How has the modern lifestyle changed the human skeleton?

From the appearance of a transformed face behind the skulls of some people until we are surprised to learn that our elbows are getting narrower, our skeletons are actually changing in very rewarding ways. amazing.

It all started with a goat. The unfortunate animal was born in the Netherlands in the spring of 1939 and the future of the goat was not good either. The left side of the goat's body has a mark of fur that should have its front leg. To the right of the body, the front legs are deformed, it is more like a nail than a foot. Such a deformed leg makes it difficult for the goat to walk.

At the age of 3 months, the small goat was adopted by a veterinary institute and brought to a meadow. In the new place, the goat immediately changes the new way to survive: It pushes its rear legs forward, the goat stands upright with those legs and jumps itself. As a result, instead of walking, the goat will dance like kangaroos and rabbits. Sadly after his first birthday, the goat was injured and died. But people have discovered something amazing right in its skeleton.

Huge skeleton on Tinian Island (Philippines)

For centuries, scientists thought that human bones were a fixed block, that they developed in a predictable way, or inherited genetic traits from parents.

Ruins of the house - the grave of Chief Taga, the supreme chieftain who once ruled on Tinian Island, Marianna Islands (Philippines).

But a Dutch anatomy examining the miserable goat's skeleton found that its hips and hind legs were thicker than normal, while the bones in the two ankles were stretched out. In the end, goat's toes and hips have many unusual angles to match upright posture. The frame of the goat began in a way that prepared it to hop.

In the museums they display human bones that are usually white, but the actual bone underneath the human flesh is pink with many blood vessels that look very lively, miraculously replacing the broken bone to be able to heal itself.

So every human skeleton is developed according to a rough pattern regulated by DNA but then it is adjusted to fit the stress that the person faces throughout their life. This led to a skeleton called "Skeletal history" ("skeleton biography") that is basically observing bones to understand how its owner lived.

And the development of many sharp spines in the back of the skull suggests that our jaw bones are getting smaller , and the young German men today have narrower elbows than ever before, which is obviously the Modern life is profoundly affecting the human bones.

Get a strong evidence of how the skeleton works in relation to people in the Mariana Islands. It is said that the discovery of a male skeleton on Tinian Island (about 1,600 nautical miles (or 2,560km) in the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Ocean) in 1924.

The skeleton dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries. Through observation of the skull, the bones of the arms, the clavicle and the shin bone showed that this man was extremely muscular and unusually tall. Discovering the remains reveals that it corresponds to the legend of the giants who once governed Tinian Island.

Archaeologists call the remains of Taotao Tagga (Tagga giant) because of a legendary chief prisoner named Taga, who is famous for his superhuman strength. When other tombs were discovered, it was revealed that Tinian Island was surrounded by many islands and lived on it was home to an extremely aggressive race.

But where did their absolute health come from? In Taga's case, he was buried in a grave erected by 12 giant stone pillars. A closer examination of Taga's skeleton along with others revealed that they were similar to the remains of the Tonga Islands (South Pacific), where people often build houses and manipulate objects. with giant stones.

The largest house on Tinian Island has pillars up to 5 meters tall and each pillar weighs nearly 13 tons (equal to the body mass of two adult African elephants). Actually these people have gained unparalleled strength due to hard work. If in the future, along with the techniques to be applied to people living in 2019, scientists can find changes in the human skeleton that reflect our modern lifestyles.

David Shahar, a medical scientist working at The Sunshine Coast University in Australia, said: "I have been a doctor for 20 years, but only a decade has seen the skulls of many big customers. Usually a thorny-like trait is often called an " outer bulge" found underneath the skull (above the neck), you can feel for yourself by pressing your finger on that point, or if you are bald, it is easy to see from the back of the neck, until recently, such development is said to be extremely rare. "

In 1885, when the protruding bone was first investigated, the famous French scientist Paul Broca complained that it had a difficult name. Feeling something was strange, David Shahar decided to investigate. Along with his colleagues, Shahar analyzed thousands of X-rays of the skull of people aged 18 to 86 years. They measured any sharp spines and included the posture of those individuals. The results were impressive.

Bones are more protruding than they thought and are usually concentrated in the youngest group: one in four people aged 18 to 30 will have protruding bone spines. Scientist David Shahar thinks that spikes in bone spikes are influenced by modern technology and are related to smartphones (tablets) and tablets. The skulls with developed bony bones will weigh about 4.5 kg, which is equal to the large watermelon.

Neck and elbow deformed

When we sit up straight, heavy objects are balanced on our spine. But when we leaned our heads forward to look after the bulletin board on the social network, the neck was stretched to keep it balanced. Doctors call it "neck pain syndrome".

Spending a lot of time on smart applications will transform our skull.

Scientist David Shahar thinks that spikes are formed by the posture that creates pressure in the neck muscles attached to the skull - and the body reacts by laying down on the layers of fresh bones. These allow the skull to adapt to depression by dividing the weight evenly over a wide area. The tension is related to the amount of time we put our nose in the private place instead of reading.

Before 1973, Americans spent an average of two hours reading books every day, but today people spend twice as much time on their phones. In fact, how big are the thorns?

In his study, Shahar said in surprise: "Sharp spikes are only 30mm long. It is possible that modern spikes will never disappear but only grow bigger - but it does not cause trouble for you. our body ".

In Germany, scientists have discovered another anomalous development: our elbows are shrinking. Christiane Scheffler, an anthropologist at the University of Potsdam (Germany), is studying ways of measuring bones from students when she recognizes this trend. To see how the human skeleton changed over time, Ms. Scheffler conducted research on "big bone children" from 1999 to 2009.

This relates to the child's "frame index" : comparing the height of the person to the width of the elbow, then she compares the results with the same study for 10 years, and discovers that the set Children's bones become fragile over time.

Mrs. Scheffler dumbfounded: "What is the reason for this transformation?". Mrs. Scheffler's first idea may be hereditary, but it's hard to see how the population of DNA can change in 10 years; the second idea is probably children with malnutrition, but this is not so serious in Germany; The third idea is that today's young people are too lazy to move.

To prove the real damage, Mrs. Scheffler and her colleagues conducted a new study: she asked the children to find out their daily habits for a week. The team found a strong connection between the young skeleton and the amount of time they travel.

Scheffler explains: "Every time we use our muscles, it helps to increase bone mass to support them. If we regularly use our muscles, our body will produce more bone tissue, which makes bone density larger ( bigger bones) ".

The shrinking skeletons of children appear to be more adaptable to modern lifestyles. Besides walking is the only form of exercise that helps create a great impact. Ms. Scheffler thinks that even the most passionate sports lovers really spend very little time on practice, she stressed: "Exercising muscles twice a week is not a loss instead of spending time walking. "The history of evolution says that prehistoric people often walk up to 30 kilometers a day."

The last surprise was hiding in our bones for hundreds of years and only recently discovered.

Back in 2011, Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel of New York State University in Buffalo, was studying the skull. As an anthropologist, Mrs. Cramon-Taubadel wants to understand where he comes from by observing the shape of the skull. In response to her difficult question, Ms. Cramon-Taubadel explored many museums around the world just to compare skulls, and to measure them.

Chew well to help your jaw muscles stay strong

There is a strange part in the study of Mrs. Cramon-Taubadel's skull, which is the jaw bone . It is clear that instead of being determined by genetics, the shape of the jaw bone has been understood in two ways: 1 - the person grows up in a hunter-gatherer society; 2- they grew up in a community dependent on agriculture.

The maxillary molars longer than the lower jaw have affected the ability of human speech.

According to Mrs. Cramon-Taubadel, the jaw bone changes with the time we chew food to grow.

Cramon-Taubadel explains: "Changed jaw bone corresponds to the skeleton of the still developing teenagers. At that age, bones are malleable and they respond to different pressures. Modern societies - where food is usually soft and delicious - we can clean up the food without chewing it first, while chewing will make the jaw weaken. for nursing babies - because the mothers wean their babies very differently - and begin to impose them to start chewing hard food '.

Cramon-Taubadel pointed out: "The main problem has occurred in post-industrial communities, when people suffer from dental diseases: cutting teeth, crooked teeth. Now, research shows that one Stricter diets especially in children may be useful in counteracting an imbalance between tooth development and body growth ".

There is also another surprise, which is the change between jaw and teeth that affects speech ability in humans. A recent study showed that, precisely, in the Neolithic agricultural society (about 12,000 years ago), the change of the maxilla protruding more than the lower jaw created new pronunciation. term like "" f "and" v "sounds.

The study estimates that languages ​​have changed in human speech, since only 3% of sounds are hard to hear today to 76%. And one last thing, the best way to prevent disease from spreading when people die is cremation!