Nature’s Creations — — The Placenta, Vernix Caseosa, Bamboo, Kudzu Vines
versus man’s invention — the Plastic
Ramanathan S Manavasi aka M.R. Subramanian
The Analogy of the Game of Chess for humanity :
Walt Whitman said, ‘To have great poets, there must be great audiences, too.’ The Medium Website encourages aspiring writers to carefully consider not only what and how they write, but the universality of what they feel. Suddenly, their audience is global. But in equal measure they are part of a global community of readers. This shift has had a profound impact on the way in which they understand and communicate their shared humanity. Ah nature, such a beauty to the human eye. We think of nature as a friend, something that we can rely on. But over time us, humans, rely on nature so much and we take what we think is ours from nature. Humans think that since nature is our friend, that nature won’t do anything back. Humans always say that they are helping the earth and they try their best to save the earth from total destruction. But yet we see that the earth is falling apart and humans are doing nothing about it.
Look at this as a game of chess, nature is the black pieces and the human race is the white pieces. On the side of the black pieces, the plants like vines, trees, grass, crops, etc. are the Pawns. The Knights are the animals, they are strong-willed and can only move a certain way. The Rooks are the winds they can only move forwards, backwards, side to side. The Bishops are the oceans, rivers, brooks, etc. they move diagonally when you look at them from the aerial view. The Queen is Mother Earth, the Queen is able to move anywhere on the chess board. And finally on the side of the black pieces, the King, the atmosphere would the most likely candidate. Therefore, the King could only move to certain places on the chess board and the atmosphere could danger all of humanity.
On the other side of the chess board, the pawns of the white pieces would be the anyone in the lower class. The knights are the middle class, the rooks are the higher class. The bishops are the rulers, the Prime Ministers, and the Presidents. The Queen would be the military, the military are able to move everywhere from the U.S military to the Portuguese military. And finally the King is the Government, the Government holds all the information and sends the military and the people to attack nature. The Government gives out details and has the people make destructive weapons that would harm Mother Nature. Let us view in detail some of Nature’s Creations — The placenta, Vernix Caseosa, Bamboo, and Kudzu vines. Finally, as a contrast, let us analyze the impact of plastic (man’s creation) in our lives. First, let us consider the importance of numbers in our lives.
The Significance of Numbers as prime movers for existence :
0.0000000000000000001602176620898
Does anyone know what the above number stands for? It is the charge of the electron in Coulombs. It is a very small number but yet change its last digit by just one and we won’t be here to discuss that.
If the charge of the electron was just a little higher than this, electrons would collapse into the nuclei and atoms won’t form. If it was a little bit less and primordial nuclei following the big bang won’t be able to attract electrons and again atoms won’t form. No atoms means no molecules and no molecules means no sun, no earth and no me and you.
But how had this number got to be the way it is? This is a very difficult question for it is not only the charge of the electron that matters; there is the charge and mass of protons, the strength of gravity, the energy of photons, the size of neutrinos and many others. All have values that if you played with them even extremely slightly, there would not be really anything. These numbers should be the way they are, if we have to come to life, otherwise, just nothing.
The Placenta — as a Life support :
The placenta is an organ that develops in the uterus during pregnancy. This structure provides oxygen and nutrients to your growing baby and removes waste products from your baby’s blood. The placenta attaches to the wall of the mother’s uterus, and the baby’s umbilical cord arises from it.
While you were in your mother’s womb for nine months this was your “life-support”. This does not allow the blood of the mother and that of the baby to mix. This is the reason why HIV positive mothers can give birth to HIV negative babies, because the two bloods do not mix.
Bamboos — It’s reproductive strategy :
They ARE capable of doing something very cool. Bamboo does occasionally flower. What is particularly interesting about this is that when they do flower, all other bamboos of the same strain, no matter how far away they are (thousands of miles) will all flower at the same time. The theory is that — if they all flower and drop their seeds at the same time, there is a greater chance of survival of some of those seeds as the resident predators won’t be able to eat them all at once. This reproductive strategy is quite common in many animal kingdoms as well, with prey herd animals all having their calves around the same time.
Vernix Caseosa — The layer of fat that contains proteins to protect baby’s skin from bacteria :
(information from Dr. Fitriyana Elbana)
When the baby is still in the mother’s womb, the baby’s body will be wrapped in a layer of fat called Vernix Caseosa. This layer of fat contains proteins that function to protect baby’s skin from bacteria and prevent baby’s skin from wrinkling while still in the womb.
This layer is also useful to facilitate the baby out of the mother’s womb. When the baby is born, this layer will still stick to the baby’s skin. Usually the nurse will not clean the layer instead let it dry because this layer also functions as a natural lotion that can make baby’s skin remain smooth, clean and protected from germs.
Usually doctors and nurses know this and will advise parents not to bathe baby. Health organizations even recommend that newborns should not be cleaned for 6–24 hours. If you want to clean, parents can only clean bloodstains. Clean it lightly, don’t rub it too deep.
Kudzu Vines, Symbols of Southern Landscapes (USA) :
Imagine you are a young naturalist. As you walk through a deep South landscape in the USA, though fascinated by the grape-scented flowers and the purple honey produced by visiting bees, you cannot but tremble at the monstrous green forms Kudzu climbing telephone poles and trees on the edges of roads and towns. Kudzu is a vine. Under the right growing conditions, it spreads easily, covering virtually everything that doesn’t move out of its path. Kudzu was introduced in North America in 1876 in the southeastern U.S. to prevent soil erosion. But kudzu spread quickly and overtook farms and buildings, leading some to call to kudzu “the vine that ate the South.” Kudzu’s root, flower, and leaf are used to make medicine. People use kudzu to treat alcoholism and to reduce symptoms of alcohol hangover, including headache, upset stomach, dizziness, and vomiting. Kudzu is also used for heart and circulatory problems, including high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, heart failure, and chest pain; for upper respiratory problems including sinus infections, the common cold, hay fever, flu, and swine flu; and for skin problems, including allergic skin rash, itchiness, and psoriasis. Kudzu vines are good for medicine, food, forage, and fiber. It has many desirable qualities, including a resistance to rot, and it is surprisingly strong. It shines a bit like silk. The root is used to make a thickener, like cornstarch, and is also used to treat alcoholism. The flowers make a lovely herbal tea. It fixes nitrogen, and is nutritious feed for livestock. It has a lot to offer if you know what to do with it.
Kudzu may prove to be among the least appropriate symbols of the Southern landscape and the planet’s future. But its mythic rise and fall should alert us to the careless secondhand way we sometimes view the living world, and how much more we might see if we just looked a little deeper.
Now let us take a sample of man’s invention, the Plastic :
In 1907 a man named Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic material, meaning it contained no molecules found in nature. It was invented as a substitute for shellac which was a natural electrical insulator. Bakelite was a good insulator, very durable, and ideally suited for mechanical mass production. Bakelite could be shaped or molded into almost anything, providing endless possibilities and was marketed as “the material of a thousand uses.”
Eventually Bakelite evolved into what we know as the modern day plastic. It then became a major trend. And in the 1970s a huge movement started to use plastic instead of paper bags in order to “save the trees”. And this made sense. It still does. Using plastic instead of paper does reduce deforestation. But now we have a new problem.
Where does the plastic go? It cannot decompose. We knew we could not keep it on land. One day, the very first piece of plastic was placed into the ocean. It all started with just one piece of plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch : It’s a large concentration of plastic in the ocean.
Some interesting facts about the garbage patch:
· It is roughly three times the size of France.
· Once plastic enters the patch it is unlikely to ever escape.
· It contains between 1.1 to 3.6 TRILLION pieces of plastic.
· What you are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg as a lot of the plastic is underneath the water.
· It contains plastic that is decades old.
· Plastic accounts for 74% of a sea turtle’s diet.
The scariest part? It’s just one of 5 other patches.
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the use of plastic medical and protective equipment, such as single use gloves, masks and aprons. Much of this equipment must be discarded after use to limit the spread of the virus.
But demand for plastic packaging has also spiked in the retail sector, as customers wary of catching the virus shun loose products. Elsewhere, people are using antibacterial wipes and bottles of hand sanitiser at a rapid rate, with some worrying that discarded “COVID waste” could soon outnumber jellyfish in the Mediterranean sea.
How do you completely stop the use of plastic containers in a country? Sikkim, a state in India, has the best strategy: They introduced the use of bamboo water bottles. Tourists are checked to make sure no one brings plastic water bottles into the state.
Our beautiful blue planet may end up as a radioactive wasteland; deprived of all life for thousands, maybe millions of years. After that, will life on Earth be reborn? Yes, as our Sun has still four billion years to go. Nature will always prevail. The contrarians proclaim that if nature always wins, there’s no need for vaccines, masks, or draconian lock down measures. Because human beings are not just part of nature. We ARE nature.Be well, and live the life of your dreams. Live with a head held high in truth, and eyes lowered in humility, with a heart for any fate, be fearless. Be yourself. Outside my window, birds are tweeting, dense clouds are low, trees are swaying and leaves playing, sunlight appears fluorescent, cool breeze is warming up my being.
A Game of Chess Paco Sako for inspiration :
In the beginning of this article, I have described the global community and shared humanity as a game of chess, nature is the black pieces and the human race is the white pieces. A nice illustration of how this two different variants can combine for betterment and collaboration is Paco sako.
Paco Ŝako is a variant of chess by Dutch artist and designer Felix Albers. The basic rules for how the pieces move are the same as for chess, but there are two very distinctive differences: no pieces are ever captured and removed from the board, and two opposite pieces can unite into one piece and move together. When Felix, himself a chess player was about to teach his son the game of chess, he was considering alternatives to the war-like nature of chess. The idea developed into Paco Ŝako, a fully fledged new kind of chess game focusing more on collaboration than elimination. Despite the more peaceful and collaborative nature of Paco Ŝako, there can be a winner. If at any point one of your pieces is able to connect with the opponent’s king, it’s game over. So that’s the ultimate goal, but the journey towards that goal is also very important. I get the feeling that Felix thinks the journey is more important.
All your pieces move exactly like normal chess pieces. The magic happens when you would normally capture a piece — instead the two pieces combine with dance-like grace and from here on move together as a union, as one piece with two different qualities. If your half of the union is a knight, then you move it around the board as a knight, and if your opponent’s half is a queen, then he moves it like a queen. Very soon the board looks like the Grand Central Station dancing scene from the movie ‘The Fisher King’. It is captivating and beautiful. As a chess player, you should be able to pick up Paco Ŝako in few minutes. The game is a wonderful challenge for the chess brain — everything looks and works so familiar, yet you are in completely uncharted territory. It is exhilarating, exciting and challenging. (Per Fisher’s Article in Medium Website)
Photo by treeoflifebirthphotography.com & Slideshare.net
No copyright infringement is intended. Thanks for your cooperation.
Photos courtesy : Fitriyana Elbana Keluarga Moment Indonesia
No copyright infringement is intended. Thanks for your cooperation.
Photo Courtesy : Reddit.com
No copyright infringement is intended. Thanks for your cooperation.
Photos Courtesy :
1) Reddit.com
2) Boardgamegeek Website
No copyright infringement is intended. Thanks for your cooperation.
Thanks a lot for your patient reading. Hope you are thrilled and excited now after knowing about these illuminating nuggets of Wisdom. Enjoy this image as a Bonus.
Photo courtesy : Joe Schwarcz Facebook Site
No copyright infringement is intended. Thanks for your cooperation.
Ramanathan S Manavasi aka M.R. Subramanian
The author of the Book “The Art of Seeing — Essence of Vision and Epiphanies of Perception”
The list of Articles published in Medium website :
1 The Art of Seeing — Some Nice and Novel Insights about Vision and Perception
2 Validating and Clarifying our Choices — Inspiration from Ramana Maharshi
3 What is common between Einstellung Effect, the movie ‘Patch Adams’, Warren Buffett and the Healing system Ayurveda
4 What is common between Mirror Neurons, Morphic Resonance, Atomic Habits, the movie Interstellar and Gayatri Mantra
5 Sensationalizing the Substance and then Substantiating the Sensation — The Cure and Remedy for this tendency
6 Randall Munroe’s mind bending Art of Seeing Sideways
7 Mathematics is The Order that governs the Universe
8 Artificial Unintelligence — Driverless Vehicles, Deep Learning and Dirty Datasets
9 Sanskrit — A mesmerizing part of my Heritage, Identity, Roots and Cultural Sensitivity
10 Making Sense of a Pandemic and Awakening to Reality
11 The Role of Name among the Triad of Experience, and the Five constituents of Knowledge
12 Correct and Candid Observation — From one painting by Erich Drooker
13 The Truth in the times of COVID-19 Crisis — Taking Inspiration from Shakespeare and Usain Bolt
