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

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.

He Got Amnesia From a Cold Virus

Imagine that you are an accomplished musicologist and conductor, confident in your outstanding abilities and successful in your career; an acknowledged expert.

Then one particular day, you contract a cold virus, nothing new in that, you think. But, the virus causes a brain infection and suddenly, your memory is deleted and your ability to make new memories is catastrophically impaired.

This scenario above happened to Clive Wearing in 1985. Every moment he is awake, it is like he just woke up. His memory span is only a few seconds.

In the beginning, Mr Wearing began keeping a journal. Every few minutes, he would write the time and then the words, "This time properly awake", crossing out the same words that he had written only minutes before. 

It was like he was trying to assert his existence and find himself. But his memory span was only a few seconds and Mr Wearing could never find any continuity of self. In those few seconds of consciousness, he thought that he had been dead and somehow woken up.

In a diary provided by his caretakers, Wearing was encouraged to record his thoughts. Page after page is filled with entries similar to the following:

8:31 AM: Now I am really, completely awake.
9:06 AM: Now I am perfectly, overwhelmingly awake.
9:34 AM: Now I am superlatively, actually awake.

Tragically. Mr Wearing remembered his wife and his love for her. Why tragic you ask? Well, because, every few minutes, it was like he saw her for the first time, after the horrifying experience of not knowing what had happened to him and being surrounded by strangers, in a place he did not know. Minute after minute, during a hospital visit, he would react with extreme passion, love and distress.

The scars on his brain and damage to his memory, however, enabled Mr Wearing to retain some memories, but they were out of wack in many ways. He knew he was married, but couldn't describe his wife; he knew he had children, but thought they were much younger.

Strangely Mr Wearing also began to speak and write backwards, very skilfully and fast and showing that despite the brain damage, there is some wonderful wit and intelligence still thriving.

Are Some Animals Immortal?

It seems that some animals possess biological immortality...at least in theory.

Lobsters

As they age, older lobsters become more fertile than younger lobsters. Lobsters, also, don't seem to die from old age, but due to being eaten by predators, or humans, or due to wasting by parasitic infestation.

Scientists who study lobsters, do not have a way of working out the age of lobsters accurately, but it is believed that a lobster in the wild can reach a lifespan of 100 years. Lobsters when studied, show high levels of telomerase, an enzyme which repairs DNA sequences, and this seems to be their fountain of youth.

Immortal Jelly Fish

The immortal jellyfish

The immortal jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii, grows from a polyp into an adult and then it is able to reverse the cycle and become a polyp again. The jellyfish goes through the life cycle, growing into an adult, creating offspring, but instead of dying, it reverts back into a polyp.

Hydra

Hydra freshwater polyps don't appear to age and appear to be immortal. These tiny creatures do not mate but reproduce by budding; to do this they require a good supply of stem cells. The gene FoxO, which is also evident in humans, seems to be one of the important drivers of this continued renewal in the hydra and research on these creatures is providing important evidence about human ageing.

Planarian Flatworms

Scientists at the University of Nottingham have proved that these flatworms can regenerate indefinitely. Like the lobsters, the telomerase enzyme appears to be the important longevity factor. Of note, these creatures are hermaphrodites, possessing both testicles and ovaries. Also, if a worm is cut into pieces, they can regenerate into a complete organism. And if the head of a planariais is cut down the middle, the organism can grow two heads and continue living.

Tardigrade

Tardigrades which are known as waterbears, or moss piglets, can survive in very extreme conditions, withstanding water temperature from zero to well above the boiling point. They can be found in the deepest ocean and can survive the vacuum of outer space (taken on FOTON-M3 mission) and solar radiation, gamma radiation, ionic radiation, at levels hundreds of times that which would kill humans. They can also survive a decade without water, by entering a state called cryptobiosis. Their ability to withstand such extremes, which would kill other animals, is due to the use of trehalose, a nonreducing sugar.

Tardigrade

However. tardigrades are only 1.5 mm long and they mostly spend their time sucking the juice out of moss and algae. To survive extreme conditions, these animals can slow their metabolism down to extreme levels called "Tönnchenform" and stay like that for decades. This has helped tardigrades, as a species, survive for 500 million years. 

Pope Benedict: Was He a Demon from Hell?

The man who was referred to as "a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest", was actually Pope Benedict IX (c. 1012 – c. 1056). He was named Theophylactus of Tusculum at birth and he had some powerful relations, as he was the son of Alberic III and nephews to Count of Tusculum, Pope Benedict VIII and Pope John XIX. Benedict was also the great-grandson of Marozia, a female Roman politician, who was said to be the mistress of Pope Sergius III.

Benedict IX did not come to the papal chair honestly, as his father secured the position for him.

Sources differ as to the age of Benedict IX when he became pope. Some say age 11 or 12 and others 18-20. However, what seems evident, is that this pope was as debauched and corrupt as they come.

For a start, Bishop Benno of Piacenza accused Benedict IX of "many vile adulteries and murders". Pope Victor III, in his third book of Dialogues referred to "his rapes, murders and other unspeakable acts. His life as a pope was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it". And in his Liber Gomorrhianus, Saint Peter Damian accused Benedict IX of routine sodomy and bestiality and sponsoring orgies.

Benedict IX was, however, the pope three times; the first time lasting from his election to his expulsion in favour of Sylvester III (October 1032 – September 1044). The second time, from his return to his selling the papacy to Gregory VI (April – May 1045) . And the third, from his return after the death of Clement II to the advent of Damasus II (November 1047 – July 1048).

This king among men, not only sold the job of being pope (because he wanted to marry) to John Gratian, his godfather, who became Pope Gregory VI, but when Benedict's marriage fell through, he wanted his old job back. He kept the money from the sale, though.

Benedict may have wanted his old job back, but Gregory VI also wanted the job and there was another contender too, Sylvester III, who had become pope when Benedict was thrown out of the job (confused!).

With three contending for the job of pope, King Henry III of Germany invaded Rome and installed a German bishop, Pope Clement II. Benedict, however, was suspected of poisoning Clement when he died after serving 11 months in the job of pope. Benedict, then, became pope again for the third time.

Of course, this is a mere outline of a despicable, yet colourful character.


 Books To Read

Dark History: Catholic Church: Schisms, Wars, Inquisitions, Witch Hunts, Scandals, Corruption (A Dark History Series) by Michael Kerrigan