Mom and Dad Have Rotors
you don't need an alarm clock
JWST Mission Update
The James Webb Telescope is hurtling toward the Earth's L2 Lagrange point. Today is the 6th day of Christmas [six geese a laying], and it has already begun the unfolding and set up of the sun shields. It has already traveled over 400,000 miles! The next time a window salesman comes to your door and explains how good their replacement windows are, imagine that five sheets of plastic will reduce the temperature from the backside of the telescope to the front by about 600 degrees Fahrenheit! The telescope is built to operate reliably at -388 Fahrenheit. That’s pretty “cool”.
The Inspiration
Many are familiar with the term helicopter parents. I have a brother “M” who is a college professor. He tells stories of new students arriving at school and chronically calling their parents for help with questions from the start until it is made clear to them that they need a new approach. I feel bad for (1) the student, (2) the teacher, (3) the parent, and (4) a future employer. No one wins in this ridiculous situation. The inspiration for today came after a few clicks on the treadmill. I read this post with laughter (and a lot of sadness afterward). I encourage you to read it. At some point, in my opinion, this morphs into “living vicariously through your children”. The saddest observation is that it is not unreasonable for some parents to function as an alarm clock for their children away at school!
The Setup
I consider it low-hanging fruit and not particularly kind to identify the obvious. I am confident that (1) the “hoverers” know who they are (2) the “hovered” can see what is happening, and (3) the observers suffer the immediate consequences. Instead, I think it worthwhile to merely state the consequences.
Some of this is not up to us. In the Animal Kingdom, we have vertebrates and invertebrates. The next classification down is mammals and thereafter we classify primates. Primates, across the board, are amazing animals. They emerged as agile creatures that could live in the trees. When you watch an animal show, it would seem, especially at night that living on the ground would have been very dangerous. Staying above the fray must have been a real advantage! Opposable thumbs and a focus on vision instead of smell with really big brains are also common in primates. Only apes and humans among the primates have finally abandoned a tail. I am glad because finding a pair of pants that fit is already hard enough without another cutout.
The Details
So where am I going with this? One of the coolest things (to me) about primates is the amount of time the young stay with their parent(s). This took millions of years to evolve (if you believe that controversial stuff). That is striking and unique to mammals and primates. Perhaps helicopter parents are the latest social evolution of this in the human race thanks to the possibilities unlocked by the cellphone! Long after the nursing ends, we continue to ensure our adult children are getting the “right” professor and provide them with cell phones so perhaps we can keep tabs on them. Here is a disturbing article about parents still paying for their children’s cell phones until middle age. Yikes.
There are so many wonderful things that have resulted from having so many other animals with similarities. All of these wonderful things emerged over a very long period. My father was a Type-2 diabetic. In the mid-1970s it was our friend the pig that saved the day. Pigs and humans share almost 98% of their DNA. Early development of transplant science utilized pig heart valves. Pig’s remarkable similarity in their pancreatic function became the basis for the production of insulin and saved countless lives. The striking similarities have also led to a great focus on minimizing the fear and stress of these animals pre-slaughter. The release of cortisol and adrenaline leads to lots of extra glycogen. This is quite similar to us when we are under extreme stress. These factors lead to damage to the meat and reduced value in the slaughter process. Modern slaughter practices try to manage how scared and stressed the animals get. Pigs are prone to this and this is not a surprise since we share so much genetic history with them.
It seems our tendency to remain connected to our children is most closely matched in elephants. Their children stay connected for about 16 years. I wonder whether there is such a thing as a helicopter elephant. That paints a silly picture and a need to create an enormous amount of lift!
What I find to be interesting is what are the characteristics when particular animals are similar in structure and match gene content closely. The unusual characteristics include (1) recognizing themselves in a mirror and (2) sex for pleasure (outside of the ovulation cycle). Some of our closest relatives seem to be the bonobos and dolphins. While the splits in the tree were much earlier, it seems for the dolphins many of the same mutations occurred in some cases and similar results in the species resulted. All of these animals remain with their young for a very long time.
This sort of “comparison” of species is not just a similarity in the long chain of DNA but rather focuses CAREFULLY on the genes expressed on specific chromosomes. This is much more complex than reminding people that they share 82% of their DNA with dogs. This kind of comparison example is more detailed such as the following:
We are constantly advised that we are “related to chimps”.
Chimps have 24 chromosome pairs and humans have 23 chromosome pairs. That is a BIG DIFFERENCE!
Rather than ignoring such a significant difference, science doesn’t just ignore it but rather explores it. Explore versus Ignore seems a worthwhile mantra to find serenity.
Our chromosomes are arbitrarily numbered by length, from longest to shortest. It turns out that chromosome #2 for humans is very interesting (and quite long).
The STRUCTURE of the chromosome MELDS two chromosomes together. If you imagine that the ends of chromosomes are easy to identify (they are), and they are called TELOMERES.
It turns out that the genes that are expressed for chimps and humans are “taped together” with a characteristic TELOMERE stuck in the middle of chromosome #2. If you imagine that the two chromosomes from a chimp were named A and B, we have a single chromosome (#2) that splices A&B together. That is a pretty dandy explanation of why chimps have 24 chromosomes and we have 23.
This would only be a CONVENIENT explanation for the doubters. The cool thing is the GENES that are expressed in chimps on A&B are also present (with subtle mutations) on Human Chromosome #2. Now that is a dandy explanation to me! Explore versus ignore is a pretty cool approach to things.
Here is a Louis Armstrong version of a silly song from my childhood inspired by this evening’s post. If you happen to be a teacher, please share an experience when dealing with helicopter parents.
I think this is more common now days because many families have only one or two kids.