Quotes About Biochemical

The idea was to study fertilization in as many different phyla and organisms as possible, using the simplest possible equipment and a microscope. Biochemical approaches were not much in vogue, and running gels impossible at first.

We are more than the sum of our biochemical functions. Even the tiniest flea is an incredibly complex living creature, with mouth-parts adapted to feeding on the blood of your cat or dog.

Big stress or little stress—your body reacts the same way. The human body doesn't differentiate between a major or minor stress. Regardless of the catalyst, a typical stress reaction floods the body with a wave of 1,400 biochemical events. If this happens too frequently, we age prematurely, our cognitive function is affected, and we are drained of energy and clarity.8

If these biochemical phenomena sound similar to those of the fight-or-flight syndrome, they are, except that here we are running toward something or someone; indeed, a cynic might say toward rather than away from danger. The changes are also fully consistent with those of the early phases of addictive behavior. The Roxy Music song "Love Is the Drug" is quite accurate in describing this state (albeit the subject of the song is looking to score his next fix of love).

Therapeutic fasting goes back thousands of years, of course, and was long regarded by doctors as being more appropriate for philosophers than physicians. Researchers, however, have investigated what occurs when the body takes a short break from nutrients. They have studied the biochemical events that occur in the bloodstream, in the joints, in the fat tissues, and in the brain, and have found astonishing results.

The essential point of view advanced here is this: the stability of every living being, as of every structurally stable form, rests, in the last analysis, on a for- mal structure—in fact, a geometrical object—whose biochemical realization is the living being.

There is clearly a biochemical component to depression, and medication can be helpful for many people, but medication alone is not sufficient treatment for most.

Psychotherapy and medication both produce similar changes in brain functioning.18 There is a biochemical process in depression, but the individual has been made susceptible to depression through life experiences.

This is all the fault of evolution. For countless generations our biochemical system adapted to increasing our chances of survival and reproduction, not our happiness. The

most up-to-date theories also maintain that sensations and emotions are biochemical data-processing algorithms.

In the days of Locke, Hume and Voltaire humanists argued that 'God is a product of the human imagination'. Dataism now gives humanists a taste of their own medicine, and tells them: 'Yes, God is a product of the human imagination, but human imagination in turn is just the product of biochemical algorithms.

Maybe someday breakthroughs in neurobiology will enable us to explain communism and the crusades in strictly biochemical terms. Yet we are very far from that point.

Rather, feelings are biochemical mechanisms that all mammals and birds use in order to quickly calculate probabilities of survival and reproduction. Feelings aren't based on intuition, inspiration or freedom they are based on calculation. (page 36)

As we mentioned in the previous chapter, scientific insights into the way our brains and bodies work suggest that our feelings are not some uniquely human spiritual quality, and they do not reflect any kind of 'free will'. Rather, feelings are biochemical mechanisms that all mammals and birds use in order to quickly calculate probabilities of survival and reproduction. Feelings aren't based on intuition, inspiration or freedom they are based on calculation. (page 36)

Catharsis comes when Joy understands her mistake and she—along with the viewers—realizes that Riley isn't Joy, or Sadness, or any of the other characters. Riley is a complex story produced by the conflicts and collaborations of all the biochemical characters together.

Some believe that if we could only crack the genetic code and map every neuron in the brain, we will know all of humanity's secrets. After all, if humans have no soul, and if thoughts, emotions and sensations are just biochemical algorithms, why can't biology account for all the vagaries of human societies?

The better we understand the biochemical mechanisms that underpin human emotions, desires, and choices, the better computers can become in analyzing human behavior, predicting human decisions, and replacing human drivers, bankers, and lawyers

It drives me crazy when people talk about the scale as an indicator of health, because your weight doesn't tell you what's going on at a biochemical level.

In teaching, I wanted to offer a general pharmacology course based on chemical principles, biochemical classification and mathematical modelling. In the event I achieved neither of my ambitions.

The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight of freeze response.

We have long since gone beyond the moon, touched down on Mars, the moon, harnessed nuclear energy, artificially reproduced DNA, and now have the biochemical means to control birth; why should death itself, the Last Enemy, be considered sacred and beyond conquest?

The pre-bite dopamine blast you're now getting is the promise of more bliss, and the post-bite drop in dopamine is, in a way, the breaking of the promise—or, at least, it's a kind of biochemical acknowledgment that there was some overpromising. To the extent that you bought the promise—anticipated greater pleasure than would be delivered by the consumption itself—you have been, if not deluded in the strong sense of that term, at least misled.

Now that our marriage is over, I know what love is. It's a trick on the brain, the adrenal glands releasing endorphins. It floods the cells that transmit worry and better sense, drowns them with biochemical bliss. You can know all these things about love, yet it remains irresistible, as beguiling as the floating arms of long sleep.

Who are we to destroy the planet's Creation? Each species around us is a masterpiece of evolution, exquisitely adapted to its environment. Species existing today are thousands to millions of years old. Their genes, having been tested by adversity over countless generations, engineer a staggeringly complex mix of biochemical devices that promote the survival and reproduction of the organisms carrying them.