ArcaMax

Human activities like coal burning and gold mining can cause mercury pollution in the air, which eventually settles into water, where it is absorbed into the food chain, resulting in the risk of mercury poisoning in apex predators like bluefin tuna -- and people who eat tuna.

Mercury poisoning can cause birth defects, particularly neurodevelopmental disorders.

Researchers have created a specially engineered bacterium that essentially eats mercury. Residing harmlessly in the guts of laboratory and fetal mice, the researchers said the bacterium reduced accumulation of mercury.

The goal is to develop a probiotic that could help lower mercury-related health risks associated with a fish-rich diet.

Body of Knowledge

The orbital floor is the set of bottom bones that, with other bones, form the eye socket. The orbital floor and the inner wall closer to the nose are the thinnest and most easily broken, which is called a blowout fracture.

Doc Talk

Butts and Guts: Slang for gastroenterologists

Mania of the Week

Ambulomania: An obsession with walking (hey, just trying to get my 100,000 steps)

Never Say 'Diet'

The Major League Eating speed-eating record for salted butter is 7 quarter-pound sticks in five minutes, held by Don Lerman, who beat his competitors by a large margarine.

Best Medicine

My extra-sensitive toothpaste doesn't like it when I use other toothpastes.

Observation

"I am pushing sixty. That is enough exercise for me." -- American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Medical History

This week in 1865, the first U.S. patent for a liquid soap was issued to William Sheppard of New York City (No. 49,561). The patent described his "discovery that by the addition of comparatively small quantities of common soap to a large quantity of spirits of ammonia or hartshorn is thickened to the consistency of molasses, and a liquid soap is obtained of superior detergent qualities." (Hartshorn is an ancient name for an aqueous solution of ammonia).

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously and even harder to ignore.

In 2024, the Ig Nobel Prize in biology was awarded posthumously to Fordyce Ely and William Petersen for their seminal 1941 study that found that exploding paper bags next to a cat standing on the back of a cow caused the cow to produce less milk, probably because they weren't feline good or were just mooody.

(Unfortunately, there is no prize for bad puns.)

Self-Exam

Q: Jeanne Calment of France holds the documented record for longest-lived human. Calment was born in 1875 and died in 1997 -- 122 years. Most scientists believe that's pretty much the maximum for humans. Not so for some marine species. Which species below has the longest lifespan?

A) Greenland shark

B) Ocean quahog

C) Bowhead whale

D) Black coral

E) Immortal jellyfish

A: OK, the answer is in the name: E) immortal jellyfish, which potentially can live forever because it can transform adult cells into juvenile cells, basically resetting its life cycle. Among the other species listed: Greenland shark -- 500+ years; Ocean quahog (a type of clam) -- 500+ years; Bowhead whale -- 200+ years; Black corral -- 4,000+ years.

Medical Myths

Logical thinkers are left-brain dominant, while artistic people are right-brain dominant. Brain imaging technologies have found no evidence of dominance when it comes to the brain's hemispheres. While both halves tend to handle separate tasks, they work together in complex ways and are not linked to specific personality traits.

Med School

Q: Which of these physiological changes does not occur with aging?

A) Skin becomes thinner and drier, and loses elasticity

B) Brain shrinks

C) Bones become lighter and more brittle

D) Arteries become flabbier

A: D) Actually, it's the opposite, with arteries becoming more fibrous and stiffer. The good news is that while all these changes are associated with aging, they can happen at different ages and at varying rates among individuals. Biological age is different from chronological age.

Epitaphs

"174517" -- Jewish Italian chemist Primo Levi (1919-1987). Levi was a Holocaust survivor who spent time as a prisoner at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. The number on his headstone was his prisoner number.

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