Random Things From this Week.

- Driving in the car is typically the place where the worst posture is maintained.

- If a B-vitamin supplement is taking and soon after the urine turns a brighter yellow, this is a sign that the vitamin is not lacking and thus the body is simply excreting it.

- Apoptosis is cell-suicide. If it weren't for selective apoptosis, humans would have webbed-hands. Thanks to this selective and programmed cell death, humans have gaps between their fingers.

- Chewing gum can affect your digestive system. Digestion occurs the minute we start to smell, see, or even think about food. The brain informs the digestive system to get ready because a meal is about to come. Mastication (i.e. chewing) sends another signal to the stomach that food is about to arrive. However, when gum is chewed, the stomach is ready and thinks it is about to receive food, but the food never arrives.

- Wearing new orthotics for the first time may cause quite a lot of pain. This pain is likely not due to a faulty pair of orthotics or due to the wrong size. The pain is due to the fact that the body's position is being corrected and being put into a new and likely uncomfortable position. However, with time, the body will adjust to this new position and it will become comfortable.

- Cholesterol is used to make vitamin D. Cholesterol is converted to 7-dehydrocholesterol and when this molecule is exposed to UV light (i.e. when the body is exposed to the sun), it is converted to vitamin D.

- The control of urination is a learned reflex. Obviously we are not born with the ability to control our urination (babies = diapers), but with good teaching by our parents, we are able to learn how to control this reflex.

- And one last random thing, from the life of Becca:

What can $8.50 buy you?

How about 10 red potatoes, 5 large carrots, 8 onions, 1 head of cabbage, 3 bananas, 2 oranges, 5 apples, 1 sweet potato, 1 cucumber, and 1 butternut squash. I received all this loot this week when I received my food box. CCNM has a program where you can order a food box of produce and have it delivered to the campus. All of the produce is local, except for the bananas and oranges. That's a pretty impressive amount of food for less than ten dollars!