Growing up, we war babies were assured in biology class that memories were stored solely in our brains. To have said otherwise out loud might have invited those who don't question the status quo eager to cast aspersions on you as an ignorant, know-nothing "conspiracy theorist."
Wonder who'd be laughing now?
Medical researchers are finding kidney and nerve tissue cells can form memories much like brain cells, according to a story in Medical News Today (MNT). A New York University study reportedly has made such findings, with researchers hoping their work will help doctors better understand how best to treat problems affecting memory. They also believe this can perhaps offer fresh insights into how memory functions.
A second study involving obese mice from ETH Zurich in Switzerland found, according to MNT, that "memories of obesity stored in fat tissue cells may be partly responsible for the yo-yo weight loss effect" (there's some unwelcome news for millions).
Maria Cohut of MNT reported: "Memory is one of the most crucial aspects of our health and human identity. Through memory, we create our individuality, our specific relationships with the world we inhabit, and we learn to stay safe and make healthy choices.
"Historically, the ability to make, maintain, and update memories has been tied to the human brain. Increasingly, however, researchers are wondering if there is a whole-body memory, that is, if different parts of our bodies can also make and store a type of memory, and if so, how these other memories may be affected by and, in turn, impact aspects of our health. Recently emerging evidence seems to suggest that human memory may be an even more complex affair than we have so far imagined."
In November, a team of researchers from NYU's Center for Neural Science published a paper in Nature Communications showing that nerve tissue and kidney tissue cells indeed store a kind of memory. The team exposed both of these types of cells to chemical signals in a spaced-out pattern, MNT reported, "mimicking the way in which brain cells learn through exposure to such chemical information via neurotransmitters, or chemical messengers. The researchers found that, much like brain cells, these other types of cells responded to the chemical signals by switching on a gene associated with memory storage. This suggests that, like brain cells, other cells in the human body also accumulate memories."
Lead author Nikolay Kukushkin, a clinical associate professor of life science at NYU, told MNT his "lab has been interested in memory at its most basic level for many years. In the past, we studied sea slugs because they form very simple memories, allowing us to get to the bottom of how they form. What we have done now is to find an even simpler memory, which is common not just across different animals, but across all cell types."
Fearing fire
During my reporting stint at the Los Angeles Times 40 years ago, I lived in the Southern California planned community of Rancho Bernardo near Escondido. My only encounter with a massive wildfire was frightening and imposing as we gawked at the menacing orange light growing ever brighter as the flames approached the mountain above us.
Thankfully the enormous fire never crested and dropped into the expansive housing subdivisions spread just beneath. but it gave me a taste of what it might feel like to be possibly trapped in such an uncontrolled and destructive inferno.
So whenever I read of uncontrolled wildfires currently fanned by wind gusts of up to 100 miles an hour threatening homes along the California coastline as thousands flee, I can relate to the fear and concern of those residents and homeowners.
It's anything but reassuring to realize you've suddenly become trapped between the ocean and annihilation by flames. These frequent wildfires in California, along with the state's politically corrosive politics, are enough to make me realize yet again how grateful I am to be facing occasional tornado threats back home in common-sense Arkansas.
Gulf of 'America'
President-elect Donald Trump is quoted saying he plans to change to name of the historic Gulf of Mexico to The Gulf of America. While admittedly it has a nice ring to it, I'm a bit surprised (with all the damage wrought on our nation as well as a humiliating worldwide loss of respect over the past four years) that this project rises to the top of his lengthy and pressing to-do list.
I understand, with five states bordering the Gulf, that it makes sense to reconsider the name. Yet what does it hurt or even matter to make such a change now and let this generation and those previous continue to call it whatever they choose?
Chewing the fat
Finally on this winter Saturday, I was reminded of one reason I've always enjoyed being a Southerner from Arkansas when living in big coastal urban sprawls where folks have difficulty properly pronouncing their r's, much less coming up with amusing phrases to describe life.
For example, here in the South some are prone to say:
An unwanted visitor or event is as "welcome as a hair on a biscuit."
When a child is misbehaving, "I'm gonna jerk a knot in your tail."
Someone is clueless: "His porch light's on but no one is answering."
Something doesn't go as hoped: 'That went downhill faster than a snowflake in August," or "That went downhill faster than a squirrel in traffic."
Generally speaking: "A lazy man's work is never done."
"He's about as sharp as mashed potatoes."
"That fella thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow."
"He has the IQ of a fence post."
"Sweep your own porch before you start worrying about someone else's."
"That man's cornbread just ain't done in the middle."
"If brains were dynamite, that fella couldn't blow his nose."
"You just as well try putting knee socks on a rooster."
"There ain't no shortcut to any place worth going."
"Why, it'd take that fella two hours to watch '60 Minutes.'"
"I'm as riled up as a mosquito in a dummy factory."
Never forget: If you ever doubt how far you can go toward meeting your goals, remember how far you already have come, all you have faced, and battles you've won as well as all the fears you've faced and overcome. Never stop striving when you never know how close you are today to achieving your desires.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at [email protected].