I see people all the time with dirt under their nails and men/women with long nails. I see several people on a daily basis biting their nails which is a gross habit. I see those who bite their nails even with dirt under them too. Every time I see this I want to gag. What is living under those nails that you just put in your mouth? 

           First off keratin is a protein that makes our nails flat and hard. This substance also creates our hair and “the top layer of our skin”. Even in the womb we have finger nails/toenails. Our nails actually begin in what’s known as the nail root. This is located under our skin behind the cuticle. The cuticle is where the nail touches the skin and the lunula is the “pale half circle just above the cuticle”. Our nails continue to grow because new nail cells grow under our skin and force the old nail out. Under our nail is called the nail bed; it’s made up of blood vessels that keep our nail healthy and that give it a pink tint. Our fingernails grow 2.5 millimeters per month and this is why it will take three to six months to replace a whole nail once you lose it. To keep our nails healthy it’s recommended that we cut our fingernails and toenails straight across and to regularly put lotion on our nails and cuticles to add moisture. (“Your”).

Dr. Anthony Hilton, a microbiologist from Aston University, held a study of nail clippings from fifty-five women and forty-five men. He had found enterobacteriaceae under 24% of men and 15% from women. Enterobacteriaceae causes vomiting, diarrhea, and gastroenteritis and is usually found “in the guts of animals or humans” (“Quarter”). Another study done by Dr. David Katz from Yale University swabbed several students with different fingernails lengths. He let the bacteria grow for three days in which he concluded the short, painted nails had the least bacteria under them. Unlike those with long unpainted nails, who had the most bacteria. Nails that are shorter are able to be cleaned easier and nail polish has a few chemicals that includes the chemical formaldehyde, which actually decreases bacteria growth (“Biting”). In another study it was found that “infectious outbreaks in neonatal intensive care units were linked to long nails”. Eighteen health-care workers were tested and the study concluded that longer nails contained bacteria compared to 18% of the health-care workers who had shorter nails. Klebsiella, a bacteria that causes pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and a yeast that can cause blood stream infections were found under several of these nails. This is very scary especially when the workers help those who are already ill and vulnerable (“Study”).

Onychophagia also known as nail biting occurs in about 45% of teenagers. Nail biting could be caused by stress, anxiety, OCD, or just a habit. When biting your nails you put all the bacteria under the nails into your mouth and gums, let alone possibly creating infection in your fingers by breaking the skin when biting. Nail biting can also damage your teeth by weakening and wearing down the enamel on the teeth (“Mouth”).

            Many of these studies need more people to be involved in the tests to have stronger results. Also many third variables can play a role like the jobs of students and the environment they live in at home that can affect the bacteria under their nails. As you have read biting nails are not healthy so here are some tips on how to stop.

Works Cited:

“Biting Your Nails Part 2.” Huffpost Healthy Living. 30 Nov. 2013   <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-p-connelly-dds/stop-biting-nails-_b_604665.html>.

“Mouth Health: The Dish on Biting Your Nails.” Huffpost Healthy Living. 30 Nov.  2013 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-p-connelly-dds/mouth-health-the-dish-on_b_574866.html>.

“Quarter of Men Have Germs Lurking Under Fingernails.” Mail Online. 30 Nov. 2013 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-472410/Quarter-men-germs-lurking-fingernails.html>.

“Study Links Long Fingernails and  Bacteria.” ABC News. 30 Nov 2013     <http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117161>.

“Your Nails.” KidsHealth. 30 Nov. 2013 <http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/your_nails.html>.

Photo of dirty nails:

     <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nesvH_P-sK0/ToCh9ItJnsI/AAAAAAAAAes/YPBzOv6iYFQ/s1600/dirty-nails2.jpg>.

Photo of woman biting nails:

     <http://images.sodahead.com/polls/003298113/Nail-biting-92076276082_xlarge.jpeg>.

Maggots are a huge part of the ecosystem. They decompose many dead animals whether they’re in the woods or even on the side of the road. They really are nature’s clean up crew.

Maggots are fly eggs. So flies will lay their eggs in moist rotting material. A fly lays hundreds of eggs and they hatch between eight to twenty hours (“Maggots’ Life”). Their color varies in light brown, yellow, and an off-white. They do not have legs but they have “one pair of tiny hook-like parts to aid in feeding” (“Maggot”). As soon as they hatch they start to eat on the surrounding area where the fly left them. They begin at a length of two to three millimeters. Once they reach ten millimeters in length they enter into the second larval stage. This stage is where the maggots shed their skin and continue to feed. They attain the third stage where they shed once they reach fifteen to twenty millimeters. The three stages are the main feeding stage of the maggot and they can eat for twenty-four hours straight. Flies last as maggots for eight to ten days in warm weather and about a month in cold weather (“Maggots’ Life”).

            Maggots can be used for several benefits to humans. One of the things their good for is to determine how long a body has been dead. Forensics figure out what stage the maggots are in and the weather of where the dead body is located to determine how long the body has been dead (“Forensics”). Another benefit maggots are to humans is that they can help save lives. Maggots are actually used today in the medical world. Doctors use them to eat the dead tissue of a burn or injury of a human being. When the maggots eat the tissue they actually disinfect the wound by killing the bacteria through eating it. For each square centimeter of damaged tissue the doctor will put five to ten maggots on it. Then the maggots would be covered with a wrapped bandaged that still allows them to breath for several days. When the maggots are feeding they can grow from two millimeters to ten millimeters while under the bandage. Patients find the maggots to not hurt while eating the dead tissue but they say it feels like an itch or a tickle. Maggots are only used as a last resort. So this means surgery or “conventional medic[ine]” did not work. This procedure has been found since the 1920’s to the 1930’s during the First World War. Men would save those who were injured for days and found that the ones who were still alive had maggots in their wounds (“Medical”).

            A study done in Israel observed what happens to the bacteria while in the digestive tract of a maggot. The scientists chose “green fluorescent protein-producing Escherichia coli” as the bacteria and used a “laser scanning confocal microscope” to analyze the bacteria while in the digestive system. The results showed that in the mid-gut of the maggot the bacteria was the highest at 52.8%. Though the hind-gut had showed the bacteria had decreased significantly to 17.8%. Then towards the maggot’s butt there was almost no bacteria left, so the feces of the maggot was either uncontaminated or had only a few bacteria left in it (“Destruction”). The study did not explain what kind of chemicals the mid-gut had that destroyed most of the bacteria. Also the study did not specify how many maggots were analyzed and how much bacteria they put in the maggots.

Works Cited:

“Destruction of Bacteria in the Digestive Tract of the Maggot of Lucilia sericata.”  BioOne. 29 Nov. 2013 <http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/0022-2585-38.2.161?journalCode=ment>.

“Forensic Entomology Or The Use Of Insects In Death Investigations.” Investigating Forensics. 27 Nov. 2013 <http://www.sfu.museum/forensics/eng/pg_media-media_pg/entomologie-entomology/>.

“Maggot.” ScienceDaily. 27 Nov. 2013     <http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/m/maggot.htm>.

“Maggots’ Life Cycle.’ Buzzle. 27 Nov. 2013 <http://www.buzzle.com/articles/maggots-life-cycle.html>.

 “Medical Maggots Treat As They Eat.” National Geographic News. 29 Nov. 2013 <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1024_031024_maggotmedicine.html>.

Photo of Maggot:

<http://www.tellmeaboutdiabetes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/maggot.jpg>.

Photo Of Close Up Maggot:

<http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01689/bluebottle-maggot_1689991i.jpg>.

Have you ever heard of Venus being called Earth’s sister planet? Well scientists believe that Venus could have had an abundance of water in the past just like Earth has today. Though some scientists feel that maybe Venus is a warning sign to us that Earth may someday end up like her.

“Venus’s atmosphere of carbon dioxide reaches nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit and a surface pressure 100 times that of Earth’s. It is considered a twin to our planet because of their similar sizes, masses, rocky compositions and close orbits.” The sulfuric acid clouds are what gives Venus the bright complexion (“Cassini”). Venus has about a million times more sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere than Earth. Scientists believe the sulfur dioxide came from hundreds of volcanoes on Venus (“Have”). In the higher levels of the clouds from East-West wind speeds reach 400km/h around the equatorial latitude and the lower clouds reach 230 km/h around the tropical latitudes. But from the North-South there is approximately no wind in the lower clouds and 35 km/h in the higher clouds around the tropical latitudes. The winds on Venus are faster than the actual planet’s rotation (“Venus Express”). Due to the wind the entire planet only takes four Earth days for the atmosphere to circulate. This makes it difficult for scientists to pinpoint where and how many active volcanoes there are on the planet that is erupting. The sulfur dioxide is destroyed when hit by sunlight and this shows scientists that there is something on Venus that keeps regenerating sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere (“Have”).

A new investigation of both Mars’s and Venus’s atmosphere has been launched by NASA. The Venus Spectral Rocket, known as VeSpR, launched just a few days ago on November 25, 2013. The study is suppose to determine the amount of UV light that is coming off of the planet. The UV light will help scientists to determine the “history of the planet’s water”. Scientists are still trying to figure out whether Venus had water on its surface or only in the higher levels of the atmosphere. “Venus today has a thick atmosphere that contains very little water, but we think the planet started out with an ocean’s work of water”, said John T. Clarke of Boston University, the mission’s principal investigator. The scientists are going to calculate the amount of hydrogen and deuterium that is in the atmosphere since both ions need oxygen to form water. The UV light coming from the sun separates the molecules where water evaporates and the hydrogen wafts into space. (“Sounding”).

            Scientists cannot view Venus’s surface due to the sulfuric acid clouds. These clouds develop when volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide and water vapor that mix to cause sulfuric acid droplets. Scientists believe the sulfuric acid droplets could evaporate due to the sunlight and releasing sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere. This was found by Xi Zhang, California Institute of Technology, USA and colleagues from America. Also, Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize winner, believes that if we put large quantities of sulfur dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere it will help to “counteract the global warming” because of the greenhouse gases. He came to his hypothesis because of the Mount Pinatubo located in the Philippines erupted in 1991 that released sulfuric acid into the atmosphere like that of Venus’ clouds, and cooled Earth by 0.5 degrees Celsius by reflecting the “sun’s rays back into space”. But by the way Venus’s clouds evaporate the sulfuric acid scientists are figuring out how fast the droplets evaporate back into the sulfuric acid gas before they can actually experiment with Earth’s atmosphere (“Venus Holds”).

Dr. Emmanuel Marcq of the LATMOS laboratory in France suggests that “Venus was probably more humid and Earth-like in the distant past” because the water containing hydrogen is pulled out of the atmosphere by Venus’s gravity faster since it is two times higher in the atmosphere than the water with deuterium, a heavier water (“Venus Express”). Though the Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that the solar wind that the sun emits hits Venus’s upper atmosphere and transfers some of the particles off into space because Venus does not have a magnetic field. The magnetic field that Earth provides is what saves us from the solar wind from the Sun. The solar wind is where scientists believe that some of the water went from Venus (“Where”).

           Do you think that some time far in the future Earth may someday end up like Venus? Will Paul Crutzen’s hypothesis work and how could scientists test his hypothesis? Andrew had showed us a picture of Earth during class that Cassini, a spacecraft equipped with high tech cameras, had taken of Saturn towards the sun. In the same picture is Venus that had also been spotted through Saturn’s rings. 

Works Cited:

“Cassini Spies Bright Venus From Saturn Orbit.” ScienceDaily. 27 Nov. 2013 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130304125306.htm>.

“Have Venusian Volcanoes Been Caught in the Act?” ScienceDaily. 27 Nov. 2013 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121203081838.htm>.

“Sounding Rocket to Peek at Atmosphere of Venus.” ScienceDaily. 26 Nov. 2013 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131125172111.htm>.

“Venus Express Adds Evidence For Atmospheric Water Loss on Earth’s Twin.” ScienceDaily. 27 Nov. 2013 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009

       /09/090916092536.htm>.

“Venus Holds Warning for Earth.” ScienceDaily. 26 Nov. 2013 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130122035.htm>.

 “Where Did Venus’s Water Go?” ScienceDaily. 27 Nov. 2013 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218094605.htm>.

Photo of Venus:

       <http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-  qA8eSj3FJpI/TjAbzO42X6I/AAAAAAAADF4/6lWqfvfpy7Y/s1600/planet-venus-d-screensaver-7640.jpg>.

Photo of Solar Wind:

       <http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41MCSRVBA8L.jpg>.

You smell the fresh baked pumpkin pie from your room. You follow the smell until you find yourself in the kitchen where the smell of spices, fruit, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc. overwhelms your nostrils with the different smells of food. So we found our way into the kitchen and are able to take in all of these wonderful smells because of our nose. 

As we know our nose has two nostrils. Both the nostrils and nasal cavity have mucous and cilia that help to filter the air and harmful substances from entering the body/lungs. Cartilage shapes the nose from the nasal bridge down. This is where many people will have plastic surgery done to change the shape of their nose. From the nasal bridge up to our eyes, we have bones that serve as a support for the nose. In between the eyes there are two nasal bones that form into one to create the nasal bridge. The nasal septum divides the nose into two nostrils and the “turbinate or conchae, are bones that divide [the] nasal cavity into air passages” (“Anatomy”).

To enable us to smell, molecules called Volatile, evaporate off materials. We breathe these molecules in and at the “top of [our] nasal passages” neurons are located. They have Cilia, hair-like features that capture these molecules and allow us to smell. Receptors are also located throughout our nose and each receptor is created by a certain gene. If a gene was damaged in the process it could cause you to not be able to detect certain kinds of smells. When we smell foods or flowers we are actually breathing in organic molecules called Esters. Esters can be made artificially and this is how artificial flavors are created. We are able to smell over 10,000 different odors (“How”).

When comparing male to female you might have noticed that a man’s nose is bigger than a female’s nose. Men’s noses are bigger than women’s noses by ten percent because they need more oxygen since they have more lean muscle mass than women. Male’s noses do not start growing bigger than female’s until they reach puberty. Humans today have smaller noses than the Neanderthals had in the past. Though because Neanderthals had bigger bodies they resulted in more muscle so scientists believe they had bigger noses to accommodate and bring more oxygen in for their muscles (“Why Are”).

Many people have different shaped noses. There are all kinds: big, small, bony, long, etc. A postdoctoral researcher at the University of Iowa, Nathan Holton, scanned forty peoples’ noses with half being of European/Americans and the other half being African Americans/Native South Africans. Holton believes that the reason humans have different shaped noses is because of the different climates we live in or are associated with. So Caucasians have more narrow noses because of the colder climate and since the mucosal surface of our noses supply moisture, the colder air would dry this moisture out. Hence the fact that sometimes when breathing in cold air that our nose tends to burn this is because the air drys it out (“Why Our”). This can lead to nose bleed because the mucous membrane gets very dry or cracks and the nose contains a ton of blood vessels (“What”). So this is why the noses are smaller/narrower to adapt to the climate. African Americans are associated with warmer weather and therefore do not need to worry about colder air which allows them to have bigger noses (“Why Our”).

Abraham Tamir, an Iraeli scientist, chemical engineer professor, and also teaches the connection between science and art, photographed and looked at 1,800 photos to compare the shapes of noses. Out of the 1,800, 400 were pieces of art, 600 were women noses and 1,200 were male noses. He took pictures of people from Israel, Holland, Belgium and France. He found that there are fourteen different shapes of noses (“There”). The problem with his study is that he should have an even number of both males and females and one of the biggest flaws in his study was that he did not include other ethnicities like Asians, African Americans, etc. He also did not list how many of pictures of the males and females were from which country. So we don’t know if he had gotten an even amount from each country. This could change the study significantly if he had taken into account these other factors.

Works Cited:

“Anatomy of the Nose.” Rhinoplasty Online. 20 Nov. 2013 <http://www.rhinoplastyonline.com/anatomynose.html>.

 “How Does the Sense of Smell Work” Howstuffworks. 20 Nov. 2013 <http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/human-biology/question139.htm>.

“There Are 14 Different Kinds of Noses, Study Claims.” NBC News Health. 21 Nov. 2013 <http://www.nbcnews.com/health/there-are-14-different-kinds-noses-study-claims-1C6437205>.

“What Is A Nosebleed? What Causes Nosebleeds?” Medical News Today. 20 Nov. 2013 <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/164823.php>.

 “Why Are Men’s Noses Bigger Than Women’s?” Discovery News. 20 Nov. 2013 <http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/why-are-mens-noses-bigger-than-womens-131120.htm>.

“Why Our Noses Are Different Shapes.” CNN Health. 20 Nov. 2013 <http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/20/why-our-noses-are-different-shapes/>.

Photo of different shaped noses:<http://chestofbooks.com/arts/photography/Practical-Photography-2/images/Illustration-No-38-Character-Chart-Noses.jpg>.

Photo of the nose anatomy: <http://www.uofmchildrenshospital.org/fv/groups/public/documents/images/133840.jpg>.

Many people would think that because dinosaurs were gigantic they would have big brains but research these days show the opposite.

Scientists discovered that the largest dinosaur called Ampelosaurus, 70 million years old and found in 2007 from Spain, had the size of a tennis ball for a brain. Ampelosaurus are herbivores that have both long necks and tails and “armor like scales” all over their body. Its body is 15 meters long and the brain is only 3 inches big. In the CT Scan they also found a “small inner ear”. The ear was in charge of their balance and the dinosaur probably could not hear very well. So instead it might have heard through vibrations from the ground. Scientists also believe that the dinosaur made slow movements because of the inner ear being small compared to the ratio of the dinosaur’s body (“Biggest”).

            Scientists are able to tell the features of a dinosaur brain by seeing the imprints of what their brain left on the skull. These imprints help scientists to determine the size and shape of the brain. They have determined six parts of the brain that was for “complex behavior such as processing visual information and learning and making sounds”. Erich Jarvis initiated the study of the brains of both alligators and birds at Duke University. Some dinosaurs evolved from alligators while birds had evolved from dinosaurs. So Jarvis concludes that dinosaur brains range between an alligator and a bird. He put both an alligator and a bird in separate quiet rooms where he played “alligator grunts” to the alligator and “bird songs” to the bird. Then he quickly removed their brains to find what genes were activated in the brain. He found that both had vocal learning skills so he concludes that dinosaurs would also have this capability of learning vocal skills. Both an alligator and a bird have big cortexes and he relates this as the dinosaurs to have a large cortex too, meaning they “were capable of pretty sophisticated behaviors” (“Scientists”). Scientists are still learning about the brains of dinosaurs but it’s hard to experiment when brain findings are extremely rare to none as well as to find a perfect brain that has been preserved through fossils.

Have you ever wondered why we are able to hear sound? What it is in our ears that enables us to listen to things. I never realized how many crucial parts there are in our ears that play a huge role for us to hear!

There are three parts of the ear: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear (the thing that sticks out of both sides of your head) is called the Pinna. It’s shaped oddly because it funnels the sound waves through the ear canal. The ear canal acts as an “amplifier [to] focus the sound” to the eardrum. When the sound funnels because of the Pinna, it causes different “variations in the frequency response and the amplitude”. This is how we can tell where a sound is coming from. The middle ear is made up of the Ossicles, which are three bones that are attached to the inside of the eardrum. They control the pressure changes entering from the outer ear to the inner ear. One of the bones from the Ossicles is called the Stapes. It’s connected to the Oval Window, which is known as the “gateway to the inner ear”. There is also a tube called the Eustachian Tube that helps to balance the air pressure as it connects the middle ear to the throat. This is why when your travelling on a plane that is either increasing or decreasing in altitude you find the need to pop your ears by swallowing to relieve that pressure. This is why the Eustachian Tube comes in handy! The inner ear has the Cochlea, a pea-size shape, that is filled with fluid that when the sound waves go through the Oval Window the fluid inside “sloshes around in waves”. As the fluid swishes back and forth, the Basilar Membrane inside the Cochlea is coated with hair cells. The hair cells signals the nervous system, that sends electrochemical signals to the brain and creates what we know as sound (“Anatomy”). It’s shocking how many pieces of the ear contribute to allow us to be able to hear a single sound!

            In July 1993, nineteen members of the Thames faculty of the Royal College of General Practitioners had four general practitioners measure 206 patients’ ears ranging from the age 30-93 years old. They found that when a person gets older their ears get bigger by about 0.22 millimeters a year. Though they measured patients with different ethnicities and to have had a better experiment they should have separated each race and also expand the experiment to include more people of all ethnicities. This would have given an accurate measurement on each race and then they could have compared the difference between ear growths in all races (“Heathcotel”). But why is it that our ears continue to grow bigger but our bodies stop growing?

            One of the ancient beliefs in the Chinese culture is that a person’s facial features tell a great deal about their personality and future. The length of the earlobe symbolizes the lifespan and the thickness of the earlobe represents wealth. So in both, the ideal ear would be to have a longer and thicker earlobe. The statue of the Buddha represents this feature as he has both long and thick earlobes (“Heathcotel”).

Also depending on what kind of earlobes you have, attached or free, it genetically comes from your parents. One strand from your father and one strand from your mother form to combine a chromosome pair. Then it depends which gene is more dominant and that decides whether or not you have attached earlobes like your father or free earlobes like your mother or vice versa (“Ear Genes”). So next time compare your earlobes to your parents and see which parent’s gene was more dominant.

Another thing that is found in ears is earwax. Earwax develops due to the ear canal self-cleaning itself but it doesn’t start to form until it becomes closer to the outside of the ear in the ear canal. The earwax helps to protect the inside of the ear from bacteria, dust, and water. Earwax contains skin cells that come from the eardrum to the outer ear by our chewing/jaw motion (“Earwax”; “Ear Wax”). So there is actually a purpose to that nasty earwax. As we learned in class from the gene discussion there are two types of earwax: wet and dry. We found that a gene actually decides which type we have. The dry gene is more common in East Asians, 80-95%, and the wet gene is 97-100% more common in those who have African and European ancestry. Scientists have found a mutation in the gene that “alters the shape of a channel that controls the flow of molecules” that is suppose to create wet earwax for East Asians but instead causes them to have dry earwax. They also believe that due to the colder climate the dry earwax could have been an adaptation (“Is”). What do you think could have been the cause for there being two different types of earwax?

Works Cited:

“Anatomy of the Ear.” Music Production School. 17 Nov. 2013 <http://www.music-production-guide.com/anatomy-of-the-ear.html>.

“Ear Genes.” Robert Krampf the Happy Scientist. 17 Nov. 2013 <http://thehappyscientist.com/science-experiment/ear-genes>.

“Earwax.” American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery. 17 Nov. 2013 <http://www.entnet.org/healthinformation/earwax.cfm>.

“Ear Wax.” Medline Plus. 17 Nov. 2013 <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000979.htm>.

Heathcotel, JA. “Why Do Old Men Have Big Ears?” BMJ 1995; 311:1668 (23-30 December <http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/tmp/surveys/big ears.pdf>.

“Is Your Earwax Wet or Dry?” LiveScience. 18 Nov. 2013 <http://www.livescience.com/593-earwax-wet-dry.html>.

Photo of the anatomy of the ear:

<http://www.biographixmedia.com/human/ear-anatomy.jpg>.

Photo of the different earlobes:

<http://korrektivpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/10/lobes.gif>.

            A skull perfectly undamaged was found by Paleoanthropologists from the University of Zurich in Dmanisi, Georgia (located below Russia and borders the Black Sea). They believe it’s a skull from the first human species called “Homo erectus”. There have been four other skulls found in Dmanisi but the newly discovered skull has been observed to have “the largest face, the most massively built jaw and teeth and the smallest brain” out of all the skulls that have been found so far. Researchers realized from this observation that there is diversity among the homo species. The five categorized groups for the different characteristic skulls are: “Homo, Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo ergaster, and Homo erectus”. With the recently founded new skull, researchers conclude that the Homo erectus species date back to 1.85 million years ago where they originated from Africa and spread towards Eurasia roughly around the start of the Ice Age. (“Unique”)

Along with the new skull, they found tools and noticed that the skull was located in the same type of soil layer that the other skulls were found. Researchers also conclude the Homo erectus to be short with arms so long that the hands would drag on the ground. The skull findings will help researchers compare the different forms with human species back then to that of the different human species now and also to the characteristics of the chimpanzee species. Knowing they have already found five skulls in Dmanisi, Paleoanthropologists are optimistic that more are to be found in the future and possibly other different homo species. (“Georgian”) Here is the Scientific Journal in which it goes into great detail of the discovery of the new skull and includes the similarities and differences that the new skull has with the other skulls.

Do you believe this skull could be the answer to the possibility of human evolution? If not, what would be other factors Paleoanthropologists would have to prove in order to make you believe? The picture below is the five skull findings in Dmanisi. Can you tell the difference between them?

Works Cited:

“Georgian Skulls Link To Our Past.” BBC News. 22 Oct. 2013  <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2645183.stm>.

“Unique Skull Find Rebuts Theories On Species Diversity In Early Humans.” Science Daily. 22 Oct. 2013 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131017173906.htm>.

Picture of Skulls:

<http://www.heritagedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/CK1.jpg>.

A new island was found off the shore of Gwadar, Pakistan on Tuesday September 24, 2013. So how does an island just appear? What caused it to just show up?

            Earthquakes occur due to tectonic plates shifting against each other and when underground rock collapses/breaks near a fault; it produces seismic waves (“Why”). These waves are what we feel when the ground shakes. Seismologists, scientists that study earthquakes, measure the height of the surface waves through the Ritcher Scale, created by Charles Ritcher in 1925. Though now they use a scale called Moment Magnitude Scale that believes to be more accurate than the Ritcher Scale. It measures “by multiplying the area that the earthquake occurred in and the amount of displacement that occurred in the slip”. (“Earthquakes”)

There are very small earthquakes that people sometimes don’t even feel happen roughly a million times each year and then there are others that create damage and deaths. Those that are 8 or above on the Ritcher Scale happen once every couple years and there are about twenty that have the average magnitude of 7 each year around the world. (“Earthquakes”)

            On Tuesday September 24, 2013 an earthquake with magnitude of 7.7 hit Pakistan due to the Chaman Fault that runs 500 miles through both Pakistan and Afghanistan. This earthquake ended up killing 320 people. The Chaman Fault has had a brutal history as it caused an earthquake killing 30,000 people in Quetta, Pakistan and was known as “one of the deadliest earthquakes in Southeast Asia” in 1935. Earthquakes are common in Pakistan because the Indian, Eurasian, and Arabian tectonic plates create the Chaman Fault and when they shift against each other they produce earthquakes. After a few hours of the earthquake a new island appeared offshore of the city of Gwadar, Pakistan and a geologist associated with the Pakistan Navy reported it to be “60 ft. high, 100 ft. long and 250 ft. wide”. This new island believes to be considered a mud volcano because of the stones on top of it. This proposes that it had erupted at a fast rate of a few miles per hour for there to be solid rock located on top of it. (“Causes”)

            When “pressurized gases and mud from below the Earth’s crust” build up and the earthquake occurs, it releases the pressure creating mud volcanoes. Mud volcanoes usually erupt hot water and gases but some are located over petroleum sites or geothermal springs that could cause flares or disperse minerals within the hot water. (“What”) Here is a website that shows the different magnitudes of earthquakes and what each would feel like in that situation.

            Are there any other major faults in the world that potentially can or have created large damaging earthquakes? Are there any other mud volcanoes located in the world and what was the magnitude of the earthquake that caused them? I have actually felt what a little earthquake feels like that occurred in Virginia a couple years back but by the time the seismic waves reached me it felt like a little rumble underneath my feet. Have any of you experienced an earthquake?

Works Cited:

“Earthquakes.” Oracle Think Quest. 20 Oct. 2013   <http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01027/earthquakes.html>.

“Causes of Pakistan Earthquake & New Island Revealed.” livescience. 20 Oct. 2013 <http://www.livescience.com/39958-what-caused-pakistan-earthquake-island.html>.

“What is a Mud Volcano?” wiseGEEK. 20 Oct. 2013 <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-mud-volcano.htm>.

“Why Do Earthquakes Happen?” UPSeis. 20 Oct. 2013         <http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/why.html>.

Earthquake Diagram Picture:

     <http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/images/tec_007.gif>.

We humans usually think belly buttons are weird looking and useless. Some of us have belly buttons that are innies or outies or maybe even a little bit of both. Some are bigger than others. Some belly buttons collect more lint than others. As we all know, we have belly buttons due to the umbilical cord attached to the placenta and when born the umbilical cord is cut off leaving a scar. So what can our belly buttons say about us?           

           Most of you have probably noticed that in sports most likely African Americans are better at running and whites are better at swimming. Scientists believe that it is all about the location of our belly buttons that determine this correlation. The naval, belly button, is the “center of gravity of [our] body” that plays a significant role in athletes. Duke University Professor Andre Bejan, Howard University Professor Edward Jones, and Duke graduate Jordan Charles did an observational study

where they examined men’s/women’s sprinting and free style swimmers’ records dating all the way back to a hundred years ago. They found that most African Americans have longer legs than whites, which puts their belly buttons three centimeters higher and as Bejan puts it “[a] mass that falls from a higher altitude, falls faster”. This overall allows African Americans to be faster on the track than others. Just look at Usain Bolt who is the fastest man in the world. Though the opposite idea applies to swimmers that are white, like Michael Phelps, who has a longer torso which allows his belly buttons to be lower than the average human being. By having a longer torso helps provide more momentum which potentially creates a faster swimmer. (“Belly”) 

           Aki Sinkkonen has the hypothesis that our naval shows how healthy a person is by our “genetics, health at birth and current health play a role in the navel’s appearance”. Sinkkonen believes that the way the belly button is shaped and the position of it could determine if the umbilical cord was abnormal due to malnutrition a baby received, causing the belly button to scar abnormally. He states that malnutrition is linked to how reproductive a person can be, so by looking at a human’s belly button we could potentially predict how fertile they are. He also suggests that when a woman’s naval looks abnormal while pregnant, it could indicate that “fetal brain development or genetically or maternally inherited components” could be an issue with her unborn baby. (“Belly-Buttons May”) To read more about his published hypothesis in the FASEB Journal click here. How could Sinkkonen test his hypothesis? He could do an observational study but what about experimentally? How could he go about doing so without being unethical?

          I think it’s safe to say that we have all experienced lint in our belly buttons.Our belly buttons collect lint because of the clothing we wear and depending on how hairy our stomachs are. Hint the fact that most men have more lint in their naval than women.Lint consists of dead skin, body’s sweat, and dust particles. It collects in our belly buttons because the hair shapes around our naval in a circular shape. The hair rubs the fibers of our clothing resulting in lint as it comes from the hair to the naval. (“Revealed”) Researchers from North Carolina did a study called “Belly Button Biodiversity Project”. They found 2,368 kinds of bacteria from sixty different people who had their belly buttons swabbed. Out of those bacteria they found about 1,458 were new, unidentified species. One of the patients swabbed had a particular bacteria that was only found in Japan’s soil and what is so surprising is that he/she has never visited Japan. (“1458”) Though the experiment did not say how many of the sixty people were women or men. Many third variables could be involved such as how sanitary the people were, their jobs, and their living environment conditions.

            So for all those who have gotten or will be getting their belly buttons pierced just think about all the bacteria in our belly buttons. It now makes sense why my friends have had a lot of infections from their belly button piercings.

Works Cited: 

“Belly-Buttons Key Success In Sport: Study.” AFP. 10 Oct. 2013 <http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hRv5sUxxWidc9Go7BQLl8iSIwcJw?hl=en>.

 “Belly-Buttons May Cue Potential Mate.” NBC News.com. 11 Oct. 2013  <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28934310/#.UlhK8BY546U>.

 “Revealed: The Secrets of The Belly Button Fluff.” The Telegraph. 10 Oct. 2013   <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4883791/Revealed-The-secrets-of-belly-button-fluff.html>.

 “1,458 Bacteria Species ‘New to Science’ Found in Our Belly Buttons.” The Atlantic. 10 Oct.  2013 <http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/1-458-bacteria-species-new-to-science-found-in-our-belly-buttons/266360/>.

 Photo of Usain Bolt:

<http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/7/24/1343131270005/Usain-Bolt-celebrates-007.jpg>.

 Photo of Michael Phelps:

<http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/1145/458/370/008/athelete_michael_phelps__swimmer.jpg>.

 Photo of Belly Button Lint:

<http://chickenmonkeydog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/lint-catcher.jpg>.

            In class we talked about how many experiments scientists have trouble doing due to them being unethical to humans. This effect is hard on the future of medicines because it would essentially be easier and faster to obtain information by using humans directly. This unethical subject has got me interested into if United States has ever done any unethical human studies and by surprise they have. It was called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” (“Bad”).            

           Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease and can be passed from a mother to her unborn baby. This disease is a “bacterial infection of the genital tract by the bacterium Treponema Pallidum”. During the first stage of Syphilis (between one to five weeks) the disease is extremely contagious and can be spread from person to person through contact with an ulcer or a rash located on the hands. If not taken care of early, the disease can reach the bloodstream. During the last stage the disease is no longer as contagious, though it can reach the heart and brain. This in return can cause damage to internal organs and result in death (“What”).

            The study was located in Macon City, Alabama where the Public Health Service worked along with the Tuskegee Institute due to the increasing amount of Syphilis cases. The study was only suppose to last six months but instead lasted forty years. Scientists split 600 African America men into two groups. The experiment group consisted of 399 men who had the disease and the control group had 201 men. Third variables like the ages of the men or the fact that other health problems the men could have had at that time could have played a huge role in the study that were not taken into a count. The men who participated in this study were poor and government knowing this offered the men things they couldn’t resist. This included transportation and food on the days of medical exams. The men were also told that they were being treated for “bad blood”, meaning diseases that affect the blood like: anemia and syphilis. The study began in 1932 and at that time there was no known treatment for Syphilis but by 1947 as the studies were still going on Penicillin became the main treatment for Syphilis and the government held back the medicine from their patients (“About”).

            In 1972, nearly forty years later, the writer Jean Heller from the New York Times wrote an article that had unraveled and revealed this unethical study. In 1973 about nine million dollars was given to the patients and their families, along with other benefits such as “free medical and burial services”. Then on May 16, 1997 the surviving men of the study were asked to visit the White House where President Clinton had given an apology “on behalf of the United States government” to those men. The President’s speech and a victim’s speech is in this video below and to actually read the President’s speech is located here.

            It’s scary to think that our government of the United States of America would be found secretly doing studies unethically to our people. Especially when we trust our government to make the best decisions for the people. With one study there has to be more…has anyone else found any other studies that the U.S has done unethically? If so, what was it and what was the reasoning behind their unethical study?

Works Cited: 

“About the USPHS Syphilis Study.” Tuskegee University. 4 Oct. 2013 <http://www.tuskegee.edu/about_us/centers_of_excellence/bioethics_center/about_the_usphs_syphilis_study.aspx>.

“Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study.” University of Virginia. 4 Oct. 2013 <http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/badblood/>.

“What is Syphilis? What causes Syphilis?” Medical News Today. 4 Oct. 2013

<http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/186656.php>. 

“U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee Institute.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 5 Oct. 2013 <http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm>.

Video of President’s Speech:

     <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1A-YP24QwA>.

Photo of Syphilis rash on the hands:

<http://www.knowyo.org/user_files/media/slides/307859Secondarysyphilispalmrash.jpg>.