A scientist who dealt with racism

 Dr. Ernest Everett Just, (August 14, 1883 – October 27, 1941)

 "Since history is not the factual record of events but the dramatic narrative our species superimposes over events, it is historical irony, in the classic Ancient Greek literary sense, that [Dr.] Just was among the biologists whose work laid the foundation for genomics and its sobering revelation that we share 98% of our DNA with a head of broccoli, dwarfing to absurdity the sub-negligible biological differences on which humans peg the artificial othernesses of their senseless biases." 

[Dr] "Just felt increasingly stifled by the swell of racism in his nation’s bosom, which kept him from obtaining a teaching position at a major university worthy of his talent and credentials."

Source: BrainPickings Newsletter 5/23/21

Ernest Everett Just (Marine Biological Laboratory Archives)

Dr. Just "...admired as the “black Apollo” of science by the Italian women working at the Neapolitan laboratory for which he left Woods Hole, is the subject of The Vast Wonder of the World  by librarian-turned-author Mélina Mangal and Colombian illustrator Luisa Uribe — a lovey addition to the growing corpus of picture-book biographies of cultural heroes to foment young hearts with inspiration for growing vast minds and tenacious spirits.

Dr. Just "...believed that "life as an event lies in a combination of chemical stuffs exhibiting physical properties; and it is in this combination, i.e., its behavior and activities, and in it alone that we can seek life.".^[31] He also wrote: "[L]ife is the harmonious organization of events, the resultant of a communion of structures and reactions",^[11] and "We [scientists] have often striven to prove life as wholly mechanistic, starting with the hypothesis that organisms are machines! Living substance is such because it possesses this organization--something more than the sum of its minutest parts"^[32] He argued forcefully that the "ectoplasm," the outer region of the cytoplasm, and not the nucleus, constitutes the heart of the dynamic cell. He was convinced that the surface of the egg cell possesses an "independent irritability," which enables the egg (and all cells) to respond productively to diverse stimuli.^[33]

Source: Wikepedia

1.  Just, Ernest Everett (1988). The Biology of the Cell Surface (Facsimile ed.). New York: Garland Pub. ISBN 978-0824013806.
2.  Just, E. E. (1933), "Cortical cytoplasm and evolution". Am. Nat. 67: 20–29.
3. ^ Newman, Stuart A. (2009), "E. E. Just's 'independent irritability' revisited: The activated egg as excitable soft matter" Archived 2016-01-18 at the Wayback Machine. Molecular Reproduction and Development 76 (11): 966–974.

Why whole food plant based diet?

I've gone through some deep thought, then asked a few professionals, mainly my doctors, what they thought of my diseases and any dietary recommendations. That left me still not sure. Then I just ate what I most liked for a while, but avoided a lot of dairy and meat, and did have more fats and cholesterol raising foods. Tomorrow I'm having my fasting blood work done. I've had 6 solid months of eating a whole food plant based, low fat diet. And only in the last month have I fluctuated.

So I'll not be able to tell exactly how that stricter level of eating might have affected my numbers. But I have found out why it was important for me to try other foods for the last month. First, I couldn't cook when I was really sick with pneumonia. I ate minimally, and mainly soups, crackers,and liquids but was also on antibiotics, which also played havoc with my gastro-intestinal system.

Incidentally, these are other doctors who are talking about WFPB diets, and Dr. Ornish isn't involved anywhere. 

As I came out of fevers, I continued to not want a messy kitchen that had to be cleaned up, so I went to various take-out restaurants. That was at least once a day for five out of seven days a week. And some of those meals had fish or chicken in them, as well as veggies.

I did find I preferred to avoid high fat foods. But I was craving salt a lot. Not sugar. I was happy still with my daily 2 fig newtons. But I could go through a bag of potato chips, or popcorn a day. I haven't figured out why except that the drugs I'm on have really dehydrated me. My skin looks like an alligator's. I have to rub vaseline on my feet so they don't crack from the dryness. I sure hope I can get off whatever drug causes that symptom. I'm drinking a 10 oz. glass of water every hour or so during the day. Swelling sometimes in my ankles, but not directly related to salt intake...and maybe more related to how long I sit here at the computer.

So these comments are for my own journaling efforts.

And here's a link to one of the best (though its 10 years old now) movies which promotes whole food plant based diets to reverse some diseases, including cardiac conditions.

Forks Over Knives on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, or some of the other ones about eating for health, do take the time to see it. There's really no reason we should continue to eat in an unhealthy way.