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Neuroscience & Karma
long childhood, late and short adolescence and long adult life is designed to allow the brain to develop and to acquire and use a set of programs of an essentially social life.
1. Reproduction
Living organisms perpetuate their species from one generation to another through reproduction. It is a precise duplication and transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring. In lower organisms, reproduction is often a simple matter of division of cells. In human and higher organisms, sex comes into operation; reproduction requires two parents: a male and a female. Reproductive cells, called gametes, which are produced in the reproductive organs of both sexes, are a special variant of cell. The female gamete is called ovum or egg and the male gamete is called sperm. Meiosis is a special process of cell-division and takes place in the reproductive organs. It is a sequence of two divisions. In the first division, each daughter cell receives only one of each pair of homologous chromosomes. Thus, in meiosis, daughter cells differ in their sets of genetic information both from each other and from the original cell.
A. Conception
The incredible sequence of events that occur before birth, resulting in the formation of a perfect human being, is one of the most amazing parts of the human story. Fertilization is union of the ovum with the sperm which takes place in the mother's womb. In humans, a mature viable ovum is surrounded by a barrier (tough membrane). An estimated 35 million sperms are needed to break a large enough hole in the barrier for a single sperm to enter the ovum. As soon as this is accomplished, the ovum fuses with the sperm and prevents the entry of additional sperms. Now the male pronucleus with 23 chromosomes unites with its counterpart the female pronucleus and the full complement of 46 chromosomes align themselves in 23 pairs in the fertilized ovum. The single cell is now ready to receive a soul.
Precisely at this instant, a transmigrating soul, which is conscious substance enveloped in microbody—kārmaṇa sarira arrives in the womb (from its previous life) and animates the fertilized ovum which
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