Office Hour Writing Break

It was a rather busy morning, so I did not write when I first arrived, but am now in the middle of an office hour, and no one is visiting me, so I am free to write for a bit.  I had just returned from a class where I was discussing and describing various physiological aspects of metamorphic change that can occur in some species.  A few brief highlights since they are still running circuits in my mind include:

• In the transition from tadpole to frog, titers of the hormone Triiodothyronine (the active form of Thyroxine) shape the metamorphic steps. 
• Very interesting and environmentally relevant changes in physiology occur in this metamorphosis:
• eye migration occurs from the laterally placed eyes on the tadpole to anteriorly placed eyes in the adult
• the above can occur because the skull of the tadpole is cartilagenous.  The skull does not ossify until after eye migration occurs in the adult
• the tadpole has a herbivorous diet whereas the adult is a carnivore 
•  the different diets shape the gastrointestinal structures differently... namely the tadpole has a very long, spirally coiled intestinal system needed to digest vegetation, whereas the adult has a shorter intestinal system typical of organisms that are carnivores
• gills regress and lung formation occurs
• Elimination of cellular wastes changes too..... the tadpole, being aquatic, eleminates wastes as ammonia, whereas the adult, having transitioned to being terrestrial has had enzyme systems develop during metamorphosis that convert cellular wastes to urea.  The benefit of urea for terrestrial organisms is that it is a more "water conserving" way of getting rid of cellular wastes than is ammonia which only aquatic animals employ as they do not experience water stress in the way terrestrial animals do.   
• Well, I am sure the above is boring as hell for most folks, so I will stop now, and not talk about the other things I described physiologically regarding Cecropia Moth and Fruit Fly metamophosis.  

Let us see......

• I take that back.... one more (BRIEF, I PROMISE) thing..... as an example..... humans would.... without their kidneys recycling water, be estimated to need to expel ~100 GALLONS of water a day to shed wastes via ammonia.  However, the average adult expresses only ~1.5 liters of urine in a given day..... this highlights how efficient our kidney's are are recycling water and concentrating waste products as a terrestrial animal.  

Now onto other things....

• Friday was a wonderful time at the shoppe.  Unfortunately, none of my friends were there.... there were a few folks I did not know, but they did not seem focused on conversing.   But, I went to the second floor's windowed area and read more of my "Hidden Valley Road" book, which is about a family who had 6 of twelve kids develop schizophrenia in the 1970s.... and how their situation helped researchers identify heritable components of the condition.  
• I also traversed the lands again on Saturday to go to the shoppe.  I had brought my pipe, and was not sure if I would enjoy it there or not..... but when I arrived a friend who is somewhat sporadically there WAS there, and this fellow (who is ~70) had only a few weeks ago lost his Dad, who was ALSO a sporadic regular at the shoppe.  I had met his Dad a handful of times because when he came, he always tried to come when the Retiree's Cigar Group would meet on Thursdays.  He was 96 when he passed away.  I had last seen him at the end of February.  
• Well, this friend, who's father had passed, offered me one of his Dad's cigars, so I could not refuse.  It was a fancy, pressed Perdomo Reserved, 10th Anniversary edition.  Gus (the Dad) was especially fond of them.

I am greatly looking forward to my wife returning tomorrow!  It has been boring without her.  We have "face-timed" a bit on the gizmo phone.... but it is not the same.  She has been very happy with my small gifts that I secretly stowed in her luggage.  She especially liked the hand dipped caramels, remarking how soft and creamy each center has been.  

I better do some actual work, so I should head out.

PipeTobacco