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thebrainscoop:

The Field Museum - Anomalous Gorilla

Remember last week when I posted a few pictures of the fused gorilla spine? Well, my research friends/staffers Jp Brown and Anna Goldman at the Field Museum decided to develop some composite x-rays of the vertebral column in order to get a better understanding of what occurred underneath the surface.  What seems to be the most likely cause is a genetic, arthritic inflammatory condition called ankylosing spondylitis - essentially, an ossification and fusion of the joints in the spine.  This condition has been documented non-human primates and gorillas previously, as well as cetaceans and marine mammals. Since it is genetic in humans, I would be intensely curious to look at the development of this particular gorilla’s offspring (given he bore a few).  

Huge thanks to Jp and Anna for letting me share their x-rays! 

(via xiphoidprocess)

thebrainscoop:

The Field Museum - Gorilla gorilla

Look forward to small photosets of my trip behind the scenes at the Chicago Field Museum in the coming days!  There were so many remarkable things, it’d be rude not to share. 

We came across this specimen in the mammal prep lab waiting to be reunited with the rest of its skeleton, presumably still being processed in their dermestid colony.  It’s the spinal column of a gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) that was donated by the Lincoln Park Zoo once the animal died.  

What is absolutely jaw-droppingly fascinating about this specimen is that the entire spinal column is fused.  All of the vertebrae have grown together to form one continuous, smooth bone, rather than being comprised of multiple moving vertebrae.  There is also a large healing pathology towards the top of the lumbar vertebrae and at the bottom of the thoracic.  An obvious reason for this to have occurred is because this animal had a limited range of movement as it lived in a zoo enclosure for the majority, if not duration of its life.  

It makes me wonder what human skeletons must look like if we continue to live our lives in front of computers, heavily restricting our range of movement day-in and day-out. 

Wow, that’s actually the bony surface?  Not a treatment or anything to help preserve it/prepare it for display?  It’s amazingly smooth, way different than any of the examples of spinal fusion in humans that I’ve seen.  That’s got to be some is some intense long-term remodeling going on, to give it that dipped-wax look.

(via xiphoidprocess)

ruralarchaeologist:

archaeological field fashion: part 2

Coveralls are all you need (note: they must be ill fitting)

Do they even make coveralls that fit correctly?

Seriously, the smallest biohazard pants-covers I’ve ever worn me and my hypothetical twin could have both climbed into easily and yanked the waistband up to our armpits (though this might be at least partly because the company that makes them is assuming an all-dude customer base and it’s ladies central in my corner of the four field approach). 

(via xiphoidprocess)

theolduvaigorge:

New Information on the Modifications of the Neandertal Suprainiac Fossa During Growth and Development and on its Etiology

• by Antoine Balzeau and Hélène Rougier

“The question of whether suprainiac depressions observed on Neandertals and in other human samples are homologous is widely discussed. Recently (Balzeau and Rougier, 2010), we ascertained the autapomorphic status of the Neandertal suprainiac fossa as a depression showing specific external bone features together with a thinning of the diploic layer with no substantial remodeling nor variation in the external table thickness. A suprainiac fossa with these characteristics is systematically present on Neandertals from the earliest developmental stages on, and since the beginning of the differentiation of the Neandertal lineage. Here, we present a detailed analysis of the micro-CT dataset (resolution of 50 lm) of the occipital bone of the La Ferrassie 8 Neandertal child, whose proposed age-atdeath is around 2 years, and we compare it to the adult condition as represented by La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 (resolution of 122 lm). We describe and quantify the boundaries between the different structural layers of the occipital bone, namely the external and internal tables and the diploic layer. We also describe very fine details of the diploic layer structure that had never before been observed on fossil hominins. This study illustrates for the first time that the internal particularities that make the suprainiac fossa a Neandertal autapomorphy are evident early during growth and development. Moreover, we demonstrate that the developmental pattern and causes of expression for the features observed in modern humans and Neandertals are certainly different, indicating that these features are not homologous traits from evolutionary and functional perspectives. Consequently, we confirm the autapomorphic status of the Neandertal suprainiac fossa” (read more).

(Source: American Journal of Physical Anthropology, in press 2013)

(via xiphoidprocess)