Big news in the neighbourhood this afternoon. Today at lunch, I noticed smoke billowing from somewhere in Yorkville. News helicopters started to orbit overhead, so I turned on the news: Sassafraz, an infamous restaurant in the ‘ville was on fire. And what a fire it was: five alarms, a collapsed roof and some great photography opportunities. Thankfully, no one was injured.
See my Flickr set.
My pseudo-photo-journalism featured on: BlogTO, FireFighting News, NowPublic
Consider, if you will, being born with a twin inside you. You would unlikely know that you had a twin until you (or your parents) noticed an abnormal lump growing in your gut. Going to the doctor, x-rays are taken and the medical team notices that there are extra bones in there. You get a CT scan, and that mass is diagnosed as Fetus in fetu, or your parasitic twin.
While these cases are unusual (suggested as 1 in 500 000 births) and the vast majority (89%) are diagnosed by the age of a year and a half, Sanju Bhagat, from Nagpur, India had a parasitic twin removed from his abdomen at the age of 36. Sounds like the surgeons weren’t expecting this:
“Basically, the tumor was so big that it was pressing on his diaphragm and that’s why he was very breathless,” said Dr. Ajay Mehta of Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. “Because of the sheer size of the tumor, it makes it difficult [to operate]. We anticipated a lot of problems.”
Mehta said that he can usually spot a tumor just after he begins an operation. But while operating on Bhagat, Mehta saw something he had never encountered. As he cut deeper into Bhagat’s stomach, gallons of fluid spilled out — and then something extraordinary happened.
“To my surprise and horror, I could shake hands with somebody inside,” he said. “It was a bit shocking for me.”
I was shocked, a bit grossed-out and quite amazed when I read about Sanju’s situation. I think that humans have a real problem with the idea of other things inside them (consider aversion to needles, tapeworms and now, unborn, absorbed twins). However, it speaks to our understanding of self: we have a pretty strong idea that everything inside our skin is us and everything outside our skin is other. There are some boundary-breaking objects, like food (where the outside becomes the inside) and foetuses, but I do think we live in a world where the boundaries of selfhood begin and end with our bodies.
What I like about the idea of a fetus in fetu is the examination of our own self and what counts as other. I’m not so sure you can easily suggest that a parasitic twin, fed from their sibling’s blood supply, isn’t, in fact a part of that person. Something more than one but less than two?
Links: Fetus In Fetu: A Case Report and Literature Review, A Pregnant Man?, Google search for “fetus in fetu”
As I was sitting here looking out my window, I just noticed a Blue bottle fly, like this:
Sitting outside in the sun. It’s +3 out there this morning and walking the dog was a pleasure, especially after the coldest weather of the fall earlier this week.
You have to notice and celebrate the small things.
I just had two Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) scream by the apartment building at eye (fifth floor eye) level. One pulled up and did a little “wing over” before peeling off in another direction.
This is the second time that I’ve seen Peregrines in the last week or so. I know that they live over on the CIBC building at Yonge & Bloor, but I hadn’t seen them outside my window.
Dunno what we’re supposed to make of this news release:
“What? We’re similar to a sea urchin? That can’t be possible.”
Um, well, not really. Some part of our genomes are the same. And there might be clues in there to help humans live longer (which, I ask: do we really need?). That’s about it. We don’t live in the ocean and we’re not harvested and turned into bite-sized dinner.
I see this as a case that emphasizes the problem with the reductionism inherent in studies of genomes (so what does it really mean if echinoderms and humans have similar genomes?) and the recent emphasis on genes (and genomes by extension) as the gold standard in explaining life’s mysteries. Perhaps there is some anthro-genetic-gold locked away in a sea urchin’s genome, but what else is new? We’ve been looking for and mining genetic gold for a while now…
So yes, it is interesting that sea urchins are closer to us on the phylogenetic tree then say, other genetic poster boys (like Drosophila sp., for example). But, there are lots of other organisms that are closer. It’s just that a echinoderm’s radial symmetry (versus our lateral symmetry) and their morphological dis-similarity to us gives us the immediate impression that sea urchins must be genetically distant. But knowing that chimpanzees, given their genetic code, should be in the same genus as us (or that we should be seen as the third chimpanzee, thanks Jared Diamond) I’m really not that surprised that there’s some overlap with distant relative.
Link: Sea Urchin Genome Surprisingly Similar To Man And May Hold Key To Cures
Unrelated post-script: I love the photo of UCF Professor Cristina Calestani: I think it should be called “Sea urchin, microscope & professor.”
I am not a mathematician by any stretch of any imagination, so I don’t know if this an example of pop mathematics or not but I find this interesting even so.
Now, I’m not sure what those deeply entrenched in the various mathematical disciplines think about this (but they seem to be a bit off anyway) but I’ve just read about a computer science professor in the UK that has solved the equation 0/0 by proposing a new number: nullity. Nullity lies off the linear number line (-∞…-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3… ∞). Just the idea of a number off the linear line strikes me as brilliant.
The STS portion of my brain starts firing at the idea of a new number. It’s a little mind-boggling, but did this number always exist? Was it just “created”? These kinds of ideas are precisely why I love academia: it takes creativity and thinking beyond the established rules to think of something like this.
