Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . In a muddy pit near the town of York in northern England, archaeologists have found a skull holding what they believe is the preserved remains of an “Iron Age brain.” http://louis4j4sheehan4esquire.wordpress.com Here’s how the noggin was first noticed: York Archaeological Trust dig team member Rachel Cubitt reached in [to the ditch] and, while she cleaned the soil-covered skull’s outer surface, “she felt something move inside the cranium. Peering through the base of the skull, she spotted an unusual yellow substance” [LiveScience]. Scans later showed that the yellow mass was in the shape of a shrunken brain, according to a press release from the University of York. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . http://louis4j4sheehan4esquire.wordpress.com
The skull was discovered in an area of extensive prehistoric farming landscape of fields, trackways and buildings dating back to at least 300 BC. http://louis4j4sheehan4esquire.wordpress.com The archaeologists believe the skull, which was found on its own in a muddy pit, may have been a ritual offering [BBC News]. Researchers declared it the oldest brain ever found in Britain, although it can’t touch the record for the oldest brain ever discovered: That honor belongs to the roughly 8,000-year-old scraps of brain tissue that were found in skeletons buried in a Florida peat bog. In the Florida case, the absence of bacteria in the acidic peat bogs allowed the organic tissue to be preserved; researchers still aren’t sure how the York brain was preserved or whether the yellow substance has any organic matter in it.
Once the archaeologists made their exciting discovery, a sophisticated CT scanner at York Hospital was then used to produce startlingly clear images of the skull’s contents. Philip Duffey, Consultant Neurologist at the Hospital said: “I’m amazed and excited that scanning has shown structures which appear to be unequivocally of brain origin. I think that it will be very important to establish how these structures have survived, whether there are traces of biological material within them and, if not, what is their composition” [CNN].
Brains are usually one of the first body parts to begin decomposing after death, and researchers pronounced themselves amazed that any part of the Iron Age individual’s gray matter was preserved. Duffey added: “This could be the equivalent of a fossil. The brain itself would generally not survive. Fatty tissues would be feasted on by microbes. This isn’t like the remains found in bogs; it doesn’t have any skin on the skull or any tissue remains elsewhere”.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Showing posts with label Esquire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Esquire. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
folks 8.fol.0001 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
A new study of residents from Libby, Mont., the town where more than 1,500 people have fallen ill from asbestos-contaminated mines, links asbestos exposure with three autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis.
Previous research found high rates of asbestos-related lung diseases, including the rare cancer mesothelioma, among miners in Libby. The town's mines once supplied the United States with most of its vermiculite, a mineral used for insulation and gardening. But that vermiculite was contaminated with asbestos also found in the ground there. Residents of Libby who didn't work in the mines, and workers across the country who processed Libby's vermiculite, also had a high incidence of lung diseases (SN: 7/12/03, p. 21: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030712/fob4.asp).
The new research links asbestos exposure with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and scleroderma. "We're talking about a whole different class of diseases," says study author Curtis Noonan of the University of Montana in Missoula. In these diseases, a person's immune system attacks body tissues.
Former Libby miners older than age 65 were three times as likely as other Libby residents to have rheumatoid arthritis and were twice as likely to have any of the three diseases, the study shows. Former miners younger than 65 showed no increased risk, which suggests that prolonged exposure to asbestos increases the chance of illness, Noonan says.
The team reached this conclusion by reexamining a survey given to 7,000 former and current Libby residents in 2000 and by analyzing a follow-up questionnaire sent to people who had reported having at least one of the three autoimmune diseases. In the 2000 survey, 6.7 percent of participants reported having at least one of the diseases. Noonan says that past studies have shown that less than 1 percent of people elsewhere typically have those illnesses.
The new work also found that Libby residents exposed to asbestos in the military had an elevated risk for having at least one of the three diseases, the researchers report in the August Environmental Health Perspectives http://louis9j9sheehan.blog.com
"This might have implications for folks exposed to asbestos not like the type we've seen in Libby," says coauthor Theodore Larson of the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in Atlanta. http://louis9j9sheehan.blog.com
Given the unusually high asbestos exposure faced by Libby residents, these findings "still need to be confirmed in other studies," says public health statistician Laurel Beckett of the University of California, Davis. Noonan and Larson agree.
Meanwhile, a separate investigation into the health effects of asbestos, released last week by the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., found evidence that the mineral causes laryngeal cancer and might be associated with pharyngeal, gastric, and colorectal cancers. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Previous research found high rates of asbestos-related lung diseases, including the rare cancer mesothelioma, among miners in Libby. The town's mines once supplied the United States with most of its vermiculite, a mineral used for insulation and gardening. But that vermiculite was contaminated with asbestos also found in the ground there. Residents of Libby who didn't work in the mines, and workers across the country who processed Libby's vermiculite, also had a high incidence of lung diseases (SN: 7/12/03, p. 21: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030712/fob4.asp).
The new research links asbestos exposure with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and scleroderma. "We're talking about a whole different class of diseases," says study author Curtis Noonan of the University of Montana in Missoula. In these diseases, a person's immune system attacks body tissues.
Former Libby miners older than age 65 were three times as likely as other Libby residents to have rheumatoid arthritis and were twice as likely to have any of the three diseases, the study shows. Former miners younger than 65 showed no increased risk, which suggests that prolonged exposure to asbestos increases the chance of illness, Noonan says.
The team reached this conclusion by reexamining a survey given to 7,000 former and current Libby residents in 2000 and by analyzing a follow-up questionnaire sent to people who had reported having at least one of the three autoimmune diseases. In the 2000 survey, 6.7 percent of participants reported having at least one of the diseases. Noonan says that past studies have shown that less than 1 percent of people elsewhere typically have those illnesses.
The new work also found that Libby residents exposed to asbestos in the military had an elevated risk for having at least one of the three diseases, the researchers report in the August Environmental Health Perspectives http://louis9j9sheehan.blog.com
"This might have implications for folks exposed to asbestos not like the type we've seen in Libby," says coauthor Theodore Larson of the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in Atlanta. http://louis9j9sheehan.blog.com
Given the unusually high asbestos exposure faced by Libby residents, these findings "still need to be confirmed in other studies," says public health statistician Laurel Beckett of the University of California, Davis. Noonan and Larson agree.
Meanwhile, a separate investigation into the health effects of asbestos, released last week by the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., found evidence that the mineral causes laryngeal cancer and might be associated with pharyngeal, gastric, and colorectal cancers. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Monday, November 24, 2008
shortage 5.sho.00003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
« Karl Giberson Wants God and Science to Just Get Along
Is Bobby Kennedy Really the “Anti-Science” Choice for EPA Head? »
Another Facet of the Health Care Crisis: Miserable Doctors
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Not only are doctors becoming increasingly, frighteningly scarce, but they’re also hating life. A recent survey of 11,950 primary care docs and specialists done by the Physicians’ Foundation found that 60 percent would not recommend medicine as a career, while 42 percent said professional morale is either “poor” or “very low.”
The reasons for all this depression can be boiled down to insurance companies and policy headaches:
“The reported reasons for the widespread frustration among physicians include increased time dealing with non-clinical paperwork, difficulty receiving reimbursement and burdensome government regulations. Physicians say these issues keep them from the most satisfying aspect of their job: patient relationships.” http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de
Food for thought, Obama? As for all those Medicare cut proposals being thrown around, 82 percent said their practices would be “unsustainable” if pay cuts were made. A whopping 94 percent reported that the time they spend on non-clinical paperwork has gone up in the past three years, with 63 percent saying the paperwork leads to less time spent on each patient.http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de
And of course, there’s the shortage, which is already alive and well: 78 percent of the physicians surveyed believe there’s an existing dearth of primary care doctors, while 49 percent say they plan to reduce the number of patients they see, or even stop practicing over the next three years. Yikes. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Is Bobby Kennedy Really the “Anti-Science” Choice for EPA Head? »
Another Facet of the Health Care Crisis: Miserable Doctors
ShareThis
Not only are doctors becoming increasingly, frighteningly scarce, but they’re also hating life. A recent survey of 11,950 primary care docs and specialists done by the Physicians’ Foundation found that 60 percent would not recommend medicine as a career, while 42 percent said professional morale is either “poor” or “very low.”
The reasons for all this depression can be boiled down to insurance companies and policy headaches:
“The reported reasons for the widespread frustration among physicians include increased time dealing with non-clinical paperwork, difficulty receiving reimbursement and burdensome government regulations. Physicians say these issues keep them from the most satisfying aspect of their job: patient relationships.” http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de
Food for thought, Obama? As for all those Medicare cut proposals being thrown around, 82 percent said their practices would be “unsustainable” if pay cuts were made. A whopping 94 percent reported that the time they spend on non-clinical paperwork has gone up in the past three years, with 63 percent saying the paperwork leads to less time spent on each patient.http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de
And of course, there’s the shortage, which is already alive and well: 78 percent of the physicians surveyed believe there’s an existing dearth of primary care doctors, while 49 percent say they plan to reduce the number of patients they see, or even stop practicing over the next three years. Yikes. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Saturday, August 30, 2008
hippocampus
Two inner-brain structures show signs of unusual development in autistic children and teenagers, according to a new brain-scan investigation. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
The imagery reveals that boys between ages 7 and 12 diagnosed with autism have larger amygdalas than neurologically healthy boys do, say David G. Amaral of the University of California, Davis and his coworkers. The amygdala is associated with emotional responses to social situations.
This finding held regardless of whether autism was accompanied by mental retardation, as often occurs. However, amygdala volume expanded markedly by age 18 in the healthy youths while remaining the same in those with autism. As a result, amygdala size ultimately wound up about equal for both groups, Amaral's team reports in the July 14 Journal of Neuroscience.
All boys with autism also displayed a larger right hippocampus than healthy boys did. Only boys whose autism was accompanied by good intellectual functioning possessed a larger left hippocampus as well. These neural differences remained during adolescence.
An enlarged hippocampus in autism may aid memory for spatial and factual information, the scientists suggest.
They used magnetic resonance imaging to study the brains of 98 participants, ages 7 to 18, who met criteria for autism with retardation, autism without retardation, Asperger syndrome (a mild form of autism), or typical development. For boys with Asperger syndrome, amygdala and hippocampus development was disturbed to a lesser extent than it was in boys with autism.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
species Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire 44882
Bees may be solitary or may live in various types of communities. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.deThe most advanced of these are eusocial colonies found among the honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees. Sociality, of several different types, is believed to have evolved separately many times within the bees.http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com
In some species, groups of cohabiting females may be sisters, and if there is a division of labor within the group, then they are considered semisocial.
If, in addition to a division of labor, the group consists of a mother and her daughters, then the group is called eusocial. The mother is considered the "queen" and the daughters are "workers". These castes may be purely behavioral alternatives, in which case the system is considered "primitively eusocial" (similar to many paper wasps), and if the castes are morphologically discrete, then the system is "highly eusocial".
There are many more species of primitively eusocial bees than highly eusocial bees, but they have rarely been studied. The biology of most such species is almost completely unknown. The vast majority are in the family Halictidae, or "sweat bees". Colonies are typically small, with a dozen or fewer workers, on average. The only physical difference between queens and workers is average size, if they differ at all. Most species have a single season colony cycle, even in the tropics, and only mated females (future queens, or "gynes") hibernate (called diapause). A few species have long active seasons and attain colony sizes in the hundreds. The orchid bees include a number of primitively eusocial species with similar biology. Certain species of allodapine bees (relatives of carpenter bees) also have primitively eusocial colonies, with unusual levels of interaction between the adult bees and the developing brood. This is "progressive provisioning"; a larva's food is supplied gradually as it develops. This system is also seen in honey bees and some bumblebees.http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com
Highly eusocial bees live in colonies. Each colony has a single queen, many workers and, at certain stages in the colony cycle, drones. When humans provide the nest, it is called a hive. A honey bee hive can contain up to 40,000 bees at their annual peak, which occurs in the spring, but usually have fewer.
[edit]
In some species, groups of cohabiting females may be sisters, and if there is a division of labor within the group, then they are considered semisocial.
If, in addition to a division of labor, the group consists of a mother and her daughters, then the group is called eusocial. The mother is considered the "queen" and the daughters are "workers". These castes may be purely behavioral alternatives, in which case the system is considered "primitively eusocial" (similar to many paper wasps), and if the castes are morphologically discrete, then the system is "highly eusocial".
There are many more species of primitively eusocial bees than highly eusocial bees, but they have rarely been studied. The biology of most such species is almost completely unknown. The vast majority are in the family Halictidae, or "sweat bees". Colonies are typically small, with a dozen or fewer workers, on average. The only physical difference between queens and workers is average size, if they differ at all. Most species have a single season colony cycle, even in the tropics, and only mated females (future queens, or "gynes") hibernate (called diapause). A few species have long active seasons and attain colony sizes in the hundreds. The orchid bees include a number of primitively eusocial species with similar biology. Certain species of allodapine bees (relatives of carpenter bees) also have primitively eusocial colonies, with unusual levels of interaction between the adult bees and the developing brood. This is "progressive provisioning"; a larva's food is supplied gradually as it develops. This system is also seen in honey bees and some bumblebees.http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com
Highly eusocial bees live in colonies. Each colony has a single queen, many workers and, at certain stages in the colony cycle, drones. When humans provide the nest, it is called a hive. A honey bee hive can contain up to 40,000 bees at their annual peak, which occurs in the spring, but usually have fewer.
[edit]
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
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