Tag Archives: medical

history, links, medical, nudism, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

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Here we go with this month’s collection of links to items you may have missed – and we have a good selection of both science and history this month.

Science, Technology, Natural World

Let’s start with a look at some counter-intuitive statistics from the Men’s Soccer Under-21 Euro competition.

Still on statistics, here’s another look at the Monty Hall Problem (above) & the meaning of life.

Now for optical illusions rather than mental illusions.

Now to geology … and there are some deep pulses beneath Africa.

Observers think it possible that some fragments of meteor have landed on Ben Nevis.

Cosmologists report that they’ve seen the gravitational waves from the largest ever seen merger of two black holes. [££££]

The Owl Galaxies (below) (what a wonderful name) are hiding a secret, but observers can’t agree on what the secret is.

And here’s a clump of quasars which really shouldn’t exist in such a small volume of space.

Now we have three items on the third (known) alien visitor to our solar system. The first from Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy Newsletter, then the Scientific American report [££££], and finally Scientific American also look at seven mysteries [££££] [LONG READ] about the object.

Now let’s come back down to the gory details of life on Earth. Around 13 million years ago there was a huge “terror bird” and one of them appears to have been killed by an equally huge reptile. Truly a battle of apex predators.

More up to date … How do various apes settle status disputes? [LONG READ]

Apparently evolution can explain human testicle size but says nothing about our unique chins.

And finally for this deep science section … every one of the thousands of rose cultivars is ultimately derived from one (or more) of three original species.

Health, Medicine

First a recap of something we already knew … Measles isn’t just dangerous, it can wipe your immune system’s memory leaving you exposed to infections from which you’ve previously recovered.

Plague (Yersinia pestis), aka the Black Death, is still alive and still causing illness and death – albeit at a much reduced level than 400+ years ago. [££££] [LONG READ]

On the curious variety of blood groups, which has uncovered Gwada-negative, the rarest blood group on Earth carried by just one person.

A look at how currency can affect clinical trials.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

A historian looks at the lack of female labia in sculpture. [LONG READ]

Meanwhile another historian takes a look at the history of adultery in art.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The first, almost complete, Denisovan skull has allowed researchers to suggest what our ancient cousin looked like. [££££]

A short step across to Neanderthals, and it appears that individual groups had their own local food cultures. [££££]

Once upon a time Pharaoh came in the Nile.

Also from ancient Egypt, in an unusual burial in a pot, the skeleton has undergone whole genome analysis.

A quick hop across to Peru where archaeologists have found a 3500-year-old city.

Back to Europe and one archaeologist points out that most Minoan art is made up – if only by joining the dots to fill in missing sections. [LONG READ]

Going Medieval looks at the Crusades, and how they were pretty much all failures. [LONG READ]

A buildings archaeologist shares some thoughts on cellars. [LONG READ]

Here an archaeologist discusses some of the medieval treasures in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. [LONG READ]

Here in the UK we’ve not long managed to escape from this year’s Wimbledon tennis championship, but in the 16th-century (real) tennis was a decidedly dangerous sport.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned the New River before, but in case you missed it, here’s its history. [LONG READ]

And lastly here, we’re right up to date with news of Denmark’s radical experiment in archaeology which embraces metal detectorists. [LONG READ]

London

Matt Brown has taken on the task of colouring John Roque’s 1746 map of London. Here’s the latest section Tyburn Tree to Hide Park Corner. [LONG READ]

Kew Gardens is going to close its iconic Palm House for five years from 2027 in order to give it a major make-over and conservation.

As many here will know GWR have been trialling a battery-driven train on my local branch line, and it seems this technology could bring significant benefits to many small lines.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

A microbiologist looks at how often one really should wash all your bedding.

Let’s finish with three useful and explanatory articles on naturism. First, naturism is only exhibitionism in disguise, isn’t it? Well no, actually.

Secondly a piece on navigating social nudity and group dynamics.

And finally … So what is wrong with tattoos or piercings which have traditionally been frowned upon in nudist settings? Spoiler: nothing.

personal, ramblings

Screwing Up the Time Zone

Apologies for the silence, excepting the usual regular posts. No excuses; I just plead life (ie. too much to do) getting in the way. But onward to today’s topic …

So today is one of the two days a year, when we bugger up our time zone – something I’ve written about before in 2008, 2009 and 2012 and probably elsewhere.

Yes, last night the UK switched to British Summer Time and put the clocks forward an hour.

Why? For no good reason that I can understand, and contrary to a lot of scientific research.

Basically what this change does is to mirror the effect of jet lag from flying east. And we know this is much more disruptive than flying west.

But it’s more than that. The disruptions to our circadian cycle can be profound, and possibly last for weeks. This should be worrying when nationally and globally we appear to be more sleep short, and with worse quality sleep, compared with pre-Covid (see, inter alia, here).

There’s a recent short article in The Conversation which summarises much of the evidence on the effects on our circadian cycle. The conclusion is:

These findings suggest the spring transition can have a ripple effect that lasts for weeks. It also suggests we are more finely tuned to the natural world than we might think.

Spring DST may seem like a simple one-hour shift, but for many, it’s much more than that.

We don’t need to keep changing the clocks. We’re not (yet) at war – which is where the clock change originated – and we have much of the technology to manage our working environments; extending, if necessary, to changing the hours we do work.

This whole charade is daft on just so many levels – see my earlier posts.

medical, memes

February Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Medicine

  1. What is dermatophobia the fear of? Skin disease
  2. How many teeth do adult humans have? 32
  3. In 2015, which country started thanking people via text message when their donated blood was used? Sweden
  4. An absence of the SRY gene means what for a human being? It means the human is a female. The presence of the sex-determining region Y (SRY) gene is the specific factor which leads to maleness in mammals
  5. In which part of the body would you find the atlas and axis bones? Neck
  6. First developed by John Salk, the vaccine for which illness was first tested in 1952? Poliomyelitis

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.

amusements, environment, history, links, medical, natural history, science, sexuality

Monthly Links for December

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So here we are with the last round of Monthly Links for 2024, and were ending with a fairly bumper bundle …

Science, Technology, Natural World

dog-like ancestral mammal

Let’s start off with Quanta Magazine‘s reviews of science during the year. [All are LONG READS]
The Year in Physics
The Year in Biology
The Year in Maths
The Year in Computer Science
For some reason Quanta don’t cover chemistry or medicine.

There’s this idea in theoretical physics that we are living in a simulation, driven by some higher powers. And now there is a possible new law of physics which could support this.

The mathematics of random gatherings is a bit of a riddle.

Exponential growth can be somewhat counter intuitive.

Meanwhile scientists have tossed 350,757 coins to prove that they’re not 50/50 heads/tails and that a fair coin is probably impossible.

By most standards our modern atomic clocks are pretty accurate, but they’re about to be superseded by nuclear clocks which are orders of magnitude even more accurate.

Somewhat at the other extreme there’s an ancient piece of space hardware which is surprisingly still working well beyond it’s intended lifespan.

Talking of space hardware, there’s growing concern at the quantity of space junk left flying about up above, and how it could destroy all possibility of further space missions.

There are, as NASA have discovered, a whole host of so-called “dark comets” flying about above our heads.

Let’s come back to earth, or rather the sea … a strange, previously unknown, predatory crustacean has been found miles deep in an ocean trench off the west coat of South America.

Land predators aren’t going to be left out … the 280-million-year-old fossil of a dog-like predator which is likely one of our oldest mammal ancestors, has been found in Spain (above).

From dogs to cats … scientists have made a lot of progress unravelling the complex genetics of ginger cats.

ginger kitten

Finally in this section, Independent SAGE, which was formed early in the pandemic to communicate good and transparent science, have been doing some navel-gazing to see what they could have done better. There are two summaries by Kit Yates of the published research paper: activities and organisation and lessons learnt.

Health, Medicine

Although it’s now a bit late for Christmas 2024, here are some generally applicable ways, from a GP, to avoid some common health hazards.

The science and medical community are getting worried about a possible pandemic of H5N1 bird flu. But how close are we really close to a pandemic?

Meanwhile Bob Hawkins is writing a series of four articles on how one models a pandemic in order to understand how various scenarios play out. Here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Here’s a look at why it makes sense to vaccinate boys against HPV.

Poliovirus has been found in wastewater in Spain, Germany and Poland. How important is this?

One of our most common symbols of Christmas, mistletoe, provides a number of therapeutic agents.

The Vagus Nerve, our most complex nerve, is responsible for the messaging associated with many of our organs, but it’s role in mental health is also being unravelled. [££££] [LONG READ]

Sexuality

It seems that sexual identity is much more fluid than we previously thought.

Sex educators provide 16 ways to talk to your children about bodies, porn and consent.

Environment

beaver kits

Here are five UK biodiversity success stories.

So what does happen to the natural world when people disappear? [LONG READ]

Carbon-positive gardening in your own back yard.

Hunting wildlife to remove them doesn’t work: hunt more coyote, get more coyote.

coyote

Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics

So how much do we know about really old people, and how reliable is it? [LONG READ]

Sweden is almost a cashless society, and that’s not good for who are left out.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

As one had always suspected, “Word of the Year” is a marketing gimmick which tells us nothing about the actual state of the world.

Many authors place imaginary books within their own real books. Now there’s an exhibition in New York which brings some of these imaginary works of literature to life.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Let’s start off with a summary of ten fascinating archaeological discoveries of 2024. [LONG READ]

It seems highly likely that the first tools were made from plants, not rocks; but it is difficult to prove. [££££] [LONG READ]

A Bronze Age pit in Somerset has revealed evidence not just of mass murder, but also cannibalism.

Back around 4500 years ago, the area which is now Iran is known to have had a number of sophisticated board games including the Royal Game of Ur; and of course there are no manuals. Now two researchers have looked at another of these games, which has not just the board but also many of the pieces, and worked out a possible set of rules for the game. (If you really want brain-ache, follow the link to the preprint paper at the end of the linked article for a detailed explanation.)

In Norway, a number of Viking women’s graves have revealed jewellery, coins, and a ‘vulva stone’

An archaeological site in Kent is turning up lots of Anglo-Saxon finds, including a remarkably well preserved sixth-century sword.

Two articles on the plethora of archaeological finds from the reconstruction of Notre Dame. First from Science and second from Good News Network.

Unexpectedly, letters from Elizabeth I, Benjamin Franklin and Lord Byron are among a collection discovered in British stately home.

Around the globe there are around 8,500 shipwrecks from WWI and WWII, and many are now a ticking time-bomb of pollution, or worse.
Polluting shipwrecks are the ticking time-bomb at the bottom of our oceans.

Food, Drink

Now here’s a curiosity … Diamond Geezer has discovered that the British are drinking a lot less tea than 50 years ago, but coffee consumption is about the same.

cup of tea

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

People have always needed to make sense of the world within their knowledge span, so they end up believing all sorts of things which later generations reveal to be rubbish.

Here are three articles from Corey S Powell in which he takes a cosmic look at thought …
Perspective from the stars
You Are a Ripple of Information
Your information bubble is your legacy

How Polynesian voyagers navigate Earth’s biggest ocean.

So just why don’t more women choose to propose to their male partners? Spoiler: patriarchy.

Once they reach 40 many women become invisible to men, and they won’t all accept it. [££££]

Another look at why women wear bras.

And finally for this year … ten reasons why you need to sunbathe naked.

nude sunbather

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

Here we go with this month’s collection of links to items you’ll wish you’d not missed.

Science, Technology, Natural World

First off, wasps … apparently hornets are able to hold their alcohol amazingly well. [££££]

hornet

Birds listen to their songs in a totally different way than we do. [££££}

Scientists have found a surprisingly intact sabre-toothed tiger kitten frozen in Siberian ice, and it’s revealing unknown details about the species.

In 2023 researchers sent a dummy alien signal to Earth, without telling anyone, and it has now been decoded although not understood!

Jupiter is large enough to swallow at least 1000 Earths, and yet it has no surface.

NASA has a large number of satellites studying the sun, and they’re providing some surprising discoveries unrelated to the sun.

Look deeper and you find that comets have sinkholes, which generate jets of material.

In another piece of work from NASA, they’ve discovered two galaxies, looking like bloodshot eyes, which seem to be in the process of merging.

And finally in this section, astronomers have rediscovered a “dandelion-like” supernova first spotted in 12th-century China and Japan. [££££]

dandelion supernova

Health, Medicine

H5N1 bird flu has been detected in pigs, which is a big cause for concern as they are a well-known “mixing vessel”. And a teenager hospitalised in Canada has H5N1 with mutation(s) which may make it more transmissible between people.

It turns out that humans evolved to share beds, and not only with their romantic partner.

Synaesthesia is strange (especially for those of us who don’t have it) but ticker-tape synaesthesia, where real life comes with subtitles, is really bizarre.

Sexuality

Girls, is it that you just don’t like sex, or is it that you don’t like patriarchal sex? [LONG READ]

So how do you like your dirty talk during sex? [££££]

Is using lube really that much of a taboo for straight couples? Seems it is. [££££]

Environment

OK, so let’s change track …

Japan tiny forest

Apparently British cities are taking on the Japanese concept of “tiny forests“.

And in a similar vein, relatively small patches of wildflowers in cities are as good as natural meadows for insect biodiversity.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

An amateur archaeologist has discovered another two stone circles on Dartmoor, and believes they add to the theory of a sacred arc of stone circles.

So who was Gunhild? And was she a victim of medieval ethnic cleansing?

On the other side of the world, a postgraduate student has serendipitously found a lost city in the Mexico jungle.

In Leicester they’ve found an 800-year-old burial pit containing 123 bodies, and it’s a complete mystery.

In the mid-13th-century, in what is now Turkey, a kingdom changed hands in exchange for a hat.

siren and centaur

In order to make sense of the world as best they could medieval people had lots of supernatural beliefs: elves and fairies; abductions and the undead.

On which subject, here’s a look at some medieval animal ghost stories.

When you’re a peasant economy and don’t have the resources to feed lots of livestock through the winter, November becomes Blotmonath, the month of animal sacrifice and trying to store the meat.

The British Library currently has an exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. Here’s a review.

Food, Drink

Our drinking water contains many “forever chemicals”, but practically and personally what can we do to ameliorate this?

Wow! Ha ha!

So it’s that time of year, the season of Winter Vagina.

winter vagina

medical, personal, photography

Monthly Self-Portrait, May

We’re staying with the medical for this month’s self-portrait. As long-time readers will know I have Obstructive Sleep Apnoea, which means I can stop breathing when asleep. To counteract this, I have a CPAP machine which pumps air into my airway overnight to keep the airways open. It isn’t invasive, just a nuisance, and it does cramp one’s style somewhat. As you’ll appreciate from the image, us users are sometimes colloquially termed “hoover heads”. This is my usual sleeping attire!

CPAP mask in use
Hoover Head
[Click the image for a larger view]
medical, personal, photography

Monthly Self-Portrait, April

So what to do for this month’s self-portrait, especially as I have this damned filthy cold back again? Oh well, lets have something some may consider TMI – although it’s nothing you couldn’t safely see in the gym changing room.

As long-time readers may remember, I’ve said on a number of occasions that I have a secondary nipple. This is apparently not that unusual – I bet some of you have too. It’s on the right side of my abdomen, a bit above the level of the navel. The corresponding place on the left side has just a slightly denser area of hair.

Anyway this is what it looks like, fairly close up. On the left is the actual vestigial nipple. On the right, a mole. (I’ve always had the mole; it’s nothing to worry about). Keep in mind that the area in the photograph is about 4cm wide.

Close-up view of a secondary nipple
Left: secondary nipple. Right: a small mole. Image 4cm wide.
[Click the image for a larger view]
history, links, medical, nudism, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

OK, guys and gals, it’s time for our monthly round up of links to items you may have missed the first time round. So here goes …

Science, Technology, Natural World

There’s this giant star-shaped sand dune in Morocco whose mysteries are now beginning to be understood.

There are some mathematical techniques which can not only tell use where we’re going, but where we’ve been.

teenage brains graphic

Most parents would agree that teenagers are odd. Here are two reasons why.
First it seems there may be evolutionary advantages to the affliction of “teenage brain“. [£££]
Secondly apparently puberty triggers “teenage armpit odour” of cheese, goat and urine.

Now to something more wholesome … Every cat has a strange pouch under its belly and scientists still don’t know why.

Health, Medicine

Girls are entering puberty ever earlier, and for some it is proving a significant mental health risk. [LONG READ]

Along with this we must stop trying to normalise and ignore women’s menstrual pain and bleeding. [LONG READ]

coloured woman's hands over her pubic area

Mind you, it doesn’t help matters when menstrual health literacy is so alarmingly low.

Progressing through the reproductive cycle, here’s a piece of pregnancy and childbirth in 17th-century England.

Now for something different. Unusually some people are totally unable to picture things in their mind, they have no mind’s eye. [LONG READ]

Sexuality

This one’s not for the squeamish … Why do some people find it pleasurable to insert objects into their urethra? [LONG READ]

On safer ground, here’s a look at some new insights into people’s motivation for polyamory.

four people grpahic

Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics

It is much believed that girls avoid studying physics because the maths is too hard, but that is not the case.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The world’s oldest known fossilized forest has been discovered in England.

A Copper Age necropolis, containing skeletons and still sharp weapons, has been found in Italy.

Burginda was an early medieval English woman who was not just educated but well-versed in African poetry.

A guy fishing with a magnet from an Oxfordshire bridge has pulled up an 1100-year-old Viking sword.

Viking sword

So how do historians sensibly divide the 1100-ish years of the Middle Ages into manageable chunks of time.

Just as today, medieval women had informal social networks to share health problems and medical advice.

In which 17th-century ladies go dildo shopping.

Don’t like a seven day week? How does a 10 day week sound? The French Revolutionary Calendar tried it for 13 years until Napoleon abandoned it in favour of keeping step with the rest of Europe.

French Republican timepiece

Food, Drink

There’s an impending risotto crisis as it seems the key Italian rice crops are dying due to drought. [LONG READ]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Here’s one neurologist who makes a good case against daylight saving time. [LONG READ]

Meanwhile one sex researcher has vowed to never share her bed with anyone anymore. [££££]

There’s a growing belief that many of our ills, and especially those of younger generations, are all down to our dependence on smartphones.

You’ve doubtless heard of incels, now we need to start understanding the psychology of femcels.

And finally I’ll leave you with one (naturist) writer’s take on understanding the difference between naturism and primitive living. [LONG READ]

girls nude cricket
It’s very unlikely that “primitives” played cricket. ☺