Wellcome collection visit, London

On the 14th of July I made an impulsive London trip, because I was bored in the holidays. I didn't really have much of a plan, but I knew I wanted to go to the Wellcome foundation to have a look around at their exhibits which are always interesting and maybe have a peek at the universities (ICL and UCL) as I like the idea of student life in London.

After arriving on a delayed (as usual) train to St. Pancras station I wandered down the Main Street towards the welcome collection, stopping hallways in the British Library, where they had a great exhibition with many priceless books that have contributed to the foundations of both England and the world. Things like the Magna Carta (Which when translated from Latin means big charter- sounds much less important!) original Shakesperes, Lindisfarne Gospels and the oldest recorded bible were sitting in cases under dim lights so as not to fade the inks and papers. 

the bookcase of life

I carried on down to the Wellcome collection and had lunch in the cafe there before looking at the upstairs exhibit as I knew it would be much more to my interests, a medical exhibition and an exhibition on the states of consciousness. The first thing you come to in the medical exhibit is one of my favourite things I saw that day; a whole bookshelf filled with about 120 books, each one being a specific chromosome  of our 23, and they all contained the genetic code of ATCG written in tiny font. That bookshelf is what makes each one of us unique. In those books are the literal instructions to make a human, only 3,000,000,000 steps to follow.. Yet all of our cells contain this vast expanse of storage and can multiple and carry out more of these instructions than we could ever hope to through the wonders of biochemistry. Another thing that got me thinking was the pure weight of the information in those books, yet a nucleus of a cell is probably billions of times less massive, I wonder how much it would weigh to store it on a computer of today's standards? Would man or machine win? (I did some calculation but got rather confused with the numbering systems of bits on computers and so the answer turns out to be around 200Gb, which is about all the memory of a small laptop, I doubt you could fit that into a cell) this further prompts me to wonder if we will ever use cells as a form of data storage?( I think) They're more compact memory storage than computers, but the drawbacks would obviously be things like mutations and base deletion, substitution etc. Maybe if we could engineer a binary cell? Instead of ACGT only have 2 "nucleotides" and read them off like numbers 1 and 0 in bits... Anyway, I'm digressing. 

Chromosomal pairs of socks

There were some of the Gunther Von Hagen plastinates slices there too (pictures at the end of the post for those who aren't squeamish) which are always amazing to see, tracing out the individual pathways and seeing how all the tissues are interconnected is fascinating- I have been to three body worlds exhibits in the past and I plan to go to one in Newcastle next month too- all of his work is quite thought provoking, bridging the gap between science and art. Some more art/science installations included glass blocks with resin shapes highlighting areas of the brain which showed increased activity when participants were given things to see touch taste smell and hear. Our brains must be very active if we are doing all five things at once. And a really funny piece was sock chromosomes! The artist had made the typical chromosomal lineup out of pairs of socks, which was very amusing. 

The sight 'portion' of the brain

Moving on to the consciousness exhibit, I already have quite a lot of knowledge about consciousness states and sleep because of the work my mum does. When I was about 12 she gave me a book, 'the man who mistook his wife for a hat' which blew me away. She was a neurophysiotherapist and now works in case management of people with severe brain injuries, so she has explained to me the sorts of states of consciousness you can be in. Coma, Vegetative state, MCS (minimally conscious state) and emerged, then past that there is a broad range of neurological problems people can have from disinhibition to memory problems and emotional disconnection and also connected physical problems such as paralysis or muscle spasticity. I understand a lot of these more neurological concepts because of the work she has done and the amount I am involved in through administration in her case management company, hopefully this knowledge will come in useful in the future whatever I decide to do. Neuroscience is such an interesting topic!

Original Santiago Ramón y Cajal drawing of brain cells in exhibit

I saw the original drawings of the grandfather of neuroscience- Santiago Ramón y Cajal, which were so intricate and beautifully drawn. He himself was an artist, but was persuaded into medicine by his father and therein his passions combined and he is probably the most noted neuroscientists of all time. (I wasn't supposed to take pictures but it was too good of an opportunity not to!) 

I had a go at some Synesthesia training, synaesthesia being a neurological condition in which sensory neurones are mixed up causing odd senses to be used, for example in extreme cases people report particular smells when they see a certain colour or maybe a taste when they hear a sound. 

I was given 5 minutes to associate colours with letters, and then a quick fire round of linking the colours I had seen with letters and vice versa for another 5 minutes until I knew them inside out, (a was red, b was green, i was orange, etc) 

Then I was given a passage to read about synaesthesia in black and white, but each time I finished a paragraph, every "e" or would be replaced with a purple block, covering the letter, then every "i" being replaced with an orange block and still I could read the words perfectly. However I thought of this not really as synaesthesia, but more as a "full in the blanks" where if you muddle the midldle of wrods you can stlil readthe setncnes pefrctely well beaucse yuor brian fills in the gaps (Case in point) but as it got so that more and more letters were filled as blocks of colour, even full words were just series of colours... And I could still read the colours perfectly!!! What an incredible machine the brain is.

The last section was a section on sleep, and how sleep problems can be dangerous at times. Instances such as sexomnia have been documented and reported, with scientific backup and have even exonerated people from prison for crimes like rape and sexual abuse because the person was not in full control of their actions. Violent attacks and even murders have been perpetrated while asleep as they showed a video of a man plagued with violent sleep patterns in his REM (rapid eye movement) sleep as he attacked the dummy body left in the bed next to him with disturbing ferocity. This is often a result of insufficient compensation by the brain, as it paralyses your body while you sleep (except the heart, lungs and small limb movements) but if it doesn't paralyse you fully, you can "act out your dreams". The opposite of this is when the brain Kees the body paralysed after they have woken up, and is a common experience for some. They feel that they are rigid in bed and although they can open their eyes, they are entirely unable to move or speak. This only usually lasts for a few seconds but is scary to experience I am sure.

I then wandered downstairs for the new exhibit on the ground floor. It was entitled 'This is a Voice' the first room I walked into was very eerie- there was nothing in it except it had spiked foam sound absorption tiles on every wall and the ceiling, meaning that when you clapped or whistled the sound was immediately dampened and still. You could hear your own breathing and heart rate better than the voices from the next room. It felt like someone was holding a piece of cotton wool over each ear.

The next room focused on the origins of the human voice, how through the process of evolution our voices have adapted and changed to suit our needs. From earlier neandethaals characteristic 'grunts' to the pop stars vocal acrobatics of modern day, the voice of the human race is a very flexible thing. Human voice originally evolved for the purpose of song and social bonding rather than information exchange. Early hominin groups became larger and physical grooming was no longer efficient form of bonding, so the voice kept individuals emotionally connected creating alliances and group dynamics. Reformulations to the larynx and bipedalism with changes in facial anatomy helped to further the human race's rate of evolution. There are significant advantages to being able to have a strong voice, to warn off predators or other tribes, and increase group cohesion among others. 

I was not as taken by the next room of the exhibit: a man in a suit was stood in front of a group of an audience and he had a sheet of music he had written himself, as he explained that he would demonstrate the variety of the human vocal cords. I expected him to perhaps sing some opera and hen maybe falsetto or perhaps even beatbox? I was greatly mistaken.. He exploded into high shrieks and low bellows amidst whimpering and full shouting, none of it with actual words behind, only sounds. 

I found it extremely hard to keep a straight face. This smartly dressed man bawling like a baby then whooping like a Native American war cry then screaming.. And all of the people watching were deeply interested with passionate serious looks on their faces which only made me want to laugh even more. I exited quickly and politely.

University College London is directly behind the Wellcome collection so I went and grabbed some undergraduate prospectuses from the office there and turned straight to the biochemistry and natural sciences courses.. I feel like they're the courses for me! 

Had a great rest of the day, went to Knightsbridge for a look around harrods and all the posh shops, then over to embankment, you can't go to London in the summer and not visit The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.