I HAVE experienced a painful headache after eating ice cream too fast. Called as brain freeze, or the sudden, stabbing pain in the head caused by eating or drinking something cold, it is actually a type of headache. The sensation is limited to the forehead and temple area, and disappears within 10 minutes after removal of the cold stimulus.

The pain of brain freeze can begin within seconds of being exposed to cold temperatures, and the pain peaks quickly. Some people may describe the discomfort as a stabbing or aching type of pain, while individuals who have migraines may perceive it as a throbbing  pain.

Despite brain freezes being so common, doctors are not sure why it happens. The research on the causes of cold stimulus headaches is scant. But available evidence suggests that there is a link between brain freeze and changes in the blood flow in some of the brain’s blood vessels. 

The brain itself cannot feel pain because it contains no nociceptors — the nerve fibers present in the skin, muscles, joints and some organs that transmit pain signals. The brain’s lack of nociceptors is why surgeons can operate on the brain without directly applying anesthesia to the organ, although they still anesthetize the overlying scalp.

When a very cold substance hits the roof of the mouth or the back of the throat, it causes blood vessels inside the head to momentarily tighten and constrict and then rapidly dilate or widen. This in turn stimulates the trigeminal nerve, which is a group of highly sensitive nerve fibers located behind the nose. Once the trigeminal nerve is triggered, it relays the information to the entire head. That is why you feel a brain freeze in your head and not in your mouth or nose, where the cold sensation originated.

When the cold stimulus is removed, the blood vessels go back to their normal size. Brain freeze does not cause permanent damage and is not life-threatening. But people who have migraines might be more prone to brain freeze than those who don’t have the headache disorder.

The pain of brain freeze is so transitory that there is no need to treat it, but it can be tricky to avoid. But certain strategies could help minimize the chances of developing a cold stimulus headache. One way to prevent brain freeze may be eating cold food and drinks more slowly. Another possible strategy could involve keeping the cold substances away from the upper palate. It is recommend to promptly remove the cold food or drink from your mouth and pressing your tongue or (clean) thumb to the roof of your mouth, to warm it up. Drinking warm water can also help. By Manny Palomar, PhD (EV Mail July 31-August 6, 2023 issue)

THAT GOSPEL episode of Christ walking on the water should remind us that God can intervene in our life in some mysterious and extraordinary way. (cfr. Mt 14,22-33) In other words, he can surprise us, he can come to us when we are not expecting him.

We somehow should be ready for this eventuality, although we should rather prefer that God comes to us in the usual ordinary ways—through the sacraments, doctrine of our faith, the usual events in our life, etc.

I say that we should prefer the ordinary ways because the extraordinary ways can also be pulled by evil spirits who can also appear to us, as St. Paul warned us, as angels of light. (cfr. 2 Cor 11,14) Thus, we have to be very discerning.

In any case, if it is truly God who pulls a surprise on us, he would normally tell us to remain calm and to reassure us that it is him who is doing so. This happened in that gospel episode of Christ walking on the water. Christ told his disciples, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Otherwise, if it is not God or any saint who is doing these extraordinary interventions, we would usually be led to some tense reaction, kind of disabling us to think and behave properly.

Also, we have to remember that the evil spirits can do nothing on us without the permission of God. And if God permits them, it is because a greater good can come out of them. The important thing to do is not to lose our faith in God. If we ever err in our judgments and discernment, but done in good faith, we can be sure that God will do everything to correct things for us.

The Book of Ezekiel mentions these reassuring words of God: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (33,11)

We should learn the skill of determining the kind of spirit that is involved in these extraordinary events in our life. St. John was explicit as to which spirit is proper to us. “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already.” (1 Jn 4,2-3)

St. Paul distinguished between the fruits of the Spirit of God and the works of the flesh dominated by the evil spirit. The former include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (cfr Gal 5,22-23)

The latter include fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing. (cfr Gal 5,19-21) We would somehow know the kind of spirit we have by the kind of thoughts, desires and loves we have. If we look more closely at how our consciousness works, what its usual contents are, what we are most aware of, we would have an idea of the kind of spirit we have. All we have to do is to see if our thoughts, desires and loves are those of the fruits of the spirit or the fruits of the flesh. By Fr. Roy Cimagala (EV Mail July 31-August 6, 2023 issue)

Dear Atty. Golo,         

Naunsa ba sige man “increase” ang gasolina. Mo “roll back” kausa, mo “increase” kalima. Mahal tanan. Ang sweldo barato. Moasenso pa kaha ta? Ang ako ugangan sige lang pamantay. Masuko kon mangayo ko og bugas. Unsa iya gusto, mangawat ko. Sige kasuko kay alkanse kono iya anak kay maestra, samtang ako habal-habal driver lang. Hait kaayo sinultihan. Dili makaon og iro. Modagan lang tingali ko og konsehal sa barangay pohon. Maayo na lang naay “honorarium.” Manghatag ko tag PHP 50.00 daog na kaha? Ang kuyaw kon koprason. Mausab pa kaha ang kurapsyon sa ato governo?

Nagsunod kanimo,

Geronimo

Dear Gerry,

Ang mga “oil company” pwede magpa “increase” sa presyo sa lana nga dili mananghid sa governo, tungod sa “Oil Deregulation Law” (RA 8479). Ang tumong unta sa balaod nga pasagdan ang mga negosyante sa gasolina nga magkompetensya aron mobarato. Ang nahitabo, nagkompetensya pagpamahal sa presyo. Ayaw kasuko sa imo ugangan kay gusto lang siya maningkamot ka. Karon, ang iya sinultihan dili makaon og iro. Basin sunod tuig, makaon na og iring. Kon gusto ka magkonsehal, ayaw pamalit og boto. Maundaang lagi ang pangurakot sa governo og kini magsugod ni diha nimo.

Imong amigo,

Manny G. Golo (EV Mail July 31-August 6, 2023 issue)

MODIFYING PLANTS, to produce genetic materials that disable critical genes in insects that eat the plants, could provide a strategy for agricultural-pest control. This a new way to protect plants from pests.

Researchers turned to a mechanism known as RNA interference, in which segments of the genetic molecule RNA block the translation of information from a target gene. They found RNA sequences that would target critical genes in the western corn rootworm and two other related pests, and then modified corn so that it would generate those sequences.

In rootworms that fed on the modified corn, RNA from the plants shut down the target gene, stunting or killing the insects’ larvae, the researchers report. Modified corn plants infested with corn-rootworm eggs suffered less root damage than did normal corn.

In another study, scientists used a similar trick to increase the cotton bollworm’s sensitivity to gossypol, a defense chemical produced by the cotton plant.

Although large doses of gossypol stunt the growth of bollworm caterpillars, the pests can tolerate the chemical at low concentrations. The research team found the insect gene responsible for this tolerance, and then modified Arabidopsis, a widely used lab plant, to produce silencing RNA for that gene. Insects that ate the modified lab plants ingested the RNA, and stopped growing when fed gossypol.

Previous research had shown that RNA injected into insects could also shut down specific genes. The critical innovation of the new work is oral delivery of the silencing RNA from plant to insect.

For many years, farmers have planted crops engineered to possess a bacterial gene that produces an insect poison known as Bt. But this poison doesn’t work on all insects, and scientists worry that pests could eventually evolve resistance to it.

With the appropriate choice of target gene, in principle, the [RNA] strategy is applicable to any herbivorous insect. And the ability to carefully design the RNA sequence could allow researchers to evade insect-resistance strategies.

More research will be needed to show how applicable the technique is to other pests and how well it would work in the field. Government regulatory bodies would have to grant permission before such crops could be grown in open fields. But the initial results suggest that RNA interference could be a powerful strategy for controlling insect pests.

Researchers on pest management at VSU (in the department where I belong) have always been on the lookout for new ways to control insets and other pests. This killer gene concept is certainly an excellent opportunity to do that. By Manny Palomar, PhD (EV Mail July 24-30, 2023 issue)

TO BE GUIDED by our Christian faith should always be an abiding thing for us. We should never just rely on our own intelligence and the many ways and forms of human estimation. These can only do so much, but without faith, they cannot reach the ultimate goal meant for us.

We are somehow reminded of this reality in that gospel episode where some leading Jews approached Christ asking for a sign of who he really was. (cfr. Mt 12,38-42) That was when Christ told them about the many signs in the past that should answer their question. He told them about Jonah, the men of Nineveh, the Queen of the South and Solomon.

Faith, of course, is a difficult thing to deal with. And that’s mainly because it is something supernatural that contains truths that simply are mysterious to us. What makes us accept it is explained in the Catechism as follows:

“156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe ‘because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived’.

And it continues: “So ‘that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit.’

“Thus, the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability ‘are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all’; they are ‘motives of credibility’ (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is ‘by no means a blind impulse of the mind’.”

We should really be concerned about developing an operative faith. Our faith should not remain only in the theoretical, intellectual level. It has to be a functioning one, giving shape and direction to our thoughts and intentions, our words and deeds. In fact, it should shape our whole life.

The ideal is that we feel it immediately and continually. Indeed, it should be like an instinct such that whatever we think, say or do, or whenever we have to react to something, it is our faith that should guide us before anything else.

We have to understand that it is our faith that gives us the global picture of things, since it is God’s gift to us, a gratuitous sharing of what God knows about himself and about the whole of creation. It is meant for our own good, for us to live out our true dignity as children of God.

It is a kind of knowledge that will lead us to our eternal life. It will make us relate everything in our earthly life, both the good and the bad, to this ultimate goal in life which is to be in heaven with God, a state that is supernatural. But it is a divine gift that we need to take care of. It is like a seed that has to grow until it becomes a big tree and bears fruit.

For this, we really need to have a living contact with Christ who is the fullness of God’s revelation to us. He is the substance, the content and the spirit of our faith. So, the first thing that we have to do is to look for him always in whatever thing we are thinking, saying or doing. By Fr. Roy Cimagala (EV Mail July 24-30, 2023 issue)