Oct 24, 2021 10:55 PM
(This post was last modified: Oct 25, 2021 05:36 PM by C C.)
Mystery of the environmental triggers for cancer deepens
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021...er-deepens
EXCERPTS: Scientists will have to rethink how environmental triggers allow tumours to form and develop, one of Britain’s leading cancer experts warned last week. Michael Stratton, director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said recent results from an international cancer research study – which aimed to pinpoint environmental triggers involved in oeosophageal cancer – indicated current scientific understanding of tumour formation was inadequate.
The research – on a type known as oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma – was aimed at uncovering why certain parts of the world suffer extremely high rates of the disease. These areas include parts of Iran, Turkey, Kenya and China where the disease is the most common form of cancer. In many other parts of the world, its incidence is relatively low.
The study, published last week in Nature Genetics, indicates that scientists will have to think more broadly about the factors that cause cancer, Stratton added.[...] “Yes, external factors can trigger oesophageal squamous carcinoma – but not by directly causing mutations. In other words, we have found evidence that chemicals might be able to work in different ways other than directly causing mutations to increase a person’s chances of developing cancer. That is the message we need to take from this study – which has been backed by experiments on animals. We will have to rethink our ideas about the way in which some cancers develop. It is a crucial lesson.” (MORE - missing details)
Ants could help explain why our brains mysteriously shrank thousands of years ago
https://www.sciencealert.com/ants-could-...-years-ago
EXCERPTS: In the 6 million years since our ancestors first branched off from our ancient primate relatives, the volume of the human brain has nearly quadrupled. What many people don't realize, however, is that sometime after the last ice age, that very brain actually began to shrink.
The result is that today, our brains are slightly smaller than those of early humans living 100,000 years ago, and yet no one really knows when or why this happened. Now, a biological anthropologist, a behavioral ecologist, and an evolutionary neurobiologist have put their heads together and offered up an intriguing new hypothesis.
It's based on the evolutionary history of a brain a million times smaller than our own: that of the humble ant. [...] When researchers analyzed models of the brain size, structure, and energy use of worker ants, they found evidence the organ had adapted to become more efficient in social groups. Perhaps, the authors suggest, the human brain has been similarly shaped by collective intelligence, where knowledge can be shared and distributed among a colony or community.
With the dawn of human society, they further explain, human knowledge could be externalized and passed on to others in the group, distributing information among multiple people instead of storing it all in each person. The cutting of this 'intellectual fat' could, theoretically, free up the brain to become more efficient at a smaller number of jobs... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.742639
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021...er-deepens
EXCERPTS: Scientists will have to rethink how environmental triggers allow tumours to form and develop, one of Britain’s leading cancer experts warned last week. Michael Stratton, director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said recent results from an international cancer research study – which aimed to pinpoint environmental triggers involved in oeosophageal cancer – indicated current scientific understanding of tumour formation was inadequate.
The research – on a type known as oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma – was aimed at uncovering why certain parts of the world suffer extremely high rates of the disease. These areas include parts of Iran, Turkey, Kenya and China where the disease is the most common form of cancer. In many other parts of the world, its incidence is relatively low.
The study, published last week in Nature Genetics, indicates that scientists will have to think more broadly about the factors that cause cancer, Stratton added.[...] “Yes, external factors can trigger oesophageal squamous carcinoma – but not by directly causing mutations. In other words, we have found evidence that chemicals might be able to work in different ways other than directly causing mutations to increase a person’s chances of developing cancer. That is the message we need to take from this study – which has been backed by experiments on animals. We will have to rethink our ideas about the way in which some cancers develop. It is a crucial lesson.” (MORE - missing details)
Ants could help explain why our brains mysteriously shrank thousands of years ago
https://www.sciencealert.com/ants-could-...-years-ago
EXCERPTS: In the 6 million years since our ancestors first branched off from our ancient primate relatives, the volume of the human brain has nearly quadrupled. What many people don't realize, however, is that sometime after the last ice age, that very brain actually began to shrink.
The result is that today, our brains are slightly smaller than those of early humans living 100,000 years ago, and yet no one really knows when or why this happened. Now, a biological anthropologist, a behavioral ecologist, and an evolutionary neurobiologist have put their heads together and offered up an intriguing new hypothesis.
It's based on the evolutionary history of a brain a million times smaller than our own: that of the humble ant. [...] When researchers analyzed models of the brain size, structure, and energy use of worker ants, they found evidence the organ had adapted to become more efficient in social groups. Perhaps, the authors suggest, the human brain has been similarly shaped by collective intelligence, where knowledge can be shared and distributed among a colony or community.
With the dawn of human society, they further explain, human knowledge could be externalized and passed on to others in the group, distributing information among multiple people instead of storing it all in each person. The cutting of this 'intellectual fat' could, theoretically, free up the brain to become more efficient at a smaller number of jobs... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.742639
