Istanbul, a city of cats and coffee

Istanbul is a city I never really thought I would visit. After being there, I can’t imagine not seeing such a cornerstone of the modern world. It’s called the gateway between East and West, and it certainly feels that way today. Religion, culture, food, and language meet at this crossroads of tastes, smells, sights and sounds. It’s a city of millions of inhabitants from all over the world, all living under one roof.

Mornings begin with cheese, fruit and strong tea, followed by coffee. The word for ‘breakfast’ in Turkish, kahvaltı, actually means ‘before coffee’. Turkish coffee is a sandy, gritty affair, essentially unfiltered, strong espresso. Delicious but I wouldn’t drink the dregs. Honey and creamy butter on toast makes a perfect start to the day.

Water is a must in the summer heat, though everyone from adults to enterprising young children sell bottles wherever you go. One should always check the seal of the bottle is intact, to avoid slumdog millionaire water hustlers. In a city of 15 million, it’s staggering to think of how many plastic water bottles are discarded each day.

   

Street cats and dogs are in abundance, though they all seem very well taken care of. These animals walk the streets, turning corners and brushing past you like they’re late for an appointment. They’re welcome in about any establishment, from a streetside restaurant to Topkapi Palace, and lay in the shade without a care in the world.

  

There are about 150,000 strays in Istanbul. These street dogs and cats are widely accepted and fed by residents, and in the spirit of this the company Pudgeon has invented vending machines that take used plastic bottles and provide food for stray dogs.

While not solving over-population it’s certainly an original idea for improving animal welfare and perhaps for changing perspectives about these animals. The materials of the bottles make up for the cost of the dog food. Other ‘solutions’ have included a proposal to send a majority of the dogs to nearby forests, which was widely protested by animal rights activists because the animals wouldn’t likely survive outside the city.

   

Touristing is exhausting in this place. People constantly dodging in front of you, yelling their wares and inviting you into their restaurant. Exactly the opposite of strict British sensibility. The fish sandwiches are amazing and though filter feeding mussels are in abundance one risks a daily dose of mercury and/or lead toxicity with every delicious mouthful. Men line the streets and back alleys, sitting on stools and playing backgammon, while women herd the children around town.

Turkish delights, circular rolls, cigarettes and corn-on-a-stick are omnipresent as you wander between ancient mosques and palaces. The call to prayer pleasantly interrupts your evening, each singer taking their turn between nearby mosques. Before the advent of loudspeakers, the singers would climb hundreds of feet up the minarets and sing their hearts out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0E6FJxNi7I

A short ferry ride from the city, Prince’s Islands is a peaceful respite away from madness. Automobiles are banned on the islands, bicycles, horses and carriages taking their place. If you take your time and wander you might find a ‘secret’ beach to relax, passing small houses with cows, goats and sheep next to decaying Ottoman-era mansions. This was a place of monasteries and royal exiles, Byzantine empresses and Leon Trotsky, and is now a popular escape for locals.

   

A quick, early morning taxi takes you shooting through narrow, winding streets. A glimpse of a mosque and back to the midlothians. Exhausted, but a city vibrant, beautiful and very alive upon reflection.

Of the rock, I asked for the moon.

This video is via my favorite blog, climbingnarc.com (which is unfortunately no longer running). I admit it’s quite a bit cheesy, but who doesn’t like cheese? It’s very French, so take it with a dash of salt.

It focuses on slab climbing, which I’ve always thought of with disdain and a little bit of fear. This type of climbing is on a rock face devoid of big holds, but it is just slanted enough to rely on friction. Climbing a difficult slab route requires intuition, perfect conditions and a lot of trust. The holds are literally not there, you’re almost inventing them out of “pure conviction” that a solution must be present, as Stephanie Bodet says in the video.
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It seems to be the favorite of experienced, older climbers who no longer rely on strength, but have mastered the art of style, footwork and movement. It’s the yoga of climbing, focusing on concentration, awareness of the wall and your body above all else. That’s something I love about climbing, how it forces your mind into the here and now, with practicalities becoming paramount, living in the moment.

Take2

Just looping and having fun with a Max program I made a little while ago.

Lasers

Sometimes you hear something that completely blows your mind, along with all your pre-concieved notions and knowledge garnered from years of government loan-funded education. You’re going about your day, you ask someone a question, and you learn something that changes your perception forever. Ok so maybe it’s not as dramatic as all that, but you can decide.

In basic biology you learn about cells, powered by mitochondria, which are little organelles inside every single living (eukaryotic) cell that produce the majority of energy required for life. You may have heard about these mitochondria being remnants of bacteria, “swallowed” by another cell billions of years ago. This theory is supported by the fact that every mitochondria has it’s own set of circular chromosomes, separate from the DNA of your cells.

An interesting side note is that these circular genomes can be traced back to every single human’s original ancestor in Africa, a lineage that only follows that of our mothers because mitochondria are only passed from mother to offspring via the egg.

Anyways, these mitochondria, these little remnants of bacteria had another surprise waiting for me that sparked this ‘revelation’ so described earlier. I was shadowing at a veterinary practice in Fort Collins, Colorado when the vet I was working with pulled out a ‘therapeutic laser’. These lasers come in different wavelengths in the infrared range, depending on the depth and use.

    

I had used these lasers before, but I realized that I didn’t know how they work. I asked the vet and she said that the infra-red light of the laser stimulates the mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase, which is an important protein involved in energy production in the mitochondria. (It’s the last complex in the electron transport chain). When you stimulate the cells with the right wavelength, you cause the production of excess energy, causing the cells to divide faster and to heal more quickly.

This means that every animal, every human is part plant! (sort of) That means that we can actually convert some forms of light to energy! So cool. If you think about it, stimulating very closely related chromophores such as rhodopsin (in your eyes) and chlorophyll (in plants) causes downstream reactions that cause, respectively, the sensation of sight and energy production from sunlight.*

I thought this was amazing because you’re taught in biology that animals convert glucose, water and oxygen to energy, and that plants do it via chlorophyll. But the reality is actually a bit blurred. Our mitochondria are acting like little plants!

Before you go baking your wounds in the midday sun though, you have to remember that sunlight also contains many harmful wavelengths, specifically UVA and UVB, that destroy your cells and cause mutations. These therapeutic lasers are tuned to a specific infra-red frequency, which is just on the edge and beyond the range of visible light.

Cool right?

Biology nerds please read on…

Another proposed/additional mechanism for the laser’s healing effects on cells is the production of reactive oxygen species, which can cause cell cycle stimulation via activating intermediates like NFkB (Chen et al. 2011). NFkB is a transcription factor that regulates inflammatory and stress-induced survival responses.

*Something cool from a chemistry point of view is the similarity between the chorophyll molecule, cytochrome C and hemoglobin. Hemoglobin has the heme group, with is a cyclic ring of carbon with iron in the center. In chlorophyll a very similar cyclic ring encircles a magnesium atom instead, and Cytochrome C contains two heme groups and two copper complexes. I’ll leave a chemistry major to take it any further ☺

Karu, Tiina (1999). Primary and secondary mechanisms of action of visible to near-IR radiation on cells. J. Photochem. Photobiol. B. 49, 1–17.

Karu, TI et al. (2008). Absorption Measurements of Cell Monolayers Relevant to Mechanisms of Laser Phototherapy: Reduction or Oxidation of Cytochrome c Oxidase Under Laser Radiation at 632.8 nm. Photomedicine and Laser Surgery 26, vol 6, 593–599.

Chen, A.C. et al. (2011) Low-Level Laser Therapy Activates NF-kB via Generation of Reactive Oxygen Species in Mouse Embryonic Fibroblasts. PLoS One. 6(7), e22453- e22453.