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The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

Book by Siddhartha Mukherjee · 2 quotes · Biology, Breakup, Breakups

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The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Quotes

“A friend told me the story of visiting a Tibetan doctor who specialized in pulses. The doctor asked him a few perfunctory questions and then checked his pulse. "You've gone through a terrible breakup," the doctor said. "Your life isn't going to be the same again." The Tibetan doctor was right: something about the pulse -- its rapidity or dullness -- had provided a clue about the longing and belonging. My friend's breakup, and life, had forever been uprooted.”

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Book:The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
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“The reasons for this paring back of synapses is a mystery, but synaptic pruning is thought to sharpen and reinforce the "correct" synapses, while removing the weak and unnecessary ones. "It reinforces an old intuition," a psychiatrist in Boston told me. "The secret of learning is the systematic elimination of excess. We grow, mostly, by dying.”

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Book:The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
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