "Build Your Own Robot Swarm — or — Angular Automatons and Cuckoo Clocks"
  (August 22, 2014)
  Particularly
  • The Digesting Duck that Didn't, Cuckoo Clocks, and Pygmalion
  • Victor Frankenstein, The Phantom Creeps, and All That
  • Being Creative, Being Human
• "Neurosynaptic Cores and Retinal Implants: Getting a Grip About Tech"
  (August 15, 2014)
  Particularly
  • "Metropolis," Tsukumogami, and the Roomba Revolution that Wasn't
  • IBM's TrueNorth Chip and Cockroach Brains
  • Science, Faith, and Autopsies
• "Spaceships, Robots, and Being Catholic"
  (April 12, 2013)
  Particularly
  • Being Human and Building Robots

Mutant Cows, Mass Migrations, and a Brain Gene

Bovine tuberculosis may not be a big problem, if Ministry of Agriculture in Northwest A&F University, Yangling, research pays off.

Meanwhile, we may be learning who made Europe look and sound the way it does today: and scientists at the Max Plank Institute discovered how a uniquely-human gene helps our brains grow.

1. Gene-Swapped Cows
   • Laban's Sheep
2. Yamnaya, Yamna; and 'There Goes the Neighborhood,' 4,500 Years Back
   • Learning About Indo-European Languages
3. Another Uniquely-Human 'Brain' Gene
   • "Pinky and the Brain" — and Autopsies
   • Safflowers, Ethics, and Doing Our Job

---

Science, Competence, and Ethics

Scientists in China have developed tuberculosis-resistant cows. I think it's a good idea: but am pretty sure that some folks won't.

So, why aren't I recoiling in horror at scientists "tampering with things man was not supposed to know?"

Short answer: I'm a Catholic, and know a little about my faith.

Studying this universe and using that knowledge to make new tools is part of being human. Ethics apply, but science and technology aren't transgressions. They're part of our job. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2292-2296, 2402-2405, 2456)

I've seen attitudes toward science and technology shift, quite a bit. I grew up when quite a few folks still thought human ingenuity would solve all our problems: or at least make "the future" a magical place to live.

I miss the silly optimism, sort of. But don't think it made much more sense than assuming that science and technology would kill us all, destroying Earth's "fragile" ecosystem in the process. (June 15, 2014; February 14, 2014)

Movies like "Things to Come" and "Soylent Green" reflect those attitudes. I recommend seeing the 1936 "Things to Come" — and H. G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come" 1933 novel.

Maybe "Biker Mice from Mars" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" represent a more balanced view — a less serious one, at any rate.

H. G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come" is, depending on your point of view, quite optimistic or very grim.

Me? I'll be surprised if we cobble together a global government in the next few millennia.

Humanity's fractured family may eventually build an "international authority with the necessary competence and power" to settle arguments without war. (Catechism, 2307-2317; "Gaudium et Spes," 79 § 4)

I hope so.

When, and if, we build a reasonable facsimile of Tennyson's "Federation of the world," I'm quite sure it won't be perfect. But it could easily be better than the mess we have now.

("Sun City," by Adimono, used w/o permission.)

Meanwhile, we have work to do. Lots of work. And that's another topic. (February 20, 2015; October 26, 2014; September 7, 2014)

---

1. Gene-Swapped Cows

"Scientists produce TB-resistant cows"
BBC News (March 3, 2015)

"Scientists in China have produced a herd of genetically engineered cows that are better able to ward off bovine TB infection.

"The long-term goal of the research is to avoid the need to cull livestock by breeding disease resistant cattle.

"Bovine TB is a risk in many areas, including New Zealand, England and Wales, and parts of Africa and Asia.

"In the UK over 26,000 cattle were slaughtered in 2013 at a cost to taxpayers of £100m.

"Researchers at the Ministry of Agriculture in Northwest A&F University, Yangling, China, used hi-tech genetic technology to insert a mouse gene into Holstein-Friesian cattle...."

If bovine tuberculosis is a problem in New Zealand, England, and Wales: how come Chinese scientists are trying to make TB-resistant cows?

My guess is that China is finally getting back on its feet, recovering from what happened after the Qing dynasty went into auto-destruct mode. China had been a — arguably, the — world economic power since the days of the Han dynasty and silk road.

I don't mind the idea of a world with a contemporary equivalent of Shanxi merchants — partly because I'm an American, and realize that folks with wealth make better customers and trade partners than those without.

On the other hand, taking a line through "The Mask of Fu Manchu" and "Battle Beneath the Earth," I could assume that there's a plot afoot. Think "The Manchurian Candidate" meets "Brainstorm." And that's yet another topic. Topics.

More seriously: protecting against mild tuberculosis infections is a start. Developing cows with more resistance sounds like a good idea.

Maybe there's a practical problem with putting mouse genes in cows: but gene-swapping between species has been going on for — most likely — billions of years. What's new is that we're doing the swapping. (February 6, 2015)

I don't see ethical issues with tweaking the genetics of livestock. We've been doing that for — a very long time, not that 'we've always done it' is an excuse for bad behavior. More to the point, grafting olive trees is a metaphor in Romans 11:19-24: and those verses don't seem to condemn the practice.

Maybe someone's assumed that Deuteronomy 22:9 forbids grafting, or condemns marrying outside Debrett's Peerage, a lower Dun & Bradstreet number, or whatever.

I don't: particularly since it's about seeds, and comes between a rule about parapets and another about using draft animals. (February 14, 2014)

Laban's Sheep

Genetic engineering tech like gel electrophoresis is new — but genetic manipulation isn't. Unless you're a hunter, the odds are pretty good that you've never eaten food that didn't come from a genetically modified plant or animal.

We don't think of "domesticated" animals as "GMOs," but today's cattle are the result of more than ten millennia of genetic tweaking.

We're developing new technology: but people have been using 'synthetic' organisms like chickens, macaroni wheat, and dogs, for a very long time. (February 14, 2014; November 22, 2013)

Not everybody has been up to speed with genetic technologies. Laban, son of Nahor, for example, probably wouldn't have agreed to Jacob's suggested wages if he'd known more about sheep. (Genesis 30:31-34)

I think technology, old or new, can be dangerous: if we aren't careful. But we've learned how to live with fire, chickens, and telephones. I think we'll keep learning.

More:

• "TALE nickase-mediated SP110 knockin endows cattle with increased resistance to tuberculosis"
  Haibo Wua, Yongsheng Wanga, Yan Zhanga, Mingqi Yanga, Jiaxing Lv, Jun Liua, Yong Zhanga; Abstract; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Received November 11, 2014; published February 3, 2015)
  • Full text (.pdf)

---

2. Yamnaya, Yamna; and 'There Goes the Neighborhood,' 4,500 Years Back

(From BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("By 5,000-6,000 years ago, Europeans were a two-way mix of indigenous hunters and Near Eastern farmers"
(BBC News))

"Genomes document ancient mass migration to Europe"
BBC News (March 2, 2015)

"DNA analysis has revealed evidence for a massive migration into the heartland of Europe 4,500 years ago.

"Data from the genomes of 69 ancient individuals suggest that herders moved en masse from the continent's eastern periphery into Central Europe.

"These migrants may be responsible for the expansion of Indo-European languages, which make up the majority of spoken tongues in Europe today.

"An international team has published the research in the journal Nature....

"...Their analyses show that 7,000-8,000 years ago, a closely related group of early farmers moved into Europe from the Near East, confirming the findings of previous studies....

"...Eventually, the two groups mixed, so that by 5,000-6,000 years ago, the farmers' genetic signature had become melded with that of the indigenous Europeans...."

I'm particularly interested in this news, since my ancestors of a few centuries back came from northwestern Europe. This unfolding tale of hunters, farmers, and migration, is family history: prehistory, more precisely.

Apparently those two groups, the older hunter-gatherers and the newer farmers, weren't enough to explain "the genetic complexity of modern Europeans." That's why scientists were looking for a third group, added recently — comparatively speaking.

Professor David Riech's team say that the Yamnaya, who lived in what's now southern Russia back in the Bronze Age, are the most likely source for the third group.

I'm not sure, but my guess is that "Yamnaya" and "Yamna" are different versions of the same word — or what happened to Ямная, transliterated into our version of the Latin alphabet.

I've noticed little change in human nature since we started keeping records — and suspect that when those 'foreigners' moved into Europe, some 4,500 years ago, some folks were appalled.

Many obviously weren't, though: which is why I look the way I do.

Learning About Indo-European Languages

"...The scientists contend that a group similar to the Yamnaya moved into the European heartland after the invention of wheeled vehicles, contributing up to 50% of ancestry in some modern north Europeans. Southern Europeans on the whole appear to have been less affected by the expansion.

Even more intriguing is the possible link between this steppe expansion and the origins of Indo-European languages.

"Most indigenous European tongues, from English to Russian and Spanish to Greek, belong to the Indo-European group. The classification is based on shared features of vocabulary and grammar.

"Basque, spoken in south-west France and northern Spain, does not fit in this group, and may be the only surviving relic of earlier languages once spoken more widely...."
(BBC News)

Starting around the 16th century, Europeans visiting the Indian subcontinent noticed some words in the languages there sounded a lot like their European counterparts. A fairly famous example is reich, rex, and raj: all of which mean something like "king," "ruler," or "royal."

Professor Reich told BBC News that Iranian and Indian Indo-European languages spoken were probably already unlike the Yamnaya versions back when some Yamnaya apparently moved west.

I gather that most of what we know about the Indo-European languages comes from reverse-engineering today's languages, and I'm drifting off-topic.

One thing's for sure: folks who lived back then won't be telling us what happened.

---

3. Another Uniquely-Human 'Brain' Gene

(© MPI f. Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, via Max Plank Institute, used w/o permission.)
("This picture shows a cerebral cortex of an embryonic mouse. The cell nuclei are marked in blue and the deep-layer neurons in red. The human-specific gene ARHGAP11B was selectively expressed in the right half of the brain, which is visible by the folding of the neocortical surface." (MPI f. Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics))

"A gene for brain size - only found in humans"
Following the traces of evolution: Max Planck Researchers find a key to the reproduction of brain stem cells
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, München (February 26, 2015)

"About 99 percent of human genes are shared with chimpanzees. Only the small remainder sets us apart. However, we have one important difference: The brain of humans is three times as big as the chimpanzee brain. During evolution our genome must have changed in order to trigger such brain growth. Wieland Huttner, Director and Research Group Leader a the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), and his team identified for the first time a gene that is only present in humans and contributes to the reproduction of basal brain stem cells, triggering a folding of the neocortex. The researchers isolated different subpopulations of human brain stem cells and precisely identified, which genes are active in which cell type. In doing so, they noticed the gene ARHGAP11B: it is only found in humans and in our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisova-Humans, but not in chimpanzees. This gene manages to trigger brain stem cells to form a bigger pool of stem cells. In that way, during brain development more neurons can arise and the cerebrum can expand. The cerebrum is responsible for cognitive functions like speaking and thinking..."

It's hardly surprising that about 99 percent of our genes are in chimps, too. A sizable fraction of our genes are in most animals.

An example — Drosophilidae, a family of flies; zebrafish; and humans; all use the PAX6 gene to grow retinas. (January 9, 2015)

Life's molecular machinery is highly modular, which is why we can patch code from bacteria into tobacco plants and potatoes: letting the plants produce their own pesticides. (February 6, 2015; January 9, 2015; December 26, 2014)

Like any other technology, gene splicing isn't "safe," in the sense that bad things won't happen if we don't use our brains. Rocks can crush fingers; and we still have occasional trouble with fire, after upwards of a million years' experience. (May 9, 2014; April 27, 2014)

"Pinky and the Brain" — and Autopsies

I'm not worried that mad scientists will create a mouse with The Brain's desire for world domination.

Rewiring a mouse's brain with a human gene may be an effective way to tell exactly what ARHGAP11B does. I don't doubt that we learned quite a bit from that experiment.

I'm also sure that the researchers meant well but good intentions don't change what's ethical and what's not. (Catechism, 1759)

I am, however, a bit concerned about a mouse with human genes: and hope that the human cerebrum tissue's donor was already dead; or that the sample was too small to matter.

Autopsies are okay, by the way, for legal investigations and scientific research. So are organ transplants and donating organs. (Catechism, 2296, 2301)

We're expected to make sure the subject is dead first, though: and killing someone for their organs is strictly against the rules. (Catechism, 2268-2269; "Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions," 35, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (September 8, 2008))

Recognizing that ethics apply in scientific research, and everything else we do, is a far cry from feeling that autopsies are morally wrong: or that thinking is a sin. (November 21, 2014)

I've talked about Christianity's attitude studying nature, Herophilus of Chalcedon, English history, and getting a grip, before. (August 15, 2014)

Safflowers, Ethics, and Doing Our Job

Making "artificial" insulin sounds like a good idea. It could make insulin more readily available to folks who need it.

Putting human DNA into safflowers resulted in plants that produce human insulin. It's a remarkable achievement: but probably a bad idea. (February 14, 2014)

This isn't a knee-jerk rejection of science and other newfangled ideas. The problem is that humans are people, and safflowers aren't.

The last I heard, making a critter that's not human — but has a substantial amount of human DNA — is "an offense against the dignity of human beings." ("Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions")

Whether that principle applies to safflowers with just enough human genes to produce insulin, or mice with the ARHGAP11B gene, I don't know.

Again: Part of our job is taking care of this astounding creation: studying it and developing new tools. Science and technology are part of being human. It's what we do. (Genesis 1:27-31; Catechism, 31, 355-361, 374-379)

More-or-less-related posts:

• "Baby Chickens, Numbers: and Studying an Old Skull"
  (February 6, 2015)
  Particularly
  • "...Greater Admiration...."
  • Uniquely Human Genes
• "Dinosaur Arms, and Ust'-Ishim Man's DNA"
  (October 31, 2014)
  Particularly
  • Faith, Reason, and the Ardent Mr. Squibbs
  • Time and Truth
  • Heritage: Norwegian, Irish, and Neanderthal
  • The Human Journey Continues
  • "Interbreeding:" and Loving It
• "Boko Haram: Slavery, Death, and Love"
  (January 18, 2015)
  Particularly
  • Love and Conscience
  • Making Sense
• "Getting a Grip About Dr. Moreau, Pigs, and Human Dignity"
  (February 14, 2014)
  Particularly
  • Olive Trees, Parapets, and All That
  • Serious News, Sensationalist Prose
  • The Pancreas of Pig 29
• "Spears, Dogs, and Artificial Organisms"
  (November 22, 2013)
  Particularly
  • Intelligence and Assumptions
  • Knowledge, Tools, and Decisions
  • Getting a Grip About Laban's Sheep

"Months of Misery" and Job's Friends

My wife and a friend are making bread, about 15 feet from my desk. They're having a great time, and I'm trying to not get distracted while writing this post. The results may be interesting. Or confusing. I'll let you decide which.

Thanks to some very powerful prescriptions, my ADD-inattentive and major depression isn't nearly as hard to handle as it was: which reminds me of this morning's first reading.

With Friends Like These - - -

When the book of Job was written, about two dozen centuries back, Edomites had a reputation for being wise. Edom means "red" in Hebrew; it'sa name, more like a nickname, given to Esau.

Edomites claimed Esau as their ancestor — he's the chap who sold his birthright; under oath, yet; for a bowl of lentil stew. That doesn't justify what Jacob did later, tricking their father into giving him the first-born son's blessing.

Quite a few folks mentioned in the Bible aren't good role models. Instead of getting upset about it, I take that as reassurance that God can and does work with folks who are sincerely imperfect.

Esau felt like killing Jacob after that, understandably, so Jacob hid out with Laban. Esau caught up with Jacob later, "accompanied by four hundred men."

By the time Jacob stopped talking, Esau had agreed to meet Jacob later, in Seir. Jacob headed for Shechem, with a stopover in Succoth, and that's another topic. Topics.

Since I like the occasional rip-roaring tales of adventure and conflict, I'd probably read Sacred Scripture even if it wasn't strongly encouraged. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 133)

The Esau-Jacob-birthright subplot is in Genesis 25:30-34, 27:1-46, 33:1-20, by the way. Rachel, one of Laban's daugters, became Jacob's wife. That part of the story picks up around Genesis 29:5.

Rachel is Joseph's mother: that's the Joseph who got sold as a slave and wound up running Egypt, and that's yet another topic. (Genesis 30:25, and 41:40-41, for starters)

Descendants of Joseph, understandably, think very highly of Joseph son of Rachel. In my culture, a great many Catholic boys have Joseph as either their personal or middle name: honoring Joseph, foster-father of our Lord — and that's yet again another topic.

That doesn't have much to do with Job 7:1-4, 6-7: which is from Job's response to Edomite wisdom.

- - - Who Need Enemies?

Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuh, and Zophar from Naamath, show up a few chapters earlier: Job 2:11.

They have Edomite names: and like I said, Edomites had a reputation for wisdom back in Job's day. Much of what they say makes sense, including one of my favorite bits from the Bible —

"² But man himself begets mischief, as sparks fly upward.
(Job 5:7)

But — and I've said this before — cherry-picking favorite verses from the Bible isn't always a good idea. That's why the Almighty gets confused with an action movie hero on occasion. (April 27, 2014)

Eliphaz started the first round of 'help' back in Job 4, Job's response starts in Job 6, and that gets me back to today's first reading. Finally.

"So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been told off for me.

"If in bed I say, 'When shall I arise?' then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.

"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle; they come to an end without hope.

"Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again."
(Job 7:3-4, 7:6-7)

Job is not having a good day.

He'd been doing everything right, when Sabeans stole his oxen and killed Job's herdsmen. Then Chaldeans did the same with his camels and handlers, a freak storm killed his sons and daughters, and Job got a severe case of boils.

Small wonder that his wife told him to "curse God and die:" after which those four friends arrived "to give him sympathy and comfort." (Job 2:9, 11)

Sitting in ashes and scraping himself with a potsherd may have been his way of mourning his losses, or expressing sorrow. It occurs to me, though, that Job may have been employing a home cure, using Kshara, a Ayurvedic medicine.

That doesn't make Job a Hindu, any more than my household's learning Soo Bahk Do makes us Buddhists: and that's still another topic.

Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries: With Pits

Compared to Job, my life's been a bowl of cherries. "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" still gets recorded occasionally, and that's — what else? — another topic.

I was able to walk during most of my childhood; my mother had a stroke when I was 12, but it didn't kill her. Four of our six kids survived birth, and so did my wife the last time around.

Sure, it hurt to walk, or stand, or sit, or lie down: but it hurt in different ways, so I didn't get bored. Besides, I learned to sleep in the least-painful position, so that wasn't a problem.

Our surviving kids are fine; and my major depressive disorder and ADD-inattentive, or maybe Asperger's, got diagnosed a few years back.

It's nice, not struggling to make my brain work: but a potpourri of neurological glitches didn't keep me from learning skills for jobs ranging from delivery guy to radio disk jockey and advertising copywriter.

Depression and Death

On happily-rare occasions, I've felt like killing myself. The first time was in my teens. I decided I could out-endure the current crises. (December 14, 2014)

Turns out, I was right. It helps that I'm stubborn as a mule. Stubbornness isn't a virtue, fortitude is, and I've said that before.

Not everybody makes the same choice, though. Robin Williams apparently couldn't take it any more last year. (August 17, 2014)

Don't bother waiting for a rant about the evils of suicide, and how only bad or weak people do it. Suicide is a bad idea, we're not supposed to do it — but "we should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives." (Catechism, 2280-2283)

Besides, I might have decided differently, a very close friend killed herself, and I take Matthew 7:1-5 very seriously. (February 1, 2015; December 14, 2014)

Not everybody who has depression commits suicide. Vincent van Gogh almost certainly did, and Joseph Conrad tried to, but he apparently died of a heart attack.

Mark Twain died of a heart attack too, an assassin killed Abraham Lincoln, and J. Robert Oppenheimer's throat cancer probably helped start his terminal coma.

Major depressive disorder isn't lethal, by itself, probably. Folks with this disorder have shorter lives, on average, partly because we're much more likely than most to kill ourselves. We're also more likely to drop dead from heart disease and assorted other illnesses.

Feeling hopeless or irritable most of the time doesn't help us concentrate. Neither does the very real lack of enough neurotransmitters — serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine — we use for thinking. Not everybody with depression winds up homeless: but many do.

Nerves in the peripheral nervous system handle signals to the diaphragm, heart, and other vital systems.

These nerves use dopamine, one of the neurotransmitters that's in short supply with major depression. I'd be surprised if low neurotransmitter levels in our organs' control circuits didn't eventually kill us.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Prescriptions

While I'm typing this, my brain runs through about 20% of the oxygen and energy I'm using. That's a huge fraction of the body's energy.

I could worry about humanity facing extinction because our brains are 'too big,' but that doesn't make sense. (October 31, 2014)

God gave us brains: and expects us to use them. (Genesis 1:26, 2:7; Catechism, 355, 1730, 1778, 2292-2295)

God is large and in charge. I rely on the Almighty for my life, health: and continued existence. (Psalms 115:3; Proverbs 19:21; Catechism, 268, 301)

But "life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God...." I'm supposed to take care of my health, within reason. (Catechism, 2288)

That includes taking prescribed medications that keep my brain running smoothly: smoother, at any rate.

Could God miraculously sort out my glitchy neurochemistry, replace my appendix, and pull my hairline back to my forehead? Sure: like Job said to God, "...no purpose of yours can be hindered." (Job 42:2)

Do I think that'll happen? Not likely, and that's — another topic.


(Image from NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee; used w/o permission.)
(Part of the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.)

More about my brain and getting a grip:

• "Suicide, Sin, and Dealing with Depression"
  (December 14, 2014)
• "Joy and Standing Orders"
  (October 5, 2014)
  Particularly
  • Joy, Zest, and Mud
• "Robin Williams, Suicide, and Hope"
  (August 17, 2014)
  Particularly
  • Major Depressive Disorder: Real; Serious — and Treatable
  • Getting a Grip About Health, Hair Shirts, and Hope
• "Fasting, Penance: and Infinite Depths of Joy"
  (June 3, 2012)
  Particularly
  • Despondency isn't a Virtue?
  • Emotions, Faith, and Something Indescribable
  • God, Rain, and Me
• "Why did God Do That to Me? "
  (February 12, 2011)
  Particularly
  • Oh, No! An Old Coot Rambling About His Symptoms
  • "Mild Central Nervous System Stimulant" - and "Psychotic Symptoms"
  • "I'm Not as Crazy as You Think I Moose"
  • Dishwater: Fascinating Stuff!
  • Born a Cripple, Afflicted With Mental Disease: IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!