Andrzej Missala

 About a month ago, I was at the cinema with a friend. We were hungry so we went to buy ourselves some food. When we were standing in line, a middle-aged lady approached us. She asked us to buy her something to eat. We saw that she was in line in front of us, buying food. She was holding a huge bucket of meat behind her back and for about six minutes she asked us for it and she didn't want to leave even though we told her we didn't have that much money. When she finally passed away, it dawned on me that I had seen this woman many times before. She often pretended to be blind on buses. She pretended that she could not walk and often threw away crutches or plaster after leaving. The woman often smelled of vodka and tried to steal from other people. She focused on younger people trying to extort money from them. I started to think about all these situations. I was wondering if this was due to this woman's difficult past? I don't really know anything about her. Maybe she ha...

When I was returning from school by bus,  few days ago, I witnessed an unpleasant situation. I saw a boy  at my age who had a broken leg. He tried to get to the exit door to get off at his bus stop but could not do it because the bus was very crowded. Even though he asked passengers to let him move forward, people ignored him. The boy couldn't get off. When he tried to do it at the next stop, the situation was supposed to repeat, but I loudly asked people to turn their attention to the boy and let him get off. They were embarrassed but reluctantly did it and the boy was able to get off and thanked me. I started thinking about the situation. I was wondering if people had not heard him? Was the boy talking too softly? Probably some passengers had not used public transport for months because of pandemia and they forgot about taking care of vulnerable people. For sure, it's not easy to be a senior or a disabled person in the society and to ask others for help every time.

 A few days ago I read an interesting article entitled "Why do we hate the sound of our own voices?" by Neel Bhatt. The author of the text is a surgeon who specializes in treating patients with voice problems. He records his patients' voices to follow the course of treatment. It turns out that most patients feel bad hearing their own voices. Surely many people feel the same. This is due to a mixture of psychology and physiology. I learned that the sound from an audio recording is sent to the brain differently than the sound generated when speaking. People perceive their voice as deeper, nicer and more pleasant to the ear. As a result, the recorded voice sounds unattractive to them. The difference between these voices is annoying. There was a survey in which people assessed their own voice. They all rated their voices very low, in contrast to the clinicians who rated the voices of these patients much better. I understand this because I have had the same problem in the past...

 A few days ago I read an interesting article entitled "Horses can recognize themselves in a mirror - new study" by Ali Boyle. I learned that horses possess an unusual skill, widely considered an indicator of self-awareness. They can recognize themselves in the mirror. Many animals treat their reflection in the mirror as if it were another animal. Some of them lose interest in it over time. When this happens scientists test their understanding using the "mark test". The animal is marked in a location they’ll only be able to see in the mirror, perhaps on their forehead or ear. Then scientists watch to see if the animal spends more time touching this body part in front of the mirror when it’s marked than when it isn’t. If it does, this suggests the animal recognizes its reflection. The results of this test indicate that self-recognition can exist in an entire species of horses and show that they are animals that can objectively look at their body. I find it very inter...

 Tonight I read an article entitled "Five ways the pandemic surge in hand sanitisers may not be great news in the long term" It is true that the use of hand sanitisers and other antibacterial and antiviral cleaning products has sharply increased worldwide since the pandemic started. It has certainly helped to stop the increase in viral infections, however, it has some side effects. I learned that one study found that the regular use of ethanol to sanitize hands resulted in relatively low but measurable levels of ethanol in the blood. While this was below acute toxicity levels, continued use can result in "chronic toxicity", increasing the risk of health problems such as eczema or skin cancer. It can even be fatal at times. Repeated use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers can cause antimicrobial resistance and increase other infections. Research has also shown that ethanol leaking into lakes, ponds, rivers and oceans can harm aquatic species. I believe that despite the ...

One week ago I read an article entitled "Five vampire traits that exist in the natural world" by Louise Gentle. The author of the text has produced five examples of animals with the features of a mythical vampire. The first was a vampire bat that feeds only on blood. They must feed every two days to survive. I found out that these bats share their food with other bats. The second example is tardigrades. You could say that they are almost immortal, just like vampires. The jellyfish is “immortal” because it can change from a medusa back into a polyp when stressed. This reverting back to a previous form then redeveloping into the latter form could aid our understanding of repairing and regenerating damaged tissues. Another example is the rat naked mole that avoids sunlight, these moles are known for their longevity. The fourth example are bears and sharks, which have an acute sense of smell just like vampires. The last example are facial octopuses that can change their shape. I ...

 Two days ago I read a very interesting article entitled "Crocodiles today look the same as they did 200 million years ago - our study explains why" by Max Stockdale. Surely everyone has heard that crocodiles are called "living fossils". Scientists have explained where the name comes from in the article. They examined the found remains of prehistoric crocodiles and found out that these reptiles did not differ much from today crocodiles. I think the lack of change is unique and very interesting considering that there are so many different species of animals on the earth today and there are only 25 species of crocodiles in the world. Research by scientists suggests that crocodiles have remained unchanged for such a long time because they have reached a state of equilibrium that does not require frequent changes. When crocodiles evolve at a pace, it is likely because their environment has changed and it forced them to adapt. However, it turned out, that these great rep...