Saturday, June 21, 2008

People?

Over the years, I have discovered that you should never assume that important and influential people make a point of letting others know who they are. This afternoon, I finished the garden tour by acting as a Garden Society host at one of the gardens and signing visitors in.

It was a lovely afternoon and the male owner of the garden came out front and we starting chatting. After a while, the fact that he is a professor came up. We started talking about his research at the Banting and Best Institute. His focus is muscle research and the interaction of proteins on the calcium we use to move muscles. Apparently, we use calcium when movement is generated and the calcium returns to its source after the action is completed. Our muscles and body improve the ability to complete the action with practise and loss that ability with lack of action. (This is definitely a very simple and probably not completely correct explanation. Rapid twitch muscles use and store calcium faster. )

We discussed a number of topics and the number of calories that we use was also a topic of interest. Did you know that our brain uses 600 calories each day just to function. Who knew? Not me.

When I left the house, I thanked the owners and his wife mentioned that if I looked up her husband, I would find may entries by googling his name. I just tried it and she was not exaggerating. I am impressed and humbled.

David H. MacLennan -try googling and I am sure that you will be as impressed as I was.

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