From the appearance of a modified appearance on the back of some people’s skulls to our surprise when we learn that our elbows are getting narrower, our skeletons are actually changing in remarkable ways. amazing.
It all started with a goat. The unlucky animal was born in the Netherlands in the spring of 1939 and the goat’s future was not good either. On the left side of the goat’s body there is a patch of hair marking where its front legs should be. On the right side of the body, the front leg is deformed, it is more like a hoof than a foot. Such deformed legs and feet make it difficult for the goat to walk.
At 3 months old, the little goat was adopted by a veterinary institute and he was brought to a pasture. In the new place, the goat immediately improvises a new way to survive: It pushes its hind legs forward, the goat learns to stand up on those legs and jump on its own. As a result, instead of walking, the goat will jump like kangaroos and rabbits. Sadly after his first birthday, the goat got into an accident and died. But people have discovered something magical right in its skeleton.
For centuries, scientists thought that human bones were a fixed mass, that they developed in a predictable way, or that they inherited traits inherited from parents.
Ruins of house – grave of Chief Taga, the supreme leader who once ruled on Tinian Island, Marianna Islands (Philippines).
But a Dutch anatomist examining the poor goat’s skeleton noticed that its hip and hind legs were thicker than usual, while the bones in the ankles had elongated. Finally, the goat’s toes and hips are irregularly angled to accommodate the upright stance. The goat skeleton begins in a way that prepares it for hopscotch.
In museums they display human bones that are usually white, but in fact the bones underneath the human flesh are pink with many blood vessels that look very alive, miraculously broken bones have the ability to heal themselves.
So each human skeleton is developed according to a rough pattern dictated by DNA, but it is then adjusted to fit the stresses the person faces throughout their life. This led to a skeleton called the “Skeletal History” (“skeleton biography”), roughly speaking, observing the bone to understand how its owner lived.
And the growth of spikes on the backs of many people’s skulls shows that our jawbones are getting smaller and smaller , and today’s young Germans are having narrower elbows than ever before, which is obviously life Modern life is having a profound impact on human bones.
Take a powerful example of how skeletons work in relation to the people of the Mariana Islands. The story goes that a male skeleton was discovered on Tinian Island (about 1,600 nautical miles (or 2,560 km) off the east coast of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean) in 1924.
The skeleton dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries. Observation of the skull, arm bones, collarbone and shin bones shows that this man was extremely muscular and unusually tall. The discovery of the remains shows that it corresponds to the myth of the giants who once ruled the island of Tinian.
Archaeologists call the remains the Taotao Tagga (Tagga giant) because it relates to a legendary chieftain named Taga, who was famous for his superhuman strength. When other graves were discovered one after another, it revealed the fact that Tinian Island was surrounded by many islands and lived on it was home to a race of extremely warlike people.
But where did their excellent health come from? In Taga’s case, he was interred in a tomb erected by 12 giant stone pillars. A closer examination of Taga’s skeleton along with others revealed that they were similar to those found on the Tonga Islands (South Pacific), where people often built houses and crafted objects. with huge rocks.
The largest house on Tinian Island has pillars up to 5m high and each column weighs nearly 13 tons (equivalent to the body weight of 2 adult African elephants). In fact, these people have gained unparalleled strength through hard work. If in the future, the same techniques are applied to living humans in 2019, scientists can find changes in the human skeleton that reflect our modern lifestyle.
David Shahar, a medical scientist at the University of The Sunshine Coast (Australia) said: “I’ve been a doctor for 20 years, but only in the past decade have I seen the skulls of many unusually large clients. The spike-like feature commonly known as the ” outside protrusion” is found below the skull (above the neck).You can feel it yourself by pressing your finger against it, or if if you’re bald it’s very noticeable from the back of your neck. Until recently, such a development was thought to be extremely rare.”
In 1885, when the convex bone was first investigated, the famous French scientist-Paul Broca complained that it had a confusing name. Sensing something strange, Mr. David Shahar decided to investigate. Together with colleagues, Shahar analyzed thousands of X-rays of the skulls of people aged 18 to 86 years old. They measured any spikes and recorded the individual’s posture. The results were impressive.
Bone spurs are more prominent than expected and are often concentrated in the youngest group of people: one in four people between the ages of 18 and 30 will have a spur. Scientist David Shahar thinks the spike in bone spurs is influenced by modern technology and is linked to smartphones and tablets. Skulls with developed spines will weigh the equivalent of 4.5 kg, or the size of a large watermelon.
When we sit upright, the weights are balanced on our spine. But when we lean forward to take care of our social media feeds, our necks are stretched to keep it balanced. Doctors call it “neck pain syndrome”.
Spending a lot of time on smart apps that transform our skulls.
Scientist David Shahar thinks the spikes are formed by the posture creating pressure where the neck muscles attach to the skull – and the body responds by laying down layers of fresh bone. These help the skull adapt to sub-depression by spreading the weight evenly over a wide area. Neck strain is related to the amount of time we spend with our noses at our smart phones instead of the way people used to read books.
Before 1973, the average American spent two hours reading a day, but today people spend twice as much time on their phones. Really, how big are the spikes?
During his research, Mr. Shahar marveled: “Spikes are only 30mm long. It’s possible that modern spines will never go away, but only grow forever – but it shouldn’t cause problems for the body. our bodies”.
In Germany, scientists have discovered another anomalous development: our elbows are shrinking. Christiane Scheffler, an anthropologist at the University of Potsdam (Germany), was studying how to measure bones from schoolchildren when she noticed this tendency. To see how the human skeleton has changed over time, Ms. Scheffler conducted a study of “big-bone children” between 1999 and 2009.
This has to do with the child’s “frame index” : comparing a person’s height to the width of the elbow, then she compared the results with the same 10-year study, and discovered that the Children’s bones become fragile over time.
Mrs. Scheffler froze: “What is the reason for this change?” Ms. Scheffler’s first idea might have been genetics, but it’s hard to see how the population of DNA could change in 10 years; the second idea is that perhaps children are malnourished, but this is not so serious in Germany; The third idea is that today’s young people are too inactive.
To prove it, Ms. Scheffler and her colleagues conducted a new study: she asked children to find out their daily habits over the course of a week. The team found a strong link between the young skeletons and the amount of travel time they took.
Ms. Scheffler explains: “Every time we use our muscles, it also helps to increase bone mass to support them. bigger bones)”.
The shrinking skeletons of children appear to be more adapted to modern lifestyles. Besides, walking is the only type of exercise that makes a big impact. Ms. Scheffler thinks that even the most avid sports lover actually spends very little time working out, noting: “It’s better to work out muscle twice a week than spending time walking the streets. Evolutionary history says that prehistoric humans used to walk up to 30km a day.”
The ultimate surprise has been lurking in our bones for hundreds of years and has only recently been discovered.
Back in 2011, Mrs. Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel of the State University of New York at Buffalo, was studying skulls. As an anthropologist, Mrs. Cramon-Taubadel wanted to understand where a person came from by looking at the shape of the skull. To answer her difficult question, Mrs. Cramon-Taubadel visited museums around the world just to compare skulls, and measure them.
The odd part of Cramon-Taubadel’s skull study is the jawbone . It is clear that instead of being determined by genetics, the shape of the jawbone has been interpreted in two ways: 1- the person grew up in a hunter-gatherer society; 2- they grew up in a community dependent on agriculture.
The protruding upper teeth are longer than the lower teeth, which affects human speech.
According to Ms. Cramon-Taubadel, the jawbone changes with the time we chew food to grow.
Ms. Cramon-Taubadel explains: “The jawbone changes in proportion to the adolescent’s skeleton, which is still developing. At that age, the bones are still malleable and they respond to different pressures. In In modern societies – where food is often soft and looks delicious – we can clean the food without chewing it first. Less chewing makes the jaw muscles weaker. Another idea is to reduce time. breastfeed babies – as weaning mothers vary widely – and start forcing babies to start chewing on harder foods.”
Ms. Cramon-Taubadel pointed out: “The main problem was in the post-industrial communities, when people often suffered from dental diseases: tooth loss, crooked teeth. Now, research shows that a More rigorous diets, especially in children, may be useful in combating imbalances between tooth development and body growth.”
There is also another unexpected thing, which is the change between jaws and teeth that has affected the ability to speak in humans. A recent study shows that, precisely in Neolithic agrarian society (about 12,000 years ago), the change in the upper jaw protruding more than the lower jaw created new pronunciations such as such as the sounds “”f” and “v”.
Research estimates that languages have evolved with the way people speak, from when only 3% of sounds were difficult to hear to 76% today. And one last thing, the best way to keep disease from spreading when people die is cremation!