Houseplants add beauty to a home, but sometimes looks can be deceiving. One expert, Mussie Habteselassie, associate professor in the Crop and Soil Sciences Department at the University of Georgia, explains how a root can act as a colony for microorganisms and how an overwatered fern can be more than just an eyesore.
More than a plant
Your lovely ficus does more than add greenery to an enclosed space. It harbors a whole metropolis of bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms. “You are bringing lots of things into your home with a plant,” says Dr. Habteselassie, who specializes in soil microbiology.
In a healthy plant that gets lots of sunlight and the right amount of water, fungi help the root system extract more nutrients from its surroundings. But “if it is overwatered or is in a basement that has a moisture issue, the fungi will produce spores, and those spores can cause allergic reactions,” Dr. Habteselassie says.
For allergic people, symptoms are similar to those of hay fever. Spores can worsen asthma. Plants typically also carry bacteria, though “99% of bacteria in the roots system are beneficial,” the scientist says.
When a plant is under stress—whether from overwatering, underwatering, exposure to extreme temperatures or an assault by an unfriendly fungus, bacteria or insect—it will release chemicals in the form of a gas. “One analogy is when a skunk is attacked, it sprays to defend itself,” Dr. Habteselassie says. Humans are unable to detect the odorless gasses, though home-detection kits are available online.
So let's watch out on our indoor plants. @olalekanade's blog
It can be hard to know if someone is having an epileptic seizure. While some people have convulsions of their whole body, others simply stare blankly into space for a few seconds. The person may lose consciousness or seem unaware of what's going on, make involuntary motions (movements the person has no control over, such as jerking or thrashing one or more parts of the body), or experience unusual feelings or sensations (such as unexplained fear). After a seizure, he or she may feel tired, weak, or confused.
People have seizures when the electrical signals in the brain misfire. These overactive electrical discharges disrupt the brain's normal electrical activity and cause a temporary communication problem among nerve cells.
Having a seizure doesn't always mean that a person has epilepsy. Seizures can be triggered in anyone under certain conditions, such as life-threatening
dehydration or being severely overheated. But when a person experiences repeated seizures for no obvious reason, that person is said to have epilepsy.
Many people develop epilepsy as children or teens. Others develop it later in life. For some people with epilepsy (particularly kids), the seizures eventually become less frequent or disappear altogether.
What Causes Epilepsy?
This's no clear-cut answer to why people have epilepsy. Often doctors can't pinpoint the exact cause of a person's epilepsy. But scientists do know that some things can make a person more likely to develop epilepsy, including:
a brain injury, such as from a car crash or bike accident
an infection or illness that affected the developing brain of a fetus during pregnancy
lack of oxygen to an infant's brain during childbirth
meningitis, encephalitis, or any other type of infection that affects the brain
brain tumors or strokes
poisoning, such as drug abuse or lead or alcohol poisoning
Epilepsy is not contagious (you can't catch it from someone who has it). It's not passed down through families (inherited) in the same way that blue eyes or brown hair are. But someone who has a close relative with epilepsy has a slightly higher risk for it than somebody with no family history of seizures.
Understanding Seizures
Seizures may look frightening, but they're not painful. They affect different people in different ways. Epileptic seizures fall into two main categories: partial and generalized.
Partial seizures start in one part of the brain. The electrical disturbances may then move to other parts of the brain or they may stay in one area until the seizure is over.
Partial seizures can be either simple (where a person doesn't lose consciousness) or complex (where a person loses consciousness). There may be twitching of a finger or several fingers, a hand or arm, or a leg or foot. Certain facial muscles might twitch. Speech might become slurred, unclear, or unusual during the seizure. The person's vision might be affected temporarily. He or she might feel tingling throughout one side of the body. It all depends on where in the brain the abnormal electrical activity is taking place.
Generalized seizures involve electrical disturbances that occur all over the brain at the same time. These include several types of seizures including absence seizures (pronounced ab-SAHNTZ, also called petit mal), tonic-clonic seizures (also called grand mal), and myoclonic epilepsies.
Absence seizures are more common in girls than in boys. In this type of seizure, the person may appear to be daydreaming or may stare off into space. After the seizure, which may last about 15 seconds or less, the person returns to their normal level of activity.
During a tonic-clonic seizure, a person’s eyes may roll back, the muscles may stiffen, and the person might make sudden jerking motions, such as flinging the arms outward. He or she may suddenly go limp and slump down or fall over. The person could also lose control of the bowel or bladder.
Most seizures last only a few seconds or minutes. After a seizure is over, the person might feel sleepy or confused for a few minutes or even an hour or more. People who've had seizures may not remember the seizure or what happened immediately before the event. They may be alert and ready to resume whatever they were doing before the seizure happened. It varies from person to person.
Certain things can sometimes trigger seizures in people with epilepsy. They include:
flashing or bright lights
a lack of sleep
stress
overstimulation (like staring at a computer screen or playing video games for too long)
fever
certain medications
hyperventilation (breathing too fast or too deeply)
What Do Doctors Do?
Doctors who specialize in the brain and other parts of the nervous system are called neurologists (pronounced: nuh-RAH-luh-jists). If you think you might have had a seizure, it's important to tell your doctor about it. He or she will most likely refer you to a neurologist who will check for epilepsy or other conditions.
In addition to doing a physical examination, the neurologist will ask you about any concerns and symptoms you have, your past health, your family's health, any medications you're taking, any allergies you may have, and other issues. This is called the medical history . It's important to give the most accurate description possible of the seizure (or seizures). Identifying the type of seizure a person has helps the doctor decide how to treat it. Because people who've had seizures may not remember anything about them, it's a good idea to get a detailed description from someone who saw it and write it down afterward.
So next time you are privileged to meet an epileptic patient, please show them love and not ignore them as if they are aliens. A little bit holding of the legs,hands and fetching for water to clean them up could do a lot in there life. Is not as if they are cursed, is just a reaction from the brain. Let's help each other, let's show up some helping hands.
@olalekanade'sblog
