How modern life is transforming the human skeleton

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190610-how-modern-life-is-transforming-the-human-skeleton

by novaRom • 7 years ago

122 9 7 years ago

More of a meta-comment, but I'm disappointed there were no images in this article that visualized these changes.

lucb1e• 7 years ago

I'm particularly interested in those giants, even if it's just two skeletons to compare. And surely someone made a rendition at some point!

arkis22• 7 years ago

According to http://guam.org.gu/gary.heathcote.muscle/Legendary.Chamorro....

The Taotao Tagga mentioned in the article is estimated at being 5 feet 9.5 inches while records of European soldiers from Hungary, France, Bohemia, and Saxony who were born between 1735 and 1739 were around 5 feet 5.5 inches.

Noticeably taller, but maybe not gigantic. On the other hand I have a newfound understanding of just how gigantic George Washington (6 feet 2 inches, born in 1732) would have seemed to the vast majority of people.

faissaloo2• 7 years ago

Those reading this might find John Mew's research quite interesting, this malleability of the bone is part of the theory behind orthotropics.

jdhn• 7 years ago

From what I understand, mewing only works in adolescents and younger children due to the fact that they're still growing and their skulls are more malleable, correct?

faissaloo2• 7 years ago

It still works in adults, it's just alot more work. The younger you are the more malleability you have.

MarcScott• 7 years ago

Archeological remains of English and Welsh longbowmen are frequently identifiable from the changes to their skeletons, from the hours of practice they put in to be able to draw a 180lb bow

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-17309665

agumonkey• 7 years ago

I find it super concerning that "modern" life thinks putting things into silos (doing soccer twice a week, going to the gym, spending hours sitting at the office) is a good thing.

Not long ago there was an article about the healthiest group on the planet (~~) and it was a tribe in south mexico .. they were mostly eating few and walking tons everyday.

We need to reintegrate things.

danielnixon• 7 years ago

Nicholas Carr wrote a great piece on this exact topic. You might like it.

It looks like his site is struggling so I'll include an archive.org link too.

Here are his last three paragraphs:

"There’s something bigger going on here, and I confess that I’m still a little fuzzy about it. Silicon Valley seems to have a good deal of trouble appreciating, or even understanding, what I’ll term informal experience. It’s only when driving is formalized — removed from everyday life, transferred to a specialized facility, performed under a strict set of rules, and understood as a self-contained recreational event — that it can be conceived of as being pleasurable. When it’s not a recreational routine, when it’s performed out in the world, as part of everyday life, then driving, in the Valley view, can only be understood within the context of another formalized realm of experience: that of productive busyness. Every experience has to be cleanly defined, has to be categorized. There’s a place and a time for recreation, and there’s a place and a time for productivity.

"This discomfort with the informal, with experience that is psychologically unbounded, that flits between and beyond categories, can be felt in a lot of the Valley’s consumer goods and services. Many personal apps and gadgets have the effect, or at least the intended effect, of formalizing informal activities. Once you strap on a Fitbit, you transform what might have been a pleasant walk in the park into a program of physical therapy. A passing observation that once might have earned a few fleeting smiles or shrugs before disappearing into the ether is now, thanks to the distribution systems of Facebook and Twitter, encapsulated as a product and subjected to formal measurement; every remark gets its own Nielsen rating.

"What’s the source of this crabbed view of experience? I’m not sure. It may be an expression of a certain personality type. It may be a sign of the market’s continuing colonization of the quotidian. I’d guess it also has something to do with the rigorously formal qualities of programming itself. The universality of the digital computer ends — comes to a crashing halt, in fact — where informality begins."

https://www.roughtype.com/?p=5813

https://web.archive.org/web/20160306010921/https://www.rough...

How modern life is transforming the human skeleton

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