History of Human Space Exploitation

Chapter 44 Patient and Sister
"This should be the smell of the adhesive commonly used on the back of 'stamps' in the past. The name of this thing seems to be 'polyvinyl alcohol'?" Xu Xiaosha thought to herself. "There is also the smell of ink that covers a lot of paper when it is used to print stamps. Hmm... the smell in the ink should be from the organic or inorganic pigments inside, and the binders in the ink composition."

"Paper letters and documents have been out of the public eye for a long time, let alone the stamps used to stick on envelopes to represent postage. How can we suddenly smell like this in our neighborhood?" , she continued to think.

"This smell is exactly the same as the smell in the stamp album at home." Xu Xiaosha, with moist eyes, covered her nose with her hands, as if the smell was tingling her most sensitive nerves.So many years have passed, and the two years of getting along day and night with that friend are still vivid in my memory.

Twenty-three years ago, Xu Xiaosha suffered permanent damage to the neurons in the brain that manage the sense of smell due to a fall accident. Since then, she has hardly smelled anything.She had just turned 23 that year.

Whenever you read "...unscrew that jar of aromatic salt in the kitchen, the room is immediately filled with rich scents of mint, savory, sage, and lemon essential oils, instantly pleasing. Perhaps, not necessarily Salt with a unique scent, but the scent of grandma's cake, the floral scent of that rose your lover gave you on a first date, or the tangy frankincense of a newborn baby. Smell can almost be called magic: it evokes emotions and Memories are even more vivid than images or sounds. (Excerpted from the ancient science magazine "Global Science" Issue 229)" When writing such words, thinking that she may never experience the pleasure brought by smells again, Xu Xiaosha, who is recuperating in bed, always Weeping sadly.

Due to the busy work, the family can only visit her in the hospital once a week. Although the sensible Xu Xiaosha did not express it to her elders, she is always eager for more care in her heart as a young woman.The gloomy atmosphere made Xu Xiaosha depressed, and a turning point came when she was pushed out of the operating room and was in the seventh week of hospitalization.

The other bed in the double ward where Xu Xiaosha lived had been empty for almost three months. When she was staring at the pink roof in a daze, Zhou Tan, with light brown hair, became her roommate.

What Zhou Qin suffers from is congenital atrophy of nerve synapses, and only Star District Central Neurology General Hospital can effectively treat it in the entire region.In the Virgo supercluster of galaxies, the Ellis star region where they live is not the most populous one, and there are still more than 700 billion people in the entire [-] cubic light-year star region.Although with the help of long-term eugenics and genetic intervention technology, the probability of human beings suffering from congenital neurological diseases has dropped by many orders of magnitude compared to the earth era, and under the huge population base, the only professional in the star area of research hospitals remain overcrowded.

Since the Star District Central Neurology General Hospital informed her that she had to rest, the patients could only make appointments and line up for treatment. Zhou Qin could only go to the General Hospital where Xu Xiaosha worked while receiving conservative daily care while waiting.

Since both of them suffer from neurosynaptic diseases, the hospital hopes that they can recuperate in a quiet environment, so doctors and nurses try not to enter the ward to disturb except for medication, meal delivery and some consultations.

Zhou Tan is two years older than Xu Xiaosha, and her family can only visit the hospital once a week because of their busy schedule.The two people with the same disease and similar age quickly became friends who talked about everything.In this small but warm ward, in this private universe that is semi-isolated from the outside world, two young women who are not very optimistic about their future chat, talk, look at each other and eat together every day. Feelings grow stronger day by day.

The two had been good patients for more than half a year, and the nurse delivered a small but very important package to Zhou Qin.While watching Zhou Qin unpack the package, Xu Xiaosha listened to her friend tell the story about the items in the package.This package contained seven slightly old "stamp collections", which contained Zhou Qin's favorite stamps.

"You should have heard of stamps, right? But most people may not have seen them with their own eyes. After all, the era when they were used on a large scale is a long time ago."

"Stamps can be roughly divided into miniature sheets, miniature sheets, miniature stamps, perforated stamps, no face value stamps, coiled stamps, Braille stamps, luminous stamps, postage coupons, etc..."

"This is the original version of "The Mountains and Rivers of the Country Are Red". The date of issue is November 1968, 11, but in fact it was not officially issued and almost all of them were destroyed because of the wrong version. This stamp is now known to exist. It should not be It is also the most expensive one in my collection. The story of my great-great-grandfather's acquisition of this stamp would make for an amazing biography."

"The first postage stamp in human history is called the Penny Black, invented by Sir Rowland Hill, and officially issued and used by the British government on May 1840, 5. But... the last few known to exist The Penny Black has been destroyed in the global turmoil of the 6rd century on Earth, and if anyone claims to have the real stamp, it's probably a counterfeit that was later copied. It's just... you know, counterfeiting technology is so good these days, These guys can even get their hands on nineteenth-century relic black ink and gravure printing presses..."

"It is said that the use of gravure printing machines to make stamps is mainly due to the large amount of early stamps, the simplicity of patterns compared with other printed materials, and low cost requirements. In the era of prosperous printing, in addition to gravure printing, there were also lithography, letterpress printing, orifice printing. Waiting for several methods for mass production."

"In the middle and early part of the [-]th century, before the popularization of film printing technology, do you know how to make printing plates in those printing factories? They used the photoplate making method. Using a camera half the size of the room, the printed The pattern or text is exposed in a method similar to photography on the "negative film" coated with "silver bromide" on glass, and then put into the developer and fixer to fix the pattern and text. After that, Then use glass negatives to 'dry' these mirrored pictures and texts onto aluminum plates for printing..."

"Also, do you know? In ancient Chinese, there are different names for the four sides of the paper when printing? They are called bite, trailing tip, facing outward and leaning against the body?"

"Zhou Qin knows so much... Being able to hear this kind of pure and non-utilitarian knowledge every day is really the most pleasant state in life..."

"No matter how expensive these things are, what's the use to me... I don't know if my illness will make me leave everyone and you within a year or two... Do you know? I really want to know myself I will tell you all the trivial things about this, word by word, if you find it interesting..."

"Of course I find it very interesting. Although the craftsmanship involved in this knowledge is thousands of years away from us, I think a person's pursuit of pure knowledge can reflect a certain taste of himself... I think we all Someone with that kind of taste?"

Since then, Zhou Qin has placed seven stamp albums on the bedside table between the two hospital beds.Xu Xiaosha would often open a stamp album, staring at the colorful ancient stamps looming under the sulfuric acid paper, and at the same time gently stroked the edge of the sulfuric acid paper with her index finger, thoughtfully.

"The stamps in these two philatelic albums are all post-70s stamps. At that time, polyvinyl alcohol was commonly used in the back glue of stamps. This kind of thing is rarely used now. People at that time just put The message to be conveyed is written on paper with a graphite-like pigment, and then the paper called a 'letter' is enclosed in an 'envelope', also made of paper. Stamps are attached to the envelope to represent the journey from point A to B A voucher for postage. Similar things are actually still the same now. Although the Welsh information flow has brought the interstellar information transmission speed back to the light-speed era similar to the earth, the speed of cargo transportation and the speed of sending information by letter There is no fundamental difference in era."

"If one day your sense of smell recovers, you will be able to smell this unique smell. If you smell this smell somewhere, then there is a high probability that you will meet a stamp collector similar to me."

One day, two years after the two had been in the same pink ward, Zhou Qin waited in line at the Central Neuroscience General Hospital.When the two cried farewell, Zhou Qin gave Xu Xiaosha one of the stamp albums with the 1980 edition of the ancient Chinese zodiac Geng Shen year monkey stamp.After Zhou Qin stepped on the spaceship that left here, Xu Xiaosha never heard from her again.

A year ago, 20 years after saying goodbye to Zhou Qin, Xu Xiaosha received a notice from the Central Neurology General Hospital, saying that she could receive an artificial olfactory system transplant.Xu Xiaosha couldn't believe it when she heard the news.Although not a scientific researcher, Xu Xiaosha has often been concerned about scientific research news related to her illness during the past 20 years.

Since Edgar Douglas Adrian, a British neurophysiologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1932, did some pioneering research on nerves and olfaction, research in this field has almost stagnated for many years. of.One of the difficulties is that the way man-made instruments perceive odor chemicals has remained in the way of resistance for a long time, while the human body provides signals in a more efficient and sensitive pulse way.

Human beings who are trying to explore the XJ domain in the interstellar world while attacking and annexing each other will naturally only use the limited funds and personnel related to scientific research for areas that can help them expand.For Xu Xiaosha's type of illness, or Zhou Qin's congenital but rare problem, the whole society seems to be consciously or unconsciously ignoring or ignoring their existence.

Suspicious Xu Xiaosha boarded the spacecraft to the planet where the Central Neurology General Hospital is located.After getting off the spaceship, Xu Xiaosha received a warm welcome beyond her expectations.The operation was successful, and the latest generation of artificial olfactory perception system gave Xu Xiaosha ten times the olfactory sensitivity of ordinary people.

After the operation, Xu Xiaosha, who was full of doubts, asked the vice president why.The deputy dean told her that he was not too clear about the details, but that about 19 years ago, a woman donated a large sum of money to the hospital, and stipulated that the money could only be used to study the artificial olfactory nervous system.The deputy dean rubbed his chin and muttered, that's enough credit to buy a small and medium-scale mining or planting planet.

The vice president continued: "At the same time, the lady who donated money left a will, saying that if the research is completed and clinical safety is ensured, the first beneficiary must be Xu Xiaosha."

"I heard that the money that lady donated was to auction off a very valuable thing in ancient times. I don't know exactly what it is..." the vice president added.

Xu Xiaosha knew that this was the last gift Zhou Qin left for her.

(End of this chapter)