Organ donation

[Jan Willem]

You can do perfectly well with one kidney, we learnt that theoretically 1/2 a kidney is enough. A 300% buffer built in by mother nature, isn't that cool. A similar emergency package by the way is in the blood supply of the brain, if one entry route gets occluded then blood can still enter via another way (the 'circle of willis'); although it doesn't help if the occlusion is too deep into the brain. The thing with kidney donation though is, that if you donate one and the other gets diseased. But even then you'd still be saved by the techniques that kept your kidney acceptor alive.
You're not hypocritical if you have a phobia for needles. If it's serious then you shouldn't ignore it; the fact that you care about it proves your good intentions, and then that's all that matters. At our lab occasionally blood is collected from the scientists for experiments (non-DNA or in any other way retraceable to the donor), even with those people who work with needles very often it's common to be phobic for them or to faint.

[Italo (Mod)]

I've fainted once while doing a blood exam.. lol

[Maca (Mod)]

You only need half a kidney? That's amazing actually. And the liver is supposed to regrow right? So if you donate a part of it it will regenerate, or am I just totally lost?

I don't have a phobia for needles or for pain, but whenever I see blood my blood sugar comes down and I faint. It's really hard for me to control it, it's like a reflex or something. I fainted in my Genetics Lab when we were studying blood types and everyone had to donate a drop from their finger. And that was from seeing all the blood drops in the microscope slides, not even from donating my own.

And when we were studying vitamins in my Biochemistry class and they told us that rat poison usually contains loads of vitamin K, which doesn't allow blood to clot, and rats die of massive haemorrhages, I had to get out and go buy some candy to prevent me from fainting.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic

[Jan Willem]

Actually vitamin K is essential to the blood clotting process, maybe the poison contains an inhibitor for it?
And indeed the liver can regenerate when you cut off half of it, although I think it depends on which part you cut off (because of essential nerves/blood supply etc)

[Maca (Mod)]

Ahhh, so that was it, the other way around. That's a bad way to die right? At least it doesn't sound too painful...

[Jan Willem]

I don't know, I've never died that way yet
I expect when you die of internal bleeding, the blood pressure will gradually decrease, so you'll be light-headed, then sleepy, unconscious etc. That would not be very painful I guess. But maybe it's a whole other 'mechanism'.

[Maca (Mod)]

Yeah, that's what I thought... slowly going to sleep. But the image in my head that made me almost faint was this dried-up rat in a pool of blood.

Imagination: "handle with care"

[furtado-freak]

Im not grossed out about blood or anything, its just the big long needles that get stabbed in to you....*shudder*....

But yeah the human is amazing, the way it operates and stuff, like with the liver and kidney ect...its just so complexed, like how if we unrapped our nervous system and put into on long string it would circle the world a couple of times or something...am i right???
and how people only ever use 10% of our brains, imagine what we can accomplish if we used say 20%......if we learn to use more perhaps we wil find that cure for cancer we so desperatly need...ect

[Jan Willem]

Do you mean we only use 10% of our brains ever in total, or only 10% at once? The latter would surprise me less, e.g. because multi-focusing is indeed a heavy task for the brain, especially the male brain Although there is of course also a lot of automatic, unnoticed brain activity. I think that medical science at these days is not limited by the human mind; mostly it's an avalanche effect of subsequent smaller discoveries that eventually yield a strong enough set of data, needed for the development of drugs or techniques. Money, limited human volunteers in case of a rare disease, and ultrarestrictive regulation of animal testing are probably the most important factors. And the ethical objections that some narrow-minded governments have against scientific improvement.
blablabla
hey maybe if we start a new thread with a new topic, in a similar way as this thread? Hopefully we can get some more people then too. Any ideas?

[Maca (Mod)]

Originally Posted by Jan Willem

multi-focusing is indeed a heavy task for the brain, especially the male brain

JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA!!!!!!!!!!!!



I guess that's true!

Ideas... Maybe a discussion on oil and oil prices and that kind of stuff? It's been on my mind lately. Or would you prefer something more medical?