Death – Harmonia Philosophica

Cutting skin… Moving cells…

When we cut our skin, groups of cells rush en masse to the site to heal the wound.

But the complicated mechanics of this collective cell movement — which are facilitated by rearrangements between each cell and its neighbors — have made it challenging for researchers to decipher what’s actually driving it.

Notbohm and doctoral student Aashrith Saraswathibhatla recently made a surprising discovery that sheds new light on how this collective cell migration happens. Through experiments, they found that the force each cell applies to the surface beneath it — in other words, traction — is the dominant physical factor that controls cell shape and motion as cells travel as a group. (1)

Moving through traction.

Staying still through motion.

Living through death.

Dying through living.

Seek knowledge in the irrational. It is only there were knowledge is independent of any assumptions. And inside its chaos, you will find the peace you seek. For only in the irrational ideas are stripped of all their clothes. A the king can be really a king. Especially because he is naked.

Think. Via not-thinking.

How can you move, if not by your inability to do so?

How can you stand still, without others moving around you?

How can you be alive, if you weren’t dead?

Breath…

Remembering…

A study published in Science Advances found that certain types of materials have a “memory” of how they were processed, stored, and manipulated. Researchers were then able to use this memory to control how a material ages and to encode specific properties that allow it to perform new functions. This creative approach for designing materials was the result of a collaboration between Penn’s Andrea Liu and Sidney R. Nagel, Nidhi Pashine, and Daniel Hexner from the University of Chicago. (1)

A material which remembers its past.

But can it be another way?

A human who recollects his beginning.

But could he forget it?

A universe which is constantly guided by its first moment.

Could it follow any other path?

The sword is drawn now.

Death is here.

But the sword remembers that it was in the earth once.

And it will go back there.

Seeding life.

Spreading death…

Mother. Child. Cosmos.

Mothers’ and babies’ brains can work together as a ‘mega-network’ by synchronising brain waves when they interact. The level of connectivity of the brain waves varies according to the mum’s emotional state: when mothers express more positive emotions their brain becomes much more strongly connected with their baby’s brain. This may help the baby to learn and its brain to develop. (1)

Can you not feel my misery?

It is the same as my happiness.

Full of desire.

Mother.

Hold me.

I am here my child.

Why do you cry?

Love will never die.

But we will.

In the face of death…

Mother.

Can you laugh?

Domesticating our self…

Domestic animals’ cuteness and humans’ relatively flat faces may be the work of a gene that controls some important developmental cells, a study of lab-grown human cells suggests.

Some scientists are touting the finding as the first real genetic evidence for two theories about domestication. One of those ideas is that humans domesticated themselves over many generations, by weeding out hotheads in favor of the friendly and cooperative (SN: 7/6/17). As people supposedly selected among themselves for tameness traits, other genetic changes occurred that resulted in humans, like other domesticated animals, having a different appearance than their predecessors. Human faces are smaller, flatter and have less prominent brow ridges than Neanderthal faces did, for instance. (1)

We were wild.

Then we domesticated ourselves.

Only to survive.

And live longer.

And create philosophy.

And find out that we die.

And in the face of death we became rough.

And out of fear of death we became wild…

Longing for peace of mind.

Longing for life.

Look at the lion.

Wandering alone.

Seeking chaos.

Seeking blood.

Watch the Moon.

Die in its claws.

Watch the Sun.

(Its the only thing that can go dark…)

The forest will be empty soon.

And the lonely (wild) sound of crickets will terrify you…

Reverse evolution 2.

Turtle ant soldiers scuttle to and from sporting shiny, adorably oversized heads, which they use to block the entrances of their nests — essentially acting as living doors.

Not all heads are shaped alike: some soldiers have ones that resemble manhole covers and perfectly seal tunnel entrances. Others have square heads, which they assemble into multi-member blockades reminiscent of a Spartan army’s overlapping shields. TheThe shape and size of a turtle-ant soldier’s head is dictated by the type of tunnel the species in question occupies. The ants don’t dig the tunnels themselves, but move into those excavated by wood-boring beetles. And since a hand-me-down tunnel might be too big or too small, Kronauer says, the ants diversify rapidly to be able to occupy it.

To examine the evolutionary journey of various head shapes, the researchers grouped 89 species of turtle ants based on whether soldiers sported a square, dome, disc, or dish-shaped head. They also included a group of turtle-ant species that don’t have soldiers. They then examined the evolutionary relationships among these groups using the species’ genetic information, which they had previously gathered.

If evolution was a one-way path, the first turtle ants that appeared some 45 million years ago should have lacked soldiers altogether, then gradually evolved toward specialization — starting with the generalist, square-headed soldiers, all the way to those with highly-tailored dish heads.

But the new analysis suggests that this was not the case. Instead, the oldest common ancestor the researchers could trace likely had a square head. That ancestor went on to form a range of species, from ones with no soldiers at all to others with different levels of specialization. In some cases, more specialist species reversed direction over time, evolving back into more generalist head shapes. (1)

But you cannot adapt!

Unless you have already done so…

At the end, even the trees will die.

And your big question will be answered.

And as you leave your last breath.

Right next to some dead ants running.

A smile will spread across your face.

I will never change!

I have adapted!

I will not live for ever!