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The body of Carlo Broschi Farinelli, a name often touted as the world's most celebrated castrato, has been exhumed for scientists to study the anatomical effects of castration.
Farinelli - the world's most celebrated castrato
This is the only skeleton of [castrati] we have, Nicholas Clapton, a singing professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and curator of an exhibition on the composer Handels use of the castrati, told MSNBC.
We want to know if they were like the cartoons at the time depicted them, tall and dangly, or with womens breasts and large buttocks, or like the grand gentleman in Farinellis official portraits, he said.
The removal of boy chorists testicles is said to have kept their vocal chords small while the rest of their bodies continued growing well into adulthood.
Wikipedia writes: "As the castrato's body grows (especially in lung capacity and muscular strength), and as his musical training and maturity increase, his voice develops a range, power and flexibility quite different from the singing voice of the adult female, but also markedly different from the higher vocal ranges of the uncastrated adult male."
In the words of Clapton, castration "gave them huge lung capacity but with a very sweet voice".
The 1994 movie Farinelli may also be of interest.
(image from sonypictures.com)
Six live mouse pups were recently born of artificial sperm grown from embryonic stem cells, Cosmos Online reported yesterday. The study reveals promising information about cell development that may one day be used in treating male infertility.
The findings are incredible in the sense that it may open a door for reproductive therapies that, until now, were science fiction, reproductive biologist Orly Lacham-Kaplan of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development told Cosmos. It is great proof to all scientists working on this topic that we are [heading in] the right direction.
This research is particularly important in helping us to understand more about spermatogenesis, the biological process in which sperm is produced, said Karim Nayernia, professor of stem cell biology at the University of Newcastle, U.K., who led the study. We must know this if we are to get to the root of infertility.
For example, we could isolate a patients spermatagonial cells using a simple testicular biopsy, encourage them in the laboratory into becoming functional sperm and transplant them back into the patient.
While hundreds of mouse eggs were injected with the artificial sperm, only 50 began to develop as embryos. A mere seven of these survived to birth, with one of the pups dying shortly afterwards. None of the remaining six pups lived a full two years - the expected lifespan of a laboratory mouse - they all had truncated lives, dying within five months.
Clearly, more research is needed before the full potential of SSCs can be established, as Nayernia noted.
However, according to medical ethicist Anna Smajdor of the Imperial College London: Sperm and eggs play a unique role in our understanding of kinship and parenthood, and being able to create these cells in the laboratory will pose a serious conceptual challenge for our society.
Who is the father of offspring born from laboratory sperm? A collection of stem cells in a petrii dish? The embryo from which the cells were derived?
The answers to these questions are not clear, but they go to the foundations of our sense of identity.
Looks like we have some way to go yet, in the way of research, as well as morality.
(image from flickr.com)
That exercise is good for you and promotes longevity is a widely known fact. Now, observational studies show that average daily activity can have an even larger effect in older adults.
According to a study led by Todd M. Manini of the National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, older adults who report low physical activity levels are at a higher risk of death compared with those who report moderate or high levels of activity.
The study was conducted to determine the association of free-living activity energy expenditure with death from all causes in a group of 302 high-functioning, community-dwelling older adults (aged 70-82 years). Researchers measured energy expenditure over a two week period using a technique that includes determining the rate at which certain isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen, given as "doubly labeled" water, are eliminated from the body as carbon dioxide, a direct measure of total energy expenditure. The resting metabolic rate was also measured. Participants were followed up over an average of 6.15 years (1998-2006). Fifty-five participants (18.2 percent) died during follow-up.
The researchers found that, after adjusting for various factors, higher levels of activity energy expenditure and physical activity were associated with a lower risk of death. Compared with the third of individuals with the lowest activity energy expenditure, those in the highest third had a 69 percent lower risk of death. The absolute risk of death was 12.1 percent in the highest tertile of activity energy expenditure, 17.6 percent in the middle, and 24.7 percent in the lowest tertile.
According to self-reports, individuals expending higher levels of free-living activity energy were more likely to work for pay and climb stairs but self-reported high-intensity exercise, walking for exercise, walking other than exercise, volunteering, and caregiving did not differ significantly across the activity energy expenditure tertiles.
However, researchers note that these findings have been based on questionnaires asking about physical activity levels, which may not be recalled accurately and are unable to account for many types of daily activity.
Self-reported physical activity does not provide accurate estimates of absolute amounts of activity (kilocalories per day) and thus is less precise in determining whether higher levels of total activity-induced energy expenditure offer survival advantages.
"Monkeys recognise each other by comparing faces to an average stored in their brains, not by memorising what every monkey looks like", according to an article on ABC Science last week.
A study led by David Leopold of the US National Institute of Mental Health found that a monkey's brain did not keep track of different parts of familiar faces; instead, it keeps a statistical average of the faces it has seen, and uses this information to recognise others.
[ Click here to read more ]
"Monkeys recognise each other by comparing faces to an average stored in their brains, not by memorising what every monkey looks like", according to an article on ABC Science last week.
A study led by David Leopold of the US National Institute of Mental Health found that a monkey's brain did not keep track of different parts of familiar faces; instead, it keeps a statistical average of the faces it has seen, and uses this information to recognise others.
[ Click here to read more ]
Hate those itchy red welts that come with mosquito bites, but don't want to slather chemicals on your skin? There's a smogasbord of "natural mosquito repellents" out there, some of more dubious authority than others. Garlic, for example, is said to release a compound called allicin which antagonise mosquitos. Another common theory is that the overpowering odour of garlic masks the scent of blood, throwing mosquitos off track. A potion of mint oil and rubbing alcohol is another common solution; mint is said to act as a natural deterrent for most insects. Alternatively, if you really want natural, ointment-free skin, loose-fitting clothing is a daunting obstacle course for mosquitos. To repel mosquitos, Pioneerthinking.com advises, "tie a sheet of dryer sheets through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season".
Perhaps it's time for science to come to the rescue again. A joint venture between Rothamsted Research in Harpenden and the University of Aberdeen, both in the UK, is currently researching chemicals in human sweat that may be repulsive to mosquitos.
[ Click here to read more ]
The mere observation of a familiar mouse in pain has been found to affect the observing mouses own pain sensitivity, COSMOS reports. This behaviour, say researchers, suggests empathy, a trait that is thought to be unique to higher primates, and possibly to humans alone.
Mice were subjected to a writhing test, in which they were injected with 0.9 per cent acetic acid, which caused abdominal pain. The pain response of a mouse caged with another, familiar mouse, also in pain, was markedly higher than that of a mouse housed individually, and higher still than that of a male mouse observing an unfamiliar, unaffected mouse.
[ Click here to read more ]
Research has come up with yet another spankin new solution to the stem-cell debate:"virgin-birth" embryos that are unfertilised by sperm.
The embryos were produced by parthenogenesis, which is a form of asexual reproduction in which eggs can develop into embryos without first being fertilised. The human embryonic stem cells produced are capable of differentiating into neurons and can be put to therapeutic use while avoiding the controversy revolving around using embryos that may yield life
[ Click here to read more ]
Was there life on Mars? A mysterious shiny coating found on rocks in many of Earth's arid environments could reveal the answer.
The dark coating, known as desert varnish, creates a record of life around it by binding traces of DNA, amino acids and other organic compounds to desert rocks. Samples of Martian desert varnish could therefore show whether there has been life on Mars at any stage over the last 4.5 billion years.
[ Click here to read more ]
Virus killing tomatoes to the rescue!
Genetically modified tomatoes may deliver a cure for HIV and hepatitis B, the New Scientist reported today.
The soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens shuttles a synthetic combination of HIV and hepatitis B DNA fragments into the tomato plants, which then manufacture the proteins. When the tomatoes are eaten, these proteins prompt the body to create antibodies against the viruses.
[ Click here to read more ]
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This is the only skeleton of [castrati] we have, Nicholas Clapton, a singing professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and curator of an exhibition on the composer Handels use of the castrati, told MSNBC.
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