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Another Tick-Borne Disease to Guard Against
By JANE E. BRODY, The New York Times, JULY 30, 2012
Despite its many delights, summer also brings its fair share of pestilence. One, called babesiosis, has only recently been widely recognized as a potentially serious outdoor hazard. According to a very detailed study conducted on Block Island, R.I., it could eventually rival Lyme disease as the most common tick-borne ailment in the United States.
( Read more... )
Disease Diagnosed in a 500-Year-Old Mummy
By SINDYA N. BHANOO, The New York Times, July 30, 2012
An Inca girl who lived 500 years ago suffered from a bacterial lung infection just before she died, report scientists who have examined her mummy.
The girl, thought to be 15, was sacrificed by the Andean Inca at the summit of Llullaillaco, a 22,000-foot volcano in the province of Salta, Argentina, said Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at the City University of New York. The girl had a large sore on one leg, leading Dr. Corthals to believe she may have been unwell when she was buried, alive but unconscious, on the mountain.
( Read more... )
Flu That Leapt From Birds to Seals Is Studied for Human Threat
By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times, July 31, 2012
Four times in the past century, a new strain of flu has emerged that can spread quickly in humans. One of those strains, which emerged in 1918, killed an estimated 50 million people.
All human flu strains evolved from flu viruses that live in birds. To understand how these transitions happen, scientists have recently been tinkering with a strain of bird flu to see how many mutations it takes until its spreads from mammal to mammal.
When news of their efforts emerged last fall, a fierce debate broke out about the wisdom of publishing the experiments in full.
Eventually, the scientists got the go-ahead from a federal advisory board, and earlier this year they described how a few mutations of a strain called H5N1 enabled it to spread among ferrets. But the controversy still rages: Responding to worries about an accidental release of an engineered virus, leading flu scientists agreed in January to a moratorium on further research, and experts are debating when it should be lifted.
Scientists may respect moratoriums, but nature does not. Evolution recently carried out an influenza experiment of its own on the coast of New England. Last fall, 162 dead harbor seal pups washed up on the beaches of New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
( Read more... )
Artifacts Revive Debate on Transformation of Human Behavior
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, July 30, 2012
In the widening search for the origins of modern human evolution, genes and fossils converge on Africa about 200,000 years ago as the where and when of the first skulls and bones that are strikingly similar to ours. So this appears to be the beginning of anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
But evidence for the emergence of behaviorally modern humans is murkier — and controversial. Recent discoveries establish that the Homo sapiens groups who arrived in Europe some 45,000 years ago had already attained the self-awareness, creativity and technology of early modern people. Did this behavior come from Africa after gradual development, or was it an abrupt transition through some profound evolutionary transformation, perhaps caused by hard-to-prove changes in communication by language?
Now, the two schools of thought are clashing again, over new research showing that occupants of Border Cave in southern Africa, who were ancestors of the San Bushmen hunter-gatherers in the area today, were already engaged in relatively modern behavior at least 44,000 years ago, twice as long ago as previously thought. Two teams of scientists reported these findings Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
( Read more... )
By JANE E. BRODY, The New York Times, JULY 30, 2012
Despite its many delights, summer also brings its fair share of pestilence. One, called babesiosis, has only recently been widely recognized as a potentially serious outdoor hazard. According to a very detailed study conducted on Block Island, R.I., it could eventually rival Lyme disease as the most common tick-borne ailment in the United States.
( Read more... )
Disease Diagnosed in a 500-Year-Old Mummy
By SINDYA N. BHANOO, The New York Times, July 30, 2012
An Inca girl who lived 500 years ago suffered from a bacterial lung infection just before she died, report scientists who have examined her mummy.
The girl, thought to be 15, was sacrificed by the Andean Inca at the summit of Llullaillaco, a 22,000-foot volcano in the province of Salta, Argentina, said Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at the City University of New York. The girl had a large sore on one leg, leading Dr. Corthals to believe she may have been unwell when she was buried, alive but unconscious, on the mountain.
( Read more... )
Flu That Leapt From Birds to Seals Is Studied for Human Threat
By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times, July 31, 2012
Four times in the past century, a new strain of flu has emerged that can spread quickly in humans. One of those strains, which emerged in 1918, killed an estimated 50 million people.
All human flu strains evolved from flu viruses that live in birds. To understand how these transitions happen, scientists have recently been tinkering with a strain of bird flu to see how many mutations it takes until its spreads from mammal to mammal.
When news of their efforts emerged last fall, a fierce debate broke out about the wisdom of publishing the experiments in full.
Eventually, the scientists got the go-ahead from a federal advisory board, and earlier this year they described how a few mutations of a strain called H5N1 enabled it to spread among ferrets. But the controversy still rages: Responding to worries about an accidental release of an engineered virus, leading flu scientists agreed in January to a moratorium on further research, and experts are debating when it should be lifted.
Scientists may respect moratoriums, but nature does not. Evolution recently carried out an influenza experiment of its own on the coast of New England. Last fall, 162 dead harbor seal pups washed up on the beaches of New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
( Read more... )
Artifacts Revive Debate on Transformation of Human Behavior
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, July 30, 2012
In the widening search for the origins of modern human evolution, genes and fossils converge on Africa about 200,000 years ago as the where and when of the first skulls and bones that are strikingly similar to ours. So this appears to be the beginning of anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
But evidence for the emergence of behaviorally modern humans is murkier — and controversial. Recent discoveries establish that the Homo sapiens groups who arrived in Europe some 45,000 years ago had already attained the self-awareness, creativity and technology of early modern people. Did this behavior come from Africa after gradual development, or was it an abrupt transition through some profound evolutionary transformation, perhaps caused by hard-to-prove changes in communication by language?
Now, the two schools of thought are clashing again, over new research showing that occupants of Border Cave in southern Africa, who were ancestors of the San Bushmen hunter-gatherers in the area today, were already engaged in relatively modern behavior at least 44,000 years ago, twice as long ago as previously thought. Two teams of scientists reported these findings Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
( Read more... )
