Saturday, 8 May 2010

Transplanting Memories ?


After completing a mountain of homework i took a break watching channel 4 documentaries, firstly i watched "ninety sleeps a day" which was all about narcolepsy but didn't really teach me any more than i already knew.
Secondly i watched a really interesting documentary about "Transplanting memories." It looked as cases where people (5-10% of recipients) had received heart transplants and with that 'inherited' memories, their personalities completely transformed, their tastes changed, their preferences were totally different and some of them feel as though they were being driven by a totally different personality.
Scientists have found neurons in the heart that are also found in the brain, this potentially means that the heart does in fact have it's own memories! However, this is not the case for everyone, some people had no change at all (but i'm not interested in them.) xD
Some doctors believe it's all psychological and that the medication, stress, setting and adjusting body mean that the change is not the cause of the heart.
However, there have been incredible parallels between doner and patient, the patients who received the hearts discovered that the new personalities or preferences were in most cases, identical to the doner they received it from.

I think this is an incredibly interesting concept, it would mean that the heart is interconnected on a different level that previously thought. The heart and the brain are constantly connected and 'sharing' information, therefore is it possible the the heart from one person can still have a partial memory of the previous brain which is then merged with the memory of the new brain and thus provoking a change.

I can't wait to see how this theory develops, there are still many sceptics but i think there is so much potential to be uncovered that we had no idea about :)

Friday, 7 May 2010

The First Hung Parliament



Yesterday i spent ten minutes walking around a Primary school trying to find the way in so that i could cast my vote, as a first time voter i've been watching the 2010 general election live TV debates, they've actually been fairly interesting, Cameron and Brown spent the entire time throwing comments back and fourth and Clegg, who i hadn't even heard of before, was the only politician who actually seemed to answer anything.
I had two votes, one for the overall general election and one for the local council and after thinking about it for a while i voted differently on both.
The conclusion today was that the UK now faces the first hung parliament since 1974!
I'm actually pretty happy, i'd talked it over with friends and said that i thought this would happen, either way, the results were always going to be good providing there was no outright win for Labour, 16 years and they've done...not exactly nothing, but very little.
I've grown up under a Labour government and I think the UK is more than ready for a change!

BBC official results:


-The Tories defeated Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik in Montgomeryshire on a gigantic 13% swing, and won the symbolic seat of Basildon. But they did not win Gedling, Tooting and Bolton North East from Labour, all key targets, and failed to unseat Schools Secretary Ed Balls in Morley & Outwood.
- Two former Labour home secretaries lost their seats. Jacqui Smith was defeated at Redditch by the Tories on a mighty swing of 9.2%, while Charles Clarke lost to the Liberal Democrats in Norwich South.
- Esther Rantzen failed to win Luton South, the seat being held by Labour. Independent MP for Wyre Forest, Dr Richard Taylor, lost his seat to the Conservatives. BNP leader Nick Griffin was roundly defeated at Barking where Labour's Margaret Hodge increased her majority.
- The Green Party won their first ever seat in parliament when Caroline Lucas took Brighton Pavilion from Labour.
- In a shock result from Northern Ireland, First Minister Peter Robinson has been defeated in Belfast East by the Alliance Party.

The polls closed last night in the general election: get all the latest news as it happens (Image © Rui Vieira/PA Wire/Press Association Images)



I thought these pictures did a pretty good job of summing up UK politics:

A supporter of the Alliance For Green Socialism party takes a rest during the Leeds electoral counts in the John Charles Sports Centre, Leeds. (PA)
Rahman Mohibar, a Liberal Democrat council candidate for Whitechapel has a rest during the general election count for Poplar and Limehouse at Mile End Park Leisure Centre in East London. (PA)

okay in all fairness, it had been a long, long night.

Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Out with the old, in with the new

So this is my fist post as a legal adult. My old blog started going a bit funny so i decided it was high time to get a new one going, there's so much coming up this year, University, friends, moving out, getting a job, becoming independent...but i'll never forget the old blog and the 'old memories'

Link: http://www.libbyysworld.blogspot.com

But in with the new, :D