Two New Sources: history of the disciplines

Two new sources that I have come across recently. One, The Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine may be on hiatus, but some of the articles are very interesting in terms of both Natural History and the Sciences of Life, with articles such as "Balneology: A Concept of Public Health –Bath Houses in Arabian Life" Vol.5 , No.9 - April 2006. Arish M.K. Serwani, Mashkoor Ahmed, et al.

The other is an archive of French books and materials on phrenology and degeneracy.
Cite - Scientifica: Bibliothèque Histoire des sciences has a great collection on both subjects, as well as 19th century advice on infant and child behavior.

Who Knew? "Not too much, and not none at all."

Given my new found hobby of reading cancer literature and contemplating the nature of the thymus, I stumbled upon this piece of knowledge that was just too good to pass up. It is from WebMD. So it is bad for you when you are young but good for you when you are old. I am sure that this will be duly explained by evolutionary psychologists (as it is a field that is usually not humble about advancing explanations). But until then, one might ask about the reliability of the responses to the question "So how often do you masturbate?"

Masturbation Frequency Linked to Prostate Risk in 20s, Protection in 50s
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Jan. 27, 2009 -- Frequent masturbation in young men is linked to higher risk of early prostate cancer, but it lowers prostate cancer risk for men in their 50s, a study shows.
"Frequent masturbation during men's 20s and 30s increased their risk of prostate cancer," Dimitropoulou tells WebMD. "But men in their 50s who masturbated frequently had decreased risk."
Of course, masturbation frequency is relative.
For men in their 20s, "frequent masturbation" was two to seven times per week. Compared to same-age men who reported masturbating less than once per month, 20-something frequent masturbators had a 79% higher risk of prostate cancer by age 60.
For men in their 50s, "frequent masturbation" was one or more times per week. Compared to same-age men who reported never masturbating, 50-something frequent masturbators had a 70% lower risk of prostate cancer.
What's going on? The study wasn't designed to answer that question. But Dimitropoulou and colleagues have some theories. .........
Meanwhile, Dimitropoulou, now at England's University of Cambridge, advises moderation for both younger and older men.
"It is kind of logical that a moderate level of masturbatory activity has to be maintained," she says. "Not too much, and not none at all."


The graphics are from From Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols, 1920. Gutenberg

One of the best science essays I read last year was this one by Times Blogger Olivia Judson on the possibility of clouds being an unrecognized and unexplored ecological niche. The Wild Side, New York Times An excerpt: "Clouds. It’s been known for ages that microbes — bacteria, algae, fungi, and other tiny organisms — can be found in clouds. This isn’t surprising. Microbes often get airborne. They can be lofted by the wind from the leaves of a plant; or thrown into the air when a bubble of water bursts, and then lofted by the wind. They get high. They’ve been captured in the mesosphere — that’s the layer of atmosphere above the stratosphere — as much as 70 kilometers (more than 40 miles) above the Earth’s surface. And microbes regularly travel long distances by wind. Indeed, in 1832, Charles Darwin, at sea on the “HMS Beagle,” noticed that dust had landed on the ship; and from the position of the wind and the ship, concluded that it must have come more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the coast of Africa. He collected it, and sent it off for analysis; it turned out to contain numerous species of African freshwater algae. Similarly, clouds have been suggested to be a way that microbes get around the planet — a sort of bus system for bacteria. But the paper in “Geophysical Research Letters” went further. It claimed not just that microbes are traveling via cloud, but that some of them are actually living there — growing, metabolizing, reproducing — until plummeting back to earth when the cloud rains."

Melvyn Bragg In Our Time series: Darwin January 2009

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, Melvyn Bragg presents a series about Darwin's life and work.
Darwin: In Our Time site and schedule of programs.