No calls last night, but I was awake until about 03:00, for no real reason other than I couldn't sleep. It was horrid hot again today, as expected, but we've had some unexpected t-storms move through and that cooled things off considerable... still, it was 104°F when I got off, with the heat index at 108. Piddly little thunderstorms, too, but much appreciated. Anyhoo, I'm pretty much maxed out after last night, and work today was a drag, even though all of the machinery was working. So... the Reader's Digest article: Title: Afterlife the Scientific Case for the human soul; page 122 of the August 2003 edition. It starts out with an out-of-body experience, and then segues into a light-at-the-end-of-a-tunnel experience complete with sighting long-dead people. Anectotal evidence... isn't. This is akin to the folks who see jesus or allah in tortillas or in the frost on a windowpane. And the doctor, when told all of this, pleads ignorance. The next sub-heading deals with flat-lined brain function, comparing it to an unplugged computer. According to the article, *all* of the blood was removed from the patients' body, producing brain death. I find this really, really hard to believe. I have been taught that the brain starts dying, irreparably, *four minutes* after the blood supply ceases. Irreparably. These brain cells *die*, as in forever and ever. And the fact is, there was no *measurable* brain activity. Well, then, perhaps they don't really have any really good instruments to measure brain activity in the OR? Or anywhere else, for that matter? And the really critical measurements of brain activity is in the lizard-brain, the brainstem. The stuff that makes you breathe and makes your heart beat. Which is not wholly associated with the high brain, the part that does the thinking and the hallucinating. And measuring thought? It's starting to be done, but using very, very sophisticated< instrumentation... certainly something not present in the OR in 1991. The fact is, a near-death experience, like a dream, could occur in a very small unit of time. And that time could be as the brain was being deprived of blood, or as that blood flow could be restored. Or with the use of certain legal and illegal drugs, for that matter. The article ends with the theory that all of our living cells comprise the "soul". This, friends, is the slippery slope. For if *all* of your cells comprise your soul, then each of them is sacred, according to many bible-thumpers and other superstitious, uh, souls, and they will outlaw transplants. Next they'll be banning research on clone cells, heh. Folks, there is no soul... there is a brain. Use it or lose it, as they say. One the same wavelength... don't ever, ever return a call to a 809 area code. It's a scam, and they'll charge you $25 a minute and try, of course, to keep you on the line as long as possible. It's gotta be true, I read about it on the internet!