I just had to share the following:)
In my life as an Ecologist I was extremely interested in slime moulds. Their life cycle divides into animal bio/chemistry in one part and then changes into plant bio/chemistry for another. Fascinating.
Anyway, not to bore you further with my esoteric fancies, I heard today about the Sea Squirt: apparently this has similar-appearing properties.
This story was told on BBC Radio by an eminent and rather self-deprecating brain surgeon. When juvenile the sea squirt swims about rather like a tadpole and has a brain. When mature it looks for a suitable rock, affixes itself for the rest of its natural life and lives a vegetative-type lifestyle
Copyright Jan@Messersmith.name Reproduced by permission from http://www.messersmith.name/wordpress/tag/sea-squirt
– and – wait for it – reabsorbs its brain!
Therefore, clearly brain function is necessary for movement, and when all movement ceases, no further need for a brain.
(This has ramifications for brain senility of course, but this is not the point I am making here, but do take away from this what you will!)
At the end of the programme this ditty was read out, which just broke me up:
I wish I were a sea squirt
So, when life gets a strain,
I’d veg. out on the nearest rock
And reabsorb my brain.
Some days I am clearly a sea squirt:) How about you?
This gem was composed by the brain surgeon’s wife, Kate Fox, herself a social anthropologist.
PS The brain surgeon is called Henry Marsh, works as a senior consultant brain surgeon at St. George’s Hospital London and also volunteers in the eastern Ukraine. Worth googling him and his latest book, Do No Harm.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/henry-marsh-british-brain-surgeon-ukraine
PPS There is a lot of interest in the family of sea squirts at the moment both from the point of view of brain function and senility (alluded to above) and as a new source of antibiotics. Worth an investigate if you are interested.
PPPS if you go to the website from which the above photograph comes, at http://www.messersmith.name/wordpress/tag/sea-squirt/, you will see wonderful photos of sea life and many more sea squirts.
So if you want to keep your brain active – move around a lot. 🙂
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The old adage, use it or lose it was true: just that we all thought it was mental activity that kept the brain young, but it has to be physical too. But I reckon most of us knew that anyway!
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I am far less happy on my sea squirt days, so I try to keep moving!
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