More Evidence that the Moon Came from the Earth

Will et al. Indigenous noble gases in the Moon’s interior. Science Advances, Aug 2022.

Humankind has always been fascinated with the Moon and studying it for nearly five centuries since Galileo. A recent discovery now adds new evidence to the currently favored “Giant Impact” theory which hypothesizes that the Moon was formed by a massive collision between Earth and another Mars-sized celestial body around 4.5 billion years ago. A group of researchers examined six samples of lunar meteorites collected in Antarctica using an exceptionally sensitive mass spectrometer and found that the meteorites contained noble gases like Neon and Helium, consistent with those found in the Earth’s mantle. Researchers proposed two possible scenarios for how the noble gases became trapped in the Moon’s interior. In the first scenario, impactors got mixed with the lunar mantle during cooling of the magma oceans to solidify over few million years of the Moon’s formation. In the second scenario, the Moon has been formed from a debris field surrounding the Earth where noble gases were directly mixed into the Moon’s interior mass. Discovery of noble gases on the moon may also inform us about its water content, too. If these gases are still there, then water could also been present in the Moon’s interior. Such water resources could be an invaluable resource for future human missions. More broadly, this study suggests that a wide variety of life-forming material can survive giant impacts early in a planet’s life. We now could make more reliable models of how planets and solar systems form and even how life is originated on the Earth.

Restoring cell functions after death?

Andrijevic et al. Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body. Nature, August 2022.

Organ transplantation is an extremely complicated medical process. There is a massive shortage of donor organs. Waiting lists are long. Even if a patient is lucky to match with a donor organ, getting that organ before it dies through cell damage has been a big challenge. A new technology may offer a solution to extend the time that donor organs survive. A group of researchers has recently developed a technology called OrganEx, which can restore cellular activity even after death. Very shortly after the death of an organism, all cells start to die and organs begin to fail. The researchers worked with one hundred pigs to see whether cellular structures could be saved, or cell damage could be reversed, when OrganEx is applied after death. OrganEx has two major components. First is a device that simulates the heart and lung function by pushing a mix of blood and a drug cocktail to the organs. Second is the drug cocktail made of 13 chemical compounds. One hour after death, the pigs were hooked up to the OrganEx machine which pumped the cocktail to the animal’s organs for six hours. The results were striking; OrganEx could restore critical cell functions after death. While this is a huge step for organ preservation, researchers still have to make more tweaks for the technology to be used in humans. Once fully developed, OrganEx is expected to keep organs outside the body for long-term or transported longer distances.

Sweat-powered wearable electronic devices

Liu et al. Microbial biofilms for electricity generation from water evaporation and power to wearables. Nature Communications, July 2022.

Researchers have developed a biofilm that sticks to the skin like a Band-Aid to harness sweat for electricity that could power wearable devices. The biofilm is made using a type of bacteria called “geobacter sulfurreducens” known for its ability to produce electricity. In this biofilm design, bacteria convert energy from evaporation into electricity by using the moisture on a person’s skin. Most strikingly, researchers found that the biofilm bacteria do not need to be fed because they are dead! They do not need to be alive to produce electricity. The biofilm consists of thin sheets of bacteria colonies (thickness less than 0.1 millimeter) that is sandwiched between two mesh electrodes and sealed with a soft, sticky biopolymer to enable it to grip to the skin. Sticking this biofilm on your skin is like plugging in a battery. This technology has potential to revolutionize wearable electronics by solving the major problem of power supply. Moreover, this is a real green energy-driven device made naturally by the microbes and devoid of any unsustainably produced materials and toxic waste byproducts. The current version of the biofilm can produce enough energy to power small devices such as medical sensors or personal electronics, but the researchers hope to explore larger films that can power even more sophisticated devices.

It is uncommon that we observe the background details of a well-produced film or notice the subtle masterpieces behind a state-of-the-art play. Aside from those that are very observant, these elements usually only come into view when production experiences a horrible mishap, perhaps if an actor’s costume is ruined or they forget their lines. The same can be said for the quiet mechanisms and systems, which our lives are dependent on, on a daily basis, namely our organs and their exceptionally complex makeup that we often take for granted. This issue aims to take a deep look at some of the processes that affect us every day that we usually do not think about.

Modern medicine is perhaps one of the greatest blessings of our time, as synthetic drugs are able to cure complex diseases in previously unknown ways. These medicines undergo intense research, testing, and scrutiny before being released to the general public. We quickly rush to the doctor’s office and pop a few pills when we feel ill, yet we rarely ponder over highly exhausting and costly process of developing these drugs.

Our hearts never rest from the moment we are born to the day we die. This organ we don’t usually think about pumps onwards multiple times per minute and allows us to perform our daily functions. In her piece in this issue, Ceyda Sablak reminds us how delicate the anatomy of this organ is and why we should maintain a healthy, balanced life of physical and spiritual activity, as many spiritual masters have seen a connection between our biological heart and our spiritual well-being.

Stem cell research has been a common point of discussion, debate, and controversy in the past few decades. Researchers argue that they possess an almost endless number of possibilities while advocates argue that they are derived in an unethical manner. The science behind them is fascinating, and the potential that they possess is undoubtedly inspiring.

Lastly, it turns out that our tears are integral to keeping our eyes healthy and itch-free. A lack of tears can result in a multitude of annoying and harmful disorders that can severely affect a person’s life. Searches have been underway to find the perfect “alternative tear” for those that suffer from tear related disorders. Who would have thought that something so simple contributes so much to our normal happiness and peace?

Robots continue to advance and develop every year, and these consistent improvements continue to amaze us with how much they physically resemble humans. Even though these robots lack spiritual qualities and function way below the human brain, we still admire these developments, for they lead to even more discoveries and help us understand the miraculous human body even more.

Notwithstanding our medical knowledge that continues to build upon nearly 3,000 years of shared human experience and research, new discoveries about the human body, the magnificent work of God Almighty, continue to increase our admiration.

The discovery of the “Interstitium” and the “Subcapsular Proliferative Foci” in 2018 allow us to develop an even greater appreciation for the complexity of our bodies. They are called the “macro organ” and “micro organ” according to the amount of space that they occupy in our bodies, along with the nicknames “buffer organ” and “control center organ” according to their function. These newly discovered biological structures did not attract much attention earlier because, in accordance with our current understanding, organs are more easily visible structures such as the hands, arms, eyes, nose, kidneys, and lungs that have a certain shape and a set of clearly-defined functions. It is interesting that although these complex structures are so widespread in our bodies, they were not known until recently; they are now considered as organs [1].

The Macro Organ: Interstitium

According to an article published in Scientific Reports on March 27, 2018, the “interstitium” was discovered rather serendipitously by David Corr-Loce and Petros Benias of Mount Sinai Beth Medical Center along with Neil Theise, a pathologist from New York University. The discovery came when these physicians were analyzing a cancer patient’s bile duct. Although they had been conducting the same routine over the years, it was the first time they had the sight of slots between examined tissues. They realized that the interstitium was unnoticed earlier due to the disappearance of interstitial fluid after they had examined the tissue with their usual histological methods. Subsequently, the researchers found that this structure was found not only in the bile duct but also in many other organs.

Specifically located under our skin, these micro-compartments were also found in almost all organ membranes except the intestines, lungs, veins, and muscles in order to form a network around the organs with malleable but sturdy proteins. The interstitium, the entirety of the intercellular spaces filled with liquid, has been defined as the largest organ in the body. Actually, examining cells and tissues has been the subject of histology and cytology science for the last 150 years, and the fluid that fills the tissues and forms a basis for supporting these cells was not new to the medical world. However, its definition as a new organ was a first.

The researchers froze the biopsy tissues obtained from the bile ducts of 12 patients in order to preserve and examine the anatomy of the discovered structure. One of the reasons that this organ exists is because it protects the surrounding organs by acting as a shock-absorber and has an effect similar to that of a car’s bumper. Damage to tissues and internal organs remains minimal when one falls, hits something or is impacted Using a micro-endoscopic camera, the volume of this whole organ was revealed to be about ten liters in an adult human [2].

It was later discovered that the interstitium is also present in the structure of lymph nodes, the most important part of the body’s immune system, and that cancer cells enter the lymphatic system through the interstitium. In this case, the interstitium play a significant role as a passageway, or conduction interface, for spreading cancer cells across the body. In an analogy, this organ is akin to the water in which fish swim, the air that surrounds us, and the soil that borders the roots of trees. In this liquid that rotates the cells and spans on the base where they are positioned, any exchange of substances of body biochemistry is regulated within the required amount and size to provide a good setting to the cells, and the hard mechanical effects that may impact the cells are alleviated and absorbed by this liquid pad.

Each discovery of the interstitium’s features, including its significant contributions in the fight against cancer, reveals more and more about how this great organ aids in intercellular communication.

The Micro Organ: Subcapsular Proliferative Foci

One of the most important features of the immune system is that it has its own “memory.” The cells of the immune system can remember the infections a person has contracted before, and can fight infections before they spread. How quickly the immune system reacts based on memory may vary, for instance depending on the type of infection, but is usually quite rapid. Considering how many bacteria multiply in a matter of seconds, a quick response must be launched to prevent infections from spreading across the body.

Professor Tri Phan of the Garvan Medical Research Institute led the team of researchers that discovered the subcapsular proliferative foci (SPF), a “micro-organ” that appeared in the lymph nodes during an infection. Lymph nodes and lymphoid organs such as tonsils, thymus, and spleen are surrounded by a protective capsule made of connective tissue. This capsule was considered to serve the purpose of a mechanical support only to enclose and protect the lymph nodes. However, recent research has shown that in some areas under this capsule, cells that had been alerted to previous encounters with harmful invasive organisms are gathered. These main subcapsular cells are memory B cells that carry information on how to counter the invasive organisms. Memory B cells also proliferate into plasma cells, which are highly important for producing antibodies. Therefore, when an infection reoccurs in our body the subcapsular proliferative foci act quickly to form the first defensive front to prevent the possible spread of infection.

The purpose of vaccines is to activate the attenuated form of a harmful organism to be stored in the body’s memory as an immune response. If the body comes back into contact with similar bacteria in the future, the immune system will remember how to fight it. The discovery of the sub-capsule foci also revealed that these centers are the home for the memory B cells. If they can unveil the development and training processes of the memory B cells in these slots, scientists can produce vaccines that enhance the memory of the immune system even more quickly and efficiently.

The reason why these structures have not been noticed earlier is due to their emaciation, brief emergence, and disappearance. The sub-capsule proliferation centers presented in the article “Memory B Cells Are Reactivated in Subcapsular Proliferative Foci of Lymph Nodes” published in Nature Communications on August 22, 2018 are defined by some authoritative scientists as the “micro-organ.” According to the findings about this new organ, if our infection-fighting immune system would have activated longer than it currently does, we would easily die. Every minute is very crucial in this struggle. These excellent centers that produce memory cells under the lymph node [3] capsules fight bacteria which can replicate in multitudes every 20–30 minutes during an infection.

Although the world of science has been working with the microscope for about 400 years, these centers that have been embedded in our body since its creation could only be noticed today when the microscope design has reached its technological peak.

There are trillions of bacteria living in the intestinal cavity, skin, and orifices of our body. Some of these are already protective and beneficial, yet others are pathogenic. But they do not make us sick because of B cell production centers. When our immune system is weakened for any reason (such as stress, insomnia, or malnutrition) these bacteria can cause illnesses and meet little resistance. These sub-capsular micro-organisms surrounding the lymph nodes were placed in the most strategic places across the human body to fight infections in the fastest way, while the lymph nodes were placed at locations that are most vulnerable to microbial attack.

Consequently, these discoveries increase our admiration for the palace and magnificent realm called our body. It is likely in the light of this information that the anatomy and histology books may be rewritten and the definitions of organs and tissues may be redefined.

References

• Claire Maldarelli, “Scientists found a new organ, but it might not be what you’re expecting,” Popular Science, 3 April 2018.
• iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/newly-discovered-microorgan-helps-explain-how-vaccine.
• nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23062-6

His exalted name, “Light,” touches the darkness
and everywhere is filled with light.
The letters written from a brilliant world
are revealed to the hearts;
Then the Divine command,
“Read in the name of your Lord!”
descends and becomes our intentions.

We look around the Earth and believe that we start to sail into the dark upon reaching the depths of the skies, the land, and the oceans. But if we look with care, we may notice that the inhabitants of those places often inform us of the beauties they are created with.

The depths of the oceans, especially, are where what we see leave us amazed. From microscopic bacteria to giant squids, and from tiny lighted jellyfish to spiny skin, many creatures, from ascidians to some sharks and stingrays, turn on their lights, literally, illuminating the darkness of the deep sea. This biological light-producing process in the body of some animals is called bioluminescence. It is astounding that these creatures can emit biological light with no change in their body temperature. Normally, light is formed by emitting heat. This basic principle applies to some of the most common sources of light that we know of, such as campfires and electrical lightbulbs.

A mechanism that produces light without heat has been created in some insects living under the sea as well as those on land. The basis of biological light production is generally the oxidation of luciferin, i.e. its conversion to oxyluciferin. The enzyme necessary for this chemical reaction to occur is luciferase.

Most living creatures that can produce bioluminescence live in deep, dark areas of the world’s various seas and oceans. Some of the inhabitants of these depths emit strong blue (secondarily green) light at an average wavelength of 475 nm. An interesting note is that underwater life forms are often created with sensitivity to the wavelengths of blue-green lights mentioned above. In rare cases, there are also sea creatures that emit light in the yellow-red wavelength range.

Animals with the ability to emit light are also usually given excellent control mechanisms so that they can use their equipment as a weapon. They can turn their lights on and off in a flash and can utilize complex chemical and neurological mechanisms that provide functions such as adjusting the intensity, color, and direction of the light. Creatures that produce light underwater sometimes do not need to use the light in order to see where they are going. Instead, they tend to use these marvelous gifts in a variety of strategic ways. Some will try to attract the attention of their prey; others will attempt to ward off predators and aggressors; still others will use their lights to indicate that they are ready for reproduction. It is even possible for some creatures to utilize several of these functions at the same time.

Let us now examine some specific species and how they employ bioluminescence.

Light vomiting shrimp

One of the most interesting examples of bioluminescence in animals is the light-emitting deep-sea shrimp Acanthephyra purpurea. This shrimp will actually vomit light from its mouth as a last-ditch effort to deter predators. The intent is to disorient, confuse, and even temporarily blind other creatures, similar to the effect of a flashbang grenade, so that the shrimp can retreat into the dark. As a result of their research on the shrimps, marine biologist Edith Widder states that the chemical substances sprayed are not blue when they are in the body and that the blue light production occurs when the luciferin substance in the sprayed liquid comes into contact with the oxygen in water.

Loosejaw fish

There are at least 42 recorded families of bony fish that have bioluminescent properties. One of them is the Photostomias guernei, or the “loosejaw fish”. This fish has a remarkable organ that emits light on the sides of its eyes. These lights, which resemble the headlight lamps of our cars, are not constantly lit, in order to avoid waste. When hunting, the fish illuminates the way ahead with the light it produces, and it can turn these lights off when they are no longer needed. A wonderful feature of this organ is that, just like headlights, a highly reflective layer is created behind the main center of the light. The reason that the fish is able to turn the light off may be because its black velvety body is contrasted by the light color of the organ and would thus attract much unwanted attention.

Deep sea hatchetfish

Bioluminescent systems were also given to creatures in order to act as a means of camouflage. They work phenomenally for both hunting and survival in situations where blending in with the environment is paramount for catching prey or evading predators. In the depths of the underwater world, the silhouette of an animal bathing in light is an easily recognizable target. One of the best examples of this phenomenon is the deep-sea hatchetfish. The fish has been created with its eyes on top of its body and its mouth facing upwards, making it easier to hunt. It also emits bioluminescence from its abdomen to provide camouflage against more aggressive, larger fish that swim lower than itself. The color of the light emitted makes it difficult to recognize the fish from below as it perfectly matches the color intensity of the environment. In the meantime, if the sunlight that hits the sea is interrupted in any way, the fish will turn off its lights and the camouflage will continue.

Black dragonfish

Diversity in the light organs of the scaleless black dragonfish (Melanostomias bartonbeani)

This species of black dragonfish (Melanostomias bartonbeani) takes advantage of luminescence in a number of ways. An illuminated area next to the eyes is used to find prey and send signals to its mates. The black dragonfish’s chin also has an illuminated extension that dangles in the waves as bait for naive prey. In addition, a set of small organs of light arranged along its abdomen play a role in concealing its silhouette. Furthermore, light-emitting pocket-like structures surrounded by a gelatinous capsule embedded in the skin are used as alarm systems. The bioluminescent systems within this creature are immensely complex and beautiful, and when observed in detail reveal the dazzling splendor of the world that we live in.

Fish with 3 different types of illumination

The Northern Stoplight Loosejaw (Malacosteus niger) has three different types of light organs, the complex use of which cannot be possible without top engineering skills. The wide, drop-shaped, illuminated organ under its eyes emits a red light at a wavelength of 702 nm as if it knows the laws of optics under the sea. This red light is not visible to most deep-sea creatures, for it is quickly absorbed in water. Yet, with this red light this fish is able to have vision in a close proximity while remaining largely undetected. This is similar to infrared binoculars soldiers use for night vision without giving away their position. The loosejaw is thus a dangerous hunter that has an edge over its prey. There also exists a blue light-emitting oval section, behind the organ, that emits red light and is usually larger in males. A third light organ is round and smaller and is located between the eyes and the red-light organ.

Angler fish

The angler fish is one of the most iconic fish of the deep ocean due to its famous rod and bioluminescence. The angler fish does not actually produce its light on its own: the light is credited to bioluminescent symbiotic bacteria that inhabit the end of the rod on their forehead. This illuminated part, which resembles a worm-like bait, is very attractive to small fish. These fish are thus lured to the angler expecting a quick snack, but instead the angler swallows them whole with its massive mouth. While doing their task of helping the angler hunt small fish, the bacteria maintain a symbiotic relationship with the fish and also find an environment in which to proliferate. In this way, they form a good example of cooperation and solidarity. One may wonder: how can such a mutual agreement come into fruition between a fish and some bacteria which are deprived of a nervous system, mind, and consciousness?

One of the reasons that marine biologists are interested in light-emitting bacteria is the wide-lit regions called the “Milky Seas.” These can be observed in satellite images of Earth. Recently, satellites helped detect a bioluminescent area of roughly 5,946 sq. mi in the Indian Ocean; scientists wondered if some bioluminescent bacteria or Dinoflagellate-type flame-colored algae may be the cause of the phenomenon.

Alarming jellyfish

The luminescence of some marine life serves as an alarm or distress siren. A remarkable example of this is the Atolla jellyfish (Atolla wyvillei), an elegant inhabitant of deep waters. This jellyfish produces blue lights that are spread in circles in the water when it is attacked. Thanks to these lights, it tries to draw the attention of larger and stronger animals than the initial attacker in order to escape from harm’s way.

As can be observed in some species that we are familiar with, such as fireflies, the bioluminescence feature that is full of wisdom granted to some living beings is a thought-provoking biological miracle which does not only make us ponder where they got these abilities from but also reveals how so many intricate patterns are found in nature.

References

• Steven H.D. Haddock, Mark A. Moline and James F. Case. 2010. Bioluminescence in the Sea, Article in Annual Review of Marine Science, DOI:10.1146/annurev-marine-120308-081028 Source: PubMed.
• Edith A. Widder. 2001. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Fort Pierce, Florida, Marine Bioluminescence, Bioscience Explained, vol 1, no 1, pp. 1-9.
• Edith A. Widder. 2010. “Bioluminescence in the Ocean: Origins of Biological, Chemical, and Ecological Diversity,” Science, vol. 328, pp. 704-708.
• www.wired.com/2012/01/glow-little-spewing-shrimp-glow/ March 28, 2018.
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacosteus_niger / April 1, 2018.
• Harold, A. 2015. Malacosteus niger. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T190149A21909439. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T190149A21909439.en.
• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/190149/21909439

We vessels can be divided into three main groups in terms of structure and function. The ones with thicker walls, which bring every organ the blood they need from the heart, are the arteries. The pressure inside us is higher and we easily carry blood to the organs. The ones with thinner walls, lower pressure, and larger inner space are called veins. As a matter of fact, both arteries and veins have a three-layered structure that is very suitable for holding a fluid like blood. Since our walls are strengthened with both connective tissue and smooth muscle layers, we bear the pressure coming from the heart and help blood proceed by contracting and relaxing. Since arteries are directly subjected to the strong pressure from the heart, our walls were created in a thicker and stronger form. Since the veins return blood to the heart and thus have lower pressure, we have valves that close after blood passes, so it does not flow backward due to gravity. This is a serious challenge for the blood passing through your legs. Varicose veins might develop due to weight gain from pregnancy or obesity, which increases pressure on the legs, or to hours of standing, walking, or running on hard surfaces.

Capillaries are the most delicate blood vessels, with walls made of a single layer of epithelium, which enables us to exchange substances between blood and tissues. As blood vessels, our total length is about 120,000 kilometers. Try to imagine if a fisherman’s net were made from a rope of this length and how wide it would be! And yet, such a vast network of blood vessels is located in your body, and capillaries take blood to every part, without neglecting an area as tiny as the head of a pin.

The well-being of your organs is directly related to us. If our interiors begin to narrow, because of fatty cholesterol plaque for instance, then we begin to lose our flexibility. This means malnutrition for that organ, since a lesser amount of blood than expected can come. If a blood clot sticks to our wall and blocks the blood flow, the relevant organ may be in terrible trouble. If other arteries supply blood to that organ, then it can handle this, but if a main artery is blocked and if secondary channels do not exist or are insufficient, you experience infarction. Taking this into consideration, you need to be careful what you eat and lead a physically active life. When you get old, if sufficient blood does not pass through us in your brain, failures with brain activities appear and you go senile. As the walls of veins and arteries have a rich network of nerves, we let the suitable amount of blood flow according to the need of the organ we’re serving, under the control of the autonomous nervous system. While blood vessels that are connected to an organ not currently requiring much blood contract to reduce the amount supplied, those that are connected to currently more active organs expand. And dear Peter, the greatest blessing here is that none of these activities require any conscious effort from you; everything works smoothly without your even being aware.

This wonderful network of ours finds its value in the vital fluid we carry. If it weren’t for blood, we would have no value at all, and such a perfect means of distribution would be unnecessary. Even the duty of the heart is to make this fluid circulate throughout the body. Now, let us step aside and allow blood to have the floor.

We know that bacteria can make us unwell at times (causing diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, pneumonia, leprosy, diphtheria, tetanus, ulcers, etc.), but they usually are considered rather exotic living entities either living in the sewer or somewhere in the thermal vents of the ocean – hence being envisioned as distant organisms. To most, they are the simplest life forms which are merely trying to make ends meet, struggling to survive and having little, if any, effect on the rest of life on earth.

All these are blatant misconceptions. Globally, 30% of the yearly oxygen on earth is produced by a certain “breed” of bacteria (footnote 1a). There are 1,000 different species of bacteria in and on a single human body, resulting in 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells (footnote 2). Correspondingly, there are a total of 1,000 times more bacterial genes in our body (footnote 3). Nevertheless, these bodily bacteria are not necessarily parasites, but are mostly beneficial. Primarily, they inhabit our digestive track and help us digest food that would otherwise go non-utilized, or produce various vitamins that we are unable to make ourselves (reference 1). The type and relative abundance of such intestinal bacteria is known to be linked to obesity. Last but not least, bacteria help our immune system to mature, thus helping us in being protected against their harmful kin (reference 4). Bacteria are not always random drifters: some can swim towards a food source (footnote 1b), while others (footnote 1c) can navigate their way towards the bottom of the ocean by sensing earth’s magnetic field (reference 5), where they can live better for they do not survive in atmospheric oxygen levels.

In this article, I will try to further convince you that bacteria are more than “bags of enzymes” by elaborating on a mechanism that enables bacteria to carry out a “population census.” As we will see, this simplest social interaction helps an oceanic squid camouflage itself to hide from predators, as well as enabling pathogenic bacteria to evade the immune system before getting numerous enough to wage an effective war against the host.

A day in the life of an oceanic squid

The bobtail squid, which lives in the shallow coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean, is a nocturnal animal. That is, it buries itself under the sand in the daylight to sleep, and comes out at night to hunt and eat. In this habitat, a threat to life comes perhaps from a most unexpected source: The moonlight can penetrate the shallow waters, casting the squid’s shadow on the ocean floor to alert predators swimming above. Similarly, a predator swimming beneath can easily recognize the squid’s dark silhouette above the moonlit background.

But fear not, because the squid is safe and sound thanks to an organ it harbors. Essentially, this organ produces light to counter-illuminate the shade on the seafloor (and similarly, when viewed from below, to match the amount of light coming from above) to make it invisible, like the stealth aircraft which can fly undetected amongst the radars. Furthermore, using a curtain-like structure that covers this light-producing organ, it can modulate the level of light it produces according to the intensity of the ambient moonlight which is detected by the receptors on the squid’s back.

This is undoubtedly one of the most amazing camouflage patterns, but how on earth does this little creature access light in the middle of nowhere to unfurl this “invisibility cloak”?

This is where bacteria come into play.

Bacteria’s way of conducting population census: Quorum sensing

A particular kind of bacteria (footnote 1f) inhabits the squid’s light organ. This is a much better place to live, as nutrients are more abundant compared to the otherwise planktonic life of the ocean. Within the body of the squid, the bacteria reach densities they can never be achieved in open waters.

The bacteria release small chemicals known as auto-inducers. As the name suggests, the auto-inducers can normally be detected by the very same bacteria, and consequently induce a series of biological events. However, when the bacteria are low in numbers, the auto-inducers float away after release without being detected. As the bacteria multiply in the squid’s light organ, reaching greater numbers, the external concentration of auto-inducers also increases as a function of the cell density. After a certain threshold concentration is reached, the auto-inducer is detected by (all) bacteria. This is how bacteria sense when the population has reached a quorum (footnote 4), hence “quorum sensing.”

When a quorum is reached in this fashion, a set of chemical reactions are triggered in each and every bacterium. Such biochemical reactions essentially resemble those which make fireflies glow. This process of light production by living organisms is known as “bioluminescence”. Therefore, after reaching a certain number in the squid’s light organ, the population of bacteria starts glowing, providing the squid with the light it needs to hide its silhouette from predators.

From an individual bacterium’s point of view, this is a very clever strategy if considered in terms of cost-benefit: Such light production through chemical means consumes a great deal of energy, hence is a costly transaction. Notwithstanding, a single bacterium will produce undetectable light levels alone. To this end, it is a “smart” move (footnote 5) for the bacteria to wait until the population reaches a “quorum” when a single bacterium will start making a difference. Then, the bacterium’s efforts to produce light will not go unnoticed.

As a matter of fact, the light organ of the squid is not just a nesting place for bacteria, but is also equipped with light-sensing capabilities. It was recently discovered that the squid can identify and then reject a (cheater) all-time non-luminous mutant strain of bacteria from its light organ (reference 8) via such a detection capability.

The mutual benefit between the bacteria and the squid occurs in cycles that overlap within a 24-hour routine. In the daytime, as the squid hides itself for sleeping (hence cannot feed the high population of bacteria anymore), it releases 95% of the bacteria into the open waters. The cycle is thus reset: The diluted bacteria starts growing from low numbers in the non-glowing state. By approximately the time the bacteria has multiplied enough to reach a glowing density, the squid wakes up and comes out to feed.

Quorum sensing as a social trait

The phenomenon of quorum sensing, discovered by Bonnie Bassler, currently a professor at Princeton University, is not specific to the bacteria of the bobtail squid, but is a ubiquitous feature that enables almost all kinds of bacteria to carry out feats of multi-cellular life. Collectively, they can accomplish what they cannot when they are alone. Analogous to different languages, different bacteria have different auto-inducers that they use to communicate with each other (intra-species communication). On the other hand, different bacterial species can also communicate with one another (inter-species communication) via a common auto-inducer; which is essentially the “Esperanto” of bacterial communication.

One opportunistic type of bacteria (footnote 1g) which can cause diseases in animals and humans uses quorum sensing, but not to help others. These bacteria grow and multiply in the host without harming it until they reach to a certain concentration. It is only when they become numerous enough, which is once again determined via quorum sensing, to overcome the immune system of the host that they release the virulence factors that lead to disease (reference 6).

On the other side of the coin, medical researchers are looking for ways to disrupt the quorum-sensing mechanisms of pathogenic bacteria to render them ineffective by making them “mute and deaf.” While synthetic therapeutic molecules are currently being investigated, recent findings indicate that garlic locks quorum-sensing in the aforementioned bacteria (reference 9) providing promise for clinical applications.

Conclusion

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”
Albert Einstein

Although most living systems currently appear to be very complex, it is neither the “complexity” nor the “mysteries” of life, but rather our (ever-deepening) knowledge that should make one believe in the Sustainer of all life. The flaws in “God of gaps” fallacy were outlined in the recent The Fountain article “Natural is Nothing Less than Miraculous,” based on an interview (reference 10) with Dr. Denis Alexander of Cambridge University, UK:

“I think the idea of the God of the gaps is a very unfortunate idea; that has a very long history. Actually, it goes back many centuries. I’m not quite sure when the idea first began. But I think it’s always been tempting as science got going, especially in the nineteenth century when science was less developed than it was now. It was a temptation for people to try and locate their God within the present gaps of the scientific knowledge. So obviously, as the gaps are closed, so one’s understanding of God will shrink. God is then located in smaller and smaller mysteries.

“So whether we have current gaps in our knowledge now has no theological significance as far as I’m concerned. It doesn’t matter. It’s of no particular interest, so theology has no hidden investments in gaps in our knowledge. It really doesn’t matter. It simply says we’re ignorant about many things.”

As simple as they may seem, bacteria execute daunting tasks: They may be friendly inhabitants as well as harmful foes. Despite being envisioned mostly as “loners,” bacteria can exhibit the basic features of social interactions and collective behavior. More intriguingly, all such tasks are carried out with a limited number of genes within a minuscule body.

How do we define life? What attributes are entitled with the process of “living”? What is the minimum number of genes that can constitute a living organism? What aspects discriminate bacteria from being a simple “bag of enzymes”? Although we simply do not yet know the answers, it seems as if scientists will continue to eavesdrop on bacteria; the revelation of many amazing mysteries is just around the corner.

After all, bacteria are no small matter.

Bill Sayoran is a freelance writer who lives in Boston and can be reached at: billsayoran@gmail.com

Notes

1) The following are technical terms for further reference: (a) cyanobacteria (b) chemotaxis (c) magnetotactic bacteria (d) Bacteroidetes (e) Firmicute (f) Vibrio fisheri (g) Pseudomonas aeruginosa

2) At first glimpse therefore it sounds like we are a ‘super-organism’ that consists of multiple species, but since the volume of bacteria is 1/1000 of our own cells, we are still 99% human in mass.

3) In total, there are approximately 20 million different bacterial genes in the body of a single human, outnumbering the 20 thousand-some genes within the human genome by a factor of 1,000.

4) According to “thefreedictionary.com,” the literal definition of the word quorum is: “The minimal number of officers and members of a committee or organization, usually a majority, who must be present for valid transaction of business.”

5) Similar language is used throughout the text merely as a figure of speech. The bacteria is not even close to being ‘intelligent’ enough to plot any strategy whatsoever, but rather have been equipped with capabilities to develop such means by the Creator of all things. Furthermore, establishing explicit links as such is purposefully refrained from in the article so as not to constrain thinking or limit the imagination of the reader.

References

1. “It’s me, Peter, your intestine!” Irfan Yilmaz, The Fountain Magazine, 2008

2. i) “An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest.”. Turnbaugh and others, Nature, 2006. ii) “Microbial ecology: Human gut microbes associated with obesity.”, Ley and others, Nature, 2006

3. http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/10/human_gut_bacteria_linked_to_obesity.php

4. “Recognition of peptidoglycan from the microbiota by Nod1 enhances systemic innate immunity.”, Clarke and others, Nature Medicine, 2010

5. “The Tiniest Captains of the Ocean.”, Ahmet Uysal, The Fountain Magazine, March-April 2010

6. “Shedding Light on an Invisible World.” Bonnie Bassler, HHMI, Holiday Lectures on Science, 2009

7. i)http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3401/images/04-bact-05-l.jpg ii) http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/84/8449sci2.html

8. “Bioluminescence in the Ocean: Origins of Biological, Chemical and Ecological Diversity.”, E. Widder, Science, 2010

9. “Garlic blocks quorum sensing and promotes rapid clearing of pulmonary rudomonas aeruginosa infections.”, Bjarnsholt and others, Microbiology, 2005

10. “Natural is Nothing less than Miraculous.” Interview with Denis Alexander by Mustafa Tabanli, The Fountain Magazine, May-June 2010.

Dear Peter, in your body, which is built like a well-functioning factory, I am the most essential sanitary device. As the heart pumps blood to take food and oxygen to all your organs, you obtain the energy you need. But do you ever think about the disposal after so splendid activities are carried out in your body? If you burn a stove, you need to dispose of the smoke and the ashes if you want to keep it working. Likewise, as you burn your calorie intake, you dispose of the smoke (carbon dioxide) with your lungs and the waste with nitrate-poisonous after a certain level of intensity-thanks to my quietly and perfectly working filters. That is, I am an organ which saves your life by removing the poisonous substances in your blood. I do not only filter your blood, but also play a role at controlling the balances of the sensitive levels of water, sugar, amino acids and different minerals in your body. In short, I am a tiny but strategic laboratory.

The acid-base balance in your body and the amount of water and different salts are significant values which concern all of your bodily activities. When their balance is upset, different troubles arise in different units of your bodily mechanism. I am such a blessing, which works so sensitively to adjust the levels of water and mineral salts in your body while you don’t even realize it.

A watery environment is needed for the thousands of biochemical activities taking place in your body. In addition, activities like the contracting of the muscles and transmission of electrical stimuli between your neurons are realized with the presence of a pinch of mineral salt you don’t even give a thought about. Sometimes you sweat due to running or hot weather. The white stains on your shirt are the salts you lose after the water evaporates. When you suffer from diarrhea, you lose salt again, for the salt in the nutrients are thrown out without being absorbed. Especially when little children are concerned, this loss is of vital importance. The transfer between the blood and the liquid in the tissues is mainly realized through the concentration differences which are kept in a certain balance. If your body holds too much water, your tissues swell. You particularly feel it when you press your finger over the flesh near your shins.

Dear Peter, I will not list all of my duties in detail in order not to confuse you. However, let me tell you one more. Since not everyone knows this duty of mine, they just see me as an organ of liquid disposal. But I also take part in controlling the blood production! Surprised? Well, I also have the duty of secreting the hormone which stimulates blood production in the bones. I must always stay alert and maintain this balance in the best way; if you start losing blood, for instance, I must increase the hormone and accelerate blood production.

Yes Peter, I’ve told you about a few of my basic duties, but haven’t told you about how wonderfully designed I am. I am a bean-shaped organ and a single kidney like me weighs 130-160 grams on average. We are approximately 10 grams lighter in female bodies. I am surrounded by a soft but protective membrane. I need 35 grams of daily oxygen supply to survive and I use 13 % of your total body energy.

As an army is made up of individual soldiers, I am like a complex army, and a single soldier of mine is called a “nephron,” which does the real job. Thus, you can see me as a body of nephrons. Millions of these nephrons are brought together to make up one kidney.

A single nephron is a thin tubular structure with closed ends, and its length is about 3-4 cm. So the total length of my nephrons is about 50 km. The cup-like sac at the beginning of a nephron is named the “Bowman’s capsule.” The main artery bringing blood to the kidneys branch into smaller units, and one road leads to every nephron. The knot of capillaries (glomerulus) inside this double-walled capsule is more complicated than any road map you might have seen. The total length of the capillaries is nearly 25 km. The unwelcome substances in the blood are passed to the capsule thanks to blood pressure, and they proceed through the tubule. The total surface area of my tubules is about 20 m2. Within five minutes the whole of your blood passes through us. That is to say, an average of 1.2 liters of blood per minute, and 1800 liters a day are filtered by my nephrons, leaving the toxic substances in me. As this amount of blood (nearly 400 times the normal amount in your body) pass through my tubules and return to the veins they leave behind an average of 180 liters of liquid in me. In this case, you could be supposed to throw out 180 liters of urine a day. However, if you really did that, you would neither be able to find a sufficient supply of water nor salt. Fortunately, Providence granted you the mechanism to absorb back nearly 178.5 liters of this filtered substance. This way, the thickened urine throws out the toxic nitrogen-containing byproducts together with a little amount of water. Therefore, I give you back the substances you need with an amount of 1.5 liters of liquid disposal a day. This reabsorbing is realized in what you call the Henle loop. The cells in the walls of my tubules have neither intellect, nor consciousness, nor any knowledge of physiology; in spite of this, they work as if they were perfectly aware of their duty to adjust the amounts and types the substances to be kept or released. To give you an idea, you can think about the huge dialysis machines your engineers design to fulfill the job my tiny tubules do. You decide which one of us is the perfect work of engineering.

A rich network of veins surround the Heinle loop and the reabsorbed substances are released into the bloodstream. The drops to be disposed of are collected and then passed to your bladder. When the liquid in your bladder amounts to a certain value it tightens the bladder walls. The muscles blocking the way out give way and the urine is disposed of. However, know that the bladder has the capacity to expand as large as 1.5 liters when you cannot find the proper time and place.

Peter, most people take for granted the blessings they enjoy. If you visit the nephrology service in a hospital and talk to the patients waiting to be dialyzed, you understand what I mean better. Do not forget that many people who suffer from kidney failure need that huge machine to filter the whole of their blood and they pray for a kidney suitable for transplantation to be found at once.

Incidentally, thinking of chronic kidney failure recalled various reasons which ruin me: long lasting infections, long-term use of certain medicine, different chemicals like ethylene and mercury, heavy loss of blood, high blood pressure, serious burns, and wrong blood transfers etc. In such cases I can receive irreparable damage.

Another issue which troubles me is the formation of kidney stones. The stones which form owing to failures in different metabolic processes really hurt. When excessive decrease of liquids or increases of salts in the body upset my sensitive balance, some dissolved substances remain, begin to collect, and form stones. These stones hinder urine flow and might cause infections. You may drink water abundantly to prevent these stones. Most importantly do not wait too much before going to the toilet. If you excuse me, I also strongly recommend you to urinate in sitting position; this helps emptying your bladder completely and reduces the risk of kidney stones.

I do my job properly until I lose 90 % of my working capacity. When a considerable part of me loses its capacity, the remaining good part boosts its activity to make up for the loss. When one of our twins are taken out with an operation, the other one does not complain at all; it grows a bit bigger and keeps working.

As the nature of honey depends on the nectars bees collect, the ingredients of the urine I produce depend on what’s in your body. Therefore, a urine analysis tells much in the case of illness. For example, I normally do not release valuable substances like glucose and protein in your blood into the urine, but return them to the bloodstream. As my friends cannot fulfill this function in diabetic patients, their urine analyses reveal glucose. As for medicines, I throw them out right away since they are alien substances to me.

Peter! You are young and healthy but be careful and do not get cold around the waist, otherwise I might trouble you. There’s a lot to tell you Peter, but I do not want to confuse you. Like any other organ, I do not like being taken for granted and I just wish for you to appreciate what a blessing I am. Let me note that my perfect cooperation with the rest of your body is another wonder in itself. Anyway, the urea in your blood is increasing, so I must go help my twin now. Goodbye Peter!

Irfan Yilmaz is a professor of biology at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir.

(continued from the previous issue)

Using the distinct groves and folds on the hemispheres as a guideline, a map drawn on the cortex identifies focal points, where the various senses are concentrated, and activities in particular regions. Each of these different colored schematic centers has a specific name and performs specific functions. For example, the region above the neck at the back of the head (occipital lobe) is the field of sight; the sections that coincide with the temporal region is the field of hearing; immediately in front of this, on the left, is (generally) the field of speech; in the forehead region (frontal lobe), on the anterior wall of the middle canal is the initial center of planning of movement; on the top section of the front region is the field of complex movement; immediately behind here, in the middle-side region, is the field of simple movement; the area behind this, next to the hearing field and extending upwards, is defined as the touch receptive field. However, these areas are not confined, but rather spread out, and have a very complex connection network. The duty of the adjoining areas of these regions is to display and decipher the meaning of the signals received from the nerves. As the received signals regenerate past experiences and memories, the object or event sending the signal is recognized. To perform voluntary complex movements, the plan of movement must initially be defined in the mind and then the combination of this plan is conveyed through my nerve fibers to the movement regions. As complicated activities in humans, such as talking, and activities that involve the sensory integration mechanisms are miracles in themselves, it is quite astonishing that certain people claim that humans evolved from apes, later learning how to speak. The spinal cord (medulla spinalis) that extends from the skull in the form of a long cord, is the central nervous system sending signals to the body regions under the neck. The grey matter of the brain is located on the surface, while the white matter lies beneath the cortex; however with the spine, the butterfly shaped grey matter is inside, and the white matter on the surface covers the grey matter. In this central nervous system, all of the sensual messages that are received from the entire peripheral system, in particular from your skin and muscle, are immediately connected with the synapses or connections of the movement cells, and thus a spinal reflex is produced. As a section of the connecting cells (synapses) responds with a reflex, the other section transmits the signal to me to determine the appropriate voluntary response. For instance, if you tread on a nail, as the nail goes into the foot, a signal is transmitted by the sensor fibers to the spine, and to avoid a loss of time, the spine immediately signals the movement nerves before me, and a command is transmitted to your muscle you to raise your foot. And after your foot is saved by instant reflex, you begin to perform the other conscious activities, for example; you avoid putting weight on the foot, and bandage the wound if it is bleeding.

31 pairs of nerves (right and left) emerge from the spinal cord; 12 pairs from the brain area lay beneath the skull. These are all nerves that emerge from the central nervous system, and are distributed to various organs of the peripheral nervous system. All of the head nerves that emerge from the skull, with the exception of the tenth nerve, called the vagus nerve, control activities related to movement and senses in the head and neck region. Each of the 31 nerves exit from a space in the side of the vertebrae, and each of these nerves has two roots, an afferent nerve (sensual nerve), and an efferent nerve (movement nerve). These roots join immediately outside the spinal cord, and form the cords that carry the sensual and movement nerve fibers. These nerve cords are distributed in a plan and system that is specific for each organ. For example, the receptor sensor cells that sense a needle pricking your finger transmits this signal to the spinal cord through the receptor cell of the arm. The responsive reflex of pulling the hand away, a reflex from the spinal cord, is sent to the arm and hand muscles, and you pull your hand away. This is an example of a simple reflex. The movement nerve cells of the peripheral nervous system are divided into two, the somatic nervous system, which is distributed to the skeletal muscles, and the autonomic nervous system, which is distributed to the inner organs. Whilst the majority of the activities of the somatic systems occur voluntarily at the conscious level, the activity of autonomic systems is mainly involuntarily, or below the level of consciousness. The autonomic nervous system controls the smooth muscles of the heart, glands, blood vessels, respiration, digestion, urination and reproduction systems without our even realizing it. Dear Peter! Could you manage to do all this if you were in control? Your self control can only intervene until you place food in your mouth. Then the digestive secretions, the stomach and bowel activity, and the excretion of waste are all conducted automatically, totally beyond your control. Your breathing continues while you sleep, your kidneys never cease to function, your heart never rests, and your liver never relaxes while you sleep; your pancreas continues to produce insulin. All of your internal organs and blood vessels continue to function with the smooth muscles whenever necessary. And all this activity is conducted without you even being aware of it. If you tried to do all this, you would become exhausted within five minutes, lose interest and become unable to cope.

The nerve cords of the autonomic nervous system are divided into two, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. These two systems have been created in such a way that they respond in opposition to one another, and every organ is provided with a stem from both. Therefore, no organ of the body is left uncontrolled. Whilst one signals and encourages the organ to function quicker and generate more outcomes, the other acts to the contrary, sending signals that encourage the organ to slow down. In which case, with these two contrasting signals, the organ protects its optimal functioning tempo according to the situation and conditions. The sympathetic system generally responds in cases of stress and shock, preparing the body for the effects of such situations. For example, an increase in your blood pressure, blood-sugar level, and perspiration, the dilation of your pupils, and an increase in the flow of blood in your muscles all occur from the effect of the sympathetic fibers. The parasympathetic system sends adverse signals, such as reducing blood pressure and so on, so that the organs return to their neutral state and continue their normal functions.

From the very beginning I have described many of my sections and signals, but I have not yet told you about my key to life, my nerve cells, and how my nerve cells function. 30 billion cells, known as neurons, are the actual units that function in every part of my system. A neuron has a cell body and emerging filaments like tree branches. The single thicker filament like the tree trunk is called the axon, and the thinner filaments that emerge in larger quantities like tree branches are called dentrites. The nerve signals advance from the axon to the dentrite in the form of an electrical pulse. In the space between the connection point (synapses) of a nerve cell axon and the other cells, the dentrite, a chemical substance, called the neurotransmitter, is released. When these substances, in the form of neuropeptides, amino acids, acetylcholines, and monomines, reach the wall of the opposite cells, it an electrical pulse is immediately ignited in the dendrite. Just like a row dominos, falling down one after the other, or football fans performing the Mexican wave, a wave-like effect is generated and these electrical messages are fired with great speed from one end of the cell to the other, advancing in the form of tiny electrical pulses to be transmitted to neighboring cells. While a cell at rest has a potential of 70m V, the action potential of up to +30 – +40m V can transmit all types of information. Every cell can transmit up to 1,000 signals per second.

While you still do not recognize the true value of what you call the memory, which records hundreds of experiences every day, various theories are presented regarding how this bank which stores information in your brain actually functions. But we all know that the answer to this question lies within the millions of neurons that constitute me. Just as all of the senses, thoughts and actions occur from electrical and chemical signals that are transmitted from one cell to another they are presumably recorded in the same way, that is, with electrical and chemical signals.

It is difficult to define a precise center for the boundaries of the memories in me; memory could be interconnected with all of my regions. The storing of certain memories, some voices, visions, smells, or dreams, or the sense of resentment, anger or joy, is all carried out in different forms. You could not even begin to imagine the greatness of the memory storage! I have two types of memory, one short and one-long term. In my short term memory, I can store up to between seven and nine different things at any one time. Nothing remains in my short-term memory for more than a few minutes. Everything that you remember after this is stored in my long-term memory. In my long-term memory things can remain for days, months or even years. Everything you know and learn is stored in your long-term memory. By the time you are eight years old, the information in your memory is enough to fill one million pages. However, this is a mere drop in the ocean; the long-term memory is so vast that it can never become full. Even when you reach a hundred, I will have the capacity to store new information, so never assume that you are overloading a child’s mind and never deprive them of education…Some presumptuous people say; “Never force a child to memorize at a young age, it will affect the brain.” Do not believe them! The learning of foreign languages, the Qur’an and religious education is recorded in my memory by electric pulses and this is so much easier and healthier in the early stages of life. In fact, such activities at a young age can even strengthen the memory. The event called ‘recollection’ is the repeat of the electric pulse codes that are recorded at the actual time of an event. Occasionally you try to remember a person’s name, and although the name is on the tip of your tongue, you just cannot remember. You struggle and eventually give up. Then suddenly, two days later the name comes to your mind. You are quite puzzled and of course pleased that you have remembered, but have you ever wondered how this happens? As you try to remember, you control each of my nerve cells individually, because you are not sure where you placed the files that bear this information. But you are unable to find which section of the millions of cells bears the information. As you have not used this information often, or because you did not consider it to be important, you did not register it in a particular place. But you would never forget your father’s name, as it is important to you and use it often, so the file is in front of you constantly. Well, you get frustrated at not being able to remember and stop searching; however, what you call the subconscious is in fact a much more mysterious mechanism. It begins to search without you being aware of it. Then to your surprise it produces the file two days later. The subconscious is a very mysterious place, it affects everything about you. Only the most sincere feelings are recorded in the subconscious; no veil, no hypocrisy, only actual thoughts are recorded. And also events that deeply affect you, the sad or bad memories you experience, and of course sins…The subconscious is what causes the sense of guilt or an inferiority complex; this is reflected in much of your behavior. But problems like guilt or an inferiority complex are something we can change; it all depends on you. If you are a person who has self-control, you perform good, favorable deeds, and are continuously patient; thus you can eventually renew the contaminated sections of your subconscious so that it will not upset you anymore. Indeed, this is the reason why, of all the creatures on earth, only humans were blessed with the sense of remorse and faith. If you suppress feelings of guilt and sin in the subconscious, the autonomic system affects the organs without you even realizing it; the thalamus, hypothalamus, or the pituitary gland (hypophsis), which are small in size, but bear a great responsibility; eventually this disturbs the balance of the whole body and you become ill. Although this may not be an organic complaint at first, due to psychosomatic symptoms which are caused by suppressing your subconscious, over time this will affect the functions of one of your organs and you become ill. Of course the exact opposite is also possible, with inspiration, pleasant thoughts and good actions the positive signals transmitted to the affected organ may possibly be the means to recovery.

Dear Peter! I have so many more facts and mysterious functions to describe to you, but unfortunately the pages here are not enough. Well, I suppose I must stop somewhere. I really wanted to talk to you about a number of different things, like dreams, mental illnesses such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, strokes, sleep, hypnosis, and the damage caused by drugs. However, each of these subjects is so vast, and many of them have already been explained in previous issues, so for now I will leave it to others to describe these subjects to you, and say my last words…

Dear Peter!… While your hand is writing and reading these words, or explaining what you have read to your friends, or learning all this information and passing it through the filter of thought, you are constantly using my nerves and my systems. There is not a single moment where I am not informed of events that occur in your body. Who knows just how much of the mysteries in me you will use in order to rise to the peak of accomplishment with the blessings that have been bestowed upon you by the Creator. Even the greatest computers made by human beings are mere toys compared to me. Nevertheless, the knowledge of engineers and craftsmen which design, plan, and place every piece into these computers with total accuracy is only possible because of me. Presumably you are not denying those who designed, constructed, and made the computer operate, are you? In which case you should thank God, the One who created me, an organ whose capacity exceeds that of thousands of computers, with His eternal power and wisdom; always remember to use me in good, blessed, and honest actions!…May God protect you!…

Irfan Yilmaz is a professor of biology at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir. 

We are now approaching the end of the series of organs that told you about themselves. They have been pointing out the seal of God on them, and celebrating themselves as they manifest the beauties and the delicacies of God’s art. Thus, they have not only expanded your knowledge, but also guided people to the truth of God’s Oneness, stressing that natural and biological causes alone can never be an explanation for their splendid creation.

Each of your organs told you about its perfect structure and how it functioned within your body system. Let us think that each organ is a musical instrument. No matter how splendid and artful a musical instrument is, its true value is understood only among other orchestra instruments as they perform a wonderful concert. Your body is like that orchestra, where hundreds of instruments play together. In addition to the perfect structure of each organ, more importantly all the organs have to work together perfectly as a team. The success of an orchestra depends on how the instruments play in harmony with each other. The conductor of an orchestra is the person who ensures that harmony. The orchestra members carefully watch the conductor and play according to his arm movements, sometimes louder or softer, sometimes pausing or breaking into a very loud introduction. That is how a perfect concert can be performed.

In order to achieve such harmony, the organs in your body need a system that works just like a good orchestra conductor. This “regulating system,” which has to maintain the perfect harmony and order of the ongoing activities in your body, has two sub-units: One is the brain and the nervous system, and the other is me; your endocrine system (hormonal system). Since I work as a system that consists of many organs, from now on I will refer to myself as “us.” Each of us adjusts itself to the whole system by carefully watching the movements and works of the other organs. At our head are the brain and nervous system, which act as the general control center. However, it cannot carry out the regulating and controlling task alone; it needs our help.

The most basic principle that your body has to follow in order to maintain its health is keeping the inner medium stable in a dynamic balance while responding to varying environmental conditions properly. This is also known as homeostasis. For the inner medium to be kept stable, it is first of all important to be aware of the changes that are happening in the outer world, which is initially done by your sense organs. The signals related to the changes in the outer world are sent to your brain and nervous system through the sense organs. Afterwards, the signals are evaluated, and then they are sent to the related organ so that the proper reaction is produced and the inner balance can be regained. While all the activities regarding growth and reproduction are carried out, the inner medium should be kept stable at the same time (homeostasis). In order for all these activities to be performed continuously, you need inner secretion glands, which are small, but highly important.

The most important of all your organs that constitute the endocrine system is called the Pituitary (hypophysis) gland, which is recognized as the commander of all these organs and situated in your brain. The other secretion glands included in my system are the thyroid, parathyroid, suprarenal (adrenal) gland, epiphysis, pancreas, testicles, and ovarium. Now, these small but very important organs of mine will respectively talk about themselves and demonstrate the perfect program and the sensitive balance within which they work. You are the one who will draw the necessary lessons from this.

In all tissues, there are specific recipient molecule groups that respond to a particular hormone. Each hormone is programmed to stimulate its target cells, which contain those special recipient molecule groups that start doing their specific work. The principal functions of my endocrine system are: to enable growing; to regulate the necessary reproduction process in an ordered manner; and to carry out the physiological processes in the body in a relatively stable medium. I guess your amazement, admiration, love, and apprehension will increase when you hear about my secretion glands. Now, here comes the hypophysis.

My name is Hypophysis (the Pituary Gland)!

I am appointed as the commander of all your glands. Therefore, I am situated in a very firm place at the lower brain. I am an organ that is as small as a bean and that weighs only a few grams, but I have got so many talents. I have two parts. The first is my frontal lobe (adenohypophysis) which secretes most of the hormones. Our Creator has given key roles to the hormones of my frontal lobe to direct secretion activities of other endocrine glands. For example, thyrotropin hormone is arranged in such a way that it affects the thyroid gland and stimulates it for secretion. The unbalance in my thyrotrophic secretion affects the function of Thyroid gland negatively. If it is secreted too much, hyperthyroid; if it is secreted too little, hypothyroid illnesses emerge. In both cases, some problems occur during metabolism. Adrenocorticotropic hormone is created to arrange the activities at the adrenal cortex. Follicular stimulating hormone has two very important roles. The first one is regulating the secretion of estrogen, which is one of the female hormones. The second one is maintaining the physiological activities in the maturation of sperm cells in males, as well as the egg cells in females, for the continuation of human generation. The Luteinizing hormone together with the Estrogen stimulates the secretion of other sexual hormones (progesterone and testosterone).

When you were born, you were 20 inches tall. Now you are almost 6 ft tall. Both your height and your hands and feet grew. Meanwhile, your head and body got bigger proportionally. Another important secretion of yours that controls your growth appropriate to your age is somatotropin hormone. If, for some reason, my working balance got deteriorated, and this hormone secreted less, you would be like a dwarf, or some of your parts would be unbalanced with your body and abnormally short. If this hormone were secreted too much, then you would get into gigantism due to abnormally large growth. Together with gigantism illness, several problems occur; i.e., heart and blood pressure problems, muscle weaknesses, and problems regarding immunity and general metabolism.

Other hormones that are secreted from my frontal lobe are prolactin hormones, which help milk glands develop in expecting mothers, and melanocyte stimulating hormone, which stimulates the pigment cells that give color to your skin. However, these two hormones have no relation with the other hormonal glands.

The lipoprotein molecule of my melanocyte stimulating hormone helps the morphine substances, known as encephalin and endorphin, to be synthesized. You can call these two substances naturally inherent drugs. These secreted substances help you to bear several physical pains. The secretion of my hormones has direct relation with your nervous system and psychological well-being.

Although formed in the hypothalamus part of the brain, one of the hormones that is secreted after being stored in my back lobe (Neurohipofiza) is oxytocin, and the other one an antidiuretic hormone called vasopressin. Oxytocin makes the smooth muscles work. In particular, it stimulates the contractions at uterus during labor and delivery, and it also stimulates the secretions of milk canals by making them contract. Vasopressin enables blood vessels to shrink, causes the blood pressure to increase, and also reduces the production of urine by increasing the transition of water to blood through the kidneys. Hence, it prevents dehydration in hot and dry weather. In the deficiency of the secretion of this hormone, an illness called diabetes insipidus will occur and water metabolism will be deteriorated. I have more amazing features to tell, but I should not be selfish. I think it is time for Thyroid to speak.

My name is Thyroid!

I am placed in your neck, right at the two sides of the trachea (air tube) and below the larynx (voice box). I consist of two pieces that are attached to each other with a thin tissue. Inside me, there are many little saccules called Follicules which are densely surrounded by a capillary network. Following their innate program my cells produce three important hormones in the cavities of those saccules. The two of them are thyroxine and triiodothyronine, which contain iodine atoms and the other one is calcitonin. My hormones have highly important impact in your body. Our Lord God has appointed me, the hormones secreted by a very small piece of flesh, with regulating the oxygen use of all of your cells, and thus the speed of your metabolism which all affect your body’s overall performance. In addition to that, I also adjust your cholesterol level by lowering it in your blood. My iodine-containing hormones are vital for children’s growth. In the case of their deficiency, conditions like growth failure, dwarfism and mental disorders appear. If there is not enough iodine in the earth or water, it becomes more difficult for me to produce hormone and I start to work harder, which causes me to enlarge. This is a disease called goiter. When I secrete excessive hormone, your eyeballs become bulged, a disease called exophtalmic goiter or Basedow syndrome.

My iodine hormones and the stimulating Thyrotropin hormones secreted by the Hypophysis work together; they watch and control each other. If I get lazy and slow down secretion, the Hypophysis immediately warns me. If I secrete too much, this time Hypophysis stops warning me and waits for me to “calm down.”

Do you see what a wonderful system I am? Not only between us, but also all other systems have the same feedback organization between themselves and the Hypophysis. The Hypophysis is an organ as big as a chick pea, and we are only a small piece of flesh. Peter, look at the great jobs we are doing! Can coincidence play any role in this, do you think?

Lastly, I will tell a little about Calcitonin, a hormone which works to adjust the calcium level in the blood serum. That is not an easy job at all. This hormone is vital in the healthy growth of your bones; otherwise your bones will empty, get weak and they might even break for no reason at all.

My name is Parathyroid!

As my name suggests (“para” is a prefix signifying alongside of, beside), I am located just behind the Thyroid, consisting of four small parts. I have so many important functions beyond what is commonly known. My foremost duty is to delicately adjust the amount of calcium between your skeletal bones and your blood. Moreover, I am also assigned with controlling the phosphate and magnesium metabolism. In order to do that, I produce a hormone called parathormone. Of course, I have no idea about the chemical composition of this hormone; but I am just doing my job by producing it and working as I am programmed. When the level of phosphate in the urine and the level of calcium in the blood are measured, you can understand whether I am working well or not. The decrease of calcium in your blood leads to the stimulation of your nerves, thereby causing muscle spasms or titanic contractions that occur along with dotage. The healthy function of your heart and muscles highly depends on this calcium. Who knows, Peter, what other functions of me you human beings will discover in the future!

My name is Adrenal gland!

I consist of two little parts located on top of the kidneys, one on each side. Do not underestimate me by just looking at my size! You will be amazed to learn what crucial functions I perform. Each of my parts has an inner (medulla) and an outer (cortex) section. Those two sections differ quite markedly from each other in their structure, functions and in the origin of the embryonic layer where they form. But despite those differences, our God Almighty has put them one within the other. The two important hormones that my inner section secretes are Adrenaline and Noradrenaline. My adrenaline secretion speeds up the conversion of glycogen (in your liver) into glucose, and thus the sugar level increases in your blood depending upon your energy needs. This increases the power and the speed of your heart contractions and constricts the diameter of the blood vessels, thereby causing the blood pressure to increase. I assist in dilation of the narrow bronchioles of your lungs so that you can get more oxygen. When you become nervous, quarrel with somebody, face a danger or experience any stressful moment, I cause all those activities to happen by secreting more hormones expeditiously. That is how I help in protecting your body. All in all, 80% of my secretion is adrenalin, whereas the 20% is noradrenalin. Noradrenaline has less impact on your heart and metabolism.

My cortex (outer section), where steroid types of hormones are produced, secretes aldesterone, cortisol, and some androgens (a male hormone). Aldestrone regulates the water and salt levels (especially sodium and potassium metabolism) of your body. Cortisol meets your glucose needs if you are starving by breaking down the proteins into amino acids; it is also responsible for preventing the infections and allergies. Although the testicles (male reproductive glands) are the main organs that produce the male hormones, I also supply them. My androgens help in the development of male characteristics such as voice changes, beard and moustache growth and hair growth. When women get older, the androgens that I secrete causes the voice to deepen and hair to grow on their bodies.

My name is Epiphysis (Pineal gland)!

I am a small gland that is situated at the roof of the dieencephalon (“interbrain”). As it is most commonly known, I secrete the melatonin hormone. This hormone helps the melanin (the black or brownish pigment that gives your skin its color) to aggregate or dissolve in the special skin cells called melanophore. Thus, it senses the intensity of the light that changes according to the seasons and day length, and adjusts your skin color by lightening or darkening it. Moreover, I work as your biological clock, regulating your sleep-wake cycle. It is also thought that I arrange the different working periods of your organs.

Our Name is Testicles!

We are male reproductive glands. Our God Almighty has created us for the continuation of human generation. Each of us is oval-shaped and located in a pouch that weighs 25 grams and facing to each other. Each of us is protected by a case of skin and muscle. This case extends into our internal part where it is divided into 200-400 lobules. Each lobule consists of fine coiled tubes. The reproductive cells and the sperm cells which contain a group of your genetic program are produced in those tubes.

When you reach puberty, upon responding to the stimuli that comes from the hypophysis, we start to produce sperm, as well as Testosterone, a type of androgen (male) hormone. Testosterone is necessary for your male appearance; it helps in the developing the characteristics that distinguish you from females in terms of appearance.

A special cell division called meiosis is needed for sperm production. Along the layer that make up the walls of the coiled tubes lie the cells that are called Spermatogonium. Each of these contain 46 chromosomes (23 maternal and 23 paternal). As a result of serial divisions and crossover of those cells, new cells are created with new characteristics. From one Spermatogonium, four sperms are formed and each of them has 23 chromosomes.

Each sperm differs from one another, and each of them contains a mosaic composed of the different characteristics you possess. Among the millions of sperms that are produced, not one of them is identical to another. The reason is the interchange of sections between pairing homologous chromosomes (that you take from both your mother and your father) during the process of meiosis. For example, in one sperm, your nose traits that come from your father might come together with the ear traits that come from your mother. In another sperm, for example, the fingers traits that are inherited from your father might come together with the eye traits that are inherited from your mother. When so many different traits can be mixed in so many different ways, you can imagine the great potential of variety for human beings.

We are private organs that some people see as “obscene” to talk about and which generates “dirty” sperm-containing fluid. However, as you have seen, we are given to you as a gift from God, wrapped with so many beautiful meanings, one of which is the important task of continuing human generations.

My name is Ovarium!

Dear Peter! My duty is particularly relevant to women; I am the female reproductive organ. Therefore, I should begin by saying something like ‘I am Jenny’s…’ this time. Just as the Testicles are the male reproductive system, the ovaries are the woman’s organ. It cooperates with the male productive system in order for human generation to continue. We, the two ovaries, are located in the lateral wall of Jenny’s pelvis, one on the left and one on the right, and we measure approximately 1x 0.60 x 0.60 inches and weigh between 4 and 8 grams. Even before Jenny was born, we contained an amazing 150–500 thousand immature egg cells inside us.

During childhood, the follicles which contain the eggs diminish continuously, and by the time a young girl reaches puberty, only 35,000 of these follicles remain in each of her ovaries. Throughout the woman’s reproduction lifespan, usually between the ages of 13–50 years, a mere 300–500 of these follicles actually transform into mature eggs. You will certainly realize that you have reached puberty when I begin to produce the estrogen and progesterone hormones. As the estrogen I produce stimulates the development of the female’s sexual characteristics, progesterone prepares the wall of the uterus, making it more receptive to the implantation of a fertilized egg. If the egg I produce is not fertilized by sperm, every month (in approx every 28 days), it will degenerate and then be discharged from the body together with the lining of the uterus during menstruation. Then another one of my eggs matures, and patiently begins to await sperm.

The principle event of chromosomal change in my eggs and their diminishment in numbers is the same in the development of sperms. The only difference being that every spermatogonium produces four sperms, whereas only one mature follicle is produced from the mother cell (Oogonium) that produces my eggs. The remaining three are degenerated. You would have thousands of eggs awaiting fertilization if this was not the case. However, due to the fact that your bodies are not capable of harboring and protecting so many eggs, our Creator provided you with the mechanism of reducing the number of these eggs, and therefore relieved you of any difficulties.

I must take this opportunity mention another two of my organs, one of which is the pancreas, who described itself previously (see The Fountain # 67). As you may recall, the pancreas is a compound gland. The pancreas previously described how it produces digestive enzymes, and also how it produces insulin and glucagon to deal with the metabolism of carbohydrates. As this is a very complex organ, we allocated the pancreas the opportunity to describe itself and explain its functions in a previous edition of the magazine. For more information you may refer to the issue listed above.

An organ which is a part of your immune system, and also considered part of the endocrine system, but an organ you are probably unfamiliar with, is the Thymus gland. If the immune and lymph systems feel the need to describe themselves to you in the future, the Thymus gland will inform you that it resides at the same level as your heart, behind your breastbone (sternum). Then it will go on to define its specific duties. But for the moment, the only thing I am going to inform you of is the most important duty of the Thymus gland.

The Thymus gland produces soldiers called T lymphocytes (T cells) and special antibodies which fight the invasion of diseases, illnesses, and also attack cancer cells and any foreign antigens. The Thymus gland is recognized as a part of the endocrine system because it produces hormones and antibodies. The special lymphocytes and antibodies that are produced in such a complex process by other organs of the immune system are transformed into T cells as they pass the Thymus gland. Then, gaining new characteristics, they secrete specific hormones which in turn stimulate the development and differentiation of T lymphocytes.

Whatever the system may be, the Thymus gland, to the contrary of other organs, is at its largest and most active during the embryonic and neonatal periods. During adolescence, the Thymus gland begins to shrivel and shrink, and continue to shrink gradually into old age. The reason why the Thymus gland is large during the early stages of life is because it must constantly generate new antibodies to enable the body to fight against new germs and diseases, which the body encounters every day.

I may have extended the topic slightly this time because every organ of my endocrine system described themselves individually, and then we got onto the subject of Jenny’s special case, as wel as the different aspects of Peter’s case. All the organs I mentioned today are small, but as you may have noticed, these small organs behold great mystery and wisdom. In addition to this, all of these organs’ individual duties are connected, in particular the Pituitary gland (Hypophysis), and have been arranged and regulated in such a way that they control one another. Can such a magnificent hormone system and bodily activity working in such harmony be explained as a mere coincidence?

Irfan Yilmaz is a professor of biology at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey.

Dear Peter! I, your muscular system, would like to talk to you today; I allow you to walk and do all kinds of movements very easily. In the most recent essay of this department, the skeletal system, which works together with me, discussed how it protected your body and enabled you to stand straight and firm. Sure, this is true. However, as you know, huge rocks and trees can stand straight, too; but they do not have what you do-the ability to move. They are rigid and inflexible because they do not have a system that allows them to move.

You on the other hand, as the most splendid creation in the entire universe, have mobility. All animals have mobility at different levels, thanks to the muscular tissues, which work dynamically behind all the moving organs. However, you, human beings are like neither the animals nor the plants. You have not been created to live like a tree that is pegged down in earth or like an animal that unconsciously tries to meet only its biological needs. Our Designer, God, has made you and your descendants the most important of all creation. He has given you qualities that help you to discover the world, learn, invent and establish new civilizations. To realize such potential and to carry out such duties, you need to first have the freedom to make changes in your small immediate world, which can only be done through motion. In order to enable you with this ability to move, my Creator has put me at your service. I am a system that comprises hundreds of muscles and millions of packed cells.

My most important feature is the cells that move by burning sugar, like a motor consuming fuel in order to work. My cells can shorten and lengthen thanks to the intracellular fibrils (myofilaments) that contract and expand. As a result of each contraction, I pull the bone or the organ that I am attached to and cause it to move or change shape. With the exception of your heart, your bones and organs cannot move on their own. Their ability to move depends on the nature of the muscle they are attached to.

Indeed, I can be called both an organ and a form of tissue. I can use my contraction ability not only as muscle tissue, but also as an organ and a system which runs throughout your body. That is the reason why I appear in so many different types and shapes of muscle bundles. Let me give you an example to help you better understand what a muscle consists of: Let us imagine that a thin thread is like a basic muscular cell. Let us now bring together a great number of threads and make string out of them. Then, let us bring together those strings and make a clothes line. Next, let us bring together a great number of clothes lines and make a very thick rope. Now, imagine this thick rope as a muscle and an organ. Yet, this example is too basic compared to the sophisticated muscle.

Very thin cotton fibrils make up the thin threads. In the muscle fiber, like those cotton fibrils, there are two filaments formed by the two types of protein molecules called actin and myosin, which help in the contraction function. Those little filaments are placed facing one another and they slide past each other during the contraction, which causes the muscle fibers to shorten. That is how the contraction and relaxation of a muscle occurs.

Peter, do you think that coincidence plays a role in this complex and wonderful mechanism and the incredible structure which I have attempted to simplify with an example? Not even a simple thread can be produced without a thread-maker or a machine. Each of your muscles comprises billions of fibers, wrapped all around your bones and giving shape to your body. Can such a complex and delicately intricate structure exist on its own and be positioned in the best place it could possibly be?

My muscles consist of bundles that are made of thousands of muscle fibrils; the size and shape of each muscle depends on which bone it is attached to and what function it does. For example, the muscles that move the bones in your arms and legs are long and spindle-shaped; whereas the ones that are attached to your body can be circular, or triangular, or spread over a broad area. Whatever shape they have, the red skeletal muscles, which are attached to your bones, are very strong and they are voluntary muscles, which mean you can control their movement. When you walk, run, do something with your hands, lie down or stand up, you always use my red striated muscles. The strias (stripes) can only be seen under a microscope because of the histological structure of these skeletal muscles that make up a great part of your body.

My smooth muscles are involuntary muscles that work without your control. Their movements are slow and their contractions last longer, which is the reason why they do not tire easily. The smooth muscles lie in the walls of digestive system, blood vessels, and urinary tract, but I will not talk much about them since each system has referred to the smooth muscles within itself and in detail in previous talks. Because they are not attached to your skeleton to work, the smooth muscles do not play a role in your movements, such as walking around; they only work for the movements of your inner organs.

The third type of muscle belongs to your heart (cardiac muscle) and although the heart has a little striated muscle tissue, it, too works involuntarily. Therefore, you should be aware of the fact that it is the striated muscles which work for the movement of the skeleton and do the major job, and that it is this that we refer to when we say “muscle.”

A great number of bones have been created in order to support your body, and joints have been placed between those bones for them to take the proper shape according to every movement. However, none of those joints have the ability to move by itself. A door or a window, no matter how good it is, cannot be opened or closed without an outside force to pull or push it. In the same way, a joint needs a force to move it and that force is produced by your muscular system. There are around 340 muscles included in your muscular system. It has been estimated that all the muscles in your body perform 510 different functions! While some of those functions are bone movements in your joints, other muscles can perform movements without moving a bone at all. Muscles that are placed in your forehead, face, eye lids and abdomen are those kinds of muscles. They can help you look worried by wrinkling your forehead or grimacing when you are disgusted by something.

Keeping with tradition, the muscles that are included in my system have been named based on the function they perform. For example, the muscle which moves an organ part towards another part is called an abductor, while the muscle that straightens a joint is an extensor, and the muscle that bends a joint is a flexor; the muscle that raises a part of the skeleton is a levator, that which the muscle makes a part of an organ prone is a pronator, the muscle that rotates a part of an organ is a rotator and that which brings an organ into a supine position is called a supinator.

In order for you to make all the movements that your body needs, my muscle components have to be both very strong and flexible. The most important feature of my muscle components is that they can be trained and strengthened with a systematic workout. The main goal of all sportsmen who compete is to increase the strength and the endurance of their muscles. As a result of intense exercises with weight and speed, the number, the diameter and the length of my muscle fibers will increase. Thus, I can gain more power to be able to do more work and also gain the ability to contract faster.

However, in addition to all this training and exercise, genetic factors also play a role in my health. For this reason, not everybody who works out can become a good sportsman; but if the person has innate muscular and skeletal capacity, with good exercise this capacity can certainly be enhanced and developed. However, if a person does not have the proper muscular structure for a particular sport, it would be unfair to expect them to be a champion! Although my muscles always seem to be of the same type at first sight, I might show different behavior depending on the distribution of the special fibers inside them. Some of my fibers twitch fast and tire easily, some of them twitch slowly and tire later. Depending on the distribution of these different fibers, the movements and sport that every person can do differ from person to person. In this case, an athlete who can run only 100m and an athlete who can run 10,000m do not have the same development of muscles; they have different amounts and distributions of special muscle fibers.

The contraction of any of my muscles can occur in two different ways: If the pressure put on my muscle is stronger than the resistance of the tissue, the tension remains constant and the muscle shortens. This is called an isotonic contraction. If the pressure put on my muscle is equal to the resistance, the tension of my muscle increases and its length does not change. That is called an isometric contraction. The amount of force that occurs during the contraction of my muscle depends on its length and the amount of the stimulus.

In order to produce muscle contraction, an electrical signal is sent through a motor neuron to the synaptic gap, which is positioned between the muscle cell membrane and the nerve cell. As a result, a chemical reaction occurs, which, in a very short time, causes the actin and myosin proteins in the muscle fibril to slide past each other and thus shorten the fibril, contracting the muscular cells. During this reaction, the temperature also rises a little and the total heat generated by all the muscles determines your body temperature. For this reason, in cold weather, my muscles vibrate, increasing your body temperature and trying to maintain it. You may now understand why moving the parts of the body in cold weather helps people avoid from getting sick or freezing. As you can see, every act of my Creator is quite purposeful. He can create two or even more functions within one task: Through your muscles, He not only provides you with the ability to move freely, but heat is also produced and you are protected from getting cold.

When a muscle fiber contracts frequently as a result of successive electrical impulses from a nerve fiber, it becomes tired after a while and needs rest. In this case, other muscle fibers which have not contracted for a while will take over and continue the job. However, if the electrical impulses from the nerve come too frequently and my muscle fibers do not have an opportunity to rest, a condition of constant contraction, which is known as physiologic tetanus, occurs.

The tension receptors that are placed on my muscles help maintain the harmony and coordination of all your movements including walking and running, bouncing and sitting down. They do this by constantly signaling the nerve system and providing feedback about the condition of my muscles, and about the speed and the intensity of contraction. Thus, through these receptors which control and coordinate my muscle activities, the well-being of my system is ensured. It is this that prevents you from wobbling when you walk, or helps you to take a spoonful of soup to your mouth without spilling it.

Like any other tissue or system, I, too, have some special disorders. The most common disorders are: weakness, malformation, muscles that develop and move involuntarily and habitually, especially in your face (tic), infected muscles (myosite), muscle dystrophy, muscle rigidity (the Stiffman Syndrome), benign or malignant muscle tumors (leiomyom, rhabdomyoma, or Rhabdomyosarcoma). These disorders differ in their degree of severity and risk.

Dear Peter! You have now seen that each muscle helps your organs to move, holding your bones and giving shape and function to your body, making you a beautiful model and an inspiration for sculptors. You may have understood that this is a work of knowledge and might; there is no way that the myofibril in my one cell could form by itself as a result of a coincidence.

Irfan Yilmaz is a professor of biology at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey.