The oldest case of TB

Researchers have long suspected that tuberculosis only dated back a few thousand years, no time at all, evolutionarily speaking. But an international team of scientists from the U.S., Germany and Turkey report this week in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology that it found evidence of the disease in a 500,000-year-old hominid fossil unearthed in western Turkey. Prior to the discovery, paleontologists believed that the oldest cases of the ailment dated back several thousand years in mummies from Egypt and Peru. The research team, including John Kappelman, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, believe the specimen of Homo erectusfound was a young male; they found small lesions characteristic of Leptomeningitis tuberculosa, a form of TB that attacks the meninges of the brain. The scientists said the finding strengthens the theory that dark-skinned people who migrate northward from low-latitude, tropical areas with stronger sunlight produce less vitamin D; deficiencies in this vitamin can weaken the bones and immune system, inviting TB and other diseases. People with darker skin produce less vitamin D, because melanin (skin pigment) blocks more of the sun's ultraviolet rays, which stimulate vitamin D production in the body. (University of Texas at Austin)

When the (matrimonial) fire dies, global warming heats up

Seems divorce not only hurts splitting couples but it also takes a toll on the environment. As if ending a marriage isn't punishing enough, now comes a new study that notes skyrocketing divorce rates have led to more households with fewer people, taking up more space and consuming more energy and water. "Not only the United States, but also other countries…are having more divorced households," said study co-author Jianguo "Jack" Liu, a researcher at Michigan State University. "The consequent increases in consumption of water and energy and using more space are being seen everywhere." The study compared married households with households that had been through marriage, divorce and remarriage. Among the findings, published in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA: In the U.S. alone in 2005 divorced households used 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water that could have been saved had household size remained the same as that of married households; 38 million extra rooms were needed with associated costs for heating and lighting; between 1998 and 2002 there could have been 7.4 million fewer households in the U.S. and 11 other countries, including Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Greece and South Africa, if divorced households had combined to have the same average size as that of married people. (The number of rooms per person in divorced households was 33 percent to 95 percent greater than in married ones.) Also, the number of divorced households in these countries ranged from 40,000 in Costa Rica to almost 16 million in the U.S. around 2000. "People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change," Liu said, "but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered." Just in case untying the knot didn't make you feel guilty enough…. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA) [http://www.pnas.org/]

Parting—Er, plugging the Red Sea for hydroelectric power

Researchers believe that damming the Red Sea could deliver as much as 50 gigawatts of power to the Middle East, alleviating growing energy demands in the region. There's a catch, though: Such a massive engineering project could potentially also damage the environment and displace people from their homes if, as predicted, the dam simultaneously lowered the Red Sea's level by about 6.5 feet (two meters) annually (eventually killing off food sources) while causing a slight rise in the levels of the surrounding oceans, Roelof Dirk Schuiling, a geochemical engineer with Utrecht University in the Netherlands, reports in the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues. A project as ambitious as plugging the Red Sea isn't viewed as an immediate fix, but there is a comparable project underway to dam the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance of the Persian Gulf to exploit the evaporative cycle and influx of seawater to generate vast quantities of hydroelectricity. Schuiling says that before the Red Sea is tapped for power, experts would have to weigh the pros (reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on oil) and cons (the disruption to local marine life and increase in salinity of the remaining seawater as well as the impact on tourism and transportation). Ultimately, decision makers may nix such drastic change in the already politically volatile region, but that sure is a lot of energy. (The largest nuke plant in the U.S. has an output of just 3.2 gigawatts.)

1 Comments

1. 1. jcfrickpa 06:21 PM 12/9/07

   Once again, nature wins!

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this