The rising rates of myopia (nearsightedness) may be caused by more children growing up in relatively atypical environments. In this case, spending less time outdoors seems to be the culprit. In a study of Chinese children in Singapore and Sydney, those in Singapore had worse eyesight; in Singapore, the children spent an average of three hours a week outside, compared to the 14 hours children in Sydney spent. Staying indoors is speculated to affect eyesight as children are not exposed to the outdoor stimuli normally responsible for eye development. Read full article here
Oddities
The Curious Case of the Ancient Brain
In 2008, archaeologists examining the University of York discovered something strange: the decapitated head of an Iron Age man and his very shrivelled but very much intact brain. How a centuries-old brain was preserved is still unknown, but research suggests that it could have been because of brain diseases like dementia. The Yorkshire man’s brain’s proteins were bunched up together, much like how dementia causes brain proteins to bunch up into plaques. This bunching up, or aggregation, could continue even after death, turning regions of the brain into hard masses. Read full article here
Merv
September 30, 2022
