500 Years After Martin Luther We Have A Robot Priest

It was in Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther lived and preached that he nailed his 95 Theses, to the door of the Castle Church, on October 31, 1517. Now, 500 years later, in the same town, we have a robot priest who is again challenging religious tradition.

The robot called BlessU-2, can deliver blessings in five languages, as beams of light shine from its hands. However, whilst there is an undoubted worldwide lack of priests, the purpose of this robot, is to make people question whether a robot could ever replace a priest in his role and deliver pastoral care.

Just thinking about how my local priest had to resign a few years ago because he was carrying on with five married women in his parish and all the many other scandals in the priesthood in recent years, this robot may well be a good idea.

BlessU-2

Books To Read

The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule, by Michael Shermer.

Psychopaths in Power

Psychopaths, according to research, are prevalent in positions of power. This is because they crave the influence, authority and sense of importance that powerful positions can bring them. And mostly, psychopaths are prepared to do whatever it takes to get to where they want to go.

Psychopaths are all around us. Especially above us making the decisions and manipulating people and situations to suit their own agenda. Psychopaths will say one thing and to do another. They know how to appeal to and manipulate people, To get what they want. Which means that the powerful psychopath might say, "I understand what you want and I know how to deliver it", whilst manoeuvring and steering things to his own advantage.

Power, prestige and money are great motivating factors for most psychopaths. It is estimated that about one in five corporate bosses are psychopaths and psychopaths are over-represented in politics, where Machiavellian, ruthless-grandstanding is the order of the day.

The three personality traits which define psychopaths are referred to as the “dark triad.” They are narcissism, psychopathy and a tendency toward Machiavellian behaviour. And according to research, people with these dark tendencies seem to be skilled at making themselves more attractive to us, often by wearing flashy clothing, projecting confidence and through attractive facial expressions.

Most of us feel the powerful pull of these people with dark tendencies. This is why the brooding bad boy and the mean girls at school seem to get away with so much. The sense of power and confidence that these damaging people project really seems to beguile and attract others.

The problem is, that the rest of us are letting the psychopaths, narcissists and Machiavellian types rule our world. We are being conned by the bold and confident behaviour of these people who only wish to exploit the rest of us. We are letting these dark types build their oligarchic systems in our schools, our workplaces and our countries. As it stands, we are the puppets and they are the masters. But perhaps, one day, we can wise up and change the current state of the power play. Perhaps.


Books To Read

Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, by Robert D. Hare.

Women First Given Vote......By Accident

New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant national voting rights to women, when the Governor, Lord Glasgow, signed the Electoral Act into law on 19 September 1893.

Australia, however, was the first country in the world to give women both the right to vote in federal elections and the right to be elected to parliament on a national basis. Britain and the United States, on the other hand, did not give women the right to vote until after the First World War. Women in Saudi Arabia did not get to vote until 2015.

But women in Victoria, Australia, actually had the right to vote back in 1863, when the Electoral Act 1863 gave "all persons" listed on local municipal rolls the right to vote in elections. Some women in Victoria obviously realized they were actually "persons", and so, they took advantage of this law and voted in local elections. A newspaper article reported:

“At one of the polling booths in the Castlemaine district a novel sight was witnessed. A coach filled with ladies drove up, and the fair occupants alighted and recorded their votes.”
The Argus, 5 November 1864, p 4.

The accidental enfranchisement of women was taken away in 1865 when the law was changed.

Suffragette movement in Queensland, 1909.

The Unfortunate Inventor

The American Doctor Thomas Midgley Jr. (1889 –1944) was a mechanical engineer and chemist; he was also an inventor, but not a very good one in the end.

Whilst working for a subsidiary of General Motors in 1911, Midgley discovered that the addition of Tetraethyllead to gasoline prevented "knocking" in internal combustion engines. But instead of saying that lead was being added to petrol, the company decided to call the additive "Ethyl".

Then in 1923, Midgley had to take a bit of a holiday because he had lead poisoning. Luckily,  Midgley was a grown man, because developing children who are exposed to lead are often cognitively impaired, with lower intelligence, exhibiting aggressive behaviour, because lead competes with calcium in the cell, which is very important for brain development.

Interestingly, the lead-crime hypothesis proposes that the decrease in crime in America that began in the mid-1990s and continues today, may be due to lead being removed from petrol.

After this, Midgley was involved in the invention of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), called Freon. This substance was used refrigerators, inhalers and aerosol spray cans. Later we found out that these type of gases have depleted the ozone layer and contributed to the greenhouse effect, which is impacting natural ecosystems and biodiversity and a factor behind climate change.

These two inventions have now been banned. J. R. McNeill, an environmental historian expressed the opinion that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."

Midgley died in 1944 when he became entangled in one of his own inventions, which he had created after polio left him disabled. The system of strings and pulleys that he devised to help others lift him from bed, strangled him. At least he tried.


Books To Read

Mistakes That Worked: 40 Familiar Inventions & 40 Familiar Inventions & How They Came to Be, by Charlotte Foltz Jones.

Off With The Fairies

I have never believed in any sort of supernatural beings; people are different, after all. But I have always been mystified as to why the various gods seem only able to communicate their contradictory ideas and messages through ancient books and inside the heads of some people. And why are the gods silent when hideous violence is committed by mad people in their name. But perhaps that's just me.

Before Christianity, which is followed by 2.1 billion people and Islam (1.3 billion), there was Hinduism (900 million) and Buddhism (376 million). And before these religions, which are still practised, there was Paganism.

The Irish version of paganism was particularly imaginative and interesting with beliefs in fairies like the Leprechaun and the Banshee. The leprechaun makes an appearance in the medieval tale known as the Echtra Fergus mac Léti (Adventure of Fergus son of Léti); but their origin can probably be traced back to 8th-century tales of water spirits, which were known as ‘luchorpán’. A banshee, on the other hand, is a female spirit in Irish mythology, who predicts the death of a family member, usually by shrieking or keening. The origin of the banshee may be traced to the keening mourning women at funerals, who accepted alcohol as payment for their services and were later condemned by the church.

Banshee by Michael1010

There were lots of other fairies like the headless dullahan, a black-robed horseman, who carries his head on his saddle. He can see at great distances, even at night, but if you see him, you will be rewarded with a bowl of blood thrown in your eyes or even blindness.

The pooka is a fearsome fairy who can take many frightening forms. It roams about the county at night and the sight of it can stop the hens from laying and the cows from giving milk. If you happen to be in county Wexford and you look up and see a huge eagle, run, as it might just be a pooka. The pooka may derive from the horse cults of early Celtic times.

As an avid reader of fairy tales in my childhood, I can recall the frightening concept of the changeling, which may be a stunted and often deformed baby born to the fairy folk. These fairy folk, however, prefer a perfect human child, and so, perform a swap-see. It gets worse though, because changelings can also be demented old fairies disguised as children, or, objects such as pieces of wood which take on the appearance of a child through magic. The changeling idea may have provided an explanation for a child born who was mentally or physically impaired, in some way.

There are other fairies of course, but you may seek them out for yourself.


Books To Read


Beasts of the Frozen Sun (Frozen Sun Saga #1) by Jill Criswell - inspired in Celtic and Viking mythology.

When Only a Few Thousand Humans Lived on Earth

Between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, there occurred a very sharp decrease in the human population, so that only 3,000–10,000 individuals lived on Earth. Evidence of this very small human population is supported by genetic evidence.

Humans came very close to extinction at this time, because only about 1000 of these individual humans were capable of producing offspring. Humankind struggled to survive for thousands of years, until some time during the Stone Age.

You may have heard the theory about how climate change caused by a volcano helped to bring about the near extinction of dinosaurs (chickens still exist), well, around 70,000 B.C., a volcano called Toba, on Sumatra, in Indonesia, almost wiped out humanity.

As the largest volcanic eruption ever known, Toba poured so much ash, dust and vapour into the air that ash covered the ground and the sun's light was dimmed for about six years. Food became scarce and the Earth became cold and vegetation was wiped out.

Humanity recovered. In 1750 there were 700 million people on the planet and in 1804, the human population reached one billion individuals. Currently, human population appears to be out of control with in excess of 7.5 billion people sharing this planet.

With humanity threatening to overcome the carrying capacity of Earth, we face a future of climate change and possibly wars over diminishing and scarce resources. And yet, the subject of human population is rarely mentioned.

Books To Read

The Crack in Space is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. On a future Earth (c. 2080 CE) overwhelmed with severe difficulties related to overpopulation.

John Stuart Mill's Odd Childhood

Undoubtedly, John Stuart Mill the English philosopher was a genius who made significant contributions to social and economic theory. It was, however, his father, James Mill's intention to create a genius.

James Mill was a Scottish historian, philosopher, political theorist and economist, who had a definite education plan in mind for his son. And so, John Stuart Mill was homeschooled and taught to read at the age of two.

By the age of three, John Stuart Mill was learning Greek and by the age of eight, he was quite familiar with Xenophon's Anabasis, the writings of Herodotus, Lucian, Diogenes Laërtius, Isocrates and Plato. He also read widely and studied history, arithmetic, physics and astronomy.

Mill's father was not a warm or loving man as he regarded emotions as being akin to madness. He was also somewhat of a tyrant, as well as being self-controlled and stoic. But whilst he was greatly possessive of his son, he also berated him for his stupidity, causing John Stuart Mill, the man widely regarded as a genius, to have a life-long inferiority complex.

John Stuart Mill

Not being permitted to mix with other boys of his own age, John Stuart Mill mixed with his father's friends. Friends like Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher, another political radical. He was also denied holidays, as his father believed that such an indulgence would lead to idleness.

So John Stuart Mill spent his childhood deep in rigorous studies under the severe eye of his father, in an atmosphere of fear and repression. Though, Mill admired his father in many ways for his civic spirit, his intellect and his moral values.

As to Mill's mother, she seems to have figured little in his emotional and intellectual development; though it seems that Mill would have liked to have had a warm-hearted, sensitive and affectionate mother, she too was subjugated by her husband to be so.

This emotionally deprived childhood and the ambivalent feelings aroused in John Stuart Mill, led to a mental breakdown at the age of 20, when he descended into depression. Mill, also, had become disillusioned with some of his father's ideas and he wanted to be more independent. He described himself as a ship without a sail.

After about a year of gloom, Mill was able to enjoy "in sunshine and sky, in books, in conversation, in public affairs". And soon, he would meet Harriet Taylor, who would bring Mill lots of happiness, even though they had to wait 21 years to be married. But that is another story.  


Books To Read

Is It Just Me?, by Miranda Hart - for the clumsy and awkward.....like me.

The Guinea Pigs of Lithium

How lithium came to be used as a treatment for bipolar disorder is quite an interesting story, which began at a Mental Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Dr John Cade (1912 –1980) was an Australian psychiatrist who served in the Armed Forces during World War II. Cade, however, became a prisoner of war at Changi Prison from 1942-1945.

Little was known about the causes of bipolar disorder back in the 1940s, but Cade had the idea that patients suffering from this condition may have had a metabolic disorder, which could be ascertained by the levels of urea in their urine. He believed that mania would cause an excess of uric acid in the urine and depression, he believed, would result in a deficit of uric acid.

So Cade began to conduct experiments which involved injecting urine from mentally ill patients into the abdomen of guinea pigs; only to find that the guinea pigs injected with the urine of the mentally ill patients died much faster than those that were injected with a healthy sample of urine. 

Acting on his hypothesis, that uric acid was present in the urine samples, provided by his mentally ill patients, Cade tried to increase the water solubility of uric acid and so he added lithium urate. 

After Cade added the lithium to the guinea pig injections, he found that the animals became very docile and quiet and they did not run about in their usual manic manner.  

Before testing lithium on his patients, Cade first tested the substance on himself for a few weeks and then, he began to give lithium to one of his patients, a man who was alienated from his family and who had been living in the asylum for 30 years, called Bill. 

With the lithium, Bill began to improve and his speech and self-care became better. After a while, Bill was able to return to his job. 

Unfortunately, Bill stopped taking lithium and his mental health deteriorated and he had to return to the asylum. 

Not knowing about the toxicity of lithium at high dosages, Cade gave Bill increased amounts of lithium, in an attempt to restore Bill's sanity. In 1950, Bill died from lithium toxicity. 

Over time, more research was conducted on lithium as a treatment for bipolar disorder to establish safe and effective dosages.

There are various ways proposed that may explain how lithium may work as a mood stabiliser, such as inhibition of protein kinase C and glycogen synthase kinase 3 and inositol-depletion.


Books To Read

The Marriage Plot, by American writer Jeffrey Eugenides. The story concerns three college friends from Brown University—Madeleine Hanna, Leonard Bankhead, and Mitchell Grammaticus—beginning in their senior year, 1982, and follows them during their first year post-graduation.

Your Plastic Clothes and Inter-generational Theft and Destruction

Synthetic clothing made from nylon, polyester, acrylic, polypropylene and lycra, are made from petroleum and petroleum is a finite resource, as it takes so long to form. In fact, 70% of the world's oil deposits were formed in the Mesozoic age 252 to 66 million years ago.

When our deposits of petroleum are exhausted, they cannot be restored.

A lot of the fashion for sale today in the big shopping malls are made of synthetic fibres. These cheap, "plastic" clothes are not only awful to wear, as they make you sweat and itch, but they also look bloody awful after they are washed, and so, are often thrown out after only being worn a few times.

While clothing made from natural fibres are more easily biodegradable, synthetic fibres, generally, will outlive you. And as they sit in landfills, they shed microplastic particles into the environment. But even before you get rid of your synthetic clothes, they are releasing more than 700,000 microscopic plastic fibres in each washing load. These microplastics poison the food chain, building up in the digestive tract of animals, reducing their ability to get energy from their food, and in some cases, changing animal behaviour.

While many right-wing newspapers continue to claim that the Earth has more oil than it needs, this is not strictly true. The official industry view is that global reserves will last 53 years at current rates of consumption. But as oil reserves get ever harder to access, some countries, like the US and China, who are desperate to be self-reliant and sustain cheap sources of oil, have resorted to "fracking"; this is where high-pressure water, chemicals and sand are blasted deep into rock to release oil and gas reserves.

Fracking can contaminate underground water supplies, cause minor earthquakes and release toxic wastewater into the surrounding environment. Canada also produces around 1.9 million barrels of oil a day from tar sands, which Al Gore, the climate activist has described as "the dirtiest source of liquid fuel you can imagine".

But this sense of entitlement that many of us have, when we buy and quickly discard cheap, plastic clothing, has more than huge environmental costs. We are also, essentially, stealing from our children and following generations, who will have to deal with the results of this outrageous material consumption, as they, at the same time, are denied a share in the bounty, as resources are fast depleting.

In past generations, most people were thrifty and frugal, buying clothing of quality, which would last. Virtues that we should resurrect in this era of narcissistic, "I deserve it", consumption; because, the world's human population is still growing and more people are wanting to buy more and more clothes. The earth's resources and its environment have limits, but the squandering and degradation continues as I type this page.

Books To Read

The Stone Gods, by Jeanette Winterson. This novel opens on the planet Orbus, a world very like Earth, running out of resources.

The Right Yoghurt Helps Social Anxiety and Depression

The microbiome consists of those populations of bacteria that live in our gut. And scientists have been studying the environment of the human microbiome, to see how it affects our health.

Interestingly, stress-related disorders significantly change our gut bacterial populations and this can affect our immunity, neural function, and behaviour, because of the importance of gut-to-brain signalling, via the vagus nerve. 

A particular strain of bacteria called Lactobacillus rhamnosus appears to modulate GABA receptor expression, and modulate the development of anxiety and depression.

Chronic severe stress is associated with inflammation and the susceptibility to gastrointestinal dysfunction. Also, there appears to be strong evidence for a relationship between gastrointestinal symptoms and psychiatric disorders.

Gut dysbiosis can promote anxiety and cognitive dysfunction like behaviours, which are correlated with increased activation within the brain, including the amygdala, which is the brain's fear centre. Adding Lactobacillus rhamnosus to the diet, however, has reduced anxiety and depression-like behaviours.

As an added bonus, probiotics can also have positive effects on blood sugar and weight loss, because the formation of short-chain fatty acids (acetate, propionate and butyrate) by the gut microbiota, have positive effects on hepatic lipid and glucose homoeostasis.

Just remember to avoid the sugar-laden varieties of yoghurt when you are making your selection.




References
 

Fermented Milk Containing Lactobacillus casei Strain Shirota Preserves the Diversity of the Gut Microbiota and Relieves Abdominal Dysfunction in Healthy Medical Students Exposed to Academic Stress Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2016 82 (12) 3649-3658

Gut Microbiota and Brain Function: An Evolving Field in Neuroscience Int J Neuropsychopharmacol 2016 19 (5) pyv114

Gut microbiota, obesity and diabetes Postgrad. Med. J. 2016 92 (1087) 286-300

Systematic review of evidence to support the theory of psychobiotics Nutr Rev 2015 73 (10) 675-693

Bested, A. C., Logan, A. C., & Selhub, E. M. (2013). Intestinal microbiota, probiotics and mental health: from Metchnikoff to modern advances: part III – convergence toward clinical trials. Gut Pathogens, 5, 4. http://doi.org/10.1186/1757-4749-5-4 

 

Luo J, Wang T, Liang S, Hu X, Li W, Jin F (2014) Ingestion of Lactobacillus strain reduces anxiety and improves ... of Lactobacillus strain regulates emotional behavior and central GABA receptor expression in a mouse via the vagus nerve. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 

Morrison, D. J., & Preston, T. (2016). Formation of short chain fatty acids by the gut microbiota and their impact on human metabolism. Gut Microbes, 7(3), 189–200. http://doi.org/10.1080/19490976.2015.1134082 

 

The Snail Cure

In eighteenth-century Norfolk, England, a common cough cure involved brewing a broth of boiled snails or "dodmans" as they called them. Snails were regarded as handy little critters as their slime was considered to be an important folk-medicine treatment for "straightening children's deformed limbs."

Snails have also been used to treat warts; all you had to do was get the snail to "walk" over the wart. Snail slime has also been used as a treatment for thrush (er, what?) and a snail soaked in vinegar and rolled in flour was reckoned a good treatment for rheumatism.

Before the advent of evidence-based medicine, it was believed that if you sprained your wrist, you could cure this malady by tying a red cloth soaked in urine around the damaged wrist. However, treatment was slightly more difficult to achieve in the Scottish Highlands, as a thread made from the sinew of a "rutting stag", was required!

Urine was a useful remedy in times of war, as having someone wee on your wound was an efficient way to clean it, as urine is generally sterile. The Roman's went one step further and made mouthwash and toothpaste out of their urine. But that's a wee bit daft. No?

Crossing the ocean to North America, a common treatment for a sore throat involved tying a strip of bacon, or other meat around your throat, which could later serve for lunch. However, if you wanted to get rid of an ugly wart, you would need to acquire some "stolen meat", to rub on the wart.  Though, if you couldn't manage to steal some meat, then you could try another remedy, which required rubbing the wart with the morning spit of a dog.

In Germany, during the Middle Ages, if you were suffering from a tooth-ache, you couldn't just go to a dentist, as this job didn't exist yet. You could, however, look for a donkey and kiss it to get some relief. Or, you could try another remedy for tooth-ache, which involved drinking a solution of powered human skull. Well, that is what people believed.

North American folk medicine also had weird remedies for baby teething problems, as the bone from the head of a hog, or a mole's foot, was recommended as a cure.

The Irish, not to be left out, boiled sheep-poo in milk to treat whooping-cough, which is creative, to say the least. But then, the resourceful Ancient Egyptians, applied bat blood to the eyes of the blind, as they reasonably noted that bats had great eye sight. But, like many pre-scientific people, the Egyptians also thought that illness was caused by devils or the evil-eye of your neighbour.


Books To Read


Celtic Legends: Heroes and Warriors, Myths and Monsters, by Michael Kerrigan.

A Few Random Tales of Blood

With a Kiss 

If you were a teenager in the 1970s and 80s, then perhaps, you were a fan of the American rock band KISS, who were a pretty outrageous outfit, with their comic-like outfits and dramatic antics, like Gene Simmons trick of spitting "blood" (actually a mixture of raw egg whites, strawberry syrup and red food colour).

KISS were also right into merchandising and they have actually made more money from selling merchandise, than any other band in history. So diverse was the KISS range that it included condoms, lunch boxes and even custom-made coffins, complete with KISS decorations. One of their other more interesting offerings was a  1977 Marvel Comic, with blood from KISS band members mixed in with the red ink of the comic's pictures.

From Boys to Men

The Chambri people who come from Papua New Guinea, believe that humans evolved from Sepik River crocodiles. As part of their blood initiation ceremonies, to mark the transition of boys to men, they would cut slits which resemble the scales of a crocodile, into the boys' skin, then rub clay and tree oil into the cuts.

By George!

George III of Great Britain and Ireland (1738-1820), was deeply devout and spent hours in prayer. However, he is also remembered for losing the American colonies and going mad. Over the years, it has become a common story to claim that George was not suffering a mental illness, but that he was suffering from the genetic disease porphyria, which occurs when cells fail to change porphyrins and porphyrin precursors into heme, the substance that makes blood red. However, it is more likely that King George had bipolar disorder type 1.

A study of samples of King George's hair published in 2005, did find high levels of arsenic, which could have triggered the disease porphyria, but recent analysis suggests that he had a psychiatric illness like bipolar disorder.

Blood Justice

When the British set up the penal colony in New South Wales in 1788, the Aboriginal people appeared to be appalled by British forms of justice, which involved hangings and floggings. Likewise, the British were shocked by Aboriginal blood justice, which involved the drawing of blood by leg spearing and the obligation of the tribe to seek revenge for murder by slaying either the murderer or someone closely related to him. In one case in May 1792, this meant that the murderer walked free, while a young girl paid the blood debt with her death.


Books To Read

The Commonwealth of Thieves, by Tom Keneally. Transporting shiploads of prisoners to that “preposterously distant coast.”

Our Ancient DNA Matches

Like many people, I have had a DNA test to have a look at my ancestral origins. In general, there were no huge surprises, except that I was a lot more Irish than I would have thought.

The DNA tests that are available at ANCESTRY and  23andME can give you a good idea where your ancestors came from in the last few thousand years and for many people, these tests can provide surprises, as it did for some of the residents of an entire Bondi apartment, in Australia, who took Ancestry DNA tests.

When Bondi apartment dweller, Theo Athanasopoulos was asked, ‘What do you think you’ll find’? Before the test, he said, 'Basically Greek, Greek, and more Greek'. Mostly his DNA origins were Greek but 18% of his DNA was European East and 2% Asia South.

In the same apartment block, Nina Holand who hailed from a Norwegian background found out that she is actually a quarter Irish, with traces of South Asia.

Interestingly, the original hunter-gatherer populations of Ireland were overwhelmed by two major populations who migrated into Ireland more than 8000 years ago from the southern Mediterranean and the Pontic steppe of southern Russia. These populations mixed together and about 4000 years ago the Irish genome became distinctive. It is also thought that the ancient Russian language is the basis of the modern, Irish language.

If you would like to get an idea about the more ancient origins of your DNA, you can download your raw DNA data and upload it to GEDmatch (free). These archaic matches compare your DNA with the bodies of ancient people who have been found and whose DNA has been sequenced.

Whilst the vast majority of my DNA is European, I have some interesting remnants of the extinct subspecies of human, the Denisovans. Denisovan DNA was extracted from a tooth fossil found in the remote Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia.

According to DNA analysis, it has been found that modern humans, Neanderthals, and the Denisovan hominin last shared a common ancestor around 1 million years ago. Denisovans are, however, a sister group to the Neanderthals, and they probably interbred with modern humans about 100 generations after they interbred with Neanderthals.

Denisova Cave,Siberia, Russia

Most non-Africans have a little bit Neanderthal DNA. But those of South Asian descent tend to have a bit of Denisovan DNA.

Analysis of DNA also reveals a complex web of interbreeding between Denisovan, Neanderthal, and human genomes. However, 8% of the Denisovan genome comes from interbreeding with an unknown species from Asia one million years ago.

The mainstream view on human evolution is that Homo erectus was in Africa two million years ago and Homo heidelbergensis evolved about 600,000 years ago. Heidelbergensis moved out of Africa about 400,000 years ago and separated, forming two populations; one went west and the other east. These groups evolved separately with the eastern populations becoming the Denisovian and the Western population becoming the Neanderthals. Heidelbergensis, however, remained in Africa and evolved into homo sapiens.

Asian scientists, however, contend that East Asia played a central role in human evolution and while this is not yet accepted, the discovery of the 15,000-year-old, Hobbit, or Homo floresiensis, a one metre tall human with a brain the size of a grapefruit, from the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, has raised some interesting questions.

Oh, and before I go, did you know that red hair was probably common amongst the Neanderthals? Mutations on the melanocortin 1 receptor gene (MCR1) account for red hair and pale skin.

Bacteria and Corruption

You may have heard about Antibiotic resistance, which occurs when bacteria undergo changes (mutations) which result in antibiotics no longer working. Well, interestingly, researchers have linked this antibiotic resistance with poor governance and corruption around the world. The effect of corruption is significantly larger than the use of antibiotics, in explaining variations in drug resistance between countries.

The research, which is published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that countries with higher levels of corruption also often had less rigorous, less transparent processes and fewer controls which were effective in areas related to antibiotic resistance. Unsurprisingly, it was found that bacterial resistance levels were higher when a country's healthcare was mostly controlled by the private sector. However, an even more important aspect of antibiotic resistance is a country's quality of governance.

In Europe, the Scandinavian countries had the lowest levels of antibiotic resistance, which is unsurprising when their high quality of governance and high levels of education and universal health care are taken into consideration. Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Latvia, however, score poorly on all these and have the highest prevalence of antibiotic-resistant strains.

India is well known for its level of pervasive public and private sector corruption. It ranked 94 out of 176 countries in the Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International (2012) and the proliferation of deadly and untreatable antibiotic-resistant bacteria in also at epidemic proportions in India. Tellingly, the New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1, an enzyme that rendered bacteria resistant to a broad spectrum of antibiotics, takes its name from this country.

Less corrupt countries tend to have established institutional bodies and procedures which regulate antibiotic use, and this regulation, and the control of drugs seems to be integral to controlling the increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

Books To Read

American War, by Omar El - set in a world ravaged by climate change.

Three Really Amazing Savants

Kim Peek (1951 – 2009)

Savant syndrome is rare. Paradoxically, the syndrome involves having some genius capabilities in the presence of mental disabilities, or brain injuries.
About 50% of savants also have autism and according to Professor Darold A. Treffert, around one in ten people with autism have savant skills.

Kim Peek

Kim Peek was the inspiration for the character of Raymond Babbitt, in the movie Rain Man, played by Dustin Hoffman. He had a rare genetic disorder called Opitz-Kaveggia syndrome, and was missing part of the brain which joins the two brain hemispheres together, called the corpus callosum.

From the movie Rainman

Peek had incredible memory skills. For example, he could memorise whole books. It is believed that he had committed to memory 12,000 books, including the whole Bible. He could also read two pages at once; one page with each eye. However, while Peek had amazing memory skills, he scored badly on IQ testing and he had problems with abstract language, like metaphors.

Peek was a natural "split-brain" patient. Split-brain surgery is usually performed on epilepsy patients. This type of surgery involves severing the corpus callosum (part of the brain which connects left and right cerebral hemispheres) to relieve seizures. Communication between the two sides of the brain is inhibited because the corpus callosum facilitates and integrates communication between the brain's right and left hemispheres. The different hemispheres may then sometimes issue conflicting information. For example, one patient attempted to hit his wife with one hand, while his other hand tried to stop this violent assault (Gazzaniga and Sperry).

Leslie Lemke (1952-

Born prematurely, Leslie Lemke was diagnosed with glaucoma, cerebral palsy and brain damage and doctors also had to remove his eyes. A nurse adopted Lemke when he was six months old after his own mother put him up for adoption. For 7 years, Leslie showed no development, he did not show emotion, move, or make any sound. His mother, May, however, devised a therapy, and finally, at the age of 12, he learnt to walk.

One night May stayed up watching the Sunday night movie, which featured Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. At this time, Leslie was aged 16 and that night, May found him playing this same music from the movie, alone in the middle of the night, on the piano. Leslie had never learnt music, or indeed, had any piano lessons. Soon he was playing all styles of music, from ragtime to classical. Not bad for someone who had never had a music lesson in his life!

Daniel Tammet

Daniel Tammet was born in 1979 and he is an extremely clever autistic savant. As a young child, Daniel suffered from epilepsy. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree and he has written a memoir called, Born on a Blue Day and other books. Daniel Tammet is most notable for his ability as a mathematical genius; being capable of lightning fast astronomical calculations. And he's a gifted linguist speaking nine languages. He learned conversational Icelandic in one week.

Books To Read

Born on a Blue Day, by Daniel Tammet.