Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Poolside Marilyn Monroe
Unknown shots of legendary Marilyn Monroe are published in USA. A photographer Anton Fury got two envelops with black and white film on a garage sale in New Jersey back in 1980. He paid only $2, but he didn’t eve imagine who was on the pictures. After 30 years of waiting last week Fury brought the film to to pictures of Marilyn Monroe specialist, David Streets, who lives in Beverly Hills. According to him pictures are real and made in LA, according to Hollywood’s architecture of last century’s 50s. Streets supposes that the pictures were made in 1950 when the famous blond was wearing a shot haircut, she was about 24 years old.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Pope Benedict IX (c. 1012 – 1065/85)
Benedict IX, born Theophylactus of Tusculum, is known mainly for two things: 1) he held office on three separate occasions, and 2) he is the only pope who ever sold the papacy (to his own godfather, of all people).
Benedict became pontiff at a very young age, thanks to the political prowess of his father, who had managed to get the papacy reserved ahead of time for his son. With little actual training or preparation that qualified him to act as pontiff, Benedict led a highly immoral life, and was accused of various rapes, adulteries, and murders. According to St. Peter Damian, Benedict was “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest,” and his carousing eventually caused him to be forcefully expelled from Rome.
Benedict managed to regain his throne, but then – surprise, surprise! – he was sidetracked by a prospective marriage (to his cousin) and sold the papal chair for a significant amount of money to his godfather, a priest who named himself Pope Gregory VI. His later repentance and attempt to resume his position created quite a controversy, forcing the German King Henry III to intervene. Benedict was subsequently excommunicated from the church.
“His life as a pope,” wrote Pope Victor III, “was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it.”
Sunday, June 9, 2013
World's Last Atomic Bombing
On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped the last atomic bomb to date on Nagasaki in Japan. Three days earlier U.S. forces had bombed Hiroshima, and this final bombing was the event that finally lead Japan to surrender the Pacific War, thereby ending World War II.
Though Germany had surrendered in May of 1945, an act that ended the war in Europe, Japan had refused to surrender. U.S. President Harry S. Truman issued the order to bomb the two Japanese cities. Over the course of the next several months 90,000-160,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000-80,000 people in Nagasaki died either from the injuries sustained during the bombings, burns, or subsequent radiation sickness.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
World's Last Public Execution By Guillotine
In 1977, Tunisian immigrant Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to be executed by France's infamous guillotine. Djandoubi had been convicted of torturing and murdering his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bousquet, in Marseille.
After unsuccessfully forcing Bousquet into prostitution she filed a complaint against him, which lead him to seek revenge. Djandoubi lured two other young girls into a prostitution ring and forced them to watch as he kidnapped Bousquet, raped her, and burned her breasts and genitals with cigarettes before finally driving her out of town and strangling her to death.
Djandoubi attempted to kidnap another girl one month later, but she was able to escape and report him to the police. He was executed by guillotine on September 10, 1977. France abolished capital punishment in 1981
Friday, June 7, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Cape York Peninsula, Australia
Australia is known both for its extremely low population density and untouched natural beauty, both of which are best exemplified by Cape York, Peninsula, a huge expanse of untouched wilderness located on the country’s northern tip. The region has a population of only 18,000 people, most of whom are part of the country’s aboriginal tribes, and it is considered to be one of the largest undeveloped places left in the world. This helps contribute to its stunning natural beauty, but it also makes Cape York about as difficult to reach as any destination in Australia. The peninsula has become a popular destination for adventurous tourists, who drive jeeps and trucks down the unpaved Peninsula Development Road whenever it isn’t closed due to flooding during the rainy season. But even with 4-wheel drive trucks, many of the more heavily overgrown parts of Cape York Peninsula are completely inaccessible, and some regions have still only been surveyed by helicopter.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Bizarre Examples of Genetic Engineering - 2
Super carbon-capturing plants
Humans add about nine gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere annually, and plants and trees absorb about five of those gigatons. The remaining carbon contributes to the greenhouse effect and global warming, but scientists are working to create genetically engineered plants and trees that are optimized for capturing this excess carbon.
Carbon can spend decades housed in the leaves, branches, seeds and flowers of plants; however, carbon allocated to a plant’s roots can spend centuries there. Therefore, researchers hope to create bioenergy crops with large root systems that can capture and store carbon underground. Scientists are currently working to genetically modify perennials like switchgrass and Miscanthus because of their extensive root systems.
Enviropig
The Enviropig, or “Frankenswine,” as critics call it, is a pig that’s been genetically altered to better digest and process phosphorus. Pig manure is high in phytate, a form of phosphorus, so when farmers use the manure as fertilizer, the chemical enters the watershed and causes algae blooms that deplete oxygen in the water and kill marine life.
So scientists added an E. Coli bacteria and mouse DNA to a pig embryo. This modification decreases a pig’s phosphorous output by as much as 70 percent — making the pig more environmentally friendly.
Pollution-fighting plants
Scientists at the University of Washington are engineering poplar trees that can clean up contamination sites by absorbing groundwater pollutants through their roots. The plants then break the pollutants down into harmless byproducts that are incorporated into their roots, stems and leaves or released into the air.
In laboratory tests, the transgenic plants are able to remove as much as 91 percent of trichloroethylene — the most common groundwater contaminant at U.S. Superfund sites — out of a liquid solution. Regular poplar plants removed just 3 percent of the contaminant.
Fast-growing salmon
AquaBounty’s genetically modified salmon grows twice as fast as the conventional variety — the photo shows two same-age salmon with the genetically altered one in the rear. The company says the fish has the same flavor, texture, color and odor as a regular salmon; however, the debate continues over whether the fish is safe to eat.
Genetically engineered Atlantic salmon has an added growth hormone from a Chinook salmon that allows the fish to produce growth hormone year-round. Scientists were able to keep the hormone active by using a gene from an eel-like fish called an ocean pout, which acts as an “on switch” for the hormone.
If the FDA approves the sale of the salmon, it will be the first time the government has allowed modified animals to be marketed for human consumption. According to federal guidelines, the fish would not have to be labeled as genetically modified.
Flavr Savr tomato
The Flavr Savr tomato was the first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a license for human consumption. By adding an antisense gene, the California-based company Calgene hoped to slow the ripening process of the tomato to prevent softening and rotting, while allowing the tomato to retain its natural flavor and color.
The FDA approved the Flavr Savr in 1994; however, the tomatoes were so delicate that they were difficult to transport, and they were off the market by 1997. On top of production and shipping problems, the tomatoes were also reported to have a very bland taste: “The Flavr Savr tomatoes didn’t taste that good because of the variety from which they were developed. There was very little flavor to save,” said Christ Watkins, a horticulture professor at Cornell University..
Genetically modified trees
Trees are being genetically altered to grow faster, yield better wood and even detect biological attacks. Proponents of genetically engineered trees say biotechnology can help reverse deforestation while satisfying demand for wood and paper products. For example, Australian eucalyptus trees have been altered to withstand freezing temperatures, and loblolly pines have been created with less lignin, the substance that gives trees their rigidity. In 2003, the Pentagon even awarded Colorado State researchers $500,000 to develop pine trees that change color when exposed to biological or chemical attack.
However, critics argue that not enough is known about designer trees’ effect on their natural surroundings — they could spread their genes to natural trees or increase wildfire risk, among other drawbacks. Still, the USDA in June gave approval for ArborGen, a biotechnology company, to begin field trials for 250,000 trees in seven southern states.
Humans add about nine gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere annually, and plants and trees absorb about five of those gigatons. The remaining carbon contributes to the greenhouse effect and global warming, but scientists are working to create genetically engineered plants and trees that are optimized for capturing this excess carbon.
Carbon can spend decades housed in the leaves, branches, seeds and flowers of plants; however, carbon allocated to a plant’s roots can spend centuries there. Therefore, researchers hope to create bioenergy crops with large root systems that can capture and store carbon underground. Scientists are currently working to genetically modify perennials like switchgrass and Miscanthus because of their extensive root systems.
Enviropig
The Enviropig, or “Frankenswine,” as critics call it, is a pig that’s been genetically altered to better digest and process phosphorus. Pig manure is high in phytate, a form of phosphorus, so when farmers use the manure as fertilizer, the chemical enters the watershed and causes algae blooms that deplete oxygen in the water and kill marine life.
So scientists added an E. Coli bacteria and mouse DNA to a pig embryo. This modification decreases a pig’s phosphorous output by as much as 70 percent — making the pig more environmentally friendly.
Pollution-fighting plants
Scientists at the University of Washington are engineering poplar trees that can clean up contamination sites by absorbing groundwater pollutants through their roots. The plants then break the pollutants down into harmless byproducts that are incorporated into their roots, stems and leaves or released into the air.
In laboratory tests, the transgenic plants are able to remove as much as 91 percent of trichloroethylene — the most common groundwater contaminant at U.S. Superfund sites — out of a liquid solution. Regular poplar plants removed just 3 percent of the contaminant.
Fast-growing salmon
AquaBounty’s genetically modified salmon grows twice as fast as the conventional variety — the photo shows two same-age salmon with the genetically altered one in the rear. The company says the fish has the same flavor, texture, color and odor as a regular salmon; however, the debate continues over whether the fish is safe to eat.
Genetically engineered Atlantic salmon has an added growth hormone from a Chinook salmon that allows the fish to produce growth hormone year-round. Scientists were able to keep the hormone active by using a gene from an eel-like fish called an ocean pout, which acts as an “on switch” for the hormone.
If the FDA approves the sale of the salmon, it will be the first time the government has allowed modified animals to be marketed for human consumption. According to federal guidelines, the fish would not have to be labeled as genetically modified.
Flavr Savr tomato
The Flavr Savr tomato was the first commercially grown genetically engineered food to be granted a license for human consumption. By adding an antisense gene, the California-based company Calgene hoped to slow the ripening process of the tomato to prevent softening and rotting, while allowing the tomato to retain its natural flavor and color.
The FDA approved the Flavr Savr in 1994; however, the tomatoes were so delicate that they were difficult to transport, and they were off the market by 1997. On top of production and shipping problems, the tomatoes were also reported to have a very bland taste: “The Flavr Savr tomatoes didn’t taste that good because of the variety from which they were developed. There was very little flavor to save,” said Christ Watkins, a horticulture professor at Cornell University..
Genetically modified trees
Trees are being genetically altered to grow faster, yield better wood and even detect biological attacks. Proponents of genetically engineered trees say biotechnology can help reverse deforestation while satisfying demand for wood and paper products. For example, Australian eucalyptus trees have been altered to withstand freezing temperatures, and loblolly pines have been created with less lignin, the substance that gives trees their rigidity. In 2003, the Pentagon even awarded Colorado State researchers $500,000 to develop pine trees that change color when exposed to biological or chemical attack.
However, critics argue that not enough is known about designer trees’ effect on their natural surroundings — they could spread their genes to natural trees or increase wildfire risk, among other drawbacks. Still, the USDA in June gave approval for ArborGen, a biotechnology company, to begin field trials for 250,000 trees in seven southern states.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Bizarre Examples of Genetic Engineering - 1
Banana vaccines
People may soon be getting vaccinated for diseases like hepatitis B and cholera by simply taking a bite of banana. Researchers have successfully engineered bananas, potatoes, lettuce, carrots and tobacco to produce vaccines, but they say bananas are the ideal production and delivery vehicle.
When an altered form of a virus is injected into a banana sapling, the virus’ genetic material quickly becomes a permanent part of the plant’s cells. As the plant grows, its cells produce the virus proteins — but not the infectious part of the virus. When people eat a bite of a genetically engineered banana, which is full of virus proteins, their immune systems build up antibodies to fight the disease — just like a traditional vaccine.
Venomous cabbage
Scientists have recently taken the gene that programs poison in scorpion tails and combined it with cabbage. Why would they want to create venomous cabbage? To limit pesticide use while still preventing caterpillars from damaging cabbage crops. These genetically modified cabbages produce scorpion poison that kills caterpillars when they bite leaves — but the toxin is modified so it isn’t harmful to humans.
Glow-in-the-dark cats
In 2007, South Korean scientists altered a cat’s DNA to make it glow in the dark and then took that DNA and cloned other cats from it — creating a set of fluffy, fluorescent felines. Here’s how they did it: The researchers took skin cells from Turkish Angora female cats and used a virus to insert genetic instructions for making red fluorescent protein. Then they put the gene-altered nuclei into the eggs for cloning, and the cloned embryos were implanted back into the donor cats — making the cats the surrogate mothers for their own clones.
What’s the point of creating a pet that doubles as a nightlight? Scientists say the ability to engineer animals with fluorescent proteins will enable them to artificially create animals with human genetic diseases.
Less-flatulent cows
Cows produce significant amounts of methane as a result of their digestion process — it’s produced by a bacterium that’s a byproduct of cows’ high-cellulosic diets that include grass and hay. Methane is a major contributor — second only to carbon dioxide — to the greenhouse effect, so scientists have been working to genetically engineer a cow that produces less methane.
Agriculture research scientists at the University of Alberta have identified the bacterium responsible for producing methane and designed a line of cattle that creates 25 percent less methane than the average cow.
Medicinal eggs
British scientists have created a breed of genetically modified hens that produce cancer-fighting medicines in their eggs. The animals have had human genes added to their DNA so that human proteins are secreted into the whites of their eggs, along with complex medicinal proteins similar to drugs used to treat skin cancer and other diseases.
What exactly do these disease-fighting eggs contain? The hens lay eggs that have miR24, an antibody with potential for treating malignant melanoma and arthritis, and human interferon b-1a, an antiviral drug that resembles modern treatments for multiple sclerosis.
Web-spinning goats
Strong, flexible spider silk is one of the most valuable materials in nature, and it could be used to make an array of products — from artificial ligaments to parachute cords — if we could just produce it on a commercial scale. In 2000, Nexia Biotechnologies announced it had the answer: a goat that produced spiders’ web protein in its milk.
Researchers inserted a spiders’ dragline silk gene into the goats’ DNA in such a way that the goats would make the silk protein only in their milk. This “silk milk” could then be used to manufacture a web-like material called Biosteel.
People may soon be getting vaccinated for diseases like hepatitis B and cholera by simply taking a bite of banana. Researchers have successfully engineered bananas, potatoes, lettuce, carrots and tobacco to produce vaccines, but they say bananas are the ideal production and delivery vehicle.
When an altered form of a virus is injected into a banana sapling, the virus’ genetic material quickly becomes a permanent part of the plant’s cells. As the plant grows, its cells produce the virus proteins — but not the infectious part of the virus. When people eat a bite of a genetically engineered banana, which is full of virus proteins, their immune systems build up antibodies to fight the disease — just like a traditional vaccine.
Venomous cabbage
Scientists have recently taken the gene that programs poison in scorpion tails and combined it with cabbage. Why would they want to create venomous cabbage? To limit pesticide use while still preventing caterpillars from damaging cabbage crops. These genetically modified cabbages produce scorpion poison that kills caterpillars when they bite leaves — but the toxin is modified so it isn’t harmful to humans.
Glow-in-the-dark cats
In 2007, South Korean scientists altered a cat’s DNA to make it glow in the dark and then took that DNA and cloned other cats from it — creating a set of fluffy, fluorescent felines. Here’s how they did it: The researchers took skin cells from Turkish Angora female cats and used a virus to insert genetic instructions for making red fluorescent protein. Then they put the gene-altered nuclei into the eggs for cloning, and the cloned embryos were implanted back into the donor cats — making the cats the surrogate mothers for their own clones.
What’s the point of creating a pet that doubles as a nightlight? Scientists say the ability to engineer animals with fluorescent proteins will enable them to artificially create animals with human genetic diseases.
Less-flatulent cows
Cows produce significant amounts of methane as a result of their digestion process — it’s produced by a bacterium that’s a byproduct of cows’ high-cellulosic diets that include grass and hay. Methane is a major contributor — second only to carbon dioxide — to the greenhouse effect, so scientists have been working to genetically engineer a cow that produces less methane.
Agriculture research scientists at the University of Alberta have identified the bacterium responsible for producing methane and designed a line of cattle that creates 25 percent less methane than the average cow.
Medicinal eggs
British scientists have created a breed of genetically modified hens that produce cancer-fighting medicines in their eggs. The animals have had human genes added to their DNA so that human proteins are secreted into the whites of their eggs, along with complex medicinal proteins similar to drugs used to treat skin cancer and other diseases.
What exactly do these disease-fighting eggs contain? The hens lay eggs that have miR24, an antibody with potential for treating malignant melanoma and arthritis, and human interferon b-1a, an antiviral drug that resembles modern treatments for multiple sclerosis.
Web-spinning goats
Strong, flexible spider silk is one of the most valuable materials in nature, and it could be used to make an array of products — from artificial ligaments to parachute cords — if we could just produce it on a commercial scale. In 2000, Nexia Biotechnologies announced it had the answer: a goat that produced spiders’ web protein in its milk.
Researchers inserted a spiders’ dragline silk gene into the goats’ DNA in such a way that the goats would make the silk protein only in their milk. This “silk milk” could then be used to manufacture a web-like material called Biosteel.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Extraordinary human abilities
Supertasters
People who experience taste with greater intensity than the rest of the population are called supertasters. Having extra fungiform papillae (the mushroom shaped bumps on the tongue that are covered in taste buds) is thought to be the reason why these people have a stronger response to the sensation of taste. Of the five types of taste, sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, a supertaster generally finds bitterness to be the most perceptible.
Scientists first noticed the differing abilities of people to taste a known compound when a DuPont chemist called Arthur Fox asked people to taste Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). Some people could taste its bitterness; some couldn’t – whether people could depended on their genetic make-up (a variant of this test is now one of the most common genetic tests on humans). While about 70% of people can taste PTC, two thirds of them are rated as medium and only one third (approximately 25% of the wider population) are supertasters.
Supertasters will often dislike certain foods, particularly bitter ones, such as brussel sprouts, cabbage, coffee, and grapefruit juice. Women, Asians, and Africans are most likely to have the increased number of fungiform papillae that make them supertasters.
Absolute pitch
People with absolute pitch are capable of identifying and reproducing a tone without needing a known reference. It is not simply a better ability to hear but the ability to mentally class sounds into remembered categories. Examples of this include identifying the pitch of everyday noises (e.g. horns, sirens, and engines), being able to sing a named note without hearing a reference, naming the tones of a chord, or naming the key signature of a song. Doing any of these is a cognitive act – it requires one to remember the frequency of each tone, be able to label it (e.g. ‘A’, ‘C#’, or ‘F-flat’), and sufficient exposure to the range of sound within each label. Opinions vary as to whether absolute pitch is genetic or a learned ability that is strongly influenced to one’s exposure to music at crucial developmental stages – much like how a child’s ability to identify colors by their frequency depends on the type and level of their exposure to it.
Estimates of the portion of the population having absolute pitch range from 3% of the general population in the US and Europe to 8% of those (from the same areas) who are semi-professional or professional musicians. In music conservatories in Japan however, about 70% of musicians have absolute pitch. Part of the reason for this significantly larger percentage may be because absolute pitch is more common among people who grew up in a tonal (Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese) or pitch accent (Japanese) language environment. Absolute pitch is also more common in those who are blind from birth, have William’s Syndrome, or have an autism spectrum disorder.
Tetrachromacy
Tetrachromacy is the ability to see light from four distinct sources. An example of this in the animal kingdom is the zebrafish (Danio rerio), which can see light from the red, green, blue, and ultraviolet sections of the light spectrum. True tetrachromacy in humans is much rarer however – according to Wikipedia only two possible tetrachromats have been identified.
Humans are normally trichromats, having three types of cone cells that receive light from either the red, green, or blue part of the light spectrum. Each cone can pick up about 100 graduations of color and the brain combines colors and graduations so that there are about 1 million distinguishable hues coloring your world. A true tetrachromat with an extra type of cone between red and green (in the orange range) would, theoretically, be able to perceive 100 million colors.
Like supertasting, tetrachromacy is thought to be much more common in women than men – estimates range from 2 – 3% to 50% of women. Interestingly, colour-blindness in men (much more common than in women) may be inherited from women with tetrachromacy.
Echolocation
Echolocation is how bats fly around in dark forests – they emit a sound, wait for the echo to return, and use that sound of the echo in each ear plus the return time to work out where an object is and how far away. Surprisingly (well, maybe not on this list!), humans are also capable of using echolocation. Use of echolocation is probably restricted to blind people because it takes a long time to master and heightened sensitivity to reflected sound.
To navigate via echolocation a person actively creates a noise (e.g. tapping a cane or clicking the tongue) and determines from the echoes where objects are located around them. People skilled at this can often tell where an object is, what size it is, and its density. Because humans cannot make or hear the higher pitched frequencies that bats and dolphins use they can only picture objects that are comparatively larger than those ‘seen’ by echolocating animals.
People with the ability to echolocate include James Holman, Daniel Kish, and Ben Underwood. Perhaps the most remarkable and well-documented of cases is the story of Ben Underwood, who lost both his eyes to retinal cancer at the age of three. He is shown in the video above (warning: the scene where he puts in his prosthetic eyeballs may be a bit disturbing for some).
Genetic Chimerism
In the Iliad Homer described a creature having body parts from different animals, a chimera, from this mythological monster comes the name of the genetic equivalent – chimerism. Genetic chimerism, or tetragametism, in humans and other animals happens when two fertilized eggs or embryos fuse together early in pregnancy. Each zygote carries a copy of its parents DNA and thus a distinct genetic profile. When these merge, each population of cells retains its genetic character and the resulting embryo becomes a mixture of both. Essentially, a human chimera is their own twin.
Chimerism in humans is very rare; Wikipedia states that there are only about 40 reported cases. DNA testing is often used to establish whether a person is biologically related to their parents or children and can uncover cases of chimerism when DNA results show that children are not biologically related to their mothers – because the child inherited a different DNA profile to the one shown by a blood test. This is what happened in the case of Lydia Fairchild: DNA tests of herself and her children led the state to think that she was not actually their mother.
People born with chimerism typically have immune systems that make them tolerant to both genetically distinct populations of cells in their body. This means that a chimera has a much wider array of people to choose from should they need an organ transplant.
Synesthesia
Imagine consistently associating numbers or letters with certain colours, or hearing a specific word which triggers a particular sensation of taste on your tongue. These are two forms of a neurological condition called synesthesia. Synesthesia is when stimulation of a particular sensory or cognitive pathway leads to an involuntary (i.e. synesthesia is not learnt) response in other sensory or cognitive pathways.
Synesthesia is most often genetic and the grapheme (letters, numbers, or other symbols) to colour form of synesthesia is the commonest. Other synesthetes can experience special-sequence synesthesia (e.g. where dates have a precise location in space), ordinal linguistic personification (when numbers have personalities), or sound to colour synesthesia (where tones are perceived as colours).
Although synesthesia is a neurological condition it shouldn’t be thought of as a disorder, because generally it does not interfere with a person’s ability to function. Most people are not even aware that their experiences of life elicit more sensory responses than other peoples might and the ones that are rarely consider synesthesia to have a negative impact on their lives.
Predictions of the percentage of people with synesthesia vary widely, from 1 in 20 to 1 in 20,000. Studies from 2005 and 2006, using a random population sample, suggested 1 in about 23 people have synesthesia. Examples of people with synesthesia include the author Vladimir Nabokov, composer Olivier Messiaen, and scientist Richard Feynman. Daniel Tammet, who is mentioned in the next section of this list, is a synesthete (in addition to being a mental calculator) who sees numbers with shapes and texture.
Mental calculators
The most extraordinary group of people adept at performing complex mental calculations is those who are also autistic savants. While there are many trained people who can work out multiplications of large numbers (among other calculations) in their head extremely fast – mostly mathematicians, writers, and linguists – the untrained ability of autistic savants is the most interesting. The majority of these people are born with savant syndrome (only an estimated 50% of people with savantism are also autistic), which is still poorly understood, few develop it later in life, usually due to a head injury.
There are less than 100 recognised prodigious savants in the world and of the savants with autism who are capable of using mental calculation techniques there are even less. Recent research has suggested that a blood flow to the part of the brain responsible for mathematical calculations of six to seven times the normal rate is one of the factors that enables mental calculators to work out math much faster than the average person.
Examples of people with extraordinary calculation skills include Daniel McCartney, Salo Finkelstein, and Alexander Aitken. Daniel Tammet is one of few who are also autistic savants.
Eidetic memory
When a person has photographic memory or total recall this is called eidetic memory. It is the ability to recall sounds, images, or objects from one’s memory with extreme accuracy. Examples of eidetic memory include the effort of Akira Haraguchi who recited from memory the first 100,000 decimal places of pi and the drawings of Stephen Wiltshire (who is also an autistic savant) – his recreation of Rome is shown in the video above. Kim Peek, the inspiration for the autistic (Peek is not actually autistic though) character of Raymond Babbit in the movie Rainman, also possesses eidetic memory – among other things he can recall some 12,000 books from memory.
Whether true photographic memory exists in adults is still a controversial issue, but it is accepted that eidetic abilities are distributed evenly between men and women. One also cannot become an eidetiker through practice.
Immortal cells
There is only one known case of a person having immortal cells (cells that can divide indefinitely outside of the human body, defying the Hayflick Limit) and that is of a woman named Henrietta Lacks. In 1951, 31 year old Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer, which she died from within the year. Unknown to her and her family (i.e. without informed consent) a surgeon took a tissue sample from her tumor that was passed on to a Dr. George Gey. A scientist for the John Hopkins University Tissue Culture Laboratory, Gey propagated Lacks’ tissue sample into an immortal cell line – the HeLa cell line (pictured above). The cells from Lacks’ tumour have an active version of the telomerase enzyme (telomerase is the mechanism by which cells age or are aged) and proliferate abnormally fast. On the day of Henrietta Lacks’ death, Dr. Gey announced to the world that a new age in medical research had begun – one that might provide a cure for cancer.
HeLa cells were utilised in 1954 by Jonas Salk to develop the cure for polio. Since then they’ve been used in researching cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, and for mapping genes, among other things.
Today, the HeLa cells are so common in laboratories that they contaminate many other cell cultures and have rendered some biological studies invalid through their presence. There are also more HeLa cells alive today than when Henrietta Lacks was alive – they outweigh her physical mass by many times. Tragically, Lacks was never told of the immensely valuable contribution her cells made to science and her family was not informed until many years later that her cells were being used for research purposes (a 1990 court ruling later verified Lacks’ hospital as the owner of her discarded tissue and cells).
People who experience taste with greater intensity than the rest of the population are called supertasters. Having extra fungiform papillae (the mushroom shaped bumps on the tongue that are covered in taste buds) is thought to be the reason why these people have a stronger response to the sensation of taste. Of the five types of taste, sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, a supertaster generally finds bitterness to be the most perceptible.
Scientists first noticed the differing abilities of people to taste a known compound when a DuPont chemist called Arthur Fox asked people to taste Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). Some people could taste its bitterness; some couldn’t – whether people could depended on their genetic make-up (a variant of this test is now one of the most common genetic tests on humans). While about 70% of people can taste PTC, two thirds of them are rated as medium and only one third (approximately 25% of the wider population) are supertasters.
Supertasters will often dislike certain foods, particularly bitter ones, such as brussel sprouts, cabbage, coffee, and grapefruit juice. Women, Asians, and Africans are most likely to have the increased number of fungiform papillae that make them supertasters.
Absolute pitch
People with absolute pitch are capable of identifying and reproducing a tone without needing a known reference. It is not simply a better ability to hear but the ability to mentally class sounds into remembered categories. Examples of this include identifying the pitch of everyday noises (e.g. horns, sirens, and engines), being able to sing a named note without hearing a reference, naming the tones of a chord, or naming the key signature of a song. Doing any of these is a cognitive act – it requires one to remember the frequency of each tone, be able to label it (e.g. ‘A’, ‘C#’, or ‘F-flat’), and sufficient exposure to the range of sound within each label. Opinions vary as to whether absolute pitch is genetic or a learned ability that is strongly influenced to one’s exposure to music at crucial developmental stages – much like how a child’s ability to identify colors by their frequency depends on the type and level of their exposure to it.
Estimates of the portion of the population having absolute pitch range from 3% of the general population in the US and Europe to 8% of those (from the same areas) who are semi-professional or professional musicians. In music conservatories in Japan however, about 70% of musicians have absolute pitch. Part of the reason for this significantly larger percentage may be because absolute pitch is more common among people who grew up in a tonal (Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese) or pitch accent (Japanese) language environment. Absolute pitch is also more common in those who are blind from birth, have William’s Syndrome, or have an autism spectrum disorder.
Tetrachromacy
Tetrachromacy is the ability to see light from four distinct sources. An example of this in the animal kingdom is the zebrafish (Danio rerio), which can see light from the red, green, blue, and ultraviolet sections of the light spectrum. True tetrachromacy in humans is much rarer however – according to Wikipedia only two possible tetrachromats have been identified.
Humans are normally trichromats, having three types of cone cells that receive light from either the red, green, or blue part of the light spectrum. Each cone can pick up about 100 graduations of color and the brain combines colors and graduations so that there are about 1 million distinguishable hues coloring your world. A true tetrachromat with an extra type of cone between red and green (in the orange range) would, theoretically, be able to perceive 100 million colors.
Like supertasting, tetrachromacy is thought to be much more common in women than men – estimates range from 2 – 3% to 50% of women. Interestingly, colour-blindness in men (much more common than in women) may be inherited from women with tetrachromacy.
Echolocation
Echolocation is how bats fly around in dark forests – they emit a sound, wait for the echo to return, and use that sound of the echo in each ear plus the return time to work out where an object is and how far away. Surprisingly (well, maybe not on this list!), humans are also capable of using echolocation. Use of echolocation is probably restricted to blind people because it takes a long time to master and heightened sensitivity to reflected sound.
To navigate via echolocation a person actively creates a noise (e.g. tapping a cane or clicking the tongue) and determines from the echoes where objects are located around them. People skilled at this can often tell where an object is, what size it is, and its density. Because humans cannot make or hear the higher pitched frequencies that bats and dolphins use they can only picture objects that are comparatively larger than those ‘seen’ by echolocating animals.
People with the ability to echolocate include James Holman, Daniel Kish, and Ben Underwood. Perhaps the most remarkable and well-documented of cases is the story of Ben Underwood, who lost both his eyes to retinal cancer at the age of three. He is shown in the video above (warning: the scene where he puts in his prosthetic eyeballs may be a bit disturbing for some).
Genetic Chimerism
In the Iliad Homer described a creature having body parts from different animals, a chimera, from this mythological monster comes the name of the genetic equivalent – chimerism. Genetic chimerism, or tetragametism, in humans and other animals happens when two fertilized eggs or embryos fuse together early in pregnancy. Each zygote carries a copy of its parents DNA and thus a distinct genetic profile. When these merge, each population of cells retains its genetic character and the resulting embryo becomes a mixture of both. Essentially, a human chimera is their own twin.
Chimerism in humans is very rare; Wikipedia states that there are only about 40 reported cases. DNA testing is often used to establish whether a person is biologically related to their parents or children and can uncover cases of chimerism when DNA results show that children are not biologically related to their mothers – because the child inherited a different DNA profile to the one shown by a blood test. This is what happened in the case of Lydia Fairchild: DNA tests of herself and her children led the state to think that she was not actually their mother.
People born with chimerism typically have immune systems that make them tolerant to both genetically distinct populations of cells in their body. This means that a chimera has a much wider array of people to choose from should they need an organ transplant.
Synesthesia
Imagine consistently associating numbers or letters with certain colours, or hearing a specific word which triggers a particular sensation of taste on your tongue. These are two forms of a neurological condition called synesthesia. Synesthesia is when stimulation of a particular sensory or cognitive pathway leads to an involuntary (i.e. synesthesia is not learnt) response in other sensory or cognitive pathways.
Synesthesia is most often genetic and the grapheme (letters, numbers, or other symbols) to colour form of synesthesia is the commonest. Other synesthetes can experience special-sequence synesthesia (e.g. where dates have a precise location in space), ordinal linguistic personification (when numbers have personalities), or sound to colour synesthesia (where tones are perceived as colours).
Although synesthesia is a neurological condition it shouldn’t be thought of as a disorder, because generally it does not interfere with a person’s ability to function. Most people are not even aware that their experiences of life elicit more sensory responses than other peoples might and the ones that are rarely consider synesthesia to have a negative impact on their lives.
Predictions of the percentage of people with synesthesia vary widely, from 1 in 20 to 1 in 20,000. Studies from 2005 and 2006, using a random population sample, suggested 1 in about 23 people have synesthesia. Examples of people with synesthesia include the author Vladimir Nabokov, composer Olivier Messiaen, and scientist Richard Feynman. Daniel Tammet, who is mentioned in the next section of this list, is a synesthete (in addition to being a mental calculator) who sees numbers with shapes and texture.
Mental calculators
The most extraordinary group of people adept at performing complex mental calculations is those who are also autistic savants. While there are many trained people who can work out multiplications of large numbers (among other calculations) in their head extremely fast – mostly mathematicians, writers, and linguists – the untrained ability of autistic savants is the most interesting. The majority of these people are born with savant syndrome (only an estimated 50% of people with savantism are also autistic), which is still poorly understood, few develop it later in life, usually due to a head injury.
There are less than 100 recognised prodigious savants in the world and of the savants with autism who are capable of using mental calculation techniques there are even less. Recent research has suggested that a blood flow to the part of the brain responsible for mathematical calculations of six to seven times the normal rate is one of the factors that enables mental calculators to work out math much faster than the average person.
Examples of people with extraordinary calculation skills include Daniel McCartney, Salo Finkelstein, and Alexander Aitken. Daniel Tammet is one of few who are also autistic savants.
Eidetic memory
When a person has photographic memory or total recall this is called eidetic memory. It is the ability to recall sounds, images, or objects from one’s memory with extreme accuracy. Examples of eidetic memory include the effort of Akira Haraguchi who recited from memory the first 100,000 decimal places of pi and the drawings of Stephen Wiltshire (who is also an autistic savant) – his recreation of Rome is shown in the video above. Kim Peek, the inspiration for the autistic (Peek is not actually autistic though) character of Raymond Babbit in the movie Rainman, also possesses eidetic memory – among other things he can recall some 12,000 books from memory.
Whether true photographic memory exists in adults is still a controversial issue, but it is accepted that eidetic abilities are distributed evenly between men and women. One also cannot become an eidetiker through practice.
Immortal cells
There is only one known case of a person having immortal cells (cells that can divide indefinitely outside of the human body, defying the Hayflick Limit) and that is of a woman named Henrietta Lacks. In 1951, 31 year old Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer, which she died from within the year. Unknown to her and her family (i.e. without informed consent) a surgeon took a tissue sample from her tumor that was passed on to a Dr. George Gey. A scientist for the John Hopkins University Tissue Culture Laboratory, Gey propagated Lacks’ tissue sample into an immortal cell line – the HeLa cell line (pictured above). The cells from Lacks’ tumour have an active version of the telomerase enzyme (telomerase is the mechanism by which cells age or are aged) and proliferate abnormally fast. On the day of Henrietta Lacks’ death, Dr. Gey announced to the world that a new age in medical research had begun – one that might provide a cure for cancer.
HeLa cells were utilised in 1954 by Jonas Salk to develop the cure for polio. Since then they’ve been used in researching cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, and for mapping genes, among other things.
Today, the HeLa cells are so common in laboratories that they contaminate many other cell cultures and have rendered some biological studies invalid through their presence. There are also more HeLa cells alive today than when Henrietta Lacks was alive – they outweigh her physical mass by many times. Tragically, Lacks was never told of the immensely valuable contribution her cells made to science and her family was not informed until many years later that her cells were being used for research purposes (a 1990 court ruling later verified Lacks’ hospital as the owner of her discarded tissue and cells).
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