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First ‘Heartless’ Man: You don’t really need a Heart, or a Pulse
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:
“Rituals” of the Bedside Exam
Dr. Abraham Verghese explains the “ritual” of the bedside exam.
Patients and doctors must have mutual trust. They work in partnership in the healing process. Like all good relationships, listening empathically is crucial.
“At certain speeds, sometimes failure is as beautiful as success.”
This slow motion compilation of numerous skateboard “slams, bails and falls,” is insanely cool, and often wince-inducing. But everyone involved apparently made it out in one piece, so now we can all marvel at their mistakes. Watch for the one unfortunate guy who seems to have chugged a glass of water before each attempt. You have to hydrate, of course, but preferably not while you’re wiping out.
Handsome Sportz Klüb’s Bizarre ‘Raza Scoota’ Music Video
“I ride my raza scoota sroo ze night / to get to your heart / to get to your heart.”
Has there ever been a catchier hook to a fake-German pop song? Probably not. We don’t know who the guys behind Handsome Sportz Klüb really are, and frankly, we don’t want to.
According to their highly suspect Wikipedia page:
Handsome Sportz Klub is an electronic synthpop band from Düsseldorf, Germany. After creating the hit song “Pantz” which climbed the Swedish Pop Hits Charts the band relocated to Los Angeles and began recording their first English album, “das Album” to be released in 2011. The first single off this album was released in late 2010, entitled “Raza Skoota”.
That works for us. The video is an insane thrill ride into a world where all problems, be they love or war, can be solved by riding a Razor Scooter. No word as of this posting on whether the folks at Razor have reached out to HSK to have them star in a new ad campaign, but we suggest they do ASAP.
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
I’ve watched this video, not just once, not just twice — just comatose on this.
Túcan’s version of the Daft Punk classic “Around the World”
This is just absolutely brilliant — this is probably the most polished rendition of this song I’ve heard.
There’s a new Symphony of Science video! The brain really is awesome.
(Source: peripateticthinker)
Incredible Footage Of The Northern Lights In Norway
Peak season to see the northern lights is nearly over, and Terje Sorgjerd, an amazing Norwegian photographer, spent a week chronicling their movement in and around Norway’s Kirkenes and Pas National Park on the border of Russia recently.
MSNBC’s photo blog caught up with Sorgjerd via Skype (see the video above) to talk about his work. Sorgjerd told MSNBC that he spent every night from sunset to sunrise “hunting” the Northern Lights. He took roughly 22,000 shots while there and turned it into this stunning video.
The kicker? They set the video to “Now We Are Free” from “Gladiator”.
The Boy with The Incredible Brain
Daniel Tammet sees every number up to 10,000 as an individual object and can calculate massive equations on the fly, Daniel is one of the world’s few savants. He also has a unique trait — synesthesia. What are your thoughts about Synesthesia? What is the brain doing to calculate in such a precise way?
First, what is synesthesia?
Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people’s names with a sensory perception such as smell, color or flavor. The word synesthesia comes from two Greek words, syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Therefore, synesthesia literally means “joined perception.”
Synesthesia can involve any of the senses. The most common form, colored letters and numbers, occurs when someone always sees a certain color in response to a certain letter of the alphabet or number. For example, a synesthete (a person with synesthesia) might see the word “plane” as mint green or the number “4” as dark brown. There are also synesthetes who hear sounds in response to smell, who smell in response to touch, or who feel something in response to sight. Just about any combination of the senses is possible. There are some people who possess synesthesia involving three or even more senses, but this is extremely rare.
Synesthetic perceptions are specific to each person. Different people with synesthesia almost always disagree on their perceptions. In other words, if one synesthete thinks that the letter “q” is colored blue, another synesthete might see “q” as orange.
