Although the evolution of all these speci c features can clear ly be seen, biologists are still uncovering the mystery of what makes the crab such an advantageous form. Are crabs the ideal form? Are all species destined for crab-like features? Probably not, but the process of evolution still has elements to be discovered, so who knows!
is process is an example of convergent evolution: the independent evolution of similar features in species over di erent periods of time, without the last common ancestor having any similar features2. e process occurs naturally as species evolve to suit their ecological niche, such as the similarities between dol phins and sharks despite their di erent taxonomic classes.
“...biologists are still uncovering the mystery of what makes the crab such an advantageous form. Are crabs the ideal form? Are all species destined for crab-like features?”
Although it’s not in our distant future, such a huge variety of crustaceans have developed crab-like features over time that the o cial term for crabi cation, ‘carcinization’, was coined by the English zoologist Lancelot Alex ander Borradaile in his 1916 pa per ‘An instance of carcinization’1 He goes on to describe the process as “one of the many attempts of nature to evolve a crab”.
1.References:Borradaile, L.A. (1916) ‘Crustacea. Part II. Porcellanopagurus: An instance of carcinization. Natural History Report’, , 3, pp. 111–126.
Ellen Foster discusses the incredible, peculiar, and confounding phenomenon of carcinisation
3. Keiler, J., Wirkner, C.S., and Richter, S. (2017) ‘One hundred years of carcinization – the evolution of the crab-like habitus in Anomura (Arthropoda: Crustacea)’,,121(1), pp. 200-222. moretems,similarbut,shellsevolveddiscusseshttps://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blw031doi:howdierentspeciessuchsimilarhardenedandatshapesasexpectedsurprisingly,alsodevelopedvascularandnervoussysmakingthespeciesevenalikethanpureappearance3
2. Stern, D.L. (2013) ‘ e genetic causes of convergent evolution’, , 14, pp. 751–764. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3483
Okay, maybe not everything is evolving into crabs. But the strange coincidence of multiple species independently evolving into crab-like forms has been circling the internet for the past few months, causing many people to question if we are also destined for crabi cation…
When thinking of a crab, you may picture a hard shell, at body, and oval shape like a king crab. However, a king crab, despite its name, is actually part of the Anomura or “false crab” fami ly, from which most carcinized species evolve. True crabs are members of the Brachyuran fam ily, such as the Dungeness Crab. A 2017 study from the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) was synthe sised by Albert Hofmann in 1938. Originally intended to be a stimulant for respiratory and circulatory systems, LSD was dismissed by phar maceutical companies1. But Hofmann couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something unique about his new compound. He said he had “a peculiar presentiment, the feeling that this substance could possess properties other than those established in the rst investigations”1.
Once establishing the safe but hallucinogenic dose, he experimented on himself. And so be gan the tumultuous journey of psychedelics.
It was thought that the compound could brainwash and control their enemies though most of the reports were destroyed
Uses of Psychedelics
LSD is a hallucinogenic drug that distorts how someone perceives reality2. Visual and auditory illusions, altered sensations, and mood changes make up this experience2
What is LSD?
e risks of the compound must not be un derstated, potentially leading to negative ex periences and ashbacks3. However, mount ing research is demonstrating the potential of LSD and other psychedelics for psychiat ric treatment in a controlled environment.
It wasn’t until ve years later, in 1943, that Hof mann accidentally consumed some of the sub stance and discovered the hallucinogenic prop erties, describing it as a “kaleidoscopic play of colours”1. A few days later he took a higher dose. LSD and its potential as both a weapon and thera py were discovered completely by accident when a Swiss scientist mistakenly ate his latest project.
“Research has shown that LSD-as sisted therapy has bene cial implications for anxiety associated with life threatening illnesses, with no negative side e ects ...”
Emily Adams explores the fascinating evolution of the narrative and perspectives on psychedelic drugs
e potent mind-altering e were historically investigated as a psy chological weapon in the Cold War. e CIA-sanctioned Operation MK Ultra car ried out human experiments with the drug
e Multidisciplinary Associ ation for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) carries out psychedel ic-assisted psychotherapies. Re search has shown that LSD-as sisted therapy has bene cial implications for anxiety associ ated with life threatening illness es, with no negative side e ects8.
Available at: 9.MAPSble8.MAPSing%20all%20research.banned%20LSD%20in,in%201971%2C%20haltsearch-britain-david-nutt#:~:text=may/29/psychoactive-substances-ban-end-brain-reble7.Gayle,nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00187-96.Tullis,control-1953-1973.htmlsecret-program-that-used-lsd-to-achieve-mind-openculture.com/2021/08/inside-mk-ultra-the-cias-5.Openhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra4.Wikipediahistory.com/topics/crime/history-of-lsd3.HistoryeAvailable2.Buddydental-discovery-of-lsd/379564/theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-accihttps://www.T(2022)at:https://www.verywellmind.com/the-ects-of-lsd-on-the-brain-67496(2018).Availableat:https://www.(nodate).Availableat:Culture(2021)Availableat:https://www.P.(2021)Availableat:https://www.D.(2015)Availaat:https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/e%20UK%20(nodate)(LDA1).Availaat:https://maps.org/lsd/lsd-switzerland/(nodate)Availableat:https://maps.org/mdma/ptsd/eFDArecognisesMDMAasa“breakthroughtherapy”totreatpost-traumaticstressdisorder10.
1.References:Shroder,T. (2014)
By the mid-20th centu ry, scientists had started in vestigating the potential of psychedelics not for mindcontrol but for thera py. Before the boom in recreational drug use in the 1960s-70s, psychedelics were championed as treatments
In 1967, LSD was made il legal in the UK, putting the brakes on research. More recent crackdowns on psycho active substances caused up roar among scientists who claimed that research on psychedelics is an essential tool for treating a number of neu rological diseases and expand ing knowledge about the inner workings of the human mind7.
MAPS’ research has recently turned to followingcriteriaverepatientsphasety,ducechotherapyshownMDMA.ymethamphetamine,3,4-MethylenedioxknownasSeveralstudieshavethatMDMA-assistedpsyforPTSDcanrefeelingsoffearandanxieandincreasewellbeing9.Inathreeclinicaltrial,67%ofdiagnosedwithsePTSDdidnotmeettheforPTSDdiagnosisthreetherapysessions9.Morerecently,researchershavebeenevaluatingthemedicalutilityofpsychedelics(particularlyLSD,psilocybin,andMDMAwhencombinedwithpsychotherapy.isconcepthasbeenaroundforcenturies6,however,researchhasboomedinthelastfewdecades.In2020,therewere17clinicaltrialsusingpsychedelicstotreatpsychiatricconditions6.
Additional success in trials us ing psilocybin as a treatment of Major Depressive Disorder showed a large reduction of symptoms in 71% of patients, with long-lasting e ects6. Sub stances are administered in highly monitored environments, with trained psychotherapists6.
Looking back at the history of LSD and psychedelics, it is stra nge to see how all this potential hinges on the mistake of one man. What is being described in Nature as the psychedelic ‘renaissance’6 comes down to this moment. Re search progress has been subject to the ebbs and ows of the legal system and public scepticism. It is strange to think how this great potential in treatment comes from such a great accident in research.
At e Heart Of A Tragedy: How the Bristol Heart Scandal Transformed Modern Medicine
Content Warning: Surgery, Death, Hospital Controversies
Suppose your newborn child arrives with a heart problem that can only be xed through major surgery. Handing your baby over, you are con dent in the surgeons and team that have performed many of these operations before. You trust that they will take care of your child.
Open heart surgery, through the “arterial switch” operation, is re quired to swap these vessels over. Bristol Royal In rmary was one such hospital that carried out these operations. In the late 1980s, a new anaesthetist arrived in Bristol and noticed that the arteri al switch and other procedures were taking longer to complete2, and more children were coming to harm, compared with other UK centres.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, hundreds of parents handed over their new born children to undergo life-saving heart surgery at the Bris tol Royal In rmary. e tragedy that played out a ected many lives and has profoundly impacted the NHS we know today.
Normally, the right side of the heart takes deoxygenated blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs to be oxygenated. is blood then returns to the le side of the heart and is pumped out, back to the body.
Occasionally, children can be born with transposition of the great ar teries1, whereby the vessels leaving the heart are swapped. Essential ly, blood returning from the body is pumped straight back out without oxygenation in the lungs, and the oxygenated blood coming in from the lungs is immediately sent back to the lungs. is means oxygenated blood is not reaching the body, which will prove fatal unless corrected.
Despite raising concerns, it wasn’t until 1998 that a public inquiry was instigated. It revealed failings far beyond the operating room and ul timately concluded that between 30-35 children died3 during cardi ac surgery at Bristol that might have otherwise survived elsewhere.
To mend a broken heart
Samuel Lee explores how one hospital’s malpractice sparked a nationwide conversation about the importance of ethics in the NHS, and led to a revolution in patient-doctor relation ships.
Lessons learnt?
Bristol displayed the di culties faced with raising concerns in the healthcare system. Despite improving mortality, the anaes thetist who rst raised concerns emigrat ed to Australia a er receiving threats.
In the wake of the 2013 Francis inquiry, “Free dom to Speak Up” Guardians were established6 in the NHS to enable sta to raise concerns. However, di culties remain. Whilst failure to report concerns can result in disciplinary ac tion, whistle-blowers could still be disciplined for undermining colleagues7 - a catch-22 sce nario. Clearly, there is room for improvement.
Conclusion
For mortality to improve, the inquiry ad vised that fewer centres should be conduct ing paediatric cardiac surgery. e ration ale being that surgeons would gain more rst-hand patient experience, improv ing safety and achieving better outcomes. A er a protracted series of reviews, this move was suspended by the Health Secretary in 20138. Again, lessons from Bristol are still to be learnt.
A lasting legacy
e Bristol Inquiry accelerated the move from a paternalistic “Doctor knows best” relation ship to a patient-centred dynamic4. Patients are now included in decision making, con sulted at all stages, and treated as equals. e duty of candour (being honest and open when something goes wrong) has since become contractually enshrined for NHS sta and be came a legal obligation in 20145. A necessity for the continued professional development of sta arose, alongside other recommenda tions, which have improved patient safety.
Some 30 years on, the events of Bristol are still felt today. Bristol Royal In rmary is now one of the leading centres for paediatric cardiac surgery in the UK, with mortality on par with other units. And while the moral, ethical, and political challenges it presents are still of concern, today’s NHS has been shaped for the better by the recommendations that emerged from it. e patient is now, rightly, front and centre of our thoughts and e orts - for the bet terment of the patient, and for the good of us all.
1. Martins, P. and Castela, E. (2008) ‘Transposition of the great arteries’, ., 3 (27). doi: https://doi. 2.org/10.1186/1750-1172-3-27Savulescu,J.(2002)‘Beyond Bristol: taking responsi bility’, , 28 (5), pp. 281-282. doi: 3.http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jme.28.5.281Dyer,C.(2001)‘Bristolinquirycondemns hospital’s “club culture”’, , 323 (7306), p. 181. doi: 4.https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.323.7306.181Coulter,A.(2002)‘AerBristol:putting patients at the centre’, , 324 (7338), pp. 648-651. doi: 10.1136/bmj.324.7338.648
5. Wijesuriya, J.D. and Walker, D. (2017) ‘Duty of candour: a statutory obligation or just the right thing to do?’, 119 (2), pp. 175-178. doi: https:// 6.doi.org/10.1093/bja/aex156Hughes,H.andChurchill, N. (2017) ‘Speaking up in the NHS in England: the work of the National Guardian and NHS England’, ., 67 (658), pp. 198-199. doi:10.3399/bjgp17X690581References
1) Long in the Tooth – the Road to
ankfully, Stromer’s son donated his fa ther’s notes, sketches, and surviving photo graphs to the renovated museum in 1995, where these archives were unearthed again in 2000 and studied once more. Fragmen tary remains have since been discovered, with palaeontologist Nizar Ibra him in particular paving the way, through chance encounters of his own, to a better understanding of this enigmatic predator.
2) An Explosive Mistake – the Lost
In 1915, German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer named a new dinosaur based on a partial skeleton found in Egypt –. is large predator, dated to the Late Cretaceous, was noteworthy for its crocodile-like jaw and tall vertebral spines, indicative of a sail-like feature along its back. e material Stromer studied was the holotype: the specimen used to formal ly describe the species. Unfortunately, the holotype was accidentally destroyed in April 1944 when British aircra inadvertently bombed the Munich museum where the specimen was housed during World War II.
A regular mining operation near Alberta, Canada, accidentally revealed the extraor dinarily well-preserved remains of a dino saur in 2011. e dinosaur was identi ed as a nodosaur, a group of herbivorous,
In 1822, Mary Ann Mantell and her ama teur palaeontologist husband, Dr Gideon Mantell, came across a group of relatively large teeth stuck in some rocks by the side of the road while on their way to Sussex. On the advice of fellow naturalist Georges Cu vier, Dr Mantell took the mysterious teeth to the Hunterian Museum, London, where he discovered the teeth resembled those of an iguana, but much larger, thanks to an iguana skeleton that, coincidentally, had re cently been prepared. In 1825, Mantell sub sequently assigned the teeth to a new ge nus: (meaning ‘iguana tooth’).
3) Corpse Mine – the Exceptional ly Preserved Nodosaur
Palaeontology, the study of prehistoric life, is a discipline heavily shaped by ac cidents and coincidences. e very basis by which we know about prehistoric fau na and ora is via their fossils and traces, which are only preserved by a very spe ci c set of conditions. Even if organisms do fossilise, it is a matter of coincidence whether they survive erosion and tectonic movement, and are accessibly exposed for us to accidentally stumble upon. In this article, we will explore some of the most signi cant dinosaur discoveries a ected by accidents and coincidences.
Harry T. Jones examines and contextualises the intriguing events that triggered monumental discoveries in the dinosaur world
A er investigating several isolated nds in the following years, Mantell nal ly came across more substantial evidence in 1834 when some work men accidentally blew up a rock slab in a limestone quarry near Maidstone, Kent. Mantell designated the bones within the slab as , although this materi al was reassigned to the similar but light er-built in 2012. Sir Rich ard Owen used (and two other genera) to coin the word ‘dinosaur’ in 1842.
nodosaur died, its body was swept out to sea, where it sank to the sea oor, backrst, and was engulfed in sediment. is rapid undersea burial allowed excellent 3D preservation of the animal (rather than a attened fossil). e dinosaur was named in 2017 as the new species
ese are but a few examples of times when accident and coincidence have played a part in the discovery of dino saurs. Similar situations will likely arise in future, revealing new insights into our planet’s prehistory. Maybe one day you’ll accidentally stumble across a new fossil, coincidentally exposed as you pass by…
2.Osterlo , E. (no date) Available at: doi:tor-PreyRevealsceptionallySistiaga,7.Brown,adathe-amazing-dinosaur-found-accidentally-by-miners-in-cannationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2017/11/cidentally)6.Greshko,accessed:tology-new-discovery-great-courses-plus-180962953/anmag.com/sponsored/spinosaurus-lost-dinosaur-paleon5.Smithsonian(Lasthttps://museum.maidstone.gov.uk/maidstones-iguanodon/4.Martignetti,(LastAvailable3.Dinosaurreal-iguanodon.htmlhttps://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/search-for-the-(Lastaccessed:27February2022)Isle(nodate)at:https://www.dinosaurisle.com/iguanodon.html#accessed:27February2022)E.(2020).Availableat:accessed:27February2022)Magazine(nodate)Availableat:https://www.smithsoni(Last27February2022)M.(2017)eAmazingDinosaurFound(AcbyMinersinCanada.Availableat:https://www.(Lastaccessed:27February2022)C.M.,Henderson,D.M.,Vinther,J.,Fletcher,I.,A.,Herrera,J.,andSummons,R.E.(2017)‘AnExPreservedree-DimensionalArmoredDinosaurInsightsintoColorationandCretaceousPredaDynamics’,,27(16),pp.2514-2521.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.071
Osteoderms are usually scattered as the animal’s body decays, but a speci c set of circumstances allowed them to pre serve as they appeared in life. When this
1.OsterloSources: , E. (no date)Available at: discover/the-discovery-of-iguanodon.htmlhttps://www.nhm.ac.uk/(Lastaccessed: 27 February 2022)
armoured dinosaurs. is one lived some 110 million years ago in what is now western Canada. e recovered remains only repre sent the animal’s front half, from its snout to hips, but the 2.75-metre-long reassem bled grey blocks are so well preserved that they bear individual scales! Bony armour plates called osteoderms coat its neck and back, and its shoulders are adorned with a pair of 20-inch-long spikes, most likely reinforcing its defence against predators.
. Melanin pigment analysis even revealed that exhibited a reddish-brown colouration!
“Palaeontology, the study of prehistoric life, is a discipline heavily shaped by accidents and coincidences. The very basis by which we know about prehistoric fauna and ora is via their fossils and traces, which are only pre served by a very speci c set of conditions.”
e term ‘prokaryote’ is a fan cy-sounding name for one of the two main types of cell that embody life. Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus. e archetypal prokaryotes are Bacteria: mi croscopic ‘bugs’ that are present everywhere and even colonise your gut. Yet there is another notable group of less-common ly-known prokaryotic organ isms called Archaea. Derived from the Greek for ‘primitive,’ these ancient entities played a crucial role in the creation of the rst eukaryotic cell alongside bacteria. More on these later.
Arguably, some of the most impactful ‘accidents’ in history have been the events that led to our creation. From the Big Bang to the emergence of cellular life on Earth, we would simply not exist were it not for these important episodes. However, not many people are aware of another remarkable incident in Earth’s history that gave rise to a completely new form of life. In an event that has ba ed evolution ary biologists, the origin of all multicellular organisms on earth was made pos sible when one prokaryotic cell found itself inside another. Allow me to explain.
is brings us to the Eukaryotes, organ isms whose cells contain organelles such as the nucleus and mitochondria. Orga nelles are essentially ‘miniature organs’ within the cell that carry out speci c functions. Mitochondria, the ‘powerhous es of the cell’, conduct aerobic respira tion, for instance. Eukaryotic organisms can be multicellular, but some, such as amoeba, are single celled. Due to being more structurally sophisticated than their prokaryotic counterparts, eukaryotes are termed ‘complex life’ by biologists. From the great baobabs of the African savannah to the hordes of emperor penguins hud dled together in Antarctica, almost all of the wonders of life visible to the naked eye – including us humans – are eukaryotes.
By delving into the history of our Earth’s evolution, Max Walk explores the three domains of life, and how symbiogenesis was a remarkable accident that led to life as we know it today.
Figure 1: Endosymbiotic eory. e rst eukaryotic cell containing a (proto)mito chondrion arose from the symbiosis between an aerobic bacterium and an archae on. Genomic (DNA) sequencing studies have established that the engulfed bacteri um was an ancestor to modern-day alpha-proteobacteria (Koonin, 2009), whereas the archaeon has been suggested to be related to today’s Asgard archaea (Eme ., 2017).
For reasons that biologists still do not fully understand, the poor little bacterium was swallowed by an archaeon and kept prisoner within the archaeal cell therea er. is sort of phenomenon is quite common in eukaryotes; a er all, a core weapon our immune system uses to combat bacterial infection involves white blood cells gob bling up and digesting pathogens in a process called phagocytosis. However, what is ba ing about this event that happened millions of years ago is that the bacterium, which would become the precursor of our mitochondria, wasn’t destroyed but co existed inside the archaeon in a mutually bene cial association known as a symbi osis. e result of this accident was that the hybrid cell, part bacteria, part archaea, became the rst eukaryote. is is what is known as Symbiogenesis, or the Endosym biotic theory; it is the accepted explanation for the origin of complex life on earth.
3. Koonin, E. (2009) ‘Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics’, , 37(4), pp. 1011–1034. 4.https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkp089Lane,N.(2015)
London: Pro le Books Ltd.
5. Sagan, L. (1967) ‘On the origin of mitosing cells’, , 14(3), pp. 225-274. https://doi. 6.org/10.1016/0022-5193(67)90079-3Woese,C.,Kandler,O.and Wheelis, M. (1990) ‘Towards a Natural System of Organisms: Proposal for the Domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya’, , 87(12), pp. 4576–4579. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.87.12.4576
1. Archibald, J. (2015) ‘Endosymbiosis and Eukaryotic Cell Evolution’, , 25(19), pp. R911-921. https:// 2.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.07.055Eme,L.,Spang,A.,Lombard, J., . (2017) ‘Archaea and the origin of eukaryotes’, , 15, pp. 711–723. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2017.133
In the classical theory of evolution proposed by Darwin, species evolve by grad ually accumulating small changes that lead to signi cant modi cations over long periods of time. Symbiogenesis, however, shattered our understanding of the way evolution works by suggesting that it can also proceed in sudden leaps. Ridiculed by the scienti c community at rst, the theory was eventually prov en true a er mitochondrial DNA sequencing showed that mitochondria are indeed descendants of an ancient bacterium that got stuck inside an archaeon!
Now that we have established what the three domains of life are (Bacteria, Ar chaea, and Eukaryota), let me cast your mind back to the age of microbes, a time when prokaryotes ruled the world. During this primitive age, long before dinosaurs roamed the planet, single-celled bacteria/archaea were the only or ganisms that inhabited Earth, living freely in the planet’s oceans. is period of microbial domination lasted from the emergence of the rst living cell until the chance event that unlocked the possibilities of complex life: an incident that involved a bacterium nding itself inside an archaeon, completely by accident.
Further Reading:
* e acquisition of chloroplasts by the ancestral cell to plants, despite also being an example of endosymbiosis, isn’t an event of the same magnitude as the rst symbio sis because it was a eukaryotic cell that engulfed a cyanobacteria (Archibald, 2015).
What makes Symbiogenesis more remarkable is that it has only occurred once in the history of our planet: no prokaryote has ever engulfed another one to cre ate complex life anew in the two billion years since the rst bacterial/archaeal symbiosis*. is goes to show that this event in our origins was a genuinely oneo evolutionary accident, an accident for which we should be very thankful.
Finally, and most infamously, is the mysterious case of Phineas Gage, a construction worker who had a tamping rod penetrate his le cheek, go straight through his skull, and land several feet away, a er an accidental explosion. Mirac ulously, he not only survived, but likely stayed conscious, despite being completely blinded in his le eye. As if this wasn’t fascinating enough, the real mystery came a few months later when his friends described him to Gage’s doctor as “no longer Gage”. He became erratic, violent, couldn’t stick to plans, and used “the grossest profanity”. He was red from his job and even tually died from seizures. is chilling case is one of the most famous in neuroscience – it gave clear evidence that certain functions are associated with speci c areas of the brain. In fact, it is one of the rst ever sources of evidence that the frontal lobe is involved in personality.
A man buried in an avalanche while on holiday skiing was starved of oxygen for at least 15 min utes. Weeks later, while solving Sudoku puzzles, he began to develop seizures in his le arm – sei zures that didn’t occur while doing calculations or writing. A er a functional magnetic resonance exam during which doctors encouraged him to solve the puzzles, they found that the seizures (and the completion of the seemingly innocent little maths puzzles) were accompanied by high levels of activity in the right central parietal cortex. is rare case is a similar condition to the well-known photosensitive epilepsy, where seizures are trig gered by ashing lights. Luckily, the issue had a simple x for the 25-year-old student – once he stopped solving Sudoku puzzles, the seizures never returned. Time to take a crack at Wordle?
Vinny Vince examines the peculiar nature of a selection of bizarre medical cases, and the way in which their intrigue has captured and inspired the scienti c community for decades.
Alexis St Martin was shot in the stomach in 1822 a er an accidental close-range discharge of a shotgun. Amazingly, he survived, al though a permanent hole was le in his stom ach. William Beaumont, the doctor who saved his life, realised the potential of this fascinat ing accident and he decided to use it to study the digestive system. He began by tying string to pieces of food, inserting them through the hole in St Martin’s stomach, and then remov ing them every few hours to watch the process of digestion. As disgusting as these perverse experiments may seem (St Martin even tried to run away from Beaumont at one point, but was caught!), they did provide a valuable dis covery. ey showed that digestion is primari ly chemical rather than mechanical – stomach acid digests the food more than any mash ing or squeezing processes. Although ethical considerations in science have come a long way since then, we can still thank Beaumont for these fascinating insights into digestion.
ree mysterious medical accidents are still per plexing to this day.
With society now entirely dependent on prod ucts saturated with chemicals, it’s easy enough to understand why. Due negligence becomes in evitable when everything from crisp packets to hairspray is littered with chemicals that haven’t been properly hazard tested. To put what I mean into perspective, I’ll provide you with a relatively well-documented example of chemical negligence.
a
Safety… is important. Or at least that’s what you might think. However, apparently in the past 20 years, any regard for that notion has been sorely left behind by the chemical industry.
Now seeing this, you may think that we’d have learnt better than to simply throw chemicals in products le , right, and centre. at, regrettably couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, hidden chemicals are now such a threat to us that the UK parliament undertook a three-year report titled “Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Life”, just to be able to identify the numerous threats to our health.
Chloro uorocarbons (better known as CFCs) were developed in the 1920s as a refrigerant and subsequently mass produced in the 1960s for the same purpose. At the time, they were hailed as a brilliant new chemical because it was non-toxic to humans and in ammable to boot. What the chemists of the time had ne glected to respect, however, was that whilst they didn’t directly harm humans, they se verely depleted the ozone layer, causing an un known increase in the incidence of skin cancer. To top this o , we now know that CFCs can in fact cause us adverse e ects in the form of diz ziness, similar to alcohol, upon inhalation.
Francis Himsworth looks at the integration of chemicals in our society, and how the un known long-term side effects of everyday chemical use are unfortunately inevitable.
Sadly, the conclusion that I came to was as depressing as it was simple. ere is, in a lot of these cases, no better alterna tive to the proposed chemical. Industri alists have to take into consideration the pro t of their product versus the capital required to make the product, and in these complex calculations, the risk to human life is an inevitable concession.
• Carcinogenic
It lists a total of seven di erent types of chemicals, such as ame retardants and phthalates (found in an ything with PVC), which are believed to have ad verse health e ects as a result of research. e se verity of e ects ranges drastically from chemical to chemical, but for those named above, I’ll list o merely a few: Impairment of fertility (contributes to the risk of cancer) defects
•
• Birth
As a matter of fact, there are so many side e ects that scattered across the 63-page report there are ve whole sides dedicat ed to how these hidden chemicals can a ect human health. is begs the question then that if over the course of three years we were able to identify toxic chemicals along with a whole host of their side-e ects, then why didn’t we carry this research out before we decided to employ the large-scale use of said chemicals?
• Bio-accumulation • Genotoxicity
