Italian Funeral - with man and his dog

A Jewish man was leaving a convenience store with his espresso when he noticed a most unusual Italian funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.  A black hearse was followed by a second black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one.  Behind the second hearse was a solitary Italian man walking a dog on a leash.  Behind him, a short distance back, were about 200 men walking in single file.

The Jewish man couldn't stand the curiosity.  He respectfully approached the Italian man walking the dog and said: "I am so sorry for your loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen an Italian funeral like this.  Whose funeral, is it?"

"My wife's."

''What happened to her?"

"She yelled at me and my dog attacked and killed her."

He inquired further, "But who is in the second hearse?"

“My mother-in-law. She came to help my wife and the dog turned on her and killed her also."

It was a very poignant and touching moment of Jewish and Italian brotherhood.  Silence passed between the two men.

The Jewish man then asked "Can I borrow the dog?"

The Italian man replied, "Get in line."

Learning to read and write your Cells and DNA to heal thyself

How do the trillions of cells that make up your body stay in touch? Apparently The same way we used to: 

sending notes through the post.

Learning how to read and write “letters” and post them through our intra-body postal system running through our blood, could give us early warning about cancer and Alzheimer’s and potentially finding a cure!!

What we need to do is to work out how to read the mail,  says University of Sydney associate professor Wojciech Chrzanowski, and understand our bodies at a cellular level.

This is how the Prof says it works :- 

All the cells in our body are constantly producing tiny bubbles which the body (or something) fills with a cocktail of DNA and other molecules and are sent into the bloodstream. 

These cells are called extracellular vesicles 

These Cells have special receptors to read the data in the bubbles. The data lets cells send messages to each other. 

Those messages can tell our body what to do.

Professor Chrzanowski is particularly interested in the Stem cells that heal damaged tissue – without physically touching the damage. 

He theorises they are sending out tiny bubbles filled with DNA. When the damaged cell receives the bubble, it follows the DNA instructions and heals itself.

Professor Chrzanowski and teams at the CSIRO are trying to decipher and potentially write or code those messages. 

Imagining being able to inject these regenerating cells into patients with cancer or autoimmune conditions.

It’s like force-feeding the body a message that says: heal thyself.

Want to win a Nobel prize? 

All we need to do is work out how to read the mail.

“You could envisage this cellular system as a post office system – a letter is sent from one cell to another. And the letters contain programs for the cells to run,” says University of Sydney associate professor Wojciech Chrzanowski.

We still don’t quite know how the system works – “If we can figure that out, we’ll probably win a Nobel, to be honest,” says Professor Chrzanowski – but here’s how the leading theory goes

HOw we are trying to solve the puzzle 

This is how Professor Chrzanowski and doctoral candidate Sally Yunsun Kimthey have been learning to read these letters .....

The pair warmed a group of extracellular vesicles with a laser, and then measured their vibrations using a tiny needle about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Hot molecules vibrate at different rates depending on what they are made of. By measuring the vibration, the team could tell exactly what was in each bubble.

It was like reading someone else’s mail without ever opening it.

“This is going to be a pretty important development,” says Professor Andrew Hill, president of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles.

Long lost Cuzzin

From my friend Paul Mirbach (PEM)

I was a young boy in Bulawayo, when a man walked into my father's photographic shop. He asked for Boris Mirbach, my grandfather, who had died a few months previously. My father introduced himself and told the man that my grandfather had passed - and the man burst into tears. 

His name was Irving. He walked with a limp. Irving was a few years older than my father and as it turned out, my father's second cousin, the son of one of my grandfather's sisters, who had remained in Kovno, Lithuania.

One day, while sipping his gin in my father's study, he told me his story. They lived in a two storey house in Kovno, when one day the SS came to the street and banged on the door, until they broke it down. He was in the attic, playing. While they were rounding up all the Jews in the street, he opened the attic window and crept out onto the roof, to the back of the house, and jumped. He broke his leg in the fall, but he managed to drag himself away and finally made his way to a forest.

After the War, he made his way to America, believing that his entire family had perished in the Holocaust. He started a successful clothing business, and one day once he had made enough money, he decided to travel the world, to look for survivors of his family. He found none, until he came to Rhodesia, following a lead he had picked up somewhere. 

My father was the first family he had seen in in thirty years! From his visit, he learned that my late grandfather had a sister who survived Auschwitz, who lived in New York - where he lived, and he didn't even know. Her name was Sonia.

I will never forget that story. I will also never forget what he said afterwards. He said to me, sipping his drink, "Paul, the thing about gin is you never know when you're drunk, until it creeps up behind you and knocks on your door".

Dedicated to Irving and all families who found long lost relatives, years after being torn apart in the Holocaust.

The Pesach story according to Johnny

Nine-year-old Joey finished Hebrew school and hopped into his mom's car for the drive home. "What did you learn today?" she asked. 

"Well, Mom, our teacher told us how G‑d sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved." 

"Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?" His mother asked.

"Well, no, Mom. But if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it

Man goes to a dentist

Man and wife came rushing in to the dentist..... 

he said that he needed a tooth extracted urgently...!!! 

Man said to hurry as he’s got a golf game at 10 and didn’t want to wait for the anaesthetic to come into effect - no gas, no Novocain  - no time..... just extract in the quickest possible time. 

Dentist said - it will be really painful .... 

Man said no problem ... it’s an important game! 

Dentist said - “you’re a man with balls .... Show me the tooth that needs to be extracted....”

Man says .... “Honey, show the dentist what tooth you want extracted “