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Hobbits

6/24/2016

No, these are not the mythical creatures of Tolkien, the hobbits I will speak of lived amoung us. Even though they were given the nickname “hobbit,” their scientific name is Homo floresiensis. This species of hominid was found not too long ago, in late 2004. The discovery was by luck. What I mean by this is that the ones who found Flo (nickname to the individual whose “full name” is “Little Lady of Flores”), were actually looking for evidence of Homo erectus on Flores (an island of Indonesia), but in finding Flo, they found it. Reason being it is theorized that the predecessors of H. floresiensis was most likely H. erectus.
     What made this find interesting is the height of Flo, and most likely her people. H. floresiensis is estimated to have measured 3 ft 5 in (106 cm), and estimated weight of 66 lbs (30 kg). Because only one nearly full skeleton of this species has been found it has been a subject of controversy to label her people as a different species and that she most likely suffered from dwarfism, but those who think this has declined over time (especially since there have been bones and teeth found of as many as 12 H. floresiensis).
     Now, having an entire species with a small stature seems to be something out of Gulliver's Travels (they were not that small but just to illustrate a point), but there is an evolutionary reason. Reason being there is an evolutionary process named “island dwarfism” “that results from long-term isolation on a small island with limited food resources and a lack of predators.” H. floresiensis is not the only example of this process, there have been findings of pygmy elephants, also found on Flores. That said, there is a number of scientists that are considering the possibility of H. floresiensis being small when they reached Flores.
     Even though this species had a small brain size, (volume of 380 cm3 or 23 cu in, that is in the range of chimpanzees or australopithecines), there have been stone tools found in areas with the bones. However, H. floresiensis is not the only small hominid found. Another by the name of Ardipithecus ramidus (or Ardi), measured, at least the female measured, an average of 3 ft 11 in (120 cm) and weighed an average 110 lbs (50 kg). Although, while Ardi lived about 4.4 million years ago, Flo lived about 100,000 – 50,000. With that in mind, we,Homo sapiens, that have lived since about 200,000 years ago, have lived amoungst hobbits.
  Well, I truly think that was a very fun fact...albeit kind of sad to think we will never meet a living hobbit. If you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.

(H. floresiensis skull on left, modern human skull on right)

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The Clavicle

6/17/2016

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Or more commonly known as the collar bone. This bone does not seem to have any special purpose besides connecting to our manubrium (top of the breast bone) and our scapula (shoulder blade), but this seemingly unimportant bone does so much for us primates and a selective number of non-primate mammals. The clavicle keeps the shoulders to the side, helps us keep a front running motion, and most of all the clavicle is crucial for climbing in trees.
Now I use the word “crucial” because our arboreal origins is what helped us survive in in the early stages of evolution. Even nowadays, the clavicle is helping in the survival of many monkey's; it keeps them safe from leopards, or snakes, or other predators on the ground. That said, the clavicle has been found in many prehistoric animals, but we primates were lucky enough to be one of those who retained it. There are also other animals, squirrels, bears, and cats, who, unlike humans, have free-floating clavicles (which is why cats can squeeze into any place their head can), that have retained the clavicle.
The key into finding if an animal has a clavicle all lies in one fact, can they climb? Humans have lost this skill as second nature, but we still can climb trees, rocks, and other objects. For example, going up a ladder is easier for a human than let us say a dog, because of that one bone. Without the clavicle we would be down a stream with no paddle, or to be more exact in the case of our evolutionary ancestors, down a tree with a predator waiting in the high grass for a primate snack. So in reality, this small but amazing bone is what we owe a good part of our survival to (image below).

With that ends another fun fact Friday. If you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.

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Malnutrition

6/10/2016

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We have all heard or been the subject of parents saying to be sure to eat your vegetables to grow strong. It may seem unnecessary, but in the case of young children, it really is important that they are reminded to eat. It has been found in several cases, after death, that a few individuals were malnourished when young children. How? There are a few indicators; one is from enamel hypoplasias (lines on teeth), which causes growth arrest and happens between the ages of 0-8. With the enamel, which is more useful because teeth do not remodel, the cause for the LEH (Linear enamel hypoplasia) can be because of two factors: malnutrition or high fever. This case can cause dental wear problems later in life.
The other indicator is known by the name Harris lines which are named after the Welsh anatomist, Henry Albert Harris. What Harris lines are is the disruption of long-bone growth. These can be found in x-rays, but because these lines happen on the bone, the bone will remodel over time, which in turn will cause the loss of them (so less useful than LEH). Formation of Harris lines can happen after as few as four days, but this is usually happening after chronic stress. Sometimes they can form in individuals with no history of disease or do not form in those with mild-moderate events. That said, Harris lines are up to eight times more common in children with repeated malnutrition or chronic disease. Now I used “less useful” when speaking of Harris lines; less useful for what? When it is suspected a family is either mistreating or not feeding a child if there are not any Harris lines the second piece of evidence they look for is LEH (examples of both below).

So ends another fun, albeit slightly depressing, fact Friday. If you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.

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Blood

6/3/2016

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Whether humans are dark skinned, light skinned, short, tall, skinny, or plump, there is something that ties us all together in life...blood. That said, not all blood is the same. There are 4 blood types; type A, type B, type AB, and type O. But in reality there are 8 types because we have to take the negative and the positive types of blood into account. We hear of this AB+ (positive) or O- (negative), but what does the positive and negative mean? The positive and negative is a short way of saying Rh+/-. This Rh is a phenotype that makes all the difference when it comes to mixing blood. If one with the type A+ received blood from an A-, the A- would produce antibodies which would lead to these antibodies destroying the blood cells.
     Extreme cases of this happens at birth because of an incompatibility. If the mother is Rh- but her child is Rh+, during birth their bloods mix, and as such, the mother's antibodies would begin to destroy the fetal red blood cells. This leads to severe anemia, enlarged liver and spleen, even miscarriage, and if born, infant has Hemolytic (“rupture or destruction of red blood cells”) Disease of the newborn. But not all hope is lost for the infants who have Rh+. The mother is injected with Rh immunglobuline at mid-term and birth to neutralize immune reaction.
     When it comes to blood transfusions doctors have to be very careful about which patient gets what type of blood. Those with type A- can receive type A- or type O-, and can donate to type A-, A+, AB-, and AB+; type A+ can receive from both positive and negative of types A and O, but can only donate to type A+ and type AB+. This system is the same for type B, but in place of the A, it is a B. So like A-, B- can donate to type B-, B+, AB-, and AB+, but can only receive from type O-, and type B-. Also like type A+, type B+ has a more open array of recipients, but not many donors. The universal recipient is AB+, this type can receive from both Rh- and Rh+, but AB- can only receive from Rh- blood types. Even though AB+ is the universal recipient, those with AB blood can only donate to those with AB blood. Now, because there is a universal recipient, there is a universal donor, which we know as O-. This blood type is compatible with all types of blood, and the type O+ is opposite of AB-, as in instead of being able to receive every other negative type, O+, is able to donate to every other positive type. Although O+ is the universal donor, those with type O can only receive from fellow type O's (again, taking Rh- and Rh+ into account).
     The way blood types are spread throughout the world seems to be a process years in the making. What I mean by this is Native Americans are mainly type O due to the genetic drift (founder effect), A and B were lost. On the other side of the globe type B is highest in India. Reason being plague killed type O's and smallpox killed type A's (but there are still some A's and O's left). There is even a world wide theory that type O is favored by biting insects, which in turn, carry many diseases. This theory would suggest a co-evolution of insects and humans.
     With this ends another fun fact for your Friday, or beyond depending on when you read this. If you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.

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The Unknown Bone

5/27/2016

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There is a bone that not many know of, there is a bone that is not attached to other bones, only to muscle, and this bone gives us the ability to speak. You would think the part of our bodies that would give us the ability to speak would be a muscle; such as the tongue. But this bone is what helps control the actions of the tongue, pharynx (cavity behind the nose and mouth which connects them to the esophagus), larynx (the hollow muscular organ forming an air passage to the lungs and holding the vocal cords in humans and other mammals; the voice box), and even the mandible (the jaw). Without this bone we would not have the capability to speak. The name of this unknown bone is the hyoid.
     Not to be confused with the thyroid, which is at the base of the neck, while the hyoid is as the base of the mandible. At birth, we humans have the hyoid slightly higher (and in it being higher, so is the larynx), which is why babies can breath and drink at the same time. Around three months, the larynx drops, and even though this would increase the probability of choking, it also highly increases the ability for speech. But this is not the last time the larynx will “drop;” in human males around puberty it slightly drops one more time, which gives them a deeper voice than human females. “No other animal has a larynx low enough to produce sounds as complex as our ancient ancestors did and as we do today, including our close relatives the chimpanzees, whose hyoid bone sits just a smidge too high to do anything but hoot and grunt.”
     Now just because our closest living cousins do not have a low larynx, that does not mean our evolutionary ancestors and cousins did not. The first of our ancestors that is believed to be able to speak was the Homo heidelbergensis, who is “believed to be the related to both modern humans and Neanderthals.” Yes, that is right, according to fossil records we have of Neanderthals, it is likely they were able to speak. This is still a “theory,” but it is exciting to think how they would have sounded, what they would have talked about.
     However amazing the hyoid presents itself, it also helps us in solving crimes. How? Well, first I must explain what the hyoid Is like. It is shaped like a U (image below), and it is not fully solid during adolescence, but once it is fused (mind you, not all hyoids fuse), it is very hard to break. Which is why in murder cases if the hyoid is broken, the primary cause of death would be strangulation.

So ends another small fun fact for Fun Fact Friday. Again, if you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.

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Fun Fact Friday – Vitamin A Can Kill You

5/20/2016

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Or at least an excessive amount. When one takes in that excessive amount it leads to a disease named “hypervitaminosis A.” The earliest case of this actually took place in a female Neanderthal, who is now known as “KNM-ER 1808,” who is also dates to be the earliest found Neanderthal. The way we know she suffered from hypervitaminosis A was all thanks to her bones. This disease caused her bones, mainly the ones of her limbs, to be “with a coat of woven bone that is up to seven millimeters thick in places.” Her bones told paleoanthropologist's that she lived for a few months with this disease, and seeing how this must have been painful to gather food, even to walk, it is theorized she was taken care of. In the time in which she lived, she would have been easy prey for the carnivores of then, and would not have lasted two days had she not had care. This is an exciting revelation because this shows the first example of a social bond; a strong one at that. It goes to show that Neanderthal's were more human than we thought, reason being is unlike pack animals in which when a member is weak they are left behind to the elements, but like humans, and a few animals (elephants for example), we are willing to leave some of the healthy behind to care for the sick, so as to eventually catch up.
It sounds like this hypervitaminosis is something that was lost to the ages, but that is not the case. The reason KNM-ER 1808 has this disease was simply put, an excess of vitamin A, of which we can suffer from now. The main theory of how she contracted this disease was from eating liver, and the liver is where the excess is stored (“where it is never broken down or detoxified”). The liver of carnivores, like dogs or even killer whales eat other animals, including their livers. The ingestion of the liver is the only theory that works because there are other foods high in vitamin A, carrots for example, but then she would have had to eat about 100 pounds of carrots as opposed to one pound of meat. The modern individuals to whom this happens are mostly polar explorers because all they have to eat are carnivores. A case in 1911 tells of a party of polar explorers whose most of their rations went down an ice crevasse, along with a member of their party and with a teams of dogs. They did the best to make the food they had left last, but they eventually had to resort to eating the dogs they had left. Their favourite part was the liver which was soft as opposed to the “stringy, tough, musky-tasting muscles,” and, as I have said before, dogs are amoung those carnivores in which it is easy to contract hypervitaminosis A from eating their liver. Toxic doses cause the tough “fibrous tissue that encases each bone, to rip free from the bone with each pull of a muscle...In the case of 1808, the blood formed huge clots, which ossified – turned into woven bone – before she died.”
This is just the first of small facts I have planned which are not long enough to be blog entries. If you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.

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Hobbits

The Clavicle

Malnutrition

Blood

The Unknown Bone

Fun Fact Friday – Vitamin A Can Kill You

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