Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

As my mind wandered while I was making myself a sandwich, I started wondering how busy my immune system is. How many pathogen exposure incidents occur in a typical day (nearly all of them dealt with successfully)? If I take seventeen thousand breaths in a day, what percentage of those include inhaled pathogens? All of them? A few? How many minor hull breaches *cough* nicks and scrapes that I don't notice because they're tiny, allow germs in through my skin? How many microbes are on or in even food that we consider clean and safe, that my immune system neutralizes before they can harm me? (Well, ones that stomach acid isn't already protecting me from...?)

How much of this stuff do we not so much take for granted as simply lack any awareness of in the first place because, most of the time, our immune systems work so well? For every cold we catch, how many times had we been exposed but not caught it? (I've got a feeling someone on my friendslist will either have a good idea or know what search phrase will coax Google into coughing up an answer.)

I have in my mind an image of a very tired Ozmosis Jones.

There are times when I really wish I could record tactile sensations and email them to friends as easily as I can sounds and photographs. With Perrine curled up on my rib cage, leaning into the crook of my arm and purring quite strongly, this is one of those times. (Some selective editing would be important -- no need to share various aches in other parts of my body along with the wonderful loving-cat sensations.)

( Two Unrelated Thoughts: Immunology, and A Lack In Recording Technology )

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"When you get it right mighty beasts float up into the sky. When you get it wrong people die." -- Roger Bacon

[I found this attributed, "Roger Bacon, c. 1384", but the Roger Bacon I found in Wikipedia (aka Doctor Mirabilis) was from about a century earlier; a car blog used the same quote and attributed it to "Roger Bacon, about 750 years ago". I found a book by Bacon at Google Books, but since just about the only Latin I know is, "Ita, nos habemos non ullas bananas," trying to see whether the quote appears in any of Google's sample pages seemed pointless. Can any of y'all confirm or refute that the Roger Bacon who said that is the same Roger Bacon who was a master at Oxford in the 13th Century and got into a bit of trouble with the Catholic church? Anyhow, whoever said it and when, it seemed appropriate for this date.]

( Roger Bacon, on risk and reward )

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