Glider

I don't know to be honest. But can you imagine the arguments? "...but how was I supposed to know I was about to give birth?"...hehehe

No...hence the term "It's not only illegal immigrants...". I definitley think it would help if all the separate trusts pooled their data on this issue. I agree. There are no ground for withholding treatment from those in genuine need. I also agree that some system to redress the imbalance caused by non-nationals (i.e. those who haven't been paying for the NHS), seeking 'free', high quality treatment.

I'm with Fafalone on this one. The problem of illegal immigrants (apparently getting quite bad here, depending on what papers you read) is an economic/political one and needs to be adressed. But the problem of somebody admitted into A&E is a medical one, and less difficult. They are treated (as anybody in that state should be). It does cost the taxpayer, and that is irritating many people. However, as a proportion of overall cases admitted, illegal immigrants don't account for that many. It's not only illegal immigrants though. At the hospital I worked at (a large London teaching hospital) it was noticed that a large number of pregnant women were coming to London for 'holidays', very close to term. They would stay in London long enough to go into labour, be brought into A&E by ambulance and be admitted into the labour ward to give birth. Once they were discharged, they would go back home to America.

I agree. It just gets worse and worse....so much for Channel 5's "Matrix Night" last night....it was just the film (ruined by frequent and extremely long ad breaks)...followed by Animatrix (10 minutes, bulked out by almost the same amount of time for adverts), followed by a really short thing on the making of Matrix Reloaded (again, totally buggered by ad breaks). I saw an ad for a new TV series (starts today I think), called something like 'Britains Dirtiest Homes' in which a couple of people go around to the homes of people who don't do housework, and clean their houses for them. What the f***k is that all about? I think TV companies are just opting for the cop-out...the cheapest crap they can find that caters to the lowest common denominator just so they can put something on just so there's someone to watch all the adverts. Reality TV? Arse! BIg Brother...I'm a celebrity get me out of here and the rest of that type of crap...what's the point of it? There's bugger all real about it...it ain't even entertaining (unless you enjoy sessions of acute cringing and dispair at the kind of people who volunteer to be on that kind of thing). It's cheap, they don't have to pay actors or anything, it caters to to the quasi-sadistic, there's no imagination, it's not informative and (in my opinion) not entertaining. I don't know how they're getting away with it. I thought they had some kind of obligation to meet certain criteria...but being commercial stations, probably (and evidently) not.

It is called the Caduceus and it is the staff of Hermes (in Greek mythology) or Apollo (in Roman mythology) . For detailed infomation, see here

He was on at about 6:30 this morning (UK)...I watched him posting, but couldn't stop him.....git!

...er...wot?

Beats me...my old life always seemd to be fun. That's either rose tinted hindsight, or my new 'sensible' life sucks.

As far as I'm aware, the general consensus (at least according to the virologists I know) is that viruses are not alive. Virology is studied usually to investigate the effects of viral infection on living things, modes of transmission, mutation etc. and how to protect against them. Aside from life then...what are they? They are considered 'viable'. A virus (in essence) is just a strand of RNA in a protein coat. It takes nothing in, and excretes nothing. There are no internal processes and no metabolism. Their action is a function of chemical attraction. Viruses bind to cell membranes and inject their RNA into the cell, but this is a product of mutually attractive binding sites on the viral coat and the cell membrane...there is no 'behaviour'. The mechanisms are the same as those which cause antibodies to bind to non-self particles (antibodies are not alive either). Not being alive, viruses don't die. They can be destroyed (denatured), but not killed. This being the case, in a stable environment, they can exist in a viable state indefinitely. Viruses can't self-replicate either.

Nothing at all. But it does tell us something about the effects of certain drugs. Well, I have to admit, he got me then. Although I must also admit to not getting the point either (especially as all interactions take place 'here', so physical location is not a factor) :scratch:. In mitigation, it is one week from the end of the semester, and I have been working my arse off 7 days a week since last June...so I have to admit also to not getting the point of very much at all at the moment.....I used to have quite a good sense of humour too...*sigh*. Speaking of Aus, I really wish I was back in the pub at the bridge end of the Rocks market right now, sucking tequila and listening to Phil MacCool. Furious vengance is not my way...for a start, I'm way too tired for that at the moment...and secondly, I gave it up after entering higher education. Once you've seen the inside of one cell (military and civilian...ok...two cells) due to a penchant for furious vengance, you've seen enough.

If 'naive' is a new way of spelling 'ironic', yep.

Nope...you already are paying. That choice has been made for you. The decisions who or who not to treat are also being made for you. Well, the possibility exists that at some point in the future, you might need them to pay for yours (you drink, don't you? or drive a car? or engage in any of the other risk-behaviours associated with modern living?). You must mean those buttheads such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Sand, Noel Coward, Charlotte Bronte, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas De Quincy, Dr William Halstead, Dr Sigmund Freud...the real thickies. My point here is that it is not true to say people who take drugs are stupid. This implies that intelligent people cannot do stupid things. The reason I say this, is because I get the impression that you think drug addicts are your stereotypical ghetto-bred down and outs, whereas in fact, they constitute only a small proportion of the addicted population. They just stand out more due to their attempts to fund their addicition. Emotions? What use have I for such vacuous frivolities?

It's one definition, but it's flawed. All stupid people are mentally incapable, therefore all mentally incapable people are stupid? What about any number of psychpathologies which render people mentally incabable, though they may never have been stupid? And what's wrong with letting the stupid people kill themselves off with various unpleasant narcotics? Well, they don't all die. Some remain comparatively healthy but need to steal to fund their addiction. Others become chronically ill; parts begin to fail e.g. liver, kidneys etc.. Their treatment is expensive. Either way, you and I pay. Why treat them at all? you ask...because the principle of witholding treatment from those you consider are from suffering self-inflicted conditions is the first step on a very dangerous and very slippery slope. You begin by withholding treatment from narcotics adicts. What about smokers? Shall we withhold treatment from them too?....How about drinkers? All those knackered livers, not to mention accidents whilst under the influence. What about those nutters who engage in dangerous sports like paragliding? They don't need to do that, and trauma treatment is extremely expensive. And boxers...it's just foolish to engage in a sport of which the objective is to blugeon somebody around the head until they lose consciousness. That leads to Parkinsonian syndromes and severe cognitive impairment (long-term and very expensive). Football players...all those expensive orthopaedic injuries....joggers with all those expensive knee and hip replacements. All very expensive. All down to personal choice and all unnecessary. There might even be a profit in it from selling them the poison, now that would be a bonus! Possibly, but would you vote for anybody who proposed selling addictive and potentially lethal substances to your kids? Even if you found that acceptable, the profit gained from selling the stuff would not begin to cover the long-term costs. In light of reality, I'm not sure that's the answer. Who is it that said it was only stupid people who took drugs anyway....where is the evidence for that suggestion? Are you working to the logic that "all people who take drugs are stupid"? Does that work the other way round? All stupid people take drugs? I don't get the logic.

You use your vote. That's what it's there for.

I'd say when it doesn't need to be built to to perform these functions, but performs these functions as a function of being. It's a tricky question. Admittedly, the criteria above are quite broad, and there is at least one arguable exception. However, each of those criteria are more complex than they initially appear. For example, ingestion (is not just taking on fuel, but invoves invoves altering the substance ingested and changing it from whatever it was, to a part of yourself, literally and on a chemical level), reproduction (is not just producing an identical 'self', but producing a thing which conforms to the species 'blueprint', and yet is different from every other member of the species (at least on a genetic level (fire fails this one)), growth (is not just not just an increase in physical size, but a process of development and adaptation to the environment in which growth takes place (fire fails this one too)). I think the answer is subtle, but simple (like most things in nature). I'd say you'd have to look at all living things, and identify the thing(s) they have in common, which are absent in non-living things. You could end up with just a logical argument along the lines of "A circle is that in which the ratio of circumference to diameter = Pi". Therefore, anything which does not show this is not a circle, i.e. life is anything that posesses characteristics x, y and z. Therefore anything which does not show x, y and z is not alive. The trick is providing definitions for x, y and z.

That's the theory, yeah. You can see a good example of this in hypnosis. If the hypnotists suggests to the participant that they get down and crawl about on all fours, the participant will do so. If you then ask the person why they are doing that, they will come up with some rational explanation, e.g. "I'm looking for my contact lense" or "I dropped my pen". Our minds don't cope well with randomness. It actively searches for pattern and reason. So (the theory goes) when we observe ourselves doing something, our minds take current circumstances into account, and provides us with a rationale, which we can then use to justify what we observed ourselves doing. That sounds like intravenous valium to me. That doesn't paralyse you, it just puts you in a shallow state of unconsciousness. Two reasons I think it was IV valium 1) it's commonly used by dentists for removal of wisdom teeth etc.. 2) That rubber floor thing...hehehe...unique to valium. Your legs don't quite seem long enough to reach the floor somehow. That's how I remember it anyway. The heart is autonomous. It will continue beating regardless of paralysis. In fact, if you provide it with oxygenated Wringer's solution, it will continue beating even if you remove it from the body. All other motor functions are prone to paralysis as muscle relaxants affect motor neurone transmission. The heart doesn't depend on any motor nerves to function (the vagus nerve only controls rate).

People reproduce; i.e. the 'generic human' is capable of reproduction. People who for some reason (trauma, pathology, congenital condition) cannot reproduce are exceptions to the species-universal rule. In fact, there's only one thing I can think of that fulfills these (admittedly imperfect) criteria for life, and yet isn't alive, and that's fire. It requires fuel and leaves waste (ash). It needs oxygen and produces carbon dioxide. If provided with these, it grows, and when the conditions are right, it reproduces (via airborne sparks). Viruses don't fulfill any. They are viable, but not alive. They don't respire, they don't ingest, they don't excrete and they don't reproduce (they need host-cells to do it for them).

Living machines: I thought there were criteria for life (Ingestion, excretion, respiration, growth and reproduction). Are we talking about living machines, or sentient machines? Someday maybe we can make an actual schematic of a brain. Just aman There are an estimated 1 billion neurons in the spinal cord, 70 billion in the cerebellum and 12-15 billion in the cerebral cortex. Multiply that by the number of dendritic connections between neurons and...well, I wish you luck, but I won't be holding my breath Why do cardiac cells do this? I'm sure its not only the cardiac cells that are involved. What role do neurons have? MajinVegeta Cardiac cells are autonomous. Their membranes allow a steady influx of sodium ions that result in an action potential at comparatively regular intervals. Put two or more of these cells together, and they will begin to beat in unison. Keep them bathed in oxygenated Wringer's solution and they will do this indefinitely. What role do neurons have? In the case of the heart, they simply moderate the rate. The motor component of the vagus nerve (cranial nerve X), regulates heart rate according to demand. Sever the vagus nerve and the heart will continue beating, but at its own rate and irrespective of the changing needs of the body.

Radical Edward: You're right, there are many different anaesthetics; halothane, cyclopropane etc. etc., and they all have slightly different mechanisms of action. A general hyperpolarisation is one of the more common mechanisms (e.g. ether and choloroform both result in hyperpolarisation), and most modern GAs try to do what they did, more controllably and without the harmful effects. It's interesting what Deslaar said about possible learning processes under GA though. There is in fact evidence that learning at some level can take place under GA. It's one of the pieces of evidence for the contention that preattentive processes outweigh conscious action. Others are such phenomena as blind-sight, automaticity and the automatic evaluation effect. It's all very interesting stuff, and the basic contention is that conscious awareness (volitional cognition) is in fact merely a kind of 'cognitive hitch-hiker' doing little more than moderating and explaining actions and behaviours that are initiated on a non-conscious level. E.g., from this perspective, when we say "I decided to do that", what we are really doing is explaining an action the conscious part of ourselves observed us doing. It boils down to a deterministic approach which implies that we are nowhere near as in control as we thought. Nevertheless, there is a large (and growing) body of empirical evidence supporting it.

No, not now anyway. Passing a (very low) current across one or both hemispheres simply causes all the neurons to fire at once, and in no particular order (hence the seizure). It's much the same as an epileptic fit, only not limited to a particular area (NB it is the brain seizure that's the important thing. The motor function, i.e. thrashing about, is not necessary, which is why it can be used under anaesthetic). I think earlier use of ECT (1930s - 1950s) resulted in problems with short-term memory, but I believe the problems were temporary (or is it cumulative?...I can't remember now), but I'm sure that doesn't happen any more. Back in the 50s, ECT was hugely over used (some poor sods used to get it hundreds of times a year), and at much greater currents than are used today. I should add that although ECT (or more specifically, the generalized brain-seizure it causes) is very effective on cases of depression, and does cause a downregulation of beta-adrenergic autoreceptors, it's exact mechanism of function is not fully understood. It actually induces many short-term changes to brain function, including possibly changes to aminergic receptor sensitivity (I just looked up my old notes).

From what I remember, I believe that in common with antidepressant drug therapy, ECT causes a delayed downregulation of beta-adrenergic autoreceptors (only faster than with drug intervention) which usually inhibit the release of noradrenaline. Inhibiting these receptors also elevates noradrenaline release. This is significant as noradrenergic and serotonergic systems interact, e.g. the destruction of 5-HT systems prevents the down-regulation of noradrenergic systems by antidepressant drugs. In short, the effect is similar to that produced by drug intervention except that it is faster acting, and is an endogenous effect (due to the seizure) rather than exogenous (due to the administration of drugs).

General anaesthetics usually involve a cocktail of drugs, each serving a different function. Basically, GA will include a muscle relaxant (similar to curare) which is why patients need to be intubated and put on a respirator (the muscles controlling respiration are also knocked out). The other main component of GA induces unconsciousness (and thus prevents the experience of pain, arguably the most important part). Generally, it does this by universally decreasing brain activity (i.e. no particular areas are targeted). The mechanism of action is that it opens potassium gates, allowing potassium to flow out of neurons of the central nervous system, effectively hyperpolarising them and decreasing the probability of action potentials. Thus the neurons become unresponsive to most stimuli. This mechanism of function also means that level of unconsciousness can, to a degree, be controlled, from light anaesthesia (barely responsive) to deep anaesthesia (not at all responsive), depending on the reasons for giving GA (short, simple procedures or long complex ones). An interesting thing is that for neurosurgery, GA is not used, only a local anaesthetic. The patient has to be awake to report the effects of what the surgeon is doing. It's the only way the surgeon knows exactly where he/she is. On the philosophical note, I'd have to say that going under a GA is pretty much like dying. You can feel the 'numbness' creeping over you. It's an inexorable loss of awareness and 'being', that you can't fight, and that won't stop. It sounds unpleasant, but it really isn't. I quite like it. Is being under a GA like being dead? Who knows? Cognitively, it's like being in a dreamless sleep, and temporally, well, you wake up unaware of what time has passed, and with no memory of events during the period of unconsciousness, the same as when you wake up from natural sleep (except more groggy and you tend to be in and out for a bit). Residual GA can persist in your system for quite a while. You can taste it in your mouth for hours afterwards as it gasses off and you breathe it out. However, the first night after GA, you can expect to sleep well, and have some excellent dreams.

Electro convulsive therapy (ECT) is still used. Although due to misuse and bad press in the 1950s, (due to overuse and abuse...a bit like prozac today), it is much more controlled and there are laws defining its use. These days it is used almost exclusively to treat people with depression. Usually, these people fall into 3 main classes: 1) Those with suicidal tendencies (considered at risk), because ECT shows results in about a week, whereas antidepressant drugs usually take 2 - 3 weeks to begin to show effects, and in such cases, a delay can be fatal. 2) Those who have not responded to drug interventions (ECT is often very effective in such cases). 3) ECT is particularly effective in depressed patients who also suffer from delusions. These days a much lower voltage is used, and it is applied under anaesthetic or in conjunction with muscle relaxants to minimise the discomfort and possibility of injury. Sometimes ECT is administered only to the right hemisphere of the brain. Right hemisphere ECT can be as effective as bilateral ECT, if it is intense enough to induce a seizure. It is the seizure that seems to exert the main effect, not the current used to induce it. Hence, the current used these days is much lower than was used in the 50s.

Dang! I got my info from a book on the development of IQ tests...so it didn't concentrate on eugenics, but crap! Only 20 years? That's scary!

Alrighty then... I'm fairly certain that's not the only reason. It might also be something to do with the difference between seeing babies as human beings, or as commodities to be bought and sold like pigs and pork-bellies. Ok...I'll just have to take your word for that. Is sperm a vulgar word now? Why not Africa? Do you have anything in particular against Africans? ....As for the other countries, what would you do? Have people going door to door with loaded tukey basters? Ok, here's an ethics bit: Suppose for a moment, that the women from these countries don't want to be fertilized with sperm from people you decided were fit to father their children, but who they've never met (nor will ever meet), from foreign countries they'll never go to. What would you do then? Of course not. That would put you at a huge disadvantage. Would you be one of the...ahem...'sperm' donors? If so, would you have any interest in the child/children you had breeded? It all sounds a bit elitist to me. Why do we need 'stronger' people anyway? If they're that intelligent, they're not going to be in jobs that require heavy lifting, are they? However, apart from the 'ethical fitness' issues, the whole idea is based on the assumption that intelligence is completely genetic, and that the environments in which these babies would be raised has no influence. Poverty, poor nutrition and hygene, exposure to disease, overcrowding, poor educational facilities and little hope for a meaningful future all have an influence too y'know. Yeah...what an utter bastard! How could he be so selfish as to ruin a perfectly good way of imposing a totalitarian system on people who don't want it, and dictating who people can and can't marry and who can and can't have children? I think he should be given a stern talking to! ...oh wait...he was...by the entire free world over about 7 years! Y'see, that's what tends to happen when you try to control people's lives against their will. With respect to eugenics, consider this; if there are aspects of your life that you consider private and inviolable, then you have to accept that other people are likely to feel the same. If you consider it your right to defend those aspects of your life against manipulation by 'external agencies', then you have to accept that that right applies equally to others. In short, if there are aspects of your life that you don't want other people to mess with, then you have to accept you don't have the right to mess with those aspects of other people's lives. As late as the 19th century in the USA, proposals were submitted for the compulsory sterilisation of the 'feeble minded' (irrespective of actual diagnoses). It was proposed that sterilisaton on the bases of IQ test results would eliminate 'feeble mindedness' from the population. Think about that; of what quality were IQ tests in the 19th century? At that time there were hellish places where anybody suffering anything that manifested in odd behaviour and which was not understood were put, often for life, and always against their will. Unless, of course, they were rich, in which case, such behaviour was simply 'eccentricity'. Have we progressed so far in a mere 200 years, that we can consider similar strategies to be acceptable now?