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This is Marc Quinn’s most famous piece of work, Self, made using 4.5 litres of his own blood, which was slowly extracted from his body over a period of five months and frozen in a cast of his face. Quinn has been making these roughly every five years since 1991, and each one must be maintained carefully in fridges. The fragility of the media means exhibiting is difficult - the head has to be placed into a glass case which is chilled from underneath. It reminds the audience of the fragility of existence and the precise conditions necessary for the flourishing of life.
Talk about art from the heart!
Sorry but I prefer my own heart:
Hard
Evidence
And
Rational
Thinking
A new type of nerve cell found in the brain
Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands, have identified a previously unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. The nerve cells regulate cardiovascular functions such as heart rhythm and blood pressure. It is hoped that the discovery, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, will be significant in the long term in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in humans.
The scientists have managed to identify in mice a previously totally unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. These nerve cells, also known as ‘neurons’, develop in the brain with the aid of thyroid hormone, which is produced in the thyroid gland. Patients in whom the function of the thyroid gland is disturbed and who therefore produce too much or too little thyroid hormone, thus risk developing problems with these nerve cells. This in turn has an effect on the function of the heart, leading to cardiovascular disease.
It is well-known that patients with untreated hyperthyroidism (too high a production of thyroid hormone) or hypothyroidism (too low a production of thyroid hormone) often develop heart problems. It has previously been believed that this was solely a result of the hormone affecting the heart directly. The new study, however, shows that thyroid hormone also affects the heart indirectly, through the newly discovered neurons.
“This discovery opens the possibility of a completely new way of combating cardiovascular disease”, says Jens Mittag, group leader at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet. “If we learn how to control these neurons, we will be able to treat certain cardiovascular problems like hypertension through the brain. This is, however, still far in the future. A more immediate conclusion is that it is of utmost importance to identify and treat pregnant women with hypothyroidism, since their low level of thyroid hormone may harm the production of these neurons in the foetus, and this may in the long run cause cardiovascular disorders in the offspring.”
(Image: turbosquid.com)
Two doctors Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier from the Texas Heart Institute successfully replaced a dying man’s heart with a device — proving that it is possible for your body to be kept alive without a heart, or a pulse.
In the short film ‘Heart Stop Beating’ by Jeremiah Zagar of Focus Forward Films, Zagar documents the process of the doctors — from cutting out the whole heart of 50 calves and replacing it with centrifugal pumps, to finally implanting it into their patient Craig Lewis. The turbine-like device, that are simple whirling rotors, developed by the doctors does not beat like a heart, rather provides a ‘continuous flow’ like a garden hose.
Craig Lewis was a 55-year-old, dying from amyloidosis — which causes a build-up of abnormal proteins. These proteins clog the organs so much that they stop working. But after the operation, with the ‘machine’ as his heart’s replacement, Lewis’ blood continued to spin and move through his body.
However, when doctors put a stethoscope to his chest, you wouldn’t hear a heartbeat (just a ‘humming’ sound). If you examined his arteries, there’s no pulse. If you hooked him up to an EKG, he’d be flat-lined — which by all criteria that we conventionally use to analyze patients, he is dead. This is proof that human physiology can be supported without a pulse.
Check out the short video below to see it all:
Vasculature of the human heart
There is more concentrated, densely-spaced, vasculature in the heart than even nerves!
You don’t know what you do to me, girl.
Lemme show you.
??? - Majora’s Mask
I know he’s far from perfect, but the world would certainly be a better place if more religious leaders expressed sentiments like this one.
(source)
