Archive for February 23, 2026
SNOW: A POEM FOR THE TIMES
SNOW: A POEM FOR THE TIMES
For those familiar with my blog I’m sure they expected to see this poem again with the major snowstorm we have just seen and are still experiencing.
Snow is a poem I post every time there is a significant snowfall. I feel this current storm merits its posting.
This poem was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Bells.
SNOW
See the delicate snowflakes fall,
Falling, falling, falling.
Whitening the earth, awaiting below,
Falling, falling, falling.
See the mounds of glittering white,
Building, building, building.
As they hide the ground from our sight,
Building, building, building.
See the ceaseless falling snow,
Falling, falling, falling.
Will it stop, no one quite knows,
Falling, falling, falling.
See the drifts accumulate,
Building, building, building.
My longing for spring will no longer wait,
Building, building, building.
SEE THE DAMNED WHITE BLANKET GROW,
HIDING, HIDING, HIDING.
MY CAR, MY LAWN, ALL I KNOW,
HIDING, HIDING, HIDING.
SEE MY MADNESS, MY URGE TO KILL,
GROWING, GROWING, GROWING,
CROSS MY PATH, AND I’LL DO YOU ILL,
SMILING, SMILING, SMILING.
THOSE AMAZING WATER BEARS AND THE KIDNEY
THOSE AMAZING WATER BEARS AND THE KIDNEY
It has been a while since I first ran across a reference to water bears (Tardigrades). They are the most bizarre creatures I have ever seen. When I saw them I immediately knew a story would follow. That story is now in progress.
The reason for this post is an interesting relationship I reasoned between water bears and the kidney.
Water bears are virtually indestructible. They have survived a trip into space. So what you may say, so have many other organisms. The reason their survival was so unique was that they were on the OUTSIDE of the spacecraft. They are thought to possibly be a good model to study cancer. The reason being that to increase in size they increase their cell size as opposed to cell division, a process leading to some forms of cancer.
Here is where the tie to kidneys comes in.
I began my career in research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the first project I was involved in was the study of kidney hypertrophy. When you remove the kidney of an animal, including us, the remaining kidney grows in size. The increase is not due to cell division but due to an increase in cell size. This work began in 1974. It appears that some progress has been made in understanding the mechanism and is far more complicated than our approach was in 1974. We weren’t even close. To give you an idea of what our knowledge of cell function was around the time I was in graduate school, and a new structure had been identified on the surface of cells. They were calling it a ‘receptor’. I was to begin my research career about four years later.
I thought the growth of water bears and kidney hypertrophy are an interesting duplication in cell biology.
For those curious about this most unusual creature, the water bear, I have included a link to a documentary about them.
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