Tag: research

The consequences of sleeping and the luxury of dreaming are now real.

Dream, dream, dream! Conduct these dreams into thought, and then transform them into action. – famously said by former President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

The Chinese dream. The Greeks dream. Everyone in the world dreams.

The Guardian delves into the realms of what makes a dream real. What’s the science behind people dreaming?

19th-century Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev envisioned the periodic table in a dream. Wow! That’s for real.

But are dreams good or bad?

Oscar Wilde said it in a famous quote; “they have promised that dreams can come true – but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too”.

A study says 80% of people experience someone chasing them in their dreams.

Man spends a third of his entire life sleeping. And dreaming forms a significant part. About 20 to 30 percent.

Dreams are called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep. 

Dreams carry a message of some kind. They communicate in a nocturnal language. – says Jane Haynes. She is a London-based psychotherapist.

Research has shown that people are wrong when they say they don’t dream. They dream but don’t remember it in the morning.

REM Sleep, a Sleep Onset Phase and a Late Morning Effect are three phases of the dream a man indulges in while sleeping.

“All three of these phases are associated with dreaming,” says Prof Mark Solms, a neuro-scientist at the University of Cape Town.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis (The Introduction to Psychoanalysis), has been proved wrong when he said dreams mostly comprise our suppressed (sexual) desires. But Solms says, on the contrary, “many of our dreams are anything but wishful thinking”.

When you dream tonight, you know for sure that you don’t just rest, sleep but dream a big project in your head.

You speak to yourself about work, relationships, calculus, rocket-science and Jaws, chasing you in the movie. 

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/20/one-night-im-a-murderer-the-next-my-husbands-having-an-affair-why-do-we-have-the-dreams-that-we-do?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1718887046

Social Media; Both Sides of Story.

How do you use social media?

I, too, am one of the many million who use social media for the purpose of connecting with people, reading news, listening to music and keeping abreast of what’s going on around the world.

I use it more for the purpose of knowing facts and fakes.

Social media provide me with both sides of a story. Sometimes multiple sides, perhaps. Much like how astronauts see the beauty of the Earth from the sky too far away, located in geostationary orbit. 

As a writer, I find that a boon.

Missing You a ‘Pig’ Time!

Doctors have, for the first time, transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a living human patient. And the patient is recovering well after surgery.

Surgeons in a Massachusetts hospital transplanted a pig kidney into a 62-year-old patient on March 16.

As there’s a huge lack of human organs available for transplant surgery, doctors have now turned to help from scientists.

CNN reports that eGenesis, is a biotechnology company that’s developing human-compatible engineered organs. The company supplied the kidney for the patient. They said scientists have performed 69 edits to the pig DNA, to make it compatible with human beings.

Genetically engineered pigs now provide huge hope for patients who suffer from chronic kidney diseases.

The patient mentioned has a history of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

He had been on dialysis for seven years before undergoing a human kidney transplant in 2018.

As the transplanted human organ showed signs of failure after five years, he switched to restarting dialysis in 2023. This caused serious complications.

No human kidney was available for at least another six years.

What was the best option left for him? He can’t die.

“I saw it not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive,” the patient said in a statement.

“The patient would have had to wait five to six years for a human kidney. And he would not have been able to survive it,” said Dr. Winfred Williams, associate chief of the nephrology division at the hospital for The New York Times.

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That begs a question. Will this technological advance help address many patients who are in need of a transplant?

Source: www.scientificamerican.com

Edit: Dear readers, we have an update on this story. The 62 year old patient Mr. Slayman has died owing to complications unrelated to the transplant according to the Massachusetts Hospital sources. Heartfelt condolences. Let’s pray his soul rests in peace. Thank you.