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[cartoon] Procrastination: putting off tasks until deadline has passed!

Procrastination, to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. Some people allow panic, complicated tasks, fear and nervousness to get over them, and delay doing that important job. Procrastination is not a problem when it happens once, but it becomes so when you repeat it again and again that it becomes a habit. As the cartoon below shows.

Created on Bitstrip.com. See the full image.

This is the time to take control of your life. Step back and ask yourself: "Am I allowing situation and complications to get over me?" "Do I put off doing important things and rush over them just seconds to the deadline?" Many people have lost opportunities of making a significant progress in life because of the weakness of procrastination.

If you see yourself under the spell of procrastination, try to imagine yourself under the spell of taking action, of approval by others who trust in you and are inspired by you. Which image do you desire?

Comments in the comment box below, please!

The Apple Logo memory test even UCLA undergraduates failed.

Credit: Flickr.com

Can you draw the Apple logo? When some UCLA undergraduates were asked to test their memory of the ubiquitous Apple Logo, they failed the memory test. I want you to pass. Take the test.

Hold your breath! Now Click to enter!

If you cannot draw the logo, take a look at it on that mac!

When genetic diversity and diseases like Ebola are at stake, the success of the fittest has to be clarified.

“There is nothing as sweet as success” might be a trite statement but the realization that success will always thrive when disaster strikes is not stale. Archaeology, linguistics, psychology and now genetics attest to it. Successful people have a greater chance of giving birth to children, of getting married and on average, of surviving disease outbreaks like Ebola.

When diseases like Ebola strikes, success will always thrive.
Credit: DFID on flickr.
A recent research conducted globally on genetic diversity during a period where genetic diversity was declining globally found that those who were wealthy and successful had a better chance of having their genes inherited than those who were not. The consequence of this is related to chances of surviving against diseases and inheritance of genetic traits.

In another related archaeological study it was found that men who were wealthy, measured by the tools recognized with the rich at that period, the Neolithic, or stone age, had access to better land than those buried without tools. Class existed in the stone age!

These two studies conducted at about the same period, the stone age, are not treatises on materialism. They emphasize what is known by man for ages: the successful will always dine with Kings.

But the question those researches did not breach is: what is the definition of success? I really wanted to read the article, the first that related wealth and success to genetic diversity, because it made a relation to “survival of the fittest.”

Fittest is a quarrelsome word in biology. Take a Bill Gates. Is he the fittest on earth? Yes, if you were living in a democratic country where the rule of law is adhered to, but no if you were living in a country ravaged by years of warfare like Afghanistan or Iraq. Well defined property rights do not exist in such countries!

During the Neolithic the main occupation was sedentary farming. Farming requires physical prowess and knowledge of the supernatural forces that controlled agriculture. That was sufficient to be successful. Success does not always translate to material wealth, but success is enough for genetic advantage. Success in the information age is related with the ability to code, to use multiple intelligences, to understand data and how data relates to the world around us and to make money, physical cash.

The two researches above are not treatises on materialism but an exhortation to be successful. Success is what nature wants. Success is what everyone smiles upon. Excellence is a good that must be pursued by the modern man.


What creative lessons can we learn from wound healing cells?

Geese migrating in V formation.
Credit:Karthijaygee on Wordpress
It is not a new phenomenon in nature: creatures migrate in a patterned leader-follower fashion. For example, geese fly in a V formation with the leader ahead of them. When tired, the lead goose drops back and hands over leadership to another goose. Researchers working in the field of bioengineering have discovered that cells migrating to the site of a wound exhibit this same pattern.

A delicate biomechanical and biochemical interaction is at play during the cell migration of wound healing cells. At the site of a wound the cells sense that the force between cells, what holds them together, is missing and a protein called DII4 is released. This protein then transmits a signal that activates the migration of wound healing cells to that site. During the migration, the cells are divided into two groups: leader and follower cell groups. The leader cells are distinguished by the possession of a token. That token is a protein called mRNA or messenger RNA which is used for sending biochemical signals to follower cells during migration. Eventually, when the cells arrive at the wound site, the wound healing process is begun.

Astonishingly, just as for migrating geese, it was found that if a leader cell gets missing, in a randomly chosen process, another leader cell is chosen from the ranks of follower cells.

This discovery has much application in medicine.

  • In tissue and organ transplants.

  • Bio-engineers can speed up the process of tissue and organ transplants in humans if they can successfully coordinate this process of wound healing.

  • In tissue regeneration.

  • Since wound healing is similar to tissue regeneration, understanding and controlling this process could help in regeneration and elongation of life.

  • Treatment of diabetes.

  • A non-healing diabetic wound which is the number one cause of lower limb amputations in the United States could be cured when this process is under medical control.

  • In cancer treatment.

  • Cancer cells that invade healthy tissue could be prevented from succeeding when this cell migration activity is coordinated and regulated.

This discovery can open doors to innovations in medicine and engineering.

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