From Luxembourg’s hopping procession to Peruvian scissor dancing and Croatian ginger bread making, we examine the more bizarre entries on the UNESCO list. Here’s a few on the list:
Wrestlers covered in cooking oil grapple with each other at the annual Kirkpinar oil-wrestling festival, which dates back to the 14th century. Scissor-dancing in the Chanka region dates from the 16th century, when locals supposedly possessed by deities performed frenetic dances to express their resistance to Spanish conquest.
Full list with images at Telegraph
Nov 17, 2010
Did giant pterosaurs vault aloft like vampire bats?
If giant pterosaurs – the dinosaur-era, giraffe-sized winged reptiles – tried to fly like birds, they could not have got off the ground. Yet why would flightless pterosaurs retain giant wings instead of evolving vestigial ones like the ostrich?
The answer, according to Mark Witton of the University of Portsmouth, UK, is that pterosaurs didn’t fly like birds. “We need to appreciate that pterosaurs had their own unique mechanisms of achieving flight,” he says.
Full Story at New Stories
Nov 16, 2010
Primates have hidden ability to repair their own damaged spines
For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that primates, including humans, have an innate ability to repair some spinal damage, including recovering from paralysis. The next step is to enhance this ability, so that we can regrow injured spinal nerves.
It’s been known for a long time that people with moderate injuries to the nerves in their spinal cords can sometimes spontaneously recover – regaining the ability to move and walk over time. Now a group of researchers have published a paper inNature Neuroscience that suggests this may be a trait shared by all primates. Many spinal injuries are followed by fresh nerve growth in monkey spinal cords.
Via io9
It’s been known for a long time that people with moderate injuries to the nerves in their spinal cords can sometimes spontaneously recover – regaining the ability to move and walk over time. Now a group of researchers have published a paper inNature Neuroscience that suggests this may be a trait shared by all primates. Many spinal injuries are followed by fresh nerve growth in monkey spinal cords.
Via io9
How your brain is the same as a fruit fly’s.
Despite rumors to the contrary, there are many ways in which the human brain isn’t all that fancy. Let’s compare it to the nervous system of a fruit fly. Both are made up of cells, of course, with neurons playing particularly important roles. Now one might expect that a neuron from a human will differ dramatically from one from a fly. Maybe the human’s will have especially ornate ways of communicating with other neurons, making use of unique “neurotransmitter” messengers. Maybe compared to the lowly fly neuron, human neurons are bigger, more complex, in some way can run faster and jump higher.
But no. Look at neurons from the two species under a microscope and they look the same. They have the same electrical properties, many of the same neurotransmitters, the same protein channels that allow ions to flow in and out, as well as a remarkably high number of genes in common. Neurons are the same basic building blocks in both species.
So where’s the difference? It’s numbers — humans have roughly one million neurons for each one in a fly. And out of a human’s 100 billion neurons emerge some pretty remarkable things. With enough quantity, you generate quality.
Read the full article at Opinionator
But no. Look at neurons from the two species under a microscope and they look the same. They have the same electrical properties, many of the same neurotransmitters, the same protein channels that allow ions to flow in and out, as well as a remarkably high number of genes in common. Neurons are the same basic building blocks in both species.
So where’s the difference? It’s numbers — humans have roughly one million neurons for each one in a fly. And out of a human’s 100 billion neurons emerge some pretty remarkable things. With enough quantity, you generate quality.
Read the full article at Opinionator
Nov 15, 2010
Danish astronomer's remains exhumed to solve mystery of his death
His extraordinarily accurate planetary observations laid the foundations for modern astronomy but mystery has always surrounded Tycho Brahe's sudden death.
Now a team of scientists has launched its own investigation into the mysterious demise of the famous 16th century Danish astronomer.
Brahe, who was born in 1546, was on Monday removed from his resting place at the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague's Old Town Square. He has lain there since 1601 apart from an earlier exhumation in 1901 that retrieved samples of his moustache and hair.
Brahe was in Prague at the invitation of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II after he had quit his scientific observatory on the island of Hven over disagreements with the Danish king.
It had been long thought he died of a bladder infection. One tale said that was a result of his hesitation to break court etiquette during a reception by leaving for a toilet. By the time he arrived home he was in agony and died shortly afterwards.
But tests conducted in 1996 in Sweden, and later in Denmark on the samples obtained during the 1901 exhumation, indicated unusually high levels of mercury, leading to a theory of mercury poisoning, even possible murder.
Professor Jens Vellev, a medieval archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, is leading the team of scientists from Denmark and the Czech Republic. He said he decided nine years ago to seek permission from church and Prague authorities to open the tomb again because there had
been no proper archaeological report of the 1901 exhumation and he hoped to gather better samples.
"As a man of science, he's important for the whole world," Prof Vellev said, adding that the modern tests to which Brahe's remains would be subjected included a CT-scan, an X-ray technique known as PIXE analysis, and a neutron activation analysis conducted at the Nuclear Research Institute AS in Rez, near Prague.
Read more at The Telegraph
Brahe was in Prague at the invitation of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II after he had quit his scientific observatory on the island of Hven over disagreements with the Danish king.
It had been long thought he died of a bladder infection. One tale said that was a result of his hesitation to break court etiquette during a reception by leaving for a toilet. By the time he arrived home he was in agony and died shortly afterwards.
But tests conducted in 1996 in Sweden, and later in Denmark on the samples obtained during the 1901 exhumation, indicated unusually high levels of mercury, leading to a theory of mercury poisoning, even possible murder.
Professor Jens Vellev, a medieval archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, is leading the team of scientists from Denmark and the Czech Republic. He said he decided nine years ago to seek permission from church and Prague authorities to open the tomb again because there had
been no proper archaeological report of the 1901 exhumation and he hoped to gather better samples.
"As a man of science, he's important for the whole world," Prof Vellev said, adding that the modern tests to which Brahe's remains would be subjected included a CT-scan, an X-ray technique known as PIXE analysis, and a neutron activation analysis conducted at the Nuclear Research Institute AS in Rez, near Prague.
Read more at The Telegraph
Tetris flashback reduction effect ‘special’
In earlier laboratory work the Oxford team showed that playing Tetris after traumatic events could reduce memory flashbacks in healthy volunteers. These are a laboratory model of the types of intrusive memories associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In this new experimental study the researchers compared the effectiveness of Tetris at reducing flashbacks with Pub Quiz Machine 2008, a word-based quiz game. They found that whilst playing Tetris after viewing traumatic images reduced flashbacks by contrast playing Pub Quiz increased the frequency of flashbacks.
A report of the research is published in this week’s edition of the journal PLoS ONE.”
Read more at The University of Oxford
How fear flows through the mind
“A neuronal circuit in the brain acts like a seesaw to control fear impulses, reveals a surprisingly up-close look at neurons. Researchers have identified two neuron populations in the brain that work together to control fear impulses.
The findings, published this week in a pair of complementary papers in Nature, may someday facilitate the development of better therapeutic interventions for psychiatric illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias.
“A real exciting aspect of this work is how we’ve now come to understand the regulation of complex emotion — in this case fear — at a single cell level,” said Stephen Maren, director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the research. “That’s a pretty impressive feat.”
The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the brain involved in emotional memory and learning, has historically been considered key in processing fear impulses, but researchers at the California Institute of Technology wanted to understand the process at the level of cells. “Ultimately, we’d like a mechanistic understanding of how specific circuits, not only regions, generate brain functions like fear,” said Wulf Haubensak, a postdoc and first author on the first paper.
After conducting systematic screens for genes marking neurons in the amygdala, the team focused on one — a gene encoding protein kinase C delta, or PKC-δ, which was specifically expressed in a subpopulation of neurons that had not been studied in detail. “We decided to try and find out what these cells do,” said David Anderson, a biologist and senior author on the paper. ”
Read more at The Scientist
The findings, published this week in a pair of complementary papers in Nature, may someday facilitate the development of better therapeutic interventions for psychiatric illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias.
“A real exciting aspect of this work is how we’ve now come to understand the regulation of complex emotion — in this case fear — at a single cell level,” said Stephen Maren, director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the research. “That’s a pretty impressive feat.”
The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the brain involved in emotional memory and learning, has historically been considered key in processing fear impulses, but researchers at the California Institute of Technology wanted to understand the process at the level of cells. “Ultimately, we’d like a mechanistic understanding of how specific circuits, not only regions, generate brain functions like fear,” said Wulf Haubensak, a postdoc and first author on the first paper.
After conducting systematic screens for genes marking neurons in the amygdala, the team focused on one — a gene encoding protein kinase C delta, or PKC-δ, which was specifically expressed in a subpopulation of neurons that had not been studied in detail. “We decided to try and find out what these cells do,” said David Anderson, a biologist and senior author on the paper. ”
Read more at The Scientist
Nov 14, 2010
Homeopathy works - but it is talking, not tinctures that helps patients
Sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis who visited a homeopathic doctor experienced significant reductions in pain, inflammation and other key markers of the disease, the research shows.
Yet it made no difference whether the solution they received was a genuine homeopathic tincture prescribed to treat rheumatism, or a placebo.
The research, published today in the journal Rheumatology compared different groups of patients, who were already being given conventional medication for the disease.
Those who had a series of five consultations with a homeopathic doctor experienced “significant clinical benefits,” - whether the tincture they received was a specially prepared “homeopathic” remedy used to treat rheumatism, or a placebo.
Patients given exactly the same remedies without the consultations did not gain the improvements.
The study’s authors said the findings suggested that simply “talking and listening” to patients could dramatically assist their health.
Prof George Lewith, Professor of Health Research from Southampton University, said: “This research asked the question: 'Is homeopathy about the talking, or is it about the medicine?’ We found it was about the talking, and indeed about the listening.”
Homeopathy is based on a theory that substances which cause symptoms in a healthy person can, when vastly diluted, cure the same problems in a sick person. Proponents say the resulting “remedy” retains a “memory” of the original ingredient – a concept dismissed by scientists.
While the study suggested the remedies itself had no benefit, conventional medics should learn from the way homeopaths treated their patients, said Prof Lewith, a reader in the University’s Complementary Medicine Research Unit
“When you place the patient at the heart of the consultation you get a powerful effect. I think there are a lot of lesssons here for conventional medics about the need for patient-centred care, instead of treating people as walking diseases.”
Read more at The Telegraph
Those who had a series of five consultations with a homeopathic doctor experienced “significant clinical benefits,” - whether the tincture they received was a specially prepared “homeopathic” remedy used to treat rheumatism, or a placebo.
Patients given exactly the same remedies without the consultations did not gain the improvements.
The study’s authors said the findings suggested that simply “talking and listening” to patients could dramatically assist their health.
Prof George Lewith, Professor of Health Research from Southampton University, said: “This research asked the question: 'Is homeopathy about the talking, or is it about the medicine?’ We found it was about the talking, and indeed about the listening.”
Homeopathy is based on a theory that substances which cause symptoms in a healthy person can, when vastly diluted, cure the same problems in a sick person. Proponents say the resulting “remedy” retains a “memory” of the original ingredient – a concept dismissed by scientists.
While the study suggested the remedies itself had no benefit, conventional medics should learn from the way homeopaths treated their patients, said Prof Lewith, a reader in the University’s Complementary Medicine Research Unit
“When you place the patient at the heart of the consultation you get a powerful effect. I think there are a lot of lesssons here for conventional medics about the need for patient-centred care, instead of treating people as walking diseases.”
Read more at The Telegraph
RSA videos
Some terrific animated lectures by RSA on YouTube – I’ve been quite captivated all morning.
Nov. 12, 1935: You Should (Not) Have a Lobotomy
Moniz’s leukotomy (or leucotomy, from the Greek for “cutting white,” in this case the brain’s white matter) soon became popularly known as the lobotomy. It was not, however, the surgical procedure now generally associated with lobotomies. Rather, Moniz drilled two holes in the patient’s skull and injected pure alcohol into the frontal lobes of the brain to destroy the tissue, in an effort to alter the patient’s behavior.
Within a year of Moniz’s procedure at Lisbon’s Santa Marta Hospital, American neurosurgeons Walter Freeman and James Watts had performed the first prefrontal lobotomy in the United States. Their approach, which they would continue refining in subsequent surgeries, also involved drilling holes, but instead of using alcohol they surgically severed the nerves connecting the prefrontal cortex to the thalamus.
With various refinements, this became standard operating procedure for the prefrontal lobotomy.
Lobotomies were performed on patients suffering from severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia and clinical depression, although its use on people identified as having social disorders was not unknown. That the lobotomy succeeded in altering a person’s personality and behavior is beyond dispute, but the results were often drastic, and occasionally fatal.”
Read more at Wired
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