Your Body Runs Without You

The human body runs on its own. Think of the times your mind is working on a problem and during the evaluation process your body is continuing with daily routine tasks. It happens every day. You reach a conclusion on the mind problem and then wonder have I had a cup of coffee? Oh yes, you have - you can still taste it.

Your body can do things totally out of your control that really "bug" you, like teeth that hurt, hiccups, stitch, pins and needles or cramp.

Some get a headache or painful teeth when they eat or drink something cold. This is due to sensitive nerve endings in teeth. You can use special toothpaste that takes months before it becomes effective. In the mean time stay away from cold things.

Hiccups is caused by eating and drinking too fast, or taking in air. It can also be caused by becoming suddenly nervous. The only real known cure it to take beta blockers. Though you have to wait until the medication takes effect.

A stitch occurs during exercise when your body tries to tell you that is enough. Stopping the strenuous activity will "cure" the malady.

Pins and needles happens when the blood supply to nerve endings in the limbs is constricted. Get up and move around then normal feeling will return to the "dead" limb.

The cause of cramp is unknown. Dehydration and being unfit are not factors - well hydrated supremely fit sports people get afflicted with it. Spasmodic constricting muscles hurt. The only thing you can do is wait for them to settle down - perhaps more beta blockers.

Your body is a complex machine. Look after it. Service it well. The model you have has its own quirks. Just learn to live with them.
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Cow Hold up

"What's the hold up?"
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Australpithecus sediba Is Not an Ancestor of Man

The Announcement that skeletons found in South Africa belong to a new species is premature.They were found in a cave near Johannesburg. The "new species" was named Australopithecus sediba. It was claimed to be the "rosetta stone" into the past. They were also the most complete skeletons ever discovered. The creatures walked upright, had long arms and powerful hands. Unfortunately, they were small brained.

Paleoanthropologists not involved in the find say the name chosen is just a "wastebasket" category. They are not ancestors of Man. Furthermore, some animals in the species could have had larger or smaller brains. It could still be transitional in evolution to Man, but very distant.

It may fit into Homo. Perhaps it is a sister species to Homo habilis. The brain size of Australopithecus sediba is the same as Homo floresiensis, the Hobbit, of Indonesia. The features in sediba are similar to those in other Homo species. Paleoanthropologists put very early finds in Homo. Sediba is not so unique as to have a lineage of its own. Indeed, Australopithecus africanus is older than sediba and africanus does have unique lineage. Sediba is too primitive to be a direct ancestor of Man. Older Homo species have features more like Man that sediba.
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