Human Torso

I walked into my Biology II classroom today and I noticed a box.
It was just a long cardboard box that was loosly closed. It was sitting in the spot where I usually put my books, so I was going to move it.

My first thought as that it must be filled with the extra frogs from disecting last week. It didn't smell like fermaldihide so I thought that maybe it was just stuff from around the classroom.

As I aproached the box I noticed, written in permanent marker, "Human Torso". I stopped dead in my tracks. I was so scared that it wasn't even funny. I knew that in Biology you were expected to disect things, but to me this had gone just a little too far.

I gathered my wits and walked to the box and hesitantly grabbed a corner of one of the flaps. I slowly began to open the box. As one of the flaps was completely open, I could see a human torso.......

I saw intestines, the liver, and then noticed that these all had numbers written on them, and that there was a glare on them as well.

This torso was just a model we had been using only a few weeks before this to identify body parts.

I sighed in great relief to find that it was just plastic.

"Letter Full of Tears"

I saw this information on the internet and thought that it was pretty cool. Crying is sooo not a bad thing, and I have scientific proof!! :)

We’ve all experienced a “good cry”—whether following a breakup or just after a really stressful day, shedding some tears can often make us feel better and help us put things in perspective. But why is crying beneficial? And is there such a thing as a “bad cry”?

The term crying from Middle English crien or Old French crier,commonly refers to the act of shedding tears as a response to an emotional state in humans. The act of crying has been defined as "a complex secretomotor phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lacrimal apparatus, without any irritation of the ocular structures".
A neuronal connection between the tear duct and the areas of the human brain involved with emotion was established. No other animals are thought to produce tears in response to emotional states, although this is disputed by some scientists. According to a study of over 300 adults, on average, men cry once every month, and women cry at least five times per month or more. In many cultures, it is more socially acceptable for women and children to cry than with men. Men cry less often than women and are less likely to have flowing tears when they do. Tears produced during emotional crying have a chemical composition which differs from other types of tear: they contain significantly greater quantities of hormones.

It is believed that tears provide an outlet to painful and sad emotions. People suffering from any trauma are asked to cry to ease their pain. But sometimes people feel worse after crying rather than feeling comfortable. Recent research revealed that level of comfort or discomfort experienced after crying depends on the surroundings at the time of crying.
Psychologists Jonathan Rottenberg and Lauren M. Bylsma analyzed more than 3,000 recent crying experiences (outside of lab). Data analysis showed that majority of respondents felt better after crying. However, a third of the study subjects had no improvement in mood and a tenth felt worse after crying.

The survey also revealed that criers who received social support during their crying episode were the most likely to report improvements in mood.
Researchers found that crying in a lab setting often results in the study participants feeling worse. They believe that this may be due to the stressful conditions of the study itself, such as being videotaped or watched by research assistants. Researchers concluded that social support during their crying leads to improvements in mood.

It makes nine out of 10 people feel better, reduces stress, and may help to keep the body healthy. It's also free, available to almost everyone, and has no known side effects, other than wet tissues, red eyes and runny makeup. Crying may not be a blockbuster drug, but the latest research suggests it's highly effective at healing, and that it improves the mood of 88.8 per cent of weepers, with only 8.4 per cent feeling worse. So beneficial is it that the researchers suggest there may be a case for inducing crying in those who find it difficult to let go.
But while almost all of us shed emotional tears at some time – at least 47 times a year for women, and seven for men – exactly why we cry, and much about what happens when we do, remains a mystery. For crying, a uniquely human form of emotional expression, to have survived evolution, it should have a practical purpose and give some kind of survival advantage. Laughter and anger are both well known to have advantages. Laughter, for example, has been shown to promote healing, increase blood flow, reduce levels of stress hormones, boost the immune system and produce more disease-fighting compounds.

In King Henry the Sixth, William Shakespear wrote, "To weep is to make less the depth of grief." So, crying won't make right the pain that we are feeling or the wrong that was made, but it certainly does "make less the depth of grief."