Free Republic

[Michael] Alpers, now the Professor of International Health at Curtin University in Western Australia... tells me the story of what he found as a young doctor visiting the New Guinea highlands more than 50 years ago... It was in the field, in early 1962, Alpers first met American scientist Carleton Gajdusek, who had by then been studying kuru for several years... Unusually, the paper identified the victims Kigea and Eiru -- as well as Daisey and Georgette -- by name... Two weeks later, the paper appeared in the journal Nature. It identified kuru as a new category of infectious disease...

The remains that were found were radiocarbon-dated to be about 40,500 to 45,500 years old, and it was determined that Neanderthals butchered and used the bones of their peers as tools, according to a press release from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. The team identified 99 "uncertain" bone fragments as belonging to Neanderthals, which would make this the greatest trove of Neanderthal remains ever found north of the Alps. The findings also shed light on the genetics of this lost human species, adding to previously collected data on Neanderthal genes....

Cannibalism May Have Wiped Out Neanderthals Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Unhealthy Diets? Feb. 27, 2008 -- A Neanderthal-eat-Neanderthal world may have spread a mad cow-like disease that weakened and reduced populations of the large Eurasian human, thereby contributing to its extinction, according to a new theory based on cannibalism that took place in more recent history. Aside from illustrating that consumption of one's own species isn't exactly a healthy way to eat, the new theoretical model could resolve the longstanding mystery as to what caused Neanderthals, which emerged around 250,000 years ago, to disappear off the face of the Earth...

Neandertals' tough Stone Age lives Bruce Bower Neandertals that 43,000 years ago inhabited what's now northern Spain faced periodic food shortages and possibly resorted to cannibalism to survive, according to a new investigation. CAVE FINDS. A block of sand and clay from El Sidrón cave in Spain holds Neandertal foot bones (left) and ribs and a backbone (right). Rosas These Neandertals evolved shorter, broader faces with a less pronounced slope than northern European Neandertals did, say Antonio Rosas of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and his colleagues. Since 2000, the researchers have recovered more than 1,300 Neandertal...

The sickness spread at funerals. The Fore people, a once-isolated tribe in eastern Papua New Guinea, had a long-standing tradition of mortuary feasts — eating the dead from their own community at funerals. Men consumed the flesh of their deceased relatives, while women and children ate the brain. It was an expression of respect for the lost loved ones, but the practice wreaked havoc on the communities they left behind. That’s because a deadly molecule that lives in brains was spreading to the women who ate them, causing a horrible degenerative illness called “kuru” that at one point killed 2...

ORONTO, Jan 20th, 2005 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- The human food chain may not be as well protected from BSE as everyone hopes, scientists admitted Thursday in the wake of publication of new research showing the malformed proteins that cause the brain-wasting disease can be found in more tissues than previously thought. Experts admit the findings are worrisome, but note the additional risk, if confirmed, may still be low because it is believed there is very little bovine spongiform encephalopathy - mad cow disease - in current cattle herds. "I don't want to provoke hysteria here," senior author...

My friend, the artist Libby Hague, is an intellectual vegetarian, by which I mean she won't eat beings she regards as sentient. Chickens became safe from Libby's table the day she discovered they could play tic-tac-toe. Beings that can't pass the tic-tac-toe test are, however, fair game. Fish, for instance, are out of luck. My friend follows a beaten path. Using intellectual accomplishment to distinguish life forms that are worthy of preservation from life forms that aren't is quite traditional. The law used to make such distinction even between human beings. For instance, the original meaning of the phrase "benefit...

No matter how you cut it up, eating people is simply wrong - By Barbara Amiel (Filed: 08/12/2003) Not a few modern cannibals in the West have been German and it would be tempting to say, after reading the testimony of self-confessed cannibal Armin Meiwes, now on trial in Kassel, that eating people is a peculiarly German thing to do. But there have been some American and British cannibals, with the odd Russian as well. What may be an EU speciality is that apparently cannibalism is not a crime - though using wooden chopping boards may be. Somehow, one would...

You’ve heard of Mad Cow Disease, the scientific name of which is bovine spongiform encephalopathy — a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). TSE is an incurable fatal disease that affects the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans. Autopsies of infected brain tissue show a myriad of tiny holes in the cortex, giving it a sponge-like appearance — hence spongiform. (See below) spongy TSE-infected brain tissueThe disorder causes impairment of brain and bodily functions, including memory changes, personality changes, and problems with movement (shaking, trembling) that worsen over time. Like all TSEs, the bovine variant is...

The vice-president of HS Securities, which was involved in corporate takeover deals by internet firm Livedoor, has been found dead. Police suspect that the executive, Hideaki Noguchi, 38, committed suicide. HS Securities was among the companies raided by the special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office in connection with investigations into alleged fraudulent practices by Livedoor and its group of companies. The Tokyo-based securities house is led by Hideo Sawada, founder of major travel agency H.I.S. Company.

TOKYO, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The Nikkei share average fell over 4 percent on Wednesday after the Tokyo bourse said it would suspend trading of all shares listed on the world's second-largest stock market if the number of trades exceeds its system's capacity. The Tokyo Stock Exchange said that the number of trades totalled 2.32 million during the morning session, nearing the bourse's capacity to handle of 4 million. A raid by prosecutors on Internet portal Livedoor Co. (4753.T: Quote, Profile, Research) this week has driven many retail investors, who had been behind the market's drive higher, to sell Internet...

LONDON - A new theory proposes that mad cow disease may have come from feeding British cattle meal contaminated with human remains infected with a variation of the disease. The hypothesis, outlined this week in The Lancet medical journal, suggests the infected cattle feed came from the Indian subcontinent, where bodies sometimes are ceremonially thrown into the Ganges River. Indian experts not connected with the research pointed out weaknesses in the theory but agreed it should be investigated. The cause of the original case or cases of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is unknown, but it belongs to...

Scientists are reporting that, for the first time, they have made an artificial prion, or misfolded protein, that can, by itself, produce a deadly infectious disease in mice and may help explain the roots of mad cow disease. The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, are strong evidence for the "protein-only hypothesis," the controversial idea that a protein, acting alone without the help of DNA or RNA, a cousin of DNA, can cause certain kinds of infectious diseases. The concept was introduced in 1982 by Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurology professor at the University of California, San Francisco,...

Scientists are reporting that, for the first time, they have made an artificial prion, or misfolded protein, that can, by itself, produce a deadly infectious disease in mice and may help explain the roots of mad cow disease. The findings, being reported on Friday in the journal Science, are strong evidence for the so-called "protein only hypothesis," the controversial idea that a protein, acting alone without the help of DNA or RNA, can cause certain kinds of infectious diseases. The concept was introduced in 1982 by Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurology professor at the University of California in San Francisco,...

Misdiagnosed Green Beret Demoted, Nearly Court-Martialed Before Rare Illness Revealed By Lisa Falkenberg Associated Press Writer KARNACK, Texas (AP) - By the time he shipped out for the war in Iraq in January, Special Forces Sgt. James Alford was a wreck of a soldier. For five months, he had been doing odd things. He disappeared from Fort Campbell, Ky., for several days last year. He lost equipment and lied to superiors. In December, he was demoted from staff sergeant to sergeant. In the Kuwaiti desert, he came apart. The hotshot Green Beret who a year earlier ran circles around his...

WASHINGTON - U.S. consumers are being asked to return dog food that may have come from a Canadian cow that tested positive for mad cow disease. Pet Pantry International of Carson City, Nev., which issued the request Monday, said customers should search for two products: "Maintenance Diet" with a "use by" date of "17FEB04" and "Beef with Barley" with a date of "05MAR04. If found, the food should be held for pickup. The company's products are purchased by phone or e-mail and delivered by franchises to consumers' homes. There is no known risk to dogs and no evidence that dogs...