Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Tidbits From Mammalian Physiology And Life: Kiss And Run

I learned in mammalian physiology the other day that kiss and run is when a vesicle within a cell fuses with the cell membrane then immediately reconstitutes itself/reforms as before. Momentary exocytosis. Back in college (heck, let's be honest, even past college 'cause I was a slow learner) I thought kiss and run meant something entirely different. Who knew?

I also learned that the microvilli lining the intestine are not just there to increase the surface area and thus speed absorption. No siree. Their movement serves to mix up the contents of the intestines with membrane bound enzymes-- in short, they play an active role in bringing nutrients to the extracellular face. I feel duped... all these years of biology and no one told me that! This class is good, I tell you.

In other news, thank my lucky stars, I got into all the classes I really needed. I am going to very sadly drop Vertebrate Histology as mind-blowingly beautiful as it is because I don't want to spend every minute from now until December stressed out and studying. Balance, people, is my new middle name (OK, try not to laugh so hard). But I do want time to run, swim and have a bit of a social life. And sleep, oh yeah, what's that?

I'm writing now while baking my Amish friendship bread starter mix. It was easy peasy. And truly a friendship bread. I got the starter from the nurse at the hospital next door. I asked my Friday night partner in crime, SelfSustainableNurse, to bring me three eggs from her chickens and she did. I got bread loaf pans from Slow Feet, and some of the more esoteric ingredients missing from my and Dr. Cool's bare bones kitchen from L. Thanks all, you will be rewarded with bread and starter mixes :) I was briefly worried I had ruined the bread by substituting olive oil for what I assume was vegetable oil (the recipe just says oil and we didn't have anything but olive oil) but the internet assures me this is no disaster so I'm not too worried, just curious to see what it tastes like.

Night y'all. More later.

3 comments:

eb said...

does your bread include pudding mix? I guess that wouldn't be very Amish. The one time I did a friendship bread, it had pudding mix in it, and it was the absolute nest bread ever. I still think of it fondly . . .

Hermit Thrush said...

Yes, instant vanilla pudding mix. I gave three starter mixes to friends and kept one for myself. I'd send one to you, but I think you are too far away. Perhaps in the winter if I can keep it alive that long...

Anonymous said...

I figured out how to comment on your blog! =)!

I love reading through here and guessing all the names of the people I know! They're pretty cute!