Neuroscientists largely see the “free will as an illusion” – according to a recent essay in Nature. As the author of this interesting essay, I have a major problem to give up the idea of a “free will” (mainly for theodicy reasons that needs a free will of humans). Maybe our will is being influenced by many factors, it is not always a conscious decision and it can of course be altered by chemicals or diseases. Nevertheless the subjective, sudden and not anticipated impetus to do something – for example writing a blog about free will – is a symptom of free will even with all existing antinomies, yea, yea.

Here comes the link to a case report of surfer’s asthma (could not resist)

… We present the case of a 42-year-old man with a 2-year history of wheezing, chest tightness, and upper respiratory symptoms that were associated with surfing. (Show me more…)

Blood pressure seems to have a complicated regulation according to a recent nature medicine editorial

If you ask a physiologist what organs are involved in blood pressure regulation, you will probably be told the kidney, the brain or the blood vessels. The kidney is responsible for handling sodium … The brain integrates afferent signals from peripheral sites such as the kidney … systemic vascular resistance is elevated in almost all adults with hypertension, suggesting that arteriolar vasoconstriction has an important role in this disease.

The editorial accompanies a new mechanistic report how a high-salt diet leads to interstitial hypertonic Na+ accumulation by activation of tonicity-responsive enhancer binding protein (TonEBP) binding the promoter of the gene encoding vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C). As far, as good, (Show me more…)

An AJHG paper that is already resting some longer time on my desk says that

Nonsense SNPs introduce premature termination codons into genes and can result in the absence of a gene product … (Show me more…)