In Vivo Crystals

To have kiney stones stucked in your urine tract is not a good experience for anybody. I could not forget how awful it was when it happened to me in the summer of 2002. Four morphine shoots helped to smoothe the pain. Kidney stones in people is just one example of crystals growing in vivo. Crystals even grow in the plant cells. Calcium oxalate is a typical one. Although it is largely unknown for how the crystals form and what are their functions, it is thought to regulate the calcium concentration, to sequester poisonous heavy metals, to provide mechanical support, to regulate ionic balances, to help gather light, and to protect themselves. The crystals exist quite ubiquitously in plants, in the form of raphides, crystal sand, druses, etc. Sometimes, the crystals do cause trouble for the consumers of the plants. For example, a handful of dinners at a cafteria in Chicago had their mouth burning and string, facical swelling etc, after they had a 'Chinese braised vegetable' entree. Later, it was found that tiny javelin-shaped crystals in the vetegable most likely cause the troubling symptoms (The investigation results were published on Clinical Toxicology, 2005,1, 17).