The Human Body Is Bags, Bags and More Bags

[Ocelot II]

...Our bodies are like tubes or levers or computers, but they are, above all things, like bags. Bags that are stuffed in other bags, stuffed in still more bags. Our bodies are nesting bag situations like the used bags stuffed under your kitchen sink, with the added bonus of thumbs and anxiety. The analogy gives me clarity—when I have trouble understanding anatomy, I look for the bag. It gives me context—figuring out how to replicate or get inside our various bags is a critical part of modern medicine. Finally, it gives me comfort. Life isn’t that complex after all. It’s just a series of bags, getting more and more fancy and specialized....

Much like you may with the bags under your kitchen sink, cells even reuse and recycle some of their bags. Tiny bags called vesicles contain chemical messengers. Those bags dump their contents outside the cell, and merge with the larger bag of the cell itself, only to get pinched off and reused again when more packaging is required. Life itself can be drilled down to bags: the first cell wasn’t a cell until it was separated off from the outside world—until it had a bag.

Bags aren’t just a thought exercise for insomniacs—but something our medical knowledge grapples with daily. Scientists and doctors are still studying and often trying to replicate our many natural bags. Some are studying how to make synthetic vesicles, to release chemicals where and when we want them. Others are trying to build artificial placentas for premature infants. Some bags might be allies, while others might serve more as worthy adversaries. It’s a constant fight for new medicines to get past our determined brain bags to cure our mental ills.

Sitting with my anatomy text, and waiting patiently for sleep, I find my many bags both wonderous and comforting. The world can seem endlessly complex, full of the things we should have known, the things we did or didn’t do well enough. But human life, the physical stuff that makes us love and hate and judge and care? It’s just bags all the way down.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-body-is-bags-bags-and-more-bags/

[TwilightZone]

1. Ugly bags of mostly water

[AllaN01Bear]

8. hem.

[lastlib]

12. I saw this episode last night.

(noted below.)

[1WorldHope]

2. I like it. I wonder if anyone else listened to Radio Lab this last week end.

They did a story on interstitium. Here is the web address:
https://radiolab.org/podcast/interstitium
It is a great discovery of another organ that your bag musing fits with. Or does it? See what you think.

[cachukis]

3. My anatomy professor described human

physiology as the metamorphosis that surrounds a winding tunnel from your mouth to your rectum.
I guess it would be surrounded by bags.

[LastDemocratInSC]

5. The wonders of gastrulation.

"Through the Alimentary Canal With Gun and Camera"

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2177922

[erronis]

6. I've told my kids that we are nothing more than a worm - a mouth, some digestion, and an anus

Well, some other organs hung on for other benefits (sometimes).

[dweller]

4. Where have I heard this before 🤔

“ You must bear in mind that everything on the earth is encased," he continued. "Whatever we perceive is made up of portions of cocoons or vessels with emanations. Ordinarily, we don't perceive the containers of inorganic beings at all."

The most unlikeliest of sources

✌🏻

[erronis]

7. Recent articles on the little bubbles on the surfaces of many plants

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-debunk-127-year-old-theory-of-odd-little-water-balloons/

Quinoa and similar highly resilient plants have unique balloon-like structures known as ‘bladders’ on their surface. For 127 years, it was assumed these bladders helped the plants withstand drought and salty conditions. However, recent research from the University of Copenhagen has debunked this theory.

These so-called bladder cells actually serve a completely different but important function. The finding makes it likely that even more resilient quinoa plants will now be able to be bred, which could lead to the much wider cultivation of this sustainable crop worldwide.

Looking through a microscope, it resembles a water balloon. Or a piece of glass art. But it’s just a so-called bladder cell. If you wondered what it was for, you wouldn’t be the first. For 127 years, even the brightest minds in plant biology believed that the fluid-filled bladders covering the leaves, clustered flowers, and stems of a range of hardy plants were something completely different from what they now turn out to be.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

9. The human body is a tube with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other.

I was going to say "asshole," but upon reflection recognized that the term could describe the entity of the person, not just the physical being.

[mitch96]

10. One cell...little bag. Skin? big bag.. Makes sense.. Like those nesting ruzzian dolls.. Matryoshka

[lastlib]

11. I caught an episode of Star Trek:TNG last night

in which some newly-discovered life-form communicated with the Enterprise crew and called them "bags of water." A rather fascinating episode, gave a unique perspective on human life.