Using your 'other' hand benefits your brain
Recently I had surgery on my hand, leaving me functionally single-handed for a time. Here's the bad news: I'm right-handed and I was left a lefty. I soon learned that my two hands may look the same, but the left one does not behave as well as its preferred sister. I struggled. I looked ridiculous brushing my teeth with my odd hand, trying to start my car (how to turn that key?), and eating soup was nearly impossible. My left hand was quickly earning a reputation as a slacker. It seems it was left out when it came to coordination.
This bad rap for the left side is long rooted in history. In fact, the Latin word for "left" is sinistra , as in "dexterous." Everyone knows you're valuable if you're the right-hand man (or woman). Right just feels right and left feels all wrong for the 85+ percent of the human population that is right-hand dominant. I was out in left field with my left hand.
It turns out there are degrees of handedness, which can be evaluated using an objective scale called the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. A full 55 percent of the American population is said to be "strongly right-handed," just 2 to 3 percent are "strongly left-handed" and the rest fall in between. (Test your handedness with an online test based on the inventory at hunternuttall.com/resources/handedness. )
Yet, regardless of which hand you prefer, this preferred hand is hooked up to the opposite side of your brain. So my trusty right hand is connected to my left brain—the side responsible for language, judgment and intellect. But my clumsy left side is connected to my right brain, the source of creativity, perception and empathy.
There are many theories for how we become right- or left-handed—from sun positioning to location of your liver. "My theory is that we're frequently right-handed because we're language-dominant creatures and the left side of our brain—the part that processes the sound of speech—is usually larger and more dominant," says Carl Hale, Psy.D., neuropsychologist with Neuropsychology and Learning Associates in Merrillville and Fishers, Indiana. Others theorize that our position in the womb determines our handedness. They guess that the ear which faces out of the womb receives the most stimulation, which then stimulates the corresponding side of the brain.
So as I struggled with a string of bad hair days induced by the awkward combination of blow dryer and left hand, I wondered if practicing left-handedness would have any benefits beyond a better hairdo. Turns out, there are significant benefits. Since our hands are connected to our brains, we can stimulate our brains by stimulating our hands. The process utilizes brain plasticity, our brain's ability to change at any age—for better or worse.
Mouse With Human Ear - News
Within a year, Harvard doctor Joseph Vacanti will be transplanting ears grown on a scaffold onto a person. Vacanti became known throughout the world in the 1990s when he grew a human ear on the back of a mouse. Now he's using a person's own stem cells
They guess that the ear which faces out of the womb receives the most stimulation, which then stimulates the corresponding side of the brain. So as I struggled with a string of bad hair days induced by the awkward combination of blow dryer and left
In its honest, even brutal self-portrayal, this self-portrait is reminiscent of Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with a Bandaged Ear. It is an extraordinarily disarming portrayal of the 25-year-old African-American artist who by this point of his tragically
But still, they felt another outside ear was needed to help guide the way. They aimed big, because as Cole Alexander says, "Success beckoned us." "We were trying to get Dr. Dre, the guy who did the Gnarls Barkley album, Danger Mouse, and of course,
For example, in 2005 researchers at Washington University School of Medicine found that the electromagnetic radiation produced by cell phones does not activate the stress response in mouse, hamster or human cells growing in cultures.
EAP2 201105: Vacanti Mouse
Generally speaking, if we lose our ear in an accident, the cartilage in our ear is very hard to replace and repair. However, all of this may be changed by Dr. Charles Vacanti in 1997. Karl argued (Mouse with human ear, 2006), “genetically engineered mouse" would have to have some DNA from a human. Then, this human DNA had somehow taken over the mouse DNA, and commanded it to grow a human ear. But the mouse in the famous photo had never been genetically engineered. Moreover, that cartilaginous structure that looked like a human ear was never transplanted onto a human, because it was full of cow cells and would have been rejected by a person's immune system. So there was absolutely no genetic engineering at all, there was only scientific invention and it is unethical to declare that this ear can be used in plastic surgery .
Mouse With Human Ear - Bookshelf
Solutions to example problems in engineering noise control, a companion to Engineering noise control
2.2 The pinna of the human ear is of the order of 70mm in major dimension, while that of the mouse is of the order of 7mm. (a) Assuming that the physical ...Biotechnology for beginners
The "mouse-ear" project began in 1989. when Vacanti managed to grow a small piece of human cartilage on a biodegradable scaffold. The scaffold was the same ...Human malformations and related anomalies
The ear develops as three distinct components: the external ear, ... The molecules mediating these events in the mouse and human are still being delineated ...Current topics in developmental biology
First, the mouse inner ear is almost identical in every respect except size to the human inner ear. This similarity is also likely to extend to the genetic ...The Mouse in biomedical research
Sp/Sp inner ears are often malformed but almost undoubtedly as a result of the neural tube defect. There is a significant mouse-human discordance here ...Day-after-day Report Directory
Vacanti mouse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Vacanti mouse was a laboratory mouse that had what looked like a human ear grown on its back. The "ear" was actually an ear-shaped cartilage ...
Mouse with human ear " Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science ...
It showed a totally hairless mouse, with what appeared to be a human ear growing out of its back. ... They implanted the seeded cartilage in his chest, and it grew with him. ...
Ear Mouse - FamousPicturesMagazine
In the journal they showed a picture of a mouse with what appeared to be a human ear growing out of its back. This surreal image soon spread like ...
The mouse with a human ear on its back - Uncyclopedia, the ...
The mouse with a human ear on its back is a mouse with a human ear on its back. In laymen's terms, that means that it (the mouse) is ict a mouse, and ...
Weird True & Freaky: Mouse Ears : Video : Animal Planet
In 1997 American scientists successfully produced and attached a human ear to the back of a mouse. Doctors believe similar mold transplants will help humans