Geòmetra Etrusc

I've been going through some old emails from Ray prior to starting research and finding some gems that are worth sharing. "Since practically every function has multiple levels of control, I think many seemingly permanent problems can be corrected by prolonged support and the right kind of stimulation. Last night I was thinking about a very stupid gene-deterministic statement of Jacques Monod’s, and saw that reversing his language, calling a particular environment a “template,” might be a way to talk to the rigidly mechanistic gene-minded people. After I read Broda Barnes’ books, I had some hypothyroid people check their temperature, and on hot humid summer days I saw that, despite all their other signs, their temperature was almost normal; that was when I started checking their heart rates, too. In hot humid weather, it takes very little metabolism to keep the temperature up. Later, I had a friend with manic episodes, and found that as her hours of sleep decreased preceding an episode, her waking temperature increased. During an episode, she would wake up with a 98.6 temperature, but by 11 a.m. it would fall to 97. That made me realize the need to consider adrenaline and cortisol, which increase during the night, countering falling thyroid function. Checking hand (and foot) temperature can help to judge adrenaline—a hypothyroid person with high adrenaline can have a normal oral temperature, but with very cold hands and feet. I was 31 when I started grad school in biology, 35 when I finished. By that age I had learned to accept that most professors are useless dorks, and to be able to work around it."