Wonders of Biology

I couldn't find a thread to put this in, so I created a new one.

We may have a newly discovered organ, the interstitium.  Seems to be the backbone of the lymphatic system.

http://bgr.com/2018/03/28/new-human-organ-interstitium-skin-tissue/

is this the Dark Matter of the flesh?

and why is that skellington sexy?

I think the brown stuff's supposed to be the interstitium.

If there is a link with this interstitium & nasty diseases that would be the break through scientists have been after no ? And yeah, why has she got a good bod & big boobs ??? Fairness would, nay should, have been 1 man & 1 woman of average proportions

{{ Found this interesitng- turns out a human being is only 43% actual human.

'Human cells make up only 43% of the body's total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists....Prof Ruth Ley, the director of the department of microbiome science at the Max Planck Institute, "your body isn't just you".
No matter how well you wash, nearly every nook and cranny of your body is covered in microscopic creatures.
This includes bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria)....Prof Rob Knight, from University of California San Diego, told the BBC: "You're more microbe than you are human."....
The human genome - the full set of genetic instructions for a human being - is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes.
But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out between two and 20 million microbial genes.
Prof Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist from Caltech, argues: "We don't have just one genome, the genes of our microbiome present essentially a second genome which augment the activity of our own.
"What makes us human is, in my opinion, the combination of our own DNA, plus the DNA of our gut microbes."...... Prof Knight said: "We're finding ways that these tiny creatures totally transform our health in ways we never imagined until recently."....
"In a diseased state there could be bugs missing, for example, the concept is to reintroduce those."
Dr Lawley says there's growing evidence that repairing someone's microbiome "can actually lead to remission" in diseases such as ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease.
And he added: "I think for a lot of diseases we study it's going to be defined mixtures of bugs, maybe 10 or 15 that are going into a patient."- BBC


One of the reasons this strikes me as interesting in-particular is back in my shaman studying days one of the concepts introduced was the belief that humans are not individual creatures, when Shaman 'see' a human (ie perceive energy directly rather than as objects) they see that humans are what they called a 'colony' made up of different energy fields bound together in a cocoon of energy. They ascertained from observing this that human beings were in fact made of many different types of energy from different beings and were not a single entity.
Nor were the other energy fields merely structural (they differentiate between structural energy- say that which makes a rock and energy that makes living things-  by the absence or presence of what they referred to as the 'glow of awareness' which lights up energy fields within the living thing and selects the corresponding fields outside the living thing which match up- the result of doing this according to these shamans is perception and awareness (the universe we see therefore is a result of matching the energy that makes us with the fields outside us which we are compatible  and therefore we can perceive. In short the universe we see is real, its just not all of it, or anything like all. A bat for example which has a very different way of perceiving the universe has for example energy fields within it which can match up to ones outside it- those letting it perceive via sonar- which humans to not possess, therefore unlike the bat we cant utilize those energy fields at large, so we dont get sonar).
In humans the energy has the glow of awareness despite being a colony of energy fields. The conclusion therefore is that humans are made up of lots of different living energy fields combined. That we are a colony not an individual creature. I found it interesting that the article refers to these other life forms which are so symbiotic with what it is to be a human that they referred to them as 'colonists'.

Like many things I learned in those days and from my own experiences they keep getting confirmed by modern science. }}}

Be sure you know if you are counting fraction by volume or by cell count. By volume about 1000 bacteria could fit in a normal cell, so you get extremely different outcomes. I'd reckon by volume you're at least 99% human after a good colonic purge.

{{ By cell count- going on the article- 'Human cells make up only 43% of the body's total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists'  }}

Not sure if this is a right thread, but interesting:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/20/558m-year-old-fossils-identified-as-oldest-known-animal

Almost as old as Petty!

Or his kilt, at least.

{{He that kilts seen off Picts, Romans, Irish, Jacobites, lots of English and several centuries of attempts to wash it! There will be no knocking of my kilt!    }}

Wonder how far into the future Petty's kilt will survive ? What will future modern man think of it ?

{{Well its outlasted several generations of McTyrants so far! I suspect in the event of a nuclear war it would be the only thing left intact.  }}}

Human Biology truly is a wonderful thing, my brown head of hair is receding ever more long before it has even a chance of turning grey, yet my ginger beard grows ever more bushier and now spouts the odd white or grey hair

I've been told 'it's a sign of maturity' but as anyone who has read some of my posts here will realise, that is evidently a tad misleading

Bill Bryson referred to the how the hair on his head had started the long migration to his ears and nose.

I think of it more as a strategic retreat

{ Billy Connolly once speculated on what it was nature thought later life had in store for him that was going to require a sudden abundance of ear and nostril hair, and if he should be worried about it Im at least curious- why does nature think we will need more hair up our noses and sticking out our ears than we will on top of our head when we are old?!! }}}

I at least understand the protective nature of nose hair. Normally when I get an nasal infection it's after plucking nose hair then getting dust up my nose. Ear hair? No idea.

halfwise wrote: Ear hair? No idea.

At least around here, the mosquitoes and midges would love to have free access to a safe warm cave where they could dine undisturbed. Ear hair is the burglar alarm.

Oh. I'll stop plucking it a month before my next camping trip then.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure-skin-cancer-science

{{This is an amazing idea!}}

'Researchers at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute have genetically modified chickens to produce human proteins in their eggs.
They hope the project will one day lead to lifesaving drugs that are much cheaper to make.
The team modified the genomes of the chickens so their eggs contain large amounts of high quality proteins.
Just three eggs contain a clinically significant dose, according to the scientists.
Initially the proteins will be used in research but laboratory tests have already found they work at least as well as equivalent drugs.
Protein-based therapies such as the cancer treatments Herceptin and Avastin can be effective where traditional drugs fail but they are highly expensive.
The new research - a collaboration between the institute and the university's spinout company Roslin Technologies - holds out the promise of a far cheaper production process.......These creatures are not clones. New generations of protein producers are made in the conventional, biological way...
Professor Helen Sang of the Institute says it's a cost effective way of scaling up production:
"If you want more eggs you just need more birds."
"That's why in this pen we have a cockerel - and he can produce an awful lot of children in a short time.
"So we can produce a lot of hens in a short period if we want to bulk up the supply of the drug."
In a laboratory away from the cacophony of the chicken shed, Dr Lissa Herron of Roslin Technologies produces a tray of brown eggs that would grace any breakfast table.
But these ones will never enter the food chain. "It's quite old fashioned initially," she says.
"We just crack the egg. I've become quite adept at cracking eggs over the years."
The golden yolk is put to one side unneeded.
It's the egg white that contains the treasure: large quantities of medically important proteins.
"These proteins are really, really expensive to produce," she says, "because you can't just synthesise them in a chemistry lab.
"You need a living system to manufacture them because proteins are very large molecules, very complex and they need all of the machinery of a cell to make them and fold them properly."...
The chickens themselves are unaffected by the presence of human proteins in their systems.
Living in conditions superior to those of battery hens, they just go on laying eggs as normal'- BBC

I wonder what advantages chicken eggs have over modified yeast cells (another way to make drugs)? I suppose since chickens are closer in physiology the mutation may be easier? On the other hand yeast are simpler so it might be easier. Biology is so damn complex.

So... erm.. Are these technically chicken-human eggs? Is this the first step in the rise of the dreaded Chuman?