Bacteria and Cells are the Biological equivalent of a car the size of a pin head

I've been meaning to add a post up here that talks about bacteria and cells. I feel that these little guys are much like the atom is to physicists. It's kind of the root of living beings. True DNA would be the fundamental element as it were but these little guys are what DNA is designed to create. That's it's purpose. I would argue that DNA is to the cell what Quarks are to the Atom. Sure the Quarks don't describe the atom in the same way. However and understanding of Quark is necessary to fully understand the atom and it is the smaller unit. To be honest this classification still doesn't fit perfectly. Maybe the cell is just the compound such as water with two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen. Ok, Ok, maybe the reference to the atom is the wrong level. I'm not sure yet, I was think about how much there is inside a cell, the atom isn't like that is it, well from what I'm reading at the moment it does seem like there's a lot going on inside an atom.

Anyway I think the point is clear. Physicists try and explain the atom and it's make up to understand every thing else. They kind of work at the root. Chemists work at a higher level from the molecule. That leaves biologists to look at the basic building blocks as the complex set of chemicals that are dna and the result of this code which is a cell.

My understanding is that the large life forms evolved as bacteria started to live symbiotically almost as their own little community. Overtime they worked so well together that the could specialise on particular jobs because each bacteria was able to provide something the others needed such as ; movement, structure or vitamins and minerals. Over millions of years this eventually evolved in to bones, muscles and internal organs but we can still be thought of as giant clumps of bacteria all working together on a massive scale.

So that's a brief history of what I understand. Hopefully it's now clear why an understanding of the smallest living part of us, through understanding one of its relatives, can unlock the secrets of the whole and help us understand what we need to survive and flourish.

To this end I came across an article explaining a break-through in the understanding of how energy is actually transferred in and out of the body. Not only can we learn a little about what makes us perform well because we learn that riboflavin (vitamin B-12) is the main compound involved, this in turn highlights the importance seemingly miniscule compounds have in our daily lives. What also shows is how advanced even these tiny micro-organisms are and how much we can learn but studying them even a little. It sounds as those the electrical industry is going to learn a lot from them and it should make our lives a lot better and hopefully even reduce the pollution we create in our search for energy.

Fascinating!!

edit 20090820 14:38

Carrying on the them on a slight tangent. Just came across an artile on microbial fuel cells. I've been wondering if this was an option for the future. Thought I'd note it to show that we're still learning so much from nature on a daily basis.

Repetition: A key to learning

I just came across this way to explain why repetition is such an important part of learning. Let me know if this is helpful.

I was the kid at school that always knew the answer to the teachers question. That's not me bragging it's when I first learned the value of repetition. I'd learnt this from my parents I think, I''m not totally sure. Anyway the kids would often come to me for help. I found out over time that these kids were just as bright as me but when it came to learning new things they didn't seem to have very effective methods.

The main thing I noticed is that they didn't practise what they learnt very much. Bascially when the teacher asked a question I naturally tried to find the answer. It often took me a while but I got better at it through practise. Pretty quickly my brain just seemed to be ace at finding the answer. I even got to the point where my brain just gave me the answers without me asking for them. I learned to trust the answers unequivocally. This has been so useful in all my exams because I've learnt that the first answer my brain throws up is generally the right one. I don't know how it does it in truth but I know I can trust it. The only times it's wrong is when a) I haven't learnt the answer before or b) I didn't learn it properly in the first place and my brain is confused.

Anyway all I see is that my brain learnt early on that it needs to find answers to things quickly and it figured out how to brilliant at it.

how does this insight help me teach others. Well because it's just about training and the responses it brings. My brain got good at finding answers because I kept trying to find answers to quqestions where other people only bothered when they were asked. Therefore I had about 20 times the amount of practice than they had and so my brain was about 20 times better at than then.

You see it's nothing to do with genes it's just having good tutors and a willingness to do what's required.

Any way I said I had a way to explain this. Yes, if the previous explanation doesn't float your boat then try this.

We all have a set of things we do each day. I'm a software developer, others are secretaries etc. We all have things we have to remember each day. things that are filed away some where. Maybe in your email, maybe in a desk or maybe it's just where the food is in the fridge that you are craving right now. Either way we just know where it is.

Why because we use it every day. In the same way we create FAQ lists. It's the most commonly asked for things we focus on.

What about those things we rarely need. Those are the things we hope we have a record of and have to search to find it. Well, what do you generally find first? the thing you use every day or that which you rarely use?

I hope I answered the things you use every day otherwise you may have bigger issues than can be discussed here :-).

Why do we find this stuff faster? kind of obvious really because we do it every day and because it's obviously important to us for that reason.

What does this example show?
Well I feel the brain works like this. When you do something regularly your brain makes sure it has strong links to whatever it needs to complete that task. Whether it's memory cells, muscle cells or whatever. The stronger the link the easier the brain can find it (I think it has some internal ways of prioritising things like this but that'll be figured out in time).

so if you're trying to learn something you need to tell your brain it's important. You also need to make sure it really knows how to do it.

For these two reasons aswell as many others. if you want to remember or learn anything make sure you repeat it enough and in a way that your brain will prioritise it.

Why do I get stomach pains when I exercise?

The stomach is the major consumer of blood outside of exercise because it takes a lot of nutrients and energy to digest food believe it or not. And then obviously it has to cart away what it gets out.

When you start exercising the body adjusts to allow your muscles the blood they need, this is why the heart pumps both faster (more beats for minute) and more per beat (greater stroke volume). It should even out and the stomach should still get about as much of the blood that it did before exercise but while the body is adjusting it doesn't always get enough and it's believed this is the cause of some of the stomach pains you may feel when you exercise

So it can be simple way of your body telling you the stomach isn't getting what it needs. If you know this then you can figure out for yourself if it's serious or something that'll figure itself out.

What's the fat story? Why do some gain pounds while others stay thin?

Ok I've been sitting on some info about fat cells, their growth and how it's controlled for many years now. I've also added to it from my own experience in the way my body generally seems to work and how other system in the body also seem to work compared to the fat cells etc.

What am I babbling on about? well read this article http://www.livescience.com/health/080530-fat-cells.html It's naturally presented as new research but I'd heard of this around 10 years agao during my degree. I can remember being in the library looking for some studies re a module I as taking. I noticed in a journal a few studies on leptin and it's relation to fat loss. I know it's sad but this stuff just fascinates me. It's bascially why i did the degree.

Any way the research papers I read, which for the life of me I can't remember what they were etc, explained that at the time Leptin was believed to play a key role in fat maintenance. There were theories that your body tried to keep each fat cell full to a certain degree. Say 50%. there is growing evidence that you can grow new fat cells but very little showing that you can remove them.

The theory went that once you have increased the number of fat cells on your body how does your body know what fat level to maintain. i.e does it care about maintaining the same percentage of fat that it always aimed for. Say 15% or something. A little higher for women. Or does it just care about how full the fat cells are. E.g. when the cells are below a certain percentage say 30% then this triggers something, maybe the brain to raise the levels back up again.

At the time it was a big debate and my guess is that the debate is still raging.

My belief is that it's mch more complex than this because I believe our own habits and behaviours and lifestyles getting in the way. We just seem too good at overriding the natural drivers that we have and this has been shown in animals. many of these aren't so good at overriding their natural instincts compared to us.

Anyway I really liked the explanation I got from these articles because it explained clearly to me why it is that some people can readily put on weight and others can't. Maybe it's not the reason but it works for me. The idea is if you have already put the weight on before and therefore have the extra fat cells required then putting weight on is easy because your body is already able to store a load more fat than it already does. However people who have never been overweight will not have enough fat cells to store the excess fat. They will have to build new cells before the fat can be store.d This is going to take both time and a bunch of energy. So in the short term maybe a motnh or two they won't appear to add on any weight. Then all of a sudden they'll joint the fatter classes of society and become like the rest of us.

I find this idea works in every situation I try to apply it.

• It works perfectly for my own body.
• It works for the idea that young children who are overweight are predisposed to being over weight when they're older
• It works for many people I've met who either find it easy or difficult to add fat weight
• It follows the general principle I have found in the body that once it has found a solution for something it never seems to forget it. In this case it's how to store excess weight

As for whether you can stick at a lower weight or whether your body will always try to maintain an equilibrium at a higher weight than before. I feel that former is possible. I believe firmly the body is more interested in surviving and that it's mechanisms are tuned for that. The levels of fat in our body are crucial for functioning but I expect the storage vesicles are just that. I don't expect the body to take too much interest in a particular cell. I expect it to add up the total amount of fat, make sure it's available where it's reuqired and that there is enough to go round.

That's my opinion anyway.

Muscle balance the key to athletics legend Steve Backleys' success

I realise I haven't really talked much about the training that I have done in the past and what I have learnt from it and what things I have learnt from others that improved my training. Here's an excerpt from a mail I just sent a friend. It explains the reason
I've trained long and hard both physically and mentally many times. The thing I always remember is how boring and tedious it gets no matter what you do. So a huge part of your plan is to know how to reinvigorate things so you maintain your passion and focus. Also you can spend very little time training but get lots out of it. That's crucial when you've been doing it for weeks on end. If it's just a short session then mentally it's easier to face than a big struggle.

For example when I was training at the gym when I worked at an IT helpdesk. My weights programme was just 20 minutes, yep 20 minutes and I worked my entire body.... twice and I knew it was the most I could do because I couldn't physically do another set.... My improvements were through the roof considering I trained once a week, I never plateaued just kept on improving and it didn't hurt. The reason was, I knew what it was doing to my body and why I was improving. I'd been training on and off for 10 years so I knew what worked for me, kept me fit and motivated and fitted with my life.

Have a read of this article about Steve Backley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Backley He was a top British athlete in his day and taught me something very important about training. I watched him countless times at the Olympics and world championships as a world class javelin thrower. He was Rafael Nadal to his Federer of Jan Zelezny. I once listened to an interview with him about how he overcame serious injury in his shoulder joint which is obviously the most critical joint to a javelin thrower.

The previous article I wrote on muscle balance is really a tribute to what he said in that interview. He learnt that it wasn't about having one muscle that was stronger than his opponents. It was about having a package that's better balanced because for example his triceps complements his biceps. To throw furthest he can only get the most out of his arms when all the muscles involved work really well together in a good balance.

Don't let age slow you down

I've been reading through the articles over at rosstraining.com and been absolutely engrossed. So I checked out his blog and right away found an excellent article that covers a topic I've been wanting to write about. That is how we don't have to slow down our lives just because we're getting old.

Many cultures used to revere their most experienced and learned citizens instead of seeing them as old and losing their faculties. This article and the one before it make some points in favour of living a full life when you've had a full life.

http://rosstraining.com/blog/2008/05/30/the-myth-of-time/

Quick 101 on injury from muscle imbalance

In this short article I'll show how the action of throwing a punch taxes your chest and back muscles in different ways and how this is involved in the development of injuries and how therefore to help prevent them. The action of throwing a punch is a very similar action to others used in sports and has similar effects for the muscles and joints involved those actions. Similar actions include

• throwing a ball
  
• playing a shot in a racquet sport
  
• taking a kick in football and rugby

When you throw a punch your chest will be involved in pulling your shoulder joint and your humerus (arm bone) forward. All the while your Latissimus Dorsi (your big back muscle) and a bunch of the smaller back muscles like the Rhomboids and Trapezius will be counteracting and keeping in check the pull of the chest muscle. Once the humerus is almost in front of you the chest has done it's work but the punch isn't finished. It's actually just beginning because the biggest, most important part is controlled by the back muscles. They determine how hard your punch is because they start slowing down the shoulder joint and the humerus down right at this point. Reason: if they don't the humerus will pop out of the shoulder joint and dislocate. So they protect the shoulder joint by managing and containing the force of the chest muscles.

This is called antagonistic pairing and is just as relevant in your biceps/triceps pair in your arm, your quads/hamstrings in your leg and your abs/lower back along with several other muscle groups.

So the story doesn't end there. Now that you see that the back muscles protect the shoulder joint from the excesses of the chest muscles and vice versa you'll begin to be aware that if your chest muscles are too strong then your back muscles are at a disadvantage. If you do lots of punching movements then your back muscles are likely to tire first. Leaving your shoulder joint exposed and meaning that both the shoulder joint and humerus are likely to be pulled too far forward resulting in stretching of the ligaments and tendons and ultimately injury.

Let's add to this and point out that it's easier for a muscle to pull things towards it (concentric action) than to stop something moving away from it (eccentric action). Therefore when punching or throwing (which is basically the same thing) your chest muscles are not working very hard but your back muscles are. So they're also at a disadvantage meaning that they need to be at least as strong as the chest muscles. I'd recommend they be stronger but then this would put the shoulder joint out of whack when doing the reverse (bringing the fists back).

Summary
So in summary you should now see why it's absolutely imperative to have balance in all muscle groups above all things. If you're too strong in one area you can bet that you'll be prone to injuries in a related area. To add to this though it's not just pure strength or stamina that you need to prevent an injury.

Not only will you need both e.g. The strength to control a really big punch and the stamina to do this time and time again without injury. You'll also need good coordination in the muscles being used to control this movement so that they are good at applying just the right amount of force. A muscle that doesn't have much coordination will either try too hard to stop the action or two little. Either way they'll put stress on either themselves or the support structure which isn't good.

How do you achieve this? Training. Keep doing the movements at different speeds, as part of different combinations and with other kinds of variety. Coordination comes from you nerves and brain learning how to control the muscles appropriately. This comes just like strength develops from doing the action regularly and with lots of variation. At slower speeds your muscles and brain get to learn the movement without risk of injury and allows you to focus on good technique. Higher speeds risk more injury but also tax the muscle, nervous and connective/support tissue to strengthen and improve. So a mix of these types of training is the best medicine to both prevent injury increase punching/ throwing power or the power from any antagonistic muscle pairing.