Glider

But tribunals are independent. There's obviously no point in her appealing to the people who sacked her, shen needs to appeal to an independent body.

And if she can show that she was in the right, it will become her manager's problem, as it should be.

A pressor response is a vascular response to a stimulus; either vasodilation or constriction. The cold pressor is the vascular response to cold (vasocostriction). In pain research, the cold pressor is used as a pain stimulus by inducing it rapidly. This is usually done by immersing the hand & forearm in water at between 1 & 4 degrees C. The rapid pressor response to the cold is very painful.

That's probably true, but then the same could be said of subcutaneous pain stimulators in any location. I suspect many would rather undergo 'back-street surgery' to have them removed than live as a slave. The only way around that would be to place them in an area which made permanent serious damage inevitable if somebody tried to remove them. However, implanting them would carry the same risks unless you were set up for mirosurgery. Such areas might be the dorsal root ganglia (receives sensory nerves into the spine). Electrodes there would be immensely painful and debilitating, but placing the electrodes would be dangerous, time-consuming and very expensive. Alternatively, place them the wall of the aortic arch or internal carotid arteries. These contain baroreceptors. If you pass a current through them, you'd get an immediate vasal response. It probably wouldn't be very painful, but the person would lose consciousness immediately. It does insofar as the pain signals are carried by cranial nerves and not spinal nerves. However, the pain of migraine is thought to be caused by vasoconstriction in the scalp and brain (althought the brain has no sensory nerves of its own). In that, the pain must be similar to that caused by the cold pressor response, which also results from vascular constriction, and can be quite agonising. A stun gun (high voltage, low amperage) scrambles the signals. Electricity is non specific in the receptors and nerves it triggers. It triggers everything, receptors and nerves, both motor and sensory, so you get tetany as the motor nerves activate skeletal muscle all at the same time. this weakens the individual significantly. Plus you get a massive afferent volley from all affected fibres, flooding the spine and thalamus and overwhelming them leading to confusion (& loss of consciousness if protracted). This is not likely to be extremely painful, but definitely very unpleasant.

I don't think genetics is meaningless at all. It only takes a minute difference in biology to make a large difference in psychology. It's a bit like putting on blue tinted glasses. Such a small act and only a pair of shades, but suddenly, the whole world is blue tinted. Genes only code for proteins, but look at the balance between say, monoamines (5Ht) and monoamineoxidase (MAO). A little too little 5Ht, or a little too much MAO and your whole outlook on life; the way you percieve it, react to it and remember it, will be different.

You are referring to a reflex arc, which is a functional unit and doesn't require input from the brain. Intense signals (high frequency volleys) passing up primary afferent fibres trigger interneurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. These in turn trigger efferent fibres causing withdrawal (reflex). The nociceptive signals reach the brain a little later, but your hand should already be moving by then. TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) is used to alleviate pain, but this doesn't really intercept the nociceptive volleys. It works more on the principle of the Gate Control Theory (Melzack & Wall, 1965). Signals passing up large myelinated afferents are said to inhibit nociceptive signals passing up small myelinated (A delta fibres) and non-myelinated (C fibres), by opening a neural 'gate' mechanism. The proposed model suggested that activity in the large fast afferents triggers an inhibitory interneuron which dampens the signals from the primary afferents (Ad & C) as they synapse with main projection neurons of the spinothalamic tract. Whilst the effects of such interventions support the Gate Control Theory, no such gate has ever been found. Bizarre, huh? The best place to place a microelectrode, if you wish to cause pain, would be in a filling. Somatic pain is dampened by a central control mechanism descending from the periaqueductal grey area, to the laminae of the substancia gellatinosa in the spinal cord. The reason orofacial pain is so bad is that the nociceptive signals are conducted by cranial nerves, which do not synapse in the spinal cord. They pass straight to the thalamus. Many people have felt the pain that results when accidentally chewed foil comes into contact with an amalgum filling. This is due to the tiny current generated by the two different alloys immersed in an electrolytic solution (saliva). I don't imagine you would need a large current to cause pain if it were passed between two microelectrodes embedded in an amalgum filling.

I think she has a case for constructive dismissal. She went through the correct channels and was ignored.

De nada

Basically, yawning squeezes the ol' lacrimal glands. During the day, the tears evaporate and also drain away into the lacrimal canals and into the nasal cavities. However, there are two differences when you are tired and approaching rest: 1, you yawn a lot more frequently, so more tears are produced 2, your eyes are less open (less evaporation), you're also often a bit more congested in the face due to sitting or laying down or being a bit puffy faced through fatigue etc.. This constricts the lacrimal canals so the tears can't drain away effectively. Also, when you're in a resting state, the parasympathetic system inhibits tear production so pre and post rest, you produce a bit more (the yawning helps here); pre rest, to prepare for the night, sort of build up a protective film under your eyelids. Post rest, to clear away 'sleep' from your eyes and relube them.

If items in an IQ test test knowledge (e.g. maths, history, general etc.), then it is flawed. Such items test prior learning, which is not IQ.

I agree with you.

No. Beta-amyloid is formed when amyloid precursor protein (APP) which is a brain protein anyway, is abnormally broken down into shorter fragments. The problem comes when the amyloid can't be removed. It begins to build up and forms the plaques associated with AD. There are literally hundreds of sites on the net, related to, if not devoted to Alzheimer's.

Substances such as glucose, oxygen and certain ions. Because they are small and necessary for the functioning of the brain. Substances such as cratinine, urea, chloride, insulin and sucrose pass through more slowly, Substances such as proteins and most antibiotics. Because they are too large generally. Capillaries in the brain are structurally different from those in other parts of the body. They are constructed of more densly packed endothelial cells than other capillaries and are surrounded by large numbers of neuroglia and a continuous basement membrane. Substances that pass through are either very small, or have to be actively transported across the barrier by carrier molecules, except in the area of the hypothalamus and the roof of the fourth ventricle. In that area, the barrier either doesn't exist, or is less selective.

There is a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. You may be alone, but you have friends, a girlfriend, family etc., and you are aware of their existance and their relationship to you, even when you are not with them. By definition, lonliness includes profound feelings of isolation; the awareness that one has no such relationships, even in company.

I'd go along with that. As far as I can see, she had the patient's best interests in mind and took the only course of action she felt remained open to her. I don't know how it works over there, but in the UK, it is quite within the remit of any senior nurse (ward sister/charge nurse) to remove from use any equipment she or he has reason to suspect may be faulty, or a possible danger to patients or staff, and to get the equipment tested properly. In fact, the nurse would be failing in his or her duty if they did not remove it. This applies to everything used on their ward, whether it be a defib showing weird behaviour, beds with knackered cotsides, pulse oxymeters showing bizzarre readings, even dripstands with wobbly wheels.

"God only knows it's not what we would choose to do forward he cried from the rear and the front rank died and the General sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side" (Pink Floyd - Us and Them)

Quite. Although I think 'Bernoulli's Principle' would have been a little less useful as an answer to "can you explain how airplanes works?"

The curved upper surface of an aerofoil accelerates the air passing over it, compared to the air passing underneath it. This results in relatively lower pressure above the foil than below it (lift).

Ah, well worth it then.

It's my own design. Do you like it?

I like Webster's entry for 'colour': "chiefly British variant of COLOR", as though Britiain took the word 'color' and changed it.

Yeah. I think it's completely overblown. Thank the press (as usual).

There is a dissociation between the stimulus and the experience of pain. Pain is a psychological state and a significant component of the experience is your emotional response to the stimulus. If, for some reason, you are not paying attention to, or are distracted from the stimulus, this component will be missing and the resulting experience won't be pain, merely an intense physical sensation.

True. Just so people are aware of the terms: Positive reinforcement = Application of a good thing (reward) Negative reinforcement = Removal of a bad thing (reward) Punishment = Application of a bad thing (er...punishment)