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The hardest working muscle in the human body

oxygenated blood is the same as oxygen rich blood is the same as blood that is high in oxygen saturation

deoxygenated blood is the same as oxygen poor blood is the same as blood that is low in oxygen saturation

 

The human body needs a steady supply of nutrients and gases to survive and thrive. To keep our bodies functioning properly, we all have to regularly breathe in oxygen and consume good nutrition. Thankfully, we have a few “difficult to ignore” natural signals that clearly indicate to us when we need to eat (hunger), breathe (the pain of suffocation), or drink (thirst). Without these signals, the human race would have probably gone extinct ages ago. Can you imagine a world in which none of us ever felt any hunger? We’d probably all eventually starve to death being too preoccupied with seeking out sexual encounters around every corner to remember to eat. Alright, so it is unlikely that any of us in our right state of mind would intentionally neglect eating, breathing, or drinking so it may seem that we’ve got that bit completely covered. However, it isn’t enough to just consume food and breathe in oxygen. These important life sustaining substances have to somehow get transported to all the cells, tissues, and organs in your body. When you eat for instance, the food ends up in your stomach and gets digested there for the most part, but the resulting nutrients from your digested food must somehow be distributed to the rest of your body. Continue reading The hardest working muscle in the human body

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The holiest of all wars

My agony and struggle to recovery after ACL reconstruction...
My agony and struggle to recovery after ACL reconstruction…
Most well adjusted human beings will agree that war is fundamentally destructive to any civilized society. Some wars (like the american civil war) were necessary to extinguish evil in its purest form, while some wars (like Saddam Hussein’s irrational campaign against Kuwait) serve as unfortunate examples of a senseless loss of too many lives at the whim of an idiotic egomaniac with too much power. Regardless of its root cause, war often forces a fundamental change in the world at large as its reverberations are felt far beyond the borders of the countries in which it is fought. A good example of this is how the destruction caused by the atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced the world to realize that the threat of nuclear war had to be minimized because its potential for destruction was so great. Wars take a heavy toll on the infrastructure of the countries in which they are fought, and perhaps an even heavier toll on the psyche of the people that are touched by its many battles. Although war can bring many hardships and difficulties, it can also serve many fundamentally important purposes. It is strange to think of it that way, but if you are able to take a sufficiently removed emotional distance, you will see that war also has its “upside”. For example, war can indirectly serve as a very effective way to check population growth, ensuring that the surviving factions of humanity don’t eventually all starve to death as a result of having too many mouths to feed. War can also serve as a very powerful means of re-setting counterproductive ways of thinking that have spread through a given society or group of people. For example, the american civil war served as a big “reset button” that ultimately and forcefully altered the mindset amongst 19th century tobacco and cotton plantation owners in Northern America. Although it remains amongst the bloodiest and most gory of all wars fought by man, the american civil war served the essential purpose of permanently altering the mindset that promoted the evil of slavery. Continue reading The holiest of all wars

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Nigeria: West Africa’s sleeping giant

Full disclosure: I am Nigerian.

Saluting my native country
Saluting my native country
The Federal Republic of Nigeria is a land blessed with a lot of natural and human resources alike. This geographical marvel of a country is situated on the western coast of the african continent – the birthplace of man. The climate is tropical with two major seasons: the wet season (from about June to September) and the dry season (from about October to May). Over 300 ethnic groups and 3 major traditional languages – Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa – exist in the 36 states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Although each Nigerian has his or her own traditional language (I personally speak Igbo), the “lingua franca” in Nigeria is the english language because we were colonized by the British a few centuries ago. After years of struggle, we eventually gained our independence from British colonial rule on the 1st day of October 1960. Since then, we have grown to become the 8th most populous country in the world with 176 million citizens, while consistently placing amongst the top 20 crude oil producing countries in the world. In addition to the plentiful deposits of “black gold” (crude oil) that we have in our country, there is also a rich agricultural sector in Nigeria which produces tons of nutritious organic food for its populace and beyond. As a marker of our continued growth as a country, the Nigerian economy as of 2016 is the largest economy in the entire african continent. Continue reading Nigeria: West Africa’s sleeping giant