Survived from Formaldehyde Fuming

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I am preferring the evening/night shift in the crowded cell culture lab to maintain peace. Another lab in day shift. One room is divided in three different compartments each facilitated with laminar hood, inverted microscope, centrifuge, liquid nitrogen tank, and incubators. My cell culture lab is one of them. Last week, as usual, when I entered the lab, pungent like smell and eye irritating environment made me to get out immediately.

I asked a colleague, next to the cell culture lab (thanks at least one was there), whether it was fumigated or not. He replied, “no”, later he said mocking me, “I don't know.” I again returned to the cell culture lab and checked every compartments of the lab and notice board. There should be notice and information for fuming, but nothing could be found as the indicator of fuming except AC was switched off and dustbin was full of waste. “Probably the smell and irritation due to this waste and no air circulation”, I assumed. I had felt such kind of odor on microbiological work, few years ago. Then I decided to work putting mask. Sooner, I felt suffocation and severe headache. It was fuming gas ! ? # Promptly, I rushed to lawn for fresh air breathing.

After 15 minutes, eye irritation reduced but headache persisted then I returned to the room immediately. Thanks I survived. Next day, though appeared in the institute but could not work due to headache. Meanwhile, the same colleague with whom yesterday I asked, bemocked me informing about the fuming. One of the research assistant (or graduate student ?) had fumed with formaldehyde to sterilize one of their compartment at the last time of office hour.

Want Expeditious and Persistent Memory? Medicate yourself and Dust off Your Musical Instruments for Child.

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By Bishnu Marasini

       Except some politicians and few others who only exploit public’s emotional believes to aggrandize and become supreme. We need an urbane brain not only for deep understanding of a subject but also a wide knowledge of diverse field is essential for better life in this competitive era.
       Neuronal cells are the important component of the brain and unable to divide. Millions of the cells in our skin die and regenerate everyday. But neuronal cells once died or damaged, hardly replaced/repaired. But, upon stimulation, they can be more branched as dendrites and the secondary cells (helper of neurons) like astrocytes, oligodandrocites, microglia; ependymal cells are increased in number as well which enrich the better communication of each other increasing efficiency.

Picture 1: Musical Keyboard (Source)

       Recent study reveals the power of music to enhance the brains exhibiting increased vocabulary, multilingual capacity, reading performance and other educational activities. Pleasant waves of music not only increase volume of Grey Matter but also increases the brain’s adeptness and competence. Musical instruments work by two ways; (1) Through pleasant wave of music; (2) Curiosity/learning of instruments to produce such wave. It is most efficient at the age of 7; the stage where brain-cells are actively growing (some are increasing in volume and some in number).
       Also, flash of bright light (especially blue colored) and electric current of 1-2 mA and repeated learning of object found to be effective for long term memory.
       Although, neurons and the memory are lost with the age but the rate of deterioration can be reduced with the meditation. Neuroscientists conduct experiments upon the Buddhist Monk of NEPAL after challenged by the  (Peace) Nobel Laureate; Dalai Lama. Significant improvements were found on the Monks comparing to non-meditating people. After this exciting result, more test done on those people previously unknown of meditation, with the 20 min/day of meditation, exhibited significant improvements.

Picture 2: Preparing for Meditation (Source)

       I also used to medicate early in the morning during examination period which helped to relief from pressure of exam phobia (nowadays lazy in early rise and meditation). Nowadays, most of the elder people in Nepal are influenced by the Yoga technique of Ramdev. It will be more beneficial if some modification of Yoga for brain exercise 5-10 min/day, makes their memory long term. My personal opinion also, meditation maintains a halcyon and expeditious mind which is exigent in these morose, truculent and turbulence days.
       I don’t mean, only music and meditation are perfect for refulgent brain but these techniques adorn the regular activity of reading, writing, speaking, memory recalling, and others.

Further reading:  (1) New Scientist (2010), 2780    (2) Science (2010), 330