Journal of Omnifarious

05:46 - Persistent vegetative state often not so vegetative

Apparently many patients diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state are misdiagnosed. Most of the time such patients are not even subjected to well known and understood scans for brain activity.

So, maybe the Republicans were right so long ago, even if for all the wrong reasons. Maybe if even one of the grandstanding politicians from that one case so long ago had mentioned something like this instead of making it into a religion based moral argument things would've gone differently, people would've been educated and lives could've been saved.

Current Mood: contemplative

02:54 - Different neurochemistry

I was talking to someone about an upcoming flight that was going to be a very long flight. She was telling me that she had tranquilizers and was quite anxious about the whole thing, partly because it was going to be for so long.

I was quietly stunned. It was like being in an alternate reality. I can sort of see how being in that situation would cause so much anxiety for someone that they would want tranquilizers to deal with it. But in reality it's a totally foreign mental concept for me. It would never even occur to me in thinking about the flight that I would get anxious from the inactivity. I went on a trip to Australia once, and it was a 23 hour flight. I was totally unconcerned with this fact, and it wasn't a problem for me.

OTOH, thinking about going through the security checkpoints makes me feel nearly physically ill. I have a negative amount of trust for the authority involved in that kind of thing, and I have a really hard time placing myself in a position where it can be so easily exercised over me.

And that's really interesting to me. It's yet another data point on why some people who are using illegal drugs of various kinds are self-medicating for mental states they don't know how to do anything about that are not appropriate or comfortable for the situations they're in. Not that my friend was using illegal tranquilizers, it's just that her situation reminded me of that.

People are the same, except when they're different. And some of the differences are really fascinating.

Current Mood: contemplative

15:10 - A pinhole 3rd degree burn

I just got a pinhole 3rd degree burn on my fingers from one of those eye-of-the-storm plasma lamps. I noticed that if you put a piece of chocolate wrapped in foil on the lamp that the movement of the tendrils of plasma was not strongly affected. But if you then touched the chocolate it would act like it does when your finger touches the lamp. All the tendrils of plasma would converge on the chocolate.

Then I noticed that if I pulled my finger away slowly that it hurt very slightly. I experimented with this a bit, and then when I looked at my finger I noticed a pinhole sized spot that was charred. Oops.

Now the tip of my finger feels very slightly odd.

I'm rather amused by this.

I need a user icon involving Ben Franklin, a kite, a key and some lightning. :-)

Current Mood: touched