#2. General anesthesia and how it works
Chances are that many of you, at a certain point in their lives, have been on the operating table dressed in pajamas, nervously looking around keeping your eyesight away from that super bright monstrosity of a light pointed towards you. Then one of the masked people with rubber gloves comes to you and starts asking you about when was the last time you ate or drank water, any allergies that you are ware of etc. Then he calmly explain that he will inject some strong medications in you, and at about this point your memories stop. Next thing you know, you are lying in your bed feeling the worst hangover ever imaginable. Couple of days later you go home, the problem is gone and you are thinking “Those guys certainly know their stuff”. Well no!
The anesthesiologist (that is the guy who was so curious as to know when you last ate) actually has no idea how the stuff he injects you with works. And if that isn’t creepy enough, some scientists have proven, that this stuff actually puts you in a state of coma, effectively shutting down all cognitive functions of your brain, while keeping the basic life support functions active. No one really knows how this happens. But hey it works, right?
Want to hear something even creepier? It is reported that a small percentage of people (about 1 in every 10 000) have woken up while under general anesthesia, and while unable to move they do hear what is happening around them and feel what is being done to them. Unable to open they eyes or say something, an outright horror movie scenario.
3. Suicidal whales
We see it in the news reports quite often. A beach full of whales or dolphins, slowly losing their grasp over life as the sun burns their gentle skin, a group of animal friendly activist pouring buckets of water on them to keep their skin moist, and trying to put as many of them back in the water as possible. A hearth breaking scene to which science has no definitive explanation.
Scientists as well as activists have come up with a couple of theories, but to this day none of them is proven.
Most activists like the theory that people are to blame for this strange behavior of our favorite marine mammals. They suggest that our sonar signals are messing up with the whales delicate navigation system. Others say that the pollution in the oceans is driving the whales towards the shore as a desperate attempt to escape the toxic waters. However the fact is that similar cases of whales stuck ashore have been documented for thousands of years, long before we invented the sonar and modern day toxic substances. And the claim that this is happening more often than before is quite unprovable. Just a few decades ago no one had a way to learn that last night, halfway across the globe a few dozen whales were washed ashore. A simple answer to the ever increasing number of such incidents, would be the easier access to information we have nowadays, and the increasing number of activists who would report them and try to do something. With that being said, keep in mind that this is another unproven explanation, it just sounds reasonable enough.
Another theory explaining this strange behavior states that a single whale might get stuck ashore after a not so successful hunting attempt, and its desperate distress call is making all the other whales go suicidal and join it ashore. Now this sounds a bit more reasonable, because it doesn’t involve any human related causes. But it fails to explain how the other whales heard that distress call. The whales high pitch communication sounds can travel vast distances underwater, but not in the air.
Until science finds an answer and a solution to this, we have no other choice but to help the cute marine leviathans get back to the water and hope they don’t get stuck on the next beach.
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