The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is letting scientists get away with fraud, a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association claims.
The Internet is littered with baseless conspiracy theories that scientists are covering up the dangers of foods, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and even windmills. Such slurs make it even more important that real fraud gets exposed when its discovered.
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"In this world," Benjamin Franklin once said, "nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." While we all know that we will die, how and when have changed dramatically over the last century. We've seen common illnesses brought to the brink of eradication because of the invention of vaccines. We've seen quality of life — like nutrition, sanitation — go up in many parts of the world, while infections from communicable diseases dropped. With antibiotics, surgery became safer. So did one of the most common acts of all: childbirth. All this has amounted to a vast extension in the number of years many of us spend on the planet. But we've also seen that this progress is not evenly distributed across societies and may soon be undone if we don't alter some of our behavior. Here are 27 charts and maps that explain how we die.
Babies born in the early 20th century could not expect to live past what we now consider middle age, according to the National Institute on Aging. This chart, on female life expectancy in developed countries, illustrates just how quickly lives got longer in the 20th and early 21 centuries. While a woman born in 1840 didn’t generally live past 50, by 2009, her life expectancy surpassed 80 years. This incredible rise can mostly be attributed to one thing: the knowledge we gained from science about human health.
Before the first mass-vaccination programs were rolled out, in the early 20th century, it was not uncommon for people to die of diseases that have now been brought to the brink of eradication in many parts of the world. Consider measles. If your parents were born before 1960, there’s a good chance they suffered through the spotty and feverish infection. They probably lived to tell about it, but they may have had friends who didn’t. In the US, before a vaccine was introduced in 1963, there were four million measles cases with 48,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths every year. Now, there are very few cases and near zero deaths.
With the discovery of bacteria-fighting antibiotics, such as penicillin in 1928, many of the diseases that routinely killed people or shaved years off their lives were suddenly treatable. Surgeries also became radically less risky, as antibiotics became a preventive measure in hospitals to help people fight off infections they might be exposed to. The maternal mortality rate dropped, too, as the drugs made childbirth and Cesarean sections much safer. Here you can see that the death rates during childbirth started to plummet in the 1930s, as streptococcal-bacteria-killing antibiotics were used to treat mothers.
The availability of clean water has had perhaps the greatest impact on public health. Because of the introduction of sewage systems and chlorine into the water supply, around the turn of the 20th century, people weren’t exposed to the germs that had previously made them very sick. These improvements in sanitation reduced the rate of childhood infections and food poisoning. Consider typhoid, a bacterial disease that’s transmitted by eating contaminated food or drinking dirty water. Between 1920 and 1960, the incidence of typhoid fever in the US dropped from 33.8 per 100,000 to less than 1 per 100,000.
Throughout history, humans have gone head to head with pathogens, and before the advances of 20th-century medicine and public-health measures, these diseases were extremely deadly. Consider the black plague of the 14th century: it wiped out up to 70 percent of Europe. As you can see in this chart, the black plague was the only pandemic that actually decreased the overall trend toward exponential population growth over time. But, again, advances in infection control and the global governance of health have helped to minimize the impact of such plagues.
The New England Journal of Medicine looked back over a century to see how the causes of death in America have changed. As medicine, our understanding of the germ theory of disease, and public health progressed, deaths from infectious agents (tuberculosis and pneumonia) fell away. With longer lifespans, chronic killers (such as cancer and heart disease) gained prominence, and so did other diseases of aging (Alzheimer's).
The world has gained unevenly in life expectancy over the past century. As of 2012, the World Health Organization found that men and women (globally) could expect to live 62 healthy years, plus another possible eight in poorer health. But there was also a great intercontinental divide in how long people could expect to live: in Africa, as of 2012, life expectancy hovered in the 40s, while it has surpassed 80 for those living in some parts of Europe, the Americas, and the Western Pacific.
While the leading causes of death in America are now chronic killers like heart disease and cancer, this isn’t true everywhere. This chart shows the "cause of lost years of life." You’ll note that some countries continue to struggle to control infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. War, road injuries, preterm births, and violence are major killers in others, meaning people in many parts of the world don’t live long enough to experience the diseases of aging that are now common in developed countries.
Still, the global trend is a positive one. Between 1990 and 2013, worldwide childhood mortality was nearly halved, according to a recent UNICEF report. This chart shows the cumulative drop in every country. Darker colors reflect bigger dips in the mortality rate of kids under 5.
Half of US deaths in 2009 were due to heart disease, according to the American Heart Association. Coronary heart disease is the most common type; in the US, every 34 seconds, someone has a heart attack. Every minute, someone passes away from a heart disease-related event. It’s just an omnipresent killer. The people who are most at risk for heart disease are those who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and those who smoke. Diabetes, obesity, a poor diet, excessive alcohol consumption, and a lack of physical activity also increase one’s odds of dying from heart disease.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US. But not every cancer is equal, and not every cancer is a death sentence. The word — which comes from the Greek word for crab, probably because of the multiplying cells that grow out of control in many directions — refers to more than 100 diseases. These are the top 10 cancers in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These cancers can be caused by genetics or lifestyle factors — such as smoking, diet, or sun exposure — or some combination of both.
More than anything else, tobacco is far and away the leading cause of preventable death in this country and around the world. About one-fifth of Americans still smoke. If this final 20 percent kicked the habit, the life span in this country would increase. That’s because, even today, tobacco use contributes to four of the five leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, lung disease and stroke).
Even though the prevalence of smoking has fallen off in developed countries like the US, the burden shifted over to the developing world. This means the number of smokers actually rose because of population growth in these regions. As of 2012, about half of all smokers live in in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania — where cigarette regulation is lax and smoking still very common.
Obesity is another leading contributor to preventable death. "Excess weight, especially obesity, diminishes almost every aspect of health," according to the Harvard School of Public Health, "from reproductive and respiratory function to memory and mood. Being obese raises one’s risk of death from a range of diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, asthma, infertility, sleep apnea, kidney stones, and several types of cancer. Obesity is also associated with shorter lifespans; the higher one’s body mass index (BMI), the more years of life lost. For example, a 20-year-old man with a BMI of 40 will live six years less than a non-obese man the same age.
To fully comprehend how much dying has changed, from extreme singular events to chronic illnesses, this illustration from Britain's National Health Service is instructive. It’s no longer wars or infections that kill most people; it’s the quiet killers like heart disease and cancer. "Every day we are told of lethal new threats to our health and lives," the NHS explained. "Food additives, knife crime, pollution, terrorism ... It's not that these threats are not potential killers, but in this blizzard of health warnings it's easy to lose perspective and worry about small or insignificant risks while ignoring, or being unaware, of major threats."
The gains in life expectancy, while incredible, also come with a price: it has drastically altered the process of dying. Consider these illustrative charts from the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Death has gone from being a sudden event to an extremely gradual one. Modern medicine and public health measures stretched people’s life spans, nearly doubling them so that, Gawande writes, "The curve of life becomes a long, slow fade."
In a national survey of American Medicare beneficiaries over the age of 65, researchers found that the overwhelming majority of respondents would prefer to die at home instead of in hospice or hospital. "Faced with a hypothetical terminal illness," the researchers wrote, "the respondents were almost evenly split between those who were concerned about getting too little treatment (40.4%) and those who were concerned about too much treatment (45.0%)." What’s more, most people said they did not want "potentially life-prolonging drugs" and instead would opt for palliative drugs, even if they were life-shortening.
The number of Americans who spend their dying days in a hospice or hospital is on the rise while care in the home plummets. When researchers gathered data looking at trends between 2000 and 2009, published in the journal JAMA, they found that the ICU utilization rate, and transition rate from home to hospice (or hospital), actually increased during the period.
People at the end of life also eat up the largest chunk of the health-care-spending pie. They wind up in hospital or hospice situations; they require treatment for multiple, chronic conditions; and they disproportionately use pharmaceuticals and physician services. As a result, while people over the age of 64 make up only 13 percent of the US civilian population, they represent nearly half of those with the top health-care spending habits. And Medicare beneficiaries in their last two years of life consume 32 percent of the program’s overall spending.
To cope with the long tail of life, people near the end rely more and more on prescription drugs. The CDC found that the overwhelming majority of people using multiple pharmaceuticals were the elderly, and the longer people lived, the more drugs they used. This, perhaps, isn’t surprising given that the Institute of Medicine concluded, in a recent report, that dying has become more painful in America: between 1998 and 2010, the number of Americans reporting pain near the end of their lives increased by 12 percent while incidence of depression rose by more than 26 percent.
As medicine has gotten so good at helping people live, even in decrepit old age and with crippling chronic illness, societies are now grappling with questions about when medicine should be allowed to take life away. So far, only a few countries have legalized assisted suicide: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and most recently, Canada. (Each country has their own provisions over how death rights should be given.) In the US, five states — Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Montana, and Vermont — have "right-to-die" laws for the terminally ill.
Most of us aren’t getting enough sleep. And this has knock-on effects on our quality of life. When we get less than seven hours a night, according to CDC data, we have more difficulty concentrating, remembering, working on hobbies, and looking after finances — all the basics we need to take care of to live healthy lives. Those who sleep seven to nine hours per night perform better on all these measures. Sleep deprivation is also linked with weight gain and early death.
Most Americans over-indulge on meat and grains, and skimp on fruits and vegetables. Americans also eat too much added sugar. As the Center for Science in the Public Interest reported, the average American is now consuming 23 teaspoons of added sugar each day, more than half of the recommended amount. Obesity experts agree that in order to maintain a healthy weight, people need to cut back on added sugar and make sure that half of every meal comes from plants.
This chart came from a 2009 study that followed more than 17,000 Canadians from 1981 to 1993, looking at how much time people spent sitting and comparing that value to their lifespans. They found that the more time a person spent sitting, the lower her chances of survival. According to the CDC, less than half of all adults now meet America's Physical Activity Guidelines.
The latest research on smoking data from nearly a million people suggests the habit is even worse for health than previously thought. In addition to contributing to lung cancer, lung disease, and heart attacks and stroke, smoking also seems to increase people's risks of infection, kidney disease, intestinal disease, and a variety of heart and lung illnesses that hadn’t before been attributed to the addictive habit. Quitting smoking at any age adds years to one’s life expectancy.
The presence of greenhouse gases are as high as ever, and their rate of emission continues to increase. According to Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, this is a matter of global health. "The evidence is overwhelming: climate change endangers human health. Solutions exist and we need to act decisively to change this trajectory." According to the WHO's latest data, "Climate change is already causing tens of thousands of deaths every year from shifting patterns of disease, from extreme weather events, such as heat-waves and floods, and from the degradation of water supplies, sanitation, and impacts on agriculture."
As obesity and diabetes become more prevalent, and the environment more polluted, researchers have scaled back their forecasts for projected life expectancy. They're now anticipating that the previous century of exponential growth may actually stall or decline within the next 40 years. "The steady rise in life expectancy observed in the modern era may soon come to an end and the youth of today may, on average, live less healthy and possibly even shorter lives than their parents," write researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine. This means, simply, that ours could be the first generations in a very long time to live fewer years on average than our parents — unless we make meaningful change.
Jeff Jackson, a young Democratic NC State senator is the only senator in the general assembly today due to the snow.
The unmanned strike aircraft of the U.S. are much sought after by other nations—which means there's a massive export opportunity. Now, the country has decided is to permit the widespread sale of armed drones to allied countries.
BridgetYES!!!
This post originally appeared on the She Geeks blog in two parts: “The Mardi Grad Parade No Geek Should Miss” on February 5th, and “Chewbacchus Part 2: The Parade-ering” on February 11th. It has been republished with permission.
[Editor’s note: Unfortunately this year’s Chewbacchus has already come and gone, but there’s always next year—and if you keep reading, there’s plenty of awesome parade pictures to tide you over!]
It’s Mardi Gras season here in New Orleans, which means tourists, traffic, king cakes, endless renditions of Mardi Gras Mambo, and (of course) parades. If you’re a geek in New Orleans celebrating Mardi Gras and don’t go to the Chewbacchus parade, you’re doing it wrong. Period. No excuses. Seriously, even Peter Mayhew himself rides in this geek parade.
It is now even more officially official then the last time I officially officiated my official statement. #All-Hail pic.twitter.com/zVN63diiJi
— Peter Mayhew (@TheWookieeRoars) February 3, 2015
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve heard me go on about Chewbacchus before; well, here’s where I explain exactly why this relatively new parade has been growing by leaps and bounds every year and has a distinctly cult-like following (more on the cult thing later). Read on as I go on an exclusive tour of the parade’s “den” (where many of the contraptions are created and stored), introduce a brand new sub-krewe, and give you guys a sneak peek of some of the awesome, hand-made stuff you’ll see rolling down the parade route:
Before we get into the meat of this, let’s make sure everyone is on the same page. Mardi Gras parades are a big deal here; many of them are very old (Rex, for example dates back to 1872), but sometimes it seems like a new parade/krewe pops up every year. Wikipedia explains krewes best:
“A krewe (pronounced in the same way as “crew”) is an organization that puts on a parade or ball for the Carnival season. [...] Krewe members are assessed fees in order to pay for the parade or ball. Fees can range from thousands of dollars a year per person for the most elaborate parades to as little as $20 a year for smaller marching clubs. Criteria for krewe membership varies similarly, ranging from exclusive organizations largely limited to relatives of previous members to other organizations open to anyone able to pay the membership fee. [...] Parading krewe members are usually responsible for buying their own throws, the trinkets thrown to parade spectators according to Mobile and New Orleans tradition.”
The Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus (IKOC) is one of the more inclusive parade krewes. Their dues are exactly $42.00 (because of course they are), and absolutely anyone can join. You pay your dues, throw on a costume, show up, and march. It’s truly that simple. According to their website:
“The Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus is a Mardi Gras parade organization for the most revelrous Star Wars Freaks, Trekkies, Whovians, Mega-Geeks, Gamers, Cosplayers, Circuit Benders, Cryptozooligists, UFO Conspiracy Theorists, Mad Scientists, and all the rest of Super Nerdom.
We also have a special place for Fantasy fandom within the Krewe under the auspicies of the Mystic Krewe of P.U.E.W.C. and a contingent specifically devoted to Horror… the Krewe of the Living Dead.“
This glittery behemoth of a unicorn is the work of the Mystic Krewe of P.U.E.W.C.
The Mystic Krewe of P.U.E.W.C. (which stands for “People for the inclusion of Unicorns, Elves, and Whinebots in Chewbacchus”) and Krewe of the Living Dead are examples of sub-krewes. Humans have a tendency to clump together based on common interests, and Chewbacchus is no exception. Sub-krewes can be highly organized and independent entities who exist year-round (often doing charity work, throwing their own events, and participating in conventions) like the Doctor Who themed Krewe du Who, or remain loose gatherings of people who simply come together for Mardi Gras and march in the parade in themed costumes, like E.T. themed sub-krewe, The Rolling Elliots.
The Space Commander Chewbaccacabra, Ryan Ballard, describes the Chewbacchus parade as…
“…a mobile, drunken Comic Con in many ways. There’s gonna be a range of fandom out there, represented, and you know, there’s sub-krewes for basically every fandom you could ever imagine. And if there’s one missing, somebody’s gonna make a sub-krewe for it.”
(He means it, too. One of the other sub-krewes new to Chewbacchus this year is the Krewe of Sharknadeaux. I cannot make this shit up, people.)
They literally let their nerd flag fly.
I was granted a tour of the IKOC den/workshop/homebase, inside of Castillo Blanco, yesterday. This is where a lot of the parade contraptions are housed and worked on. Chewbacchus is a walking parade, meaning they don’t have huge floats pulled by tractors; rather, they have handmade, cobbled together, contraptions that are either pulled, peddled, or pushed along the parade route by the people who made them. With the exception of a select few remote controlled/battery operated contraptions (like a full scale, remote controlled TARDIS), everything is powered by hand or by foot. There are a lot of bicycles, tricycles, rickshaws and shopping carts being re-purposed as nerdy people movers, floats, and (the all important) beer dispensaries. The “bacchus” part of Chewbacchus was not a mistake. In addition to being a play on the more traditional and popular Bacchus parade (which rolls next week, if you’re so inclined), Chewbacchus is all about bacchanalian (or bacchanALIEN) revelry, so many of the contraptions you’ll see rolling down the parade route are, in fact, working bars/kegs.
Bar-2 D2, everyone’s favorite beer droid, has become a Chewbacchus staple, and I’ll give you three guesses as to what the Blue Sun Beer Barrel is being pulled by (Hint: She’s the smoothest ride from here to Boros). Other stuff to look out for:
This is just a tiny portion of a huge contraption that will be lighting up the streets and assimilating the masses.
Look for this work of art on the back of another piece. These people do not half-ass things.
The new Golden Wookie Idol, that is (of course) also a bar.
I mentioned earlier that Chewbacchus has an almost cult-like following. I wasn’t kidding. The parade’s theme this year is actually The Cult of the Sacred, Drunken Wookie. To celebrate, the IKOC had itself officially registered as a religious entity, specifically a satirical Space Cult. Seriously. Several members have been ordained and will be performing several wedding ceremonies and vow renewals at their ball on Saturday after the parade. Some people may be taken aback by the idea of a parade krewe becoming an official religious organization, but when you get to know the people of Chewbacchus and get to know their (in some cases) obsession with this krewe, you realize that it really was part of the natural progression of the organization.
This ever-growing shrine is a permanent fixture in the den and houses throws and props of old with idols that have been mailed to the krewe over the years.
It is of note that this funky krewe of creative women and men are not simply reaping the benefits of their status as a religion, they’re also making sure to give back to the community. Per my guide, IKOC Cultural Ambassador, Martin Childs:
“This is the first year of our new service sub-krewe, The Charitable Sisters of the Wook. All of our members here, many of modest means, have put together over 300lbs of collected canned goods for Second Harvest [Food Bank], as well as we had a charity raffle, and it was well over 500$ in one evening that we gathered.
In addition to housing many of the parade’s contraptions, a work shop, a practice stage for their bands, and the Sacred Drunken Wookie shrine, Castillo Blanco also includes The Space Sanctuary. Not only is this magical room absolutely gorgeous (I just wanted to lay down and stare at the ceiling for hours), it’s also where you can find the fully functional, salt water, float tank. Yep, you read that right. They have a full sized, working, sensory deprivation chamber in their den. Top that, Rex!
One day, I will do this to my bathroom, and you will never ever see me again.
Now, you cannot have a Mardi Gras parade without throws, and Chewbacchus has the best throws of all the parades (hands down), but don’t expect to catch any beads. Just like their contraptions and costumes, all the throws from Chewbacchus are handmade by the krewe members. Every single thing you walk away from this parade with was made by someone in the parade, and these are some insanely creative nerds! One of the themed throws this year is the Build Your Own Bandolier throw. Basically, you catch a blank bandolier with some velcro on it, and then collect custom velcroed blocks from as many sub-krewes as you can to affix to your bandolier. It’s bloody genius, is what it is.
This fuzzy bandolier block has already made its way onto the shrine with a King Cake Baby in Carbonite and Yoddha.
There are plenty of throws that aren’t specific to the bandoliers as well, like this Rib of the Sacred, Drunken Wookie (painstakingly crafted by dedicated members who were willing to sacrifice their time to eat a bunch of BBQ ribs for the cause):
While at the den, I also had a chance to meet up with some of the members of new sub-krewe, Krewe du Groot, and snag a peek at some of their throws. They might be brand new (formed only 3 weeks ago), but this small krewe is bringing out the Hadron Enforcer of big guns when it comes to creative throws:
(Insider Tip: An undisclosed number of these are random, re-purposed cassettes; you should absolutely try to play them.)
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Bridgetum....
Y'all prolly know by now I don't keep too close an ear on much "new" or "contemporary" music, BUT when someone in my water aerobics class mentioned "electro swing," I figured I should check it out! I'd kinda hoped it would be similar to '90s swing revival, a retro-trad dance fad, but instead I found electroswing simply blends traditional swing/trad-jazz style with electro's straight 4/4 pulse. I was a bit surprised the mixing is rather simplistic; there's not much manipulation, but then my attention waned as most of the mixes I found were really long—one breeched the four-hour mark. Right, if you dare, have a listen to "Electro Swing Mix 2014 Vol.1," a short-ish example that should give y'all an idea of the style.
Meh. My ears aren't quite sussed on this style; as it's more "electro" than "swing," it's not really my thing. However, it seems to be SOMEthing, at least in Europe. To those of y'all "in the know": Is this just a novelty genre that will go the way of electroclash?! Are there any electro-swing DJs/nights in Seattle? And if so, do the local punters swing dance to the disco beat?
Sample-Stitch is a project by Matt Daniels that challenges you to reconstruct the samples that were used by some legendary producers to create notable beats.
The post Beat Constructor appeared first on The World's Best Ever: Design, Fashion, Art, Music, Photography, Lifestyle, Entertainment.
Starting this month, the venerable University of Massachusetts at Amherst will no longer allow Iranian nationals to matriculate as graduate students in many of its programs in engineering and the natural sciences, including physics and electrical/computer engineering.
Today, The New York Times has a piece out on the maximalist running shoe, a trend now old enough to warrant an article written with characteristically Times-ian remove from rigorous examination of its subject. The thing about these shoes, though, is that even if the Times had wanted to conduct a more thorough examination of the subject, it probably couldn't have. There isn't much else to go on, and that's by design.
If mashups are the going to be the default response for every music feud and awards show slash going forward, then we’re pretty okay with it. After Kanye West’s Grammy interruption, we were already treated to BJ Warshaw’s inspired Beckyoncé mashup titled “Single Loser (Put a Beck on It).”
Now Arcade Fire’s Win Butler has inserted himself into the post-Grammys conversation with an opinion (zzzzz…), but more importantly, his own mashup take on the Yeezy interruption.
The listing is run by a guy who lives in a penthouse six stories over Skid Row. [ 
There’s lots of problems with modern music, but the problems aren’t Beyonce, Kanye, or Beck.
— DJ Windows 98 (@DJWindows98) February 11, 2015
This time around, Butler combined Kanye’s “Jesus Walks” with Beck’s “Loser” to form “Jesus Walks, Loser.” Behold.
Bridgetso much wrong with this. jesus.
A fire-breather at a tattoo convention in Philadelphia breathed a little too much fire, accidentally lighting himself and his entire stage ablaze, as a nu metal soundtrack blasted in the background (the latter perhaps a more frightening detail).
The whole thing was caught on video by Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention attendee Jeff Hurd.
The performer was okay, according to Hurd, and the fire department wasn’t called, as the flames were quickly put out.
[h/t NBC Philadelphia]
Cannibalism can show up at the most unexpected points in history.
Most people don't associate cannibalism with the Soviet Union. But as Timothy Snyder describes in his book Bloodlands, the 1933 Stalin-imposed famine in Ukraine was so severe that cannibalism became surprisingly prevalent. The state had to set up an anti-cannibalism squad, and hundreds of people were accused of eating their neighbors or, in some cases, their family members. (Ron Rosenbaum shares many of the gruesome details in a book review for Slate.)
The grisly episode makes vivid the deprivations of the early Soviet era. That many Americans may have never heard of it illustrates another fact about cannibalism — it's something no one ever wants to think about. It's relegated to disgust, tabloid voyeurism, and lame jokes, and those all contribute to a general ignorance of the subject.
Historians and anthropologists, however, have tried to study the history and science of cannibalism over the years: why it happens, when it occurs, and who's affected. It tests the ultimate boundaries of cultural relativism, health, and ritual. Though this list isn't at all comprehensive, it catalogs some of the unusual things about cannibalism you might have missed.
Turns out there are a lot of myths about cannibalism — and how it's been practiced over time. Here are a few surprising things experts have learned:
There's a good biological reason why cannibalism is taboo in virtually every culture: Eating other humans can make you sick.
Specifically, eating the brain of another human being can cause kuru — a brain disease that's similar to mad cow disease. Kuru occurs because our brains contain prions that transmit the disease. Symptoms begin with trembling and end in death.
What's surprising, though, is that this isn't always the case. Among anthropologists, the Fore people in Papua New Guinea are known for cannibalism. Up until the late 1950s, they ate the bodies of relatives to cleanse their spirits. Thousands of Fore contracted kuru and died ("kuru" actually comes from the Fore word for shaking). But not all of them fell victim to the disease: Over the last 200 years, some Fore have also developed a genetic mutation that protects them from the prions that transmit kuru.
The Fore were adapting to cannibalism — with natural selection possibly playing a role in reducing their susceptibility to disease. Scientists have been trying to study this further, but in recent decades, cannibalism has been declining among the Fore because of changing social mores and laws. If that continues, kuru may be wiped out entirely.
A cane toad. (Ian Waldie/Staff/Getty Images)
Cannibalism is rare in the animal kingdom — except when it isn't.
A few years ago, Natalie Angier of the New York Times chronicled the tales of the cane toad, caecilian, redback spider, and other animals that eat their own species. The cane toad, for instance, actually prefers cane toad eggs to other options.
How can that possibly be a good idea? Here's Angier: "Researchers propose three motives. The practice speeds up maturation; it eliminates future rivals who, given a mother toad’s reproductive cycle, are almost certainly unrelated to you; and it means exploiting an abundant resource that others find toxic but to which you are immune."
Those evolutionary imperatives extend to a wide range of organisms — even including occasional cannibalistic dalliances from animals like the sloth bear. As Mary Bates described in Wired, it's not unknown for sloth bears to eat members of their own family (possibly because they're under stress).
These human and animal cases are more than curious footnotes. They show that evolution can work in ways that run counter to our cultural values. Evolution happens through natural selection and doesn't always line up with things we might value as a society, and evolved cannibalistic behavior illustrates that important distinction.
Caribs depicted as cannibals. ( MPI/Stringer/Getty Images)
A few basic questions about cannibalism are difficult for historians to answer: How many groups practiced cannibalism? When did it start? And how common is it? Those questions are tough because "cannibalism" has been used throughout time to describe many different things. That's also the reason most modern anthropologists and scientists prefer the term "anthropophagy" to "cannibalism."
There are cultures that engaged in cannibalism as a ritualistic practice, but there are also times when people resorted to cannibalism during famine. And at times, the word "cannibalism" has been used to describe all sorts of tactics — and people — seen as savage. Cannibalism is occasionally descriptive, occasionally circumstantial, and occasionally an indirect ethnic slur.
Case in point: The word "cannibalism" itself comes from the name that the Spanish gave to the Caribs (Caníbales). The Spanish accused the Caribbean tribe of ritualistically eating their enemies, but modern-day scholars have doubts that it actually happened. Because the Caribs were engaged in an anti-colonial battle with a host of European powers, many historians now argue that the cannibalism rumors were just a propaganda tactic by the Spanish meant to stir up fears.
On the other hand, we have some evidence the Caribs used body parts as trophies, so cannibalism is a possibility — especially as an intimidation measure or act of war. However, most of our initial testimony comes from Columbus, who had many reasons, both personal and political, to make the Caribs seem as savage as possible.
An engraving depicting the Tupi. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)
One of the first prominent European accounts of cannibals appeared in Montaigne's late-1500s essay Of Cannibals. In addition to being an invaluable anthropological record of the Tupi people in what is now Brazil, the essay sheds light on the intricate practice of cannibalism at the time. Sometimes, the Tupi lived with their captives for months before they were eaten. And they sang to each other.
As Montaigne recorded, the captors taunted captives by "entertain[ing] them with threats of their coming death." And the captives replied in a fashion that was like a song or chant. Montaigne writes:
I have a song composed by a prisoner which contains this challenge, that they should all come boldly and gather to dine off him, for they will be eating at the same time their own fathers and grandfathers, who have served to feed and nourish his body. "These muscles," he says, "this flesh and these veins are your own, poor fools that you are."
Musicologist Gary Tomlinson, who wrote about the Tupi in The Singing of the New World, describes it as an "economy of flesh" that passed through the warring tribes for generations.
"It was a transaction across generations in these warring societies," Tomlinson says. "They were saying, 'In the future, you will be captured by my people, and we will eat you.' The transaction goes on and on."
Archaeologists with a reconstruction of the Jamestown cannibalism victim. (The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Many people might think of cannibalism in distant history and undeveloped countries. But cannibalism was a feature of early American history too.
In 2013, archaeologists revealed they'd found evidence of cannibalism in Colonial Jamestown — an indication of just how desperate early Colonial life had been. Specifically, they discovered markings on the skull of a 14-year-old girl that strongly indicated she'd been eaten by settlers during the particularly difficult winter of 1609.
It was more concrete evidence for something historians had read stories about for years. As Howard Zinn excerpted in A People's History of the United States, one government report painted a grim picture of that winter:
Driven thru insufferable hunger to eat those things which nature most abhorred, the flesh and excrements of man as well of our own nation as of an Indian.
An illustration depicting the desperate journey of the Donner Party. (Fotosearch/Stringer/Getty Images)
When most people think of cannibalism in America, they probably think of the Donner Party — the famous travelers who resorted to the practice when they were stuck in the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains while traveling west in 1846.
What's surprising, however, is contemporary accounts of the trip focused less on the lurid accounts of cannibalism and more on the breadth of hardship that the party endured. As Donner Party historian Kristin Johnson notes: "Out of the more than 300 newspaper articles about the Donner Party published in 1847, the most common headline is a variation of 'From California' ... a mere seven [headlines] contain the word 'cannibalism.'" Accounts tended to highlight the fact that the party only resorted to cannibalism after eating boiled animal bones, hides, and even a beloved dog, Uno.
What's more, many people were just as interested in legends about the Donner Party's buried treasure as they were in the cannibalism. In the 1890s, a Sacramento newspaper reported that treasure rumors made the people of Truckee, California, "feverish with excitement" and included discoveries that would "delight the heart of a numismatist."
The treasure was probably a myth, but it shows that the story was considered far more complicated — and less purely shocking — than it is today.
There are many horrifying examples of cannibalism in Europe throughout history. But one of the most bizarre is that cannibalism was occasionally seen as a remedy. To pick one example, in Germany from the 1600s to 1800s, executioners often had a bizarre side job that supplemented their income: selling leftover body parts as medicine.
As described in Kathy Stuart's Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts, human fat was sold as a remedy for broken bones, sprains, and arthritis. Usually, this human fat was rubbed as a balm, not eaten. However, apothecaries regularly stocked fat, flesh, and bone, and there are also examples of a human skull being ground into a fine powder and mixed with liquid to treat epilepsy.
That treatment may sound strange, but remember that eating placenta has become a modern-day health fad. Most of the time, the popular verdict on cannibalism is clear — don't do it. But occasionally, what's cannibalism and what isn't has been surprisingly hard to define.
Further reading: For a more detailed story about cannibalism, try this one about the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller.
The next time one of your friends starts raving about their FitBit, especially if it's the kind of friend who can't shut the fuck up about their latest "find" and effectively ruins happy hour for everyone else who just wants to lose their inhibitions at the end of a tough week, feel free to stop them dead in their tracks and call them on their bullshit—because science said so.
