Some brainless talks..

The evening coffee breaks these days with my coffee-gang: Manoj & Ashok, have invariably have lead to some interesting discussions.
The other day, while we were sipping coffee, as usual an a plane flew past our GVC (Golf View Campus) office. "ಥ್ಹು, ಈ ಪ್ಲನೆಗಳದ್ದು ಏನ್ ಕಾಟನಪ್ಪ..." (these planes are a pain in the ***) I said to myself. I think, only those who have been victimized by the constant sound of flight takeoffs can understand my then state of mind. :)
Anyway, the discussion had been shifted to air travels and Manoj was mentioning how some people throw-up (a condition where the food you've eaten moves in the opposite direction in your digestion tract, resulting in the emission of the food through you mouth) during flights. Just as I was wondering what could be the reason behind this, Ashok mentioned the research he had done on this topic.
As we become air-bourne, our inner ear that is sensitive to even slight pressure differences sends a signal to the brain that it senses motion, while on the other hand, our eyes sense that our surroundings are static since there's no relative motion visible and hence signals that everthing is still. Now the brain, the master controller, detects that there is inconsistency in the data received from the sensory organs & concludes that the body is under hallucination caused due to poison ingestion and induces the stomach to "throw out" whatever was eaten. In biology terms this is called "Motion Sickness"

Now, being a techie that I am, I couldn't resist the temptation of writing down the brain (modelling it as a programmable machine) implementation in this condition:

/*this is the brain code */

main ( int argc, char* argv[ ] )
{
while (1) { //run this forever (till we are alive :) )

//many things happen here..
//a few hundred billion lines here..

receiveMsgFromEars( &msg );
setMotionStateFromEars ( msg.MotionState ); //values = inMotion or static
receiveMsgFromEyes( &msg );
setMotionStateFromEyes ( msg.MotionState ); //values = inMotion or static
if ( g_motionStateEars != g_motionStateEyes )
{

//poisoned !!!
while (!TheDigestiveSystem.stomachContentsEmpty ( ) )
TheInvolutaryMuscleManager.move ( INVMUSC_STOMACH, DIRECTION_REVERSE );
}

//a few more hundred billion lines here..
//many things happen here..

} //end while :(

} //end main :(


Seems to be some crappy code, right? But by writing these few lines of pseudo-code, I've realized how immensly complex our brain/body is. Call it God or call it evolution, it has given shape to one hell of a machine: ourselves..

I't it fascinating how evolution & natural selection has shaped organisms to handle even minutest situations in order to ensure their survivability?

It may however take a few hundred generations for our brains to learn not to trigger "false alarms" of poisoning just because we are flying.. Seems providing the patch-fix takes time. It certainly wont be delivered in our lifetime.. :)

So the next time you feel like puking during the flight, you know whom should be blamed.. :)