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May 08 2012
Thick, 1,000-Year-Old Dental Plaque Is Gross, Useful to Archaeologists
What big plaque deposits you have!
A dentist will tell you to floss everyday, but an archeologist might, well, have different priorities. Turns out the nitrogen and carbon isotopes in dental plaque can give archeologists a look at 1,000-year-old diets.
The buildup of plaque on this set of teeth is, um, impressive. (Cut the skull some slack though, this was before we had dentists to chide us about daily flossing.) Without the benefit of modern dental hygiene, the plaque built up over a lifetime, layer upon layer like a stalagmite. In a paper recently published in the Journal of Archeological Science researchers exhumed 58 medieval Spanish skeletons and scraped off their dental plaque to test carbon and nitrogen isotopes. When they compared the isotope profiles of the Spaniards to that of plaque from an Alaskan Inuit, the scientists found the ratio of nitrogen-15 to be quite different. That makes sense, as the Intuit ate a predominantly marine diet, and there is more nitrogen-15 in the protein molecules of organisms living in sea than on land.
Another benefit of plaque is that it’s easier to test than bone, which has to be dissolved in acid to extract from ...
January 27 2012
3,500-Year-Old Jokes Have Something to Say About Yo Mama
“That’s what SHE said!”
The study of jokes and riddles written in ancient languages we barely understand is, well, a little tricky. But in a recent paper in the journal Iraq, Middle East scholars Michael Streck and Nathan Wasserman describe and interpret some thigh-slappers scrawled on a badly damaged tablet from Babylon, circa 1500 BC. The scribe’s cuneiform is on the sloppy side. The translations are uncertain, too—but no doubt the humor will still shine through. Here’s one riddle for your pleasure:
The deflowered (girl) did not become pregnant
The undeflowered (girl) became pregnant (-What is it?)
The answer is, of course, is “auxiliary forces.” That was your guess too, right? No? If it makes you feel better, Wasserman and Streck didn’t really get it, either.
Let’s do another one:
He gouged out the eye:
It is not the fate of a dead man.
He cut the throat: A dead man (-Who is it?)
The governor.
ROFL!! Streck and Wasserman write that this is referring to a governor’s hilarious power to sentence people to death.
Here’s one last riddle, whose beginning has been lost and whose translation is a bit uncertain:
… of your mother
is by the one who has intercourse (with her) ...
December 29 2011
Adopt a Calendar That Makes Sense? Fat Chance.
A logical calendar? Never! The pre-Julian Romans (see above) had a good thing going.
It’s almost the new year. And you know what that means: stories about academics’ plans to finally make the Western calendar reasonable and logical. And you know what that means on Discoblog: a quick tour through all of the times when we changed what we were doing because switching over just made sense.
Like the metric system, for example. The quick, unanimous adoption of this eminently logical system by grateful nations the world over has been a sterling example of how reasonable we all can be when we put our minds to it. Pretty much everyone is on board, except for Liberia, which is working to put itself back together after one of Africa’s ghastliest civil wars, and Myanmar, home of the WHO-certified world’s worst health care system. And, of course, the United States, which would rather incinerate a 125-million-dollar satellite in the Martian atmosphere than convert feet to meters. (It also has a pretty crappy health care system. Related?)
The Dvorak keyboard is also a marvel of modern, logical engineering. The keys are arranged ...
December 20 2011
The Perfect Gift This Holiday Season: The Neanderthal Test
If you’ve ever wondered if your slothful spouse—he of the prominent brow and grunted endearments—has caveman blood, wonder no more. Genomics company 23andMe, purveyors of fine genotyping, would like to suggest a gift that will keep on giving this holiday season: the Neanderthal test, which will give you nagging rights for eternity.
The latest gossip says the Neanderthals, the other human species kicking around about 30,000 years ago, did not leave this earth without spreading a few wild oats among our Cro-Magnon ancestors (nudge nudge, wink wink). And genetics, as so many daytime talkshow guests can tell you, is where such secrets go to die. Everyone except Africans (who missed the shackin’ up party that was prehistoric Europe) now has a sort of genetic souvenir, a remnant of our forebears.
That means you can now give a gift that brings new meaning to getting in touch with your heritage. Having recruited one of the biologists behind the first draft of the Neanderthal genome, who developed the test, 23andMe is able to offer you the exclusive opportunity to learn what percentage of your own genome came from those mysterious ancestors. The average is 2.5%, but some of us—perhaps someone ...
July 21 2011
Knights in Shining Armor Probably Had Terrible BO
A knightly stroll, with treadmill and respiration mask
Medieval knighthood was physically grueling work: Jousting with massive lances. Charging into battle. Jogging on a treadmill in a full suit of armor. You know how it is.
It’s no surprise that beneath their shining armor, knights shimmered with sweat. Running around in up to 110 pounds of armor, or even advancing at a stately walk, would take a whole lot of effort. But, a team of scientists wondered, just how exhausting was it?
Since the researchers had missed their chance to track exertion on the jousting pitch by several hundred years, they recruited four modern volunteers, historical re-enactors from the Royal Armories in London. These guys had ample experience wearing armor, making them better proxies for knightly exertion than volunteers who wouldn’t know a culet from a cuirass. Each man donned a replica 15th-century suit of armor and hopped on a treadmill. As the volunteers walked and ran, the researchers kept tabs on their heart rate, their respiration rate, how much oxygen they used, and how long their strides were.
Sure enough, the researchers found, armor was exhausting. The men used 2.3 times as much ...
May 24 2011
Newsflash: Civilization Was Built on Llama Dung
Far before the looming pyramids and the learned librarians at Alexandria, Egyptian civilization sprung up from the fertile banks of the Nile. Long predating the Inca empire and the sprawling structures of Macchu Picchu, Andean civilization emerged from a whole bunch of llama poop.
For civilizations to take root, people need to have enough food on hand to put time and energy into activities like waging war, building stuff, and composing epic poetry. In the high and rugged Andes, growing that much maize—the staple crop of ancient South America—isn’t easy. That’s what llama droppings are for, a new study suggests.
Digging through some deeply buried and really old dirt from a spot in the Andes two miles above sea level, paleoecologist Alex Chepstow-Lusty found two things: pollen and bugs. In particular, he found maize pollen from 2700 years ago—and, from the same period, a population explosion of little crap-eating critters called oribatid mites, which are known to make a meal of that which llamas leave behind. The local people were suddenly able to cultivate maize with such success, Chepstow-Lusty surmised, because they had growing herds of llamas, and therefore an ...
February 22 2011
Scientists Look for DNA on Envelopes That Amelia Earhart Licked
Researchers hope to collect spit from someone who died more than 70 years ago: the aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. By extracting the famous flyer’s DNA from old envelopes, researchers hope to finally put to rest one of the 20th century’s greatest mysteries.
Earhart disappeared–along with her navigator, Fred Noonan–in 1937, when she was trying to become the first female to fly around the globe. Communication with her plane was lost as she flew near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. government searched in vain for the two adventurers’ remains, and on January 5, 1939, Earhart was officially pronounced dead. But speculation never stopped on whether the duo died in a crash at sea, or whether they survived for some time on a deserted island.
Just two years ago researchers from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery found bone fragments on Nikumaroro Island that could be part of Amelia Earhart’s finger. The finding is controversial because a dead sea turtle was also found nearby, raising suggestions that the purported piece of Earhart actually belongs to a turtle. According to National Geographic:
Right now, “anyone ...
February 14 2011
Walk Like an Egyptian: With Prosthetic Toes
One Egyptologist isn’t ready to close the book on the tale of two toes. Once thought to be mere ornamentation for the afterlife, the artificial toes found on two ancient Egyptian mummies may actually be the earliest known prosthetic limbs.
The fake toes in question are the Greville Chester and Tabaketenmut toes. The Greville toe dates to before 600 BC and is made of cartonnage (similar to papier mâché); the Tabaketenmut toe could date as far back as 710 BC and is made mostly of wood, though researchers believe it also contains leather, and it even has a hinge for flexibility.
Jacky Finch, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, UK, had a hunch that these artificial toes weren’t just for looks. Not only were the toes rigorously correct in their anatomy, but they also showed signs of wear and tear–which prompted an experiment that has been over 2,000 years in the making.
Finch created two false toes–one modeled on the Greville digit and one on the Tabaketenmut–and had two big-toe-deficient volunteers use the artificial toes as prosthetic limbs. She recorded the pressure made by the volunteers’ ...
February 04 2011
Video: See the First Aerial Footage of an Uncontacted Amazonian Tribe
In the rainforest along the border between Brazil and Peru, an indigenous tribe is ignoring the 21st century and living life the old-fashioned way. Experts believe this “uncontacted tribe” has had no direct contact with mainstream society, but the Brazilian government has known about the tribe for 20 years and routinely flies above the settlement to check on the inhabitants’ well-being.
NOw, the BBC has released the first ever video footage of this tribe, which had previously only been seen in photographs:
The footage was filmed in cooperation with the Brazilian government, and was featured on the BBC’s Human Planet series. It was shot in the summer of 2010 along the Peru-Brazil border using a zoom lens that allowed the crew to film from more than a half-mile away.
The Brazilian government flies over the settlements once a year to check on the tribe. As José Carlos Meirelles, the Indian-affairs specialist who led the video expedition, explains to National Geographic:
“They always get scared when they see an aircraft, but this tribe is used to seeing commercial flights—Boeings and local jets—flying over the region…. I prefer to get them scared once a year—and make sure they are healthy, growing ...
January 31 2011
An Entirely Possible Legend: Vikings Steered Ships Using “Sunstones”
You might think seafaring Vikings–who traveled hundreds of miles on rough seas between 750 and 1050 AD–would be adrift on cloudy days: not only did they lack compasses, but they were often traveling so far north that the sun never set, and thus couldn’t use stars to navigate. But scientists are finding new evidence to support the existence of what was once considered a mythical navigational tool: the sólarsteinn, or sunstone.
It all starts with an Icelandic legend about a man named Sigurd. As Nature News reports:
The saga describes how, during cloudy, snowy weather, King Olaf consulted Sigurd on the location of the Sun. To check Sigurd’s answer, Olaf “grabbed a sunstone, looked at the sky and saw from where the light came, from which he guessed the position of the invisible Sun.” In 1967, Thorkild Ramskou, a Danish archaeologist, suggested that this stone could have been a polarizing crystal such as Icelandic spar, a transparent form of calcite, which is common in Scandinavia.
Knowing that our atmosphere can scatter sunlight and polarize ...
January 18 2011
I Like Your Genes… Let’s Be Friends!
Whether we’re making them or receiving them, first impressions can have big consequences. Our initial gut feelings transform strangers into potential friends, acquaintances into future partners. And according to some scientists, that initial whiff of personality is tied to genetics.
Looking at data on friendships and genetics from both the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the Framingham Heart Study, scientists noticed two trends: people with a genetic variant linked to alcoholism tended to flock together, while those with a genetic variant tied to metabolism and openness to new ideas tended to stay away from each other.
TIME quotes lead researcher James Fowler of the University of California-San Diego:
“This might be the first step towards understanding the biology of ‘chemistry,’ the feeling you have of … whether you like or dislike a person [almost immediately],” Fowler says, noting that this can affect both romantic connections and friendships. “We might choose friends not [only] because of social features we consciously notice but because of biological and even genetic features that we unconsciously notice.” In turn, the friends we have could then affect the potential partners we meet.
Although the researchers analyzed six genetic markers, only two of ...
December 28 2010
Are Booze-Drenched Societies More Likely To Be Monogamous?
A new study out in the American Association of Wine Economist’s “Wine Economics” journal suggests that monogamous societies are bigger drinkers than those in polygamous societies. Does this mean that being stuck with only one partner drives us to the bottle, or does drinking make us more likely to settle down?
Actually the answer is most likely neither. Both monogamy and drunkenness seem to be related to economics, or at least, that’s why both seem to have blossomed during the industrial revolution. Jo Swinnen, one of the study’s authors, told The New York Times Freakonomics blog (which seemed to have missed the actual conclusion of the study) that he noticed the correlation over, unsurprisingly, a glass of wine:
The inspiration came from a casual observation (over a glass of wine) that the two social/religious groups that do allow polygamy ((parts of) Mormonism and Islam) also do not consume alcohol. So we wondered whether this was a coincidence or not.
While many studies have compared alcohol and cultural traits, this is the study to look at its relationship with polygamy. The researchers compared the marital style and “frequency of drunkenness” of 44 well-documented pre-industrial societies (24 of which were polygamous; 20 monogamous) and found that monogamy was indeed positively correlated with drunkenness. The paper (pdf) says:
In societies that practice agriculture and animal husbandry drunkenness occurs less than in hunting, fishing and gathering societies….Hunting tribes are said to have more monogamous marriage arrangements than agricultural tribes.
Historically, this correlation seems to be found frequently, everywhere from the Roman empire to the Industrial revolution, as the researchers outline in the paper (pdf):
First, we find a historical correlation between a global transition from polygynous to monogamous societies and the growth of alcohol consumption. Second, the Greek and Roman empires were the only societies who consumed only wine in their era and at the same time were the only (and first) to introduce formal monogamy. Third, after the Roman Empire collapsed, formal monogamy was maintained and reinforced by the Christian Church–which was also spreading viticulture around Europe and which became the depositary of breweries and winemaking techniques. Fourth, the industrial revolution seems to have played an important role in the transition to effective/actual monogamy and in the growth in alcohol consumption.
During and after the industrial revolution drinking and the availability of cheap alcohol increased drastically the authors note (pdf):
Many people moved to urban and industrial areas and left behind the closer social structure and hierarchical organization in their villages. Heavy drinking became an important phenomenon among the new working class, induced by their subordinate and exploited status and less constrained by the social structure.
As the industrial revolution changed society, it also changed sources of wealth. Land became less important and human capital and intelligence became driving factors of wealth. The authors suggest that men began desiring “higher-quality” children, making their choice of mate more important. The authors believe these social and economic changes were the driving factor behind the correlation between monogamy and drunkenness, not any direct causal relationship between the two, the paper (pdf) says:
The industrial revolution brought about the major and definitive change towards effective monogamy and popularization of alcohol consumption. Both changes (in alcohol consumption and in marriage arrangements) were induced by changes in social structures, economic developments and technological innovations associated with the industrial revolution.
While this makes sense for the changes during the industrial revolution, it doesn’t seem to fully explain why polygamous societies today abstain from alcohol. Perhaps it has something to do with the recent finding that couples that drink together are happier.
Related content:
Discoblog: Alcohol Makes You Think Everyone Is Out to Get You
Discoblog: Why Do I Feel Woozy? I’ve Only Had One Enormous Glass of Wine
Discoblog: To Animate a Drunken Mess, Use New Algorithms for Wrinkled Clothing and Flushed Faces
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Sorry Pedobear, science proves drinking is no excuse.
80beats: Fetal Alcohol Exposure Makes for Booze-Loving Rats
Gene Expression: Polygamy and human evolution: maybe it’s agriculture
DISCOVER: Monogamy Kills
Image: Flickr/Rombla
November 15 2010
Science Idol! Arab Reality TV Show Puts Inventors in the Spotlight
If America’s Got Talent, then the Arab World’s Got Science–that’s if you believe the messages in reality shows, anyway. The Arab reality show Stars of Science, currently in its second season, takes young (18-30) inventors from around the Arab world and pits them against each other, American Idol style.
The show, presented by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, hopes to encourage entrepreneurship and creativity in both the contestants and the show’s viewers, Abdulla Al-Thani told AME info:
“The aim is to showcase the whole process of innovation — from inspiration, to the elaboration of a concept, its development and finally, its application,” said Dr. Abdulla Al-Thani, Vice President, Education of Qatar Foundation. “Science and technology will now be given an entertaining twist through the very popular reality TV show format, making the topic accessible to all. We hope ‘Stars of Science’ will promote the innovative spirit of young people in the Arab world.”
The competition includes weekly eliminations based on challenges involving the engineering, design, or business of the contestants’ inventions; daily shows following the contestants as they work, educating the audience about the science behind their inventions. The students have just five weeks to engineer and design their preliminary idea into a workable prototype.
For each competition, 16 inventors are picked from thousands of applicants from across the Middle East. Its format differs a bit from the typical reality show template: When one project is voted off by the judges, the contestant stays with the show, joining one of the remaining teams. AME info explains:
One of the main features of this original format is its non-eliminatory process: at the end of each prime-time episode, half of the projects remain in competition, while the candidates form teams evolving all along the contest. From 16 candidates and 16 projects at the beginning, the show ends with 2 teams of 8 students and 2 projects facing for the finale.
The final winning project gets $300,000. Last year’s winner was Bassam Jalgha with his invention of “Dozan,” an automated tuning device for stringed instruments. Some of this year’s projects: An air-conditioned vest for working in the field, designed by Maha Al Amro; a motorized walker from contestant Ahmad Al Ghazi; and heart-rate measuring swimming goggles from Hind Hobeika.
This season will wrap up with the final voting round on November 28. This year’s competition should be hot, one of the shows judges, Fourad Mrad, told The National:
“This is a lifetime opportunity and these innovators are very anxious, hoping to prove to the world that their idea is valid, is scientifically sound and can be packaged into something useful to society. As long as they work hard, stay on track and are committed to their goal, we should see an exciting competition.”
Applications to participate in the show’s third season are open until November 30.
Related content:
Discoblog: “Whale Wars” TV Show Leads to Real-Life Feud Between Activists
Discoblog: Real Reality TV: David Hasselhoff’s Very Public Intervention
Gene Expression: The decline of Survivor
Bad Astronomy: Bad TV on the Science Channel: The Apollo 11 “UFO”
DISCOVER: Peer Review: The Dark Side of Reality TV
DISCOVER: 20 Biotech Geniuses to Watch
Image: Stars of Science
November 11 2010
Prescription for an Aggressive Man: Look at More Meat
Even the sight of the reddest, rawest steak won’t get your blood boiling. Surprising new research has found that staring at pictures of meat actually makes people less aggressive.
The insight comes from McGill University undergraduate Frank Kachanoff. He wondered if the sight of food would incite men’s defensive desires, much like a dog aggressively protecting its food bowl, he explained in a press release:
“I was inspired by research on priming and aggression, that has shown that just looking at an object which is learned to be associated with aggression, such as a gun, can make someone more likely to behave aggressively. I wanted to know if we might respond aggressively to certain stimuli in our environment not because of learned associations, but because of an innate predisposition. I wanted to know if just looking at the meat would suffice to provoke an aggressive behavior.”
To determine aggression, the experimenters put a man in a room and give him the ability to punish a person who was sorting photograghs. In one iteration of the test the pictures showed neutral objects, and in the other they showed cooked meat dishes. The amount of painful sound the participant decided to inflict on a bad picture sorter for his mistakes was used as a guide to the level of aggression the participant was feeling.
Kachanoff presented his work at an undergraduate research symposium at McGill. He found that the men who watched the sorter work with pictures of meat inflicted less painful punishment than the men watching the neutral pictures, which makes some sense in hindsight, Kachanoff explained in a press release:
“We used imagery of meat that was ready to eat. In terms of behaviour, with the benefit of hindsight, it would make sense that our ancestors would be calm, as they would be surrounded by friends and family at meal time,” Kachanoff explained. “I would like to run this experiment again, using hunting images. Perhaps Thanksgiving next year will be a great opportunity for a do-over!”
With all such evolutionary explanations for modern behavior, this should probably be taken with a few grains of salt (just like a tasty steak should be). But it would be interesting to see if this phenomenon would carry over into any other food images, and if meat had the same effect on females.
Related Content:
Discoblog: How to Cook Steak in Your Beer Cooler
Discoblog: National Pork Board to Unicorn Meat Purveyor: Lay Off Our Slogan
80beats: Red Meat Acts as Trojan Horse for Toxic Attack by E. Coli
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Saucy study reveals a gene that affects aggression after provocation
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Human ancestors carved meat with stone tools almost a million years earlier than expected
Image: Flickr/soyculto
October 21 2010
Coming Soon to the Internets: Digitized Dead Sea Scrolls
In a great convergence of old and new, Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority are teaming up to digitize the millennia-old Dead Sea Scrolls.
The scrolls are the oldest known surviving biblical texts, created between 150 BC and 79 AD. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and include nearly every book of the Old Testament (except the Book of Esther), and several other religious texts including the Gospel of Judas.
The scrolls have been tightly guarded because of their delicate nature. Only two scholars are allowed to study the scrolls at a time, which are held in a room where temperature, light, and humidity are all carefully controlled. Public access to the writings will change how they are studied, Rob Enderle told Computer World:
“This is information few have ever seen and a piece of our oldest written history,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. “What makes this epic is that it could be important for generations of religious scholars. This is a project that could have an impact on thousands of years in the future. There are few projects that have that kind of life expectancy.”
As a part of the digitization, the scans will be posted online, and will have accompanying transcription, translations, and bibliography, the press release from the Israel Antiquities Authority said:
…upload not only all of the digitized Scrolls images but also additional data online that will allow users to perform meaningful searches across a broad range of data in a number of languages and formats, which will result in unprecedented scholarly and popular access to the Scrolls and related research and scholarship and should lead to new insights into the world of the Scrolls.
The scans are being done at the highest possible resolution; the picture quality will be equivalent to actually looking at the scrolls, which will help keep the delicate papyrus and parchment from future handling. The scrolls were previously imaged in infrared light (in the 1950s), but the current digitization will be done using light of many spectra, which the press release said may yield new insights:
The technology will also help rediscover writing and letters that have “vanished” over the years; with the help of infra-red light and wavelengths beyond, these writings will be brought “back to life”, facilitating new possibilities in Dead Sea Scrolls research.
The project isn’t just a “plug and chug” exercise. The 900 scrolls have been fragmented into about 3,000 pieces, so the technicians won’t just be sliding papers into a scanner. As Pnina Shor, the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Dead Sea Scrolls project manager, told National Geographic:
“You hear ’scrolls’ and you think of something big and rolled up. But we have thousands and thousands of fragments that are some 2,000 years old. A lot of this work is puzzle work, scholars piecing things together”—both physically and philosophically. “Now hopefully we will have a lot of new readings” by scholars worldwide who wouldn’t have otherwise been able to scrutinize the Dead Sea Scrolls in detail, said Shor.
The imaging will begin in early 2011 and the first images will hopefully be available within six months.
Related content:
Discoblog: World’s Oldest Bible, Now Available on Your Laptop
Discoblog: The Science of Virgin Birth
Discoblog: Retracted Study: Biblical Woman Had Flu, Not Demonic Possession
Bad Astronomy: Are the Ten Commandments really the basis for our laws?
DISCOVER: In Search of John the Baptist
Image: IAA
October 13 2010
Does a 200-Year-Old Gourd Contain the Blood of a Beheaded King?
Dried blood on a handkerchief, a $700,000 gourd and one dead king. A forensic murder mystery?
Nope, just another genetics paper. I mean, it is gourd season, what did you expect?
The dead king in question is Louis XVI (the last of the French kings), who was ceremoniously beheaded on January 21st, 1793. After the beheading, attendees rushed the stage and dipped their handkerchiefs in the royal blood.
Over two hundred years later, some of that blood may have been found–dried to the inside of a decorative gunpowder gourd. The story goes that one of the attendees rushed home and stuffed the bloody handkerchief into the gourd for safekeeping.
In a study published in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics, researchers analyzed some of the dried blood scraped from the inside of the gourd to find out if it really could be the king’s blood. They checked the Y chromosome to see if the blood-donor was male, and checked for the presence of a blue-eye gene, HERC2. The blood was indeed from the correct time period and belonged to a blue-eyed male–so far, the evidence fits the blue-eyed king. More genetic information about the family will be needed to confirm the identity, the study’s lead author told Wired’s Dave Mosher:
“The next step is find a descendant either of the king or his mother,” said Davide Pettener, a population geneticist at the University of Bologna in Italy who helped with the analysis. “Otherwise we’ll have to try to get a sample of the dried heart of Louis XVI’s son.”
The son died of poisoning two years after Louis was killed and his heart is stored in a glass vase at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Denis, but it might be difficult to get permission to sample.
The family who owned the gourd wanted to see if the blood really did belong to Louis XVI, and approached Pettener’s colleague to analyze it. The gourd was allegedly given to Napoleon Bonaparte but for the last 100 years belonged to the family, the researchers told Wired:
The gourd, presently valued at about 500,000 euro ($700,000), is emblazoned with key figures of the French Revolution and bears an inscription that reads, as translated from French into English by the researchers, “Maximilien Bourdaloue on January 21st, dipped his handkerchief in the blood of the king after his beheading.”
Related content:
80beats: Bloodstained Tools From 13,000 Years Ago Found in a Suburban Backyard
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Dinosaur proteins, cells and blood vessels recovered from Bracyhlophosaurus
Not Exactly Rocket Science: How inbreeding killed off a line of kings
Gene Expression: Inbreeding & the downfall of the Spanish Hapsburgs
Image: Davide Pettener/Elsevier
September 13 2010
Why Did the Children of Samurai Have Lead Poisoning?
Being in the upper crust of Japanese society during the Edo Period may have come with a serious drawback–a new analysis of the remains of samurai warriors and their wives and children suggests that many of the kids had lead poisoning. The suspected culprit: the make-up that mothers wore.
In the Edo Period, which lasted from 1603 to 1868, the military nobles known as samurai protected castle towns like Kokura, where this study was carried out. Researcher Tamiji Nakashima delved into a graveyard where samurai and their families were buried in large clay pots, and examined the remains of 70 people.
The study, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, showed that adult women had more lead in their bones than adult men, but the kids were in the worst trouble. LiveScience reports:
[The researchers found] kids with enough lead in their systems to cause severe intellectual impairment. Children under age 3 were the worst off, with a median level of 1,241 micrograms of lead per gram of dry bone. That’s more than 120 times the level thought to cause neurological and behavioral problems today and as much as 50 times higher than levels the team found in samurai adults. Older kids’ levels were lower, but still very high.
The researchers say that lead-based white face powder was in vogue at the time, as it was used by geisha and Kabuki actors. But although the study suggests that elite children of the era had serious developmental difficulties, those in the lower classes probably escaped that particular fate. Nakashima told LiveScience that people from farming and fishing families were forbidden from using luxurious cosmetics, and were thus spared the luxury of lead poisoning.
Related Content:
80beats: Did the Lead in His Paints Kill the Baroque Artist Caravaggio?
80beats: Andean People Discovered Mercury Mining—and Mercury Pollution—in 1400 B.C.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: The history of poisoning in the future: lessons from Star Trek.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Mummy Rights: Do Ancient Dead People Deserve Medical Privacy?
Our medical establishment has elaborate rules governing patients’ privacy and ensuring that embarrassing medical details don’t become public. But when King Tut is diagnosed with a disease–or even when researchers turn up something as sensitive as signs of inbreeding–it makes headlines across the world. That’s just not fair to Tut, two researchers are arguing.
Anatomist Frank Rühli and ethicist Ina Kaufmann of the University of Zurich, Switzerland argue that mummy research needs an ethical overhaul. In their paper, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, they note that probing a mummy is an invasive process that can reveal intimate facts, and point out that the mummy never gave informed consent for these procedures. Rühli suggests that mummy researchers should weigh their scientific objectives against the rights and potential wishes of the long-dead individual.
Søren Holm, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, told New Scientist that researchers should ask themselves if they’re motivated by voyeuristic interest.
Holm, a philosopher and bioethicist at the University of Manchester, UK, wants researchers to think about whether their work is motivated by scientific inquiry or simply by curiosity. “Do we really need to sort out the intricate details of Tutankhamun’s family history?” he asks…. “I try to treat mummies like patients,” he says. “I don’t like it if researchers make fun out of them, or show them to gruesome effect.”
At the very least, mummy researchers, that means no dancing around the lab and making mummies reenact Steve Martin’s King Tut routine.
Related Content:
80beats: What Killed King Tut? Incest and Malaria, Study Says
80beats: Scientist Smackdown: Did King Tut Die of Malaria or Sickle Cell?
80beats: X-Rayed Mummies Reveal That Ancient Egyptians Had Heart Disease
Discoblog: Secret Mummy Formula Will Make You Look Young Forever
DISCOVER: 5 Questions for the Mummy Doctor
Image: Wikimedia Commons
September 10 2010
Ancient Greek Pill-Poppers Dosed Themselves With Carrots and Yarrow
Pill-popping ancients liked a good dose of vegetables, archaeobotanists have found after analyzing plant DNA in Greek-made pills from a 130 BC shipwreck.
Though archaeologists have known about the ship since the 1980s, this is the first time researchers have had a crack at analyzing the drugs found onboard. Using the GenBank genetic database as their guide, they have found that the pills appear to contain carrot, parsley, radish, alfalfa, chestnut, celery, wild onion, yarrow, oak, and cabbage.
Geneticist Robert Fleischer of the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park says that many of the ingredients match those described in ancient texts, New Scientist reports. Yarrow was meant to slow blood coming from a wound, and carrot–as described by Pedanius Dioscorides, a pharmacologist in Rome–was thought to ward off reptiles and aid in conception.
Fleischer and colleagues presented these first results yesterday at the Fourth International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Denmark, and Nature’s blog The Great Beyond reports that the pills also contained some surprises. For one, researchers found sunflower or helianthus believed to be a New World plant unknown to the Europeans until the 1400s. Now researchers must determine if the ancient Greeks really prescribed sunflower concoctions or if the some modern, ancient drug handlers contaminated the find. They also hope to find “therian,” a medicine described in ancient texts as containing 80 different plants–a pill to put the modern health drink V8 to shame.
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Image: Wikimedia Commons / Dioscorides: Materia Medica.
September 08 2010
Very Serious Scientific Study Asks: Which Dance Moves Drive Girls Wild?
Researchers say they have uncovered the dance floor moves to make the ladies go wild–at least if you’re a naked, faceless, non-gendered avatar. After recording 19 men, aged 18 to 35, with a 12-camera system as they danced in a laboratory, the researchers projected each man’s individual moves onto a computer model and asked 39 women what they thought.
The Good:
The Bad:
The avatars ruled out the influence of status or sheer attractiveness and allowed the researchers to focus on movements alone. As reported by Reuters, they found they could divide the men judged “good” and “bad” dancers by looking at eight moves: how much they moved their necks, torsos, left shoulders, and wrists; how they varied the movements of their necks, torsos, and left wrists; and how quickly they moved their right knees. Lead author Nick Neave said to Reuters:
“We now know which area of the body females are looking at when they are making a judgment about male dance attractiveness.”
The complete findings appear in the journal Biology Letters, but Neave told the BBC that variety is the real secret for avoiding low-rated “dad dancing.”
“It was not just the speed of the movements, it was also the variability of the movement . . . someone who is twisting, bending, moving, nodding.”
The team, which compares the dance club moves to wild animal courtship displays, believes the good moves might be a sign of “male quality in terms of health, vigour or strength.” As far as we know, the avatars did not get any of the women’s numbers.
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Discoblog: So You Think You Can Dance: Spider Edition
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