Coach does a licking, King Tut and the Medicis

Marcy says: It's Friday. Time for academic thinking before you go on a weekend beer drinking binge. Here are some interesting highlights to earnestly think about..........marcythewhore


Coach accused of licking player's cutsBy Associated Press Posted March 9 2005

HALSEY, Ore. -- A state panel plans to investigate a high school football coach who acknowledged licking a bloody cut on the knee of one of his players.The Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission decided to look at the case after a parent complained that Central Linn High School coach Scott Reed's behavior threatened student safety and health.Reed, 34, who also teaches science, acknowledged the incident last year after the
parent's complaint. The school district placed him on probation and required him to take a "bloodborne pathogens" course.Police investigated, but Reed was not arrested. "Sometimes there are actions that are socially unacceptable or bizarre that aren't necessarily criminal," Linn County Sheriff Dave Burright said.The student whose knee was licked told police Reed had given team members a pep talk about a coach licking and healing injured players' wounds so they could get back in a game.Team members urged Reed to do the same for a bleeding scab on the student's knee, and Reed did after asking permission. A witness said Reed seemed to be "joking around" and the licked athlete was not offended, the police report said.Contacted by The Register-Guard newspaper of Eugene, Reed refused to comment.Saliva-to-blood contact poses a small risk of disease transmission, said Dr. Sarah Hendrickson, public health officer at Lane County Public Health in Eugene."We do know that animals lick their own wounds," she said. "And it may be that saliva has some healing properties. But my very strong recommendation is that you confine yourself to licking your own wounds."The state commission licenses and disciplines teachers and administrators.


King Tut not slain, researchers disclose

By Thomas H. Maugh IILos Angeles Times
Refuting some modern conspiracy theories, the death of Egypt’s most well-known ruler, Tutankhamen, was not because of foul play, Egyptian researchers said Tuesday after examining Tut’s mummy with a sophisticated CT scanner for the first time.
The team still does not know how the 19-year-old boy-king died around 1323 B.C. But the most likely explanation is a natural cause, such as a flu infection, or a bacterial infection associated with a broken leg, said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, who organized the project.
The findings come as a blow to a number of Egyptologists, who have suggested elaborate conspiracies against the king.
“There has been so much wild speculation about the cause of death, most of it based on very poor observations,” said Emily Teeter, of the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. “I’m delighted to find out that those of us who have been very conservative about this have to some extent been vindicated.”
Much of the speculation has been based on previous X-rays of Tut’s skull, which showed broken fragments at the back, possibly indicating a skull fracture. Based on that purported fracture, researchers such as Bob Brier of Long Island University have woven theories about murder and intrigue.
But the new CT scans clearly show that the skull fracture occurred well after Tut’s death, possibly during the embalming process, but more likely about 3,200 years later when explorer Howard Carter discovered Tut’s tomb and dismantled the body to remove almost 150 jewels, amulets and other artifacts.
Some archaeologists had found support for the murder theory in the accepted belief that Tut’s embalming had been hurried and careless.
But the team found extensive evidence, including the presence of five different embalming materials, that great time and care had been taken in the mummification of the king.
“Conspiracies are not beyond the realm of possibility, but at least in this case, if there was a murder, it didn’t happen because of a blow to the skull,” said archeologist David Silverman of the University of Pennsylvania Museum.
The scans unexpectedly revealed a fracture in the left femur (thigh bone) of the king’s leg. The break is ragged and has two layers of embalming materials present within the fracture zone. That differs from the sharp bone breaks known to have been produced by Carter’s team in its effort to pry the body out of its coffin.
The team is divided on the fracture’s significance. Some members think the break occurred a few days before Tut’s death, which might have resulted from an infection in the wound. Others think the break occurred after death and that Carter’s team inadvertently forced the embalming material into the opening.
Silverman noted that an unusually large number of walking sticks were in the tomb, which might support the idea that Tutankhamen fractured his leg. “But the truth of the matter is, the early Egyptians like walking sticks and used them a lot,” he said.
The scans determined that Tutankhamen was about 5-foot-6 with a slight build. The condition of the bones indicated he was between the ages of 18 and 20 when he died. There were no signs of malnutrition or infectious diseases during childhood, and he appeared to have been well fed and well cared for.
Although the king’s teeth were in relatively good shape, he had a small cleft in his hard palette, the bony roof of the mouth, although it probably did not affect his appearance. His lower teeth were slightly misaligned and he had large front incisors and an overbite – both characteristic of kings from his line.
Hawass said Tuesday the mummy has been placed back into its tomb and is unlikely to be disturbed again.
“I believe these results will close the case of Tutankhamen, and the king will not need to be examined again,” he said. “We should now leave him at rest.”



Malaria, not murder, killed Renaissance-era MedicisBY BRYN NELSON Sun-Sentinel Posted March 9 2005, 9:23 AM EST

Two brothers in the Medici dynasty of Renaissance Italy likely were not the long-rumored victims of murder, a new analysis of their centuries-old bones has concluded.Despite the tremendous wealth and power of the Florence-based family, one that produced popes and intellectuals, commissioned art by Michelangelo and protected Galileo from persecution, the two teenagers and their mother instead may have succumbed to a disease that killed without regard to fame or fortune: malaria.

"We found no signs of violence at all, none at all," said Long Island University archaeologist and mummy expert Bob Brier to a crowd of about 200 gathered for his public presentation Tuesday at the C.W. Post Campus in Brookville.Brier, who assisted a research team from the University of Florence and University of Pisa during last summer's exhumations, said the scientists had received permission to examine up to 49 bodies in crypts beneath Florence's famed Chapel of the Medici within the larger Chapel of San Lorenzo.The researchers, led by University of Pisa pathologist Dr. Gino Fornaciari, had time to exhume only five family members, but found many surprises.During their explorations of the "Renaissance lifestyles of the rich and famous," the colleagues discovered a priceless golden crown, crucifix, and funerary medals in the flood-damaged tomb of Gian Gastone, grand duke of Tuscany. The eccentric end of the Medici family line, Gastone died in 1737.A mid-19th century reburial, after several Medici coffins had been plundered, left behind bronze plaques to denote the location of each body interred beneath the chapel's marble floor, but no specifics as to the type of tombs used. A clumsy anthropological exhumation in 1947 further complicated matters, as did the 1966 flooding of the Arno River, which filled the chapel with five feet of water.Beneath a mysterious circular slab, though, Brier and his colleagues discovered steps that descended into a crypt containing several damaged coffins, including Gastone's.The coffin, with its lid fallen in, initially appeared empty, and Brier returned home, convinced that grave robbers had beaten the team to the site. A more thorough cleaning by his Italian colleagues, however, revealed the grand duke's remains beneath the lid, complete with his precious golden crown, crucifix and medals.The revelations began with the exhumation of Cosimo I, his wife, Eleanora di Toledo, and two of their sons, Giovanni Cardinale and Don Garcia.The 16-year-old, Garcia, was rumored to have slain his 19-year-old brother, Giovanni, after an argument during a hunting trip in 1562. In a rage, Cosimo I then supposedly ran Garcia through with his sword, and Eleanora died less than a week later from a broken heart.But Brier said neither boy bore any marks on the sternum, rib, or vertebrae bones that would suggest foul play. And in an archive, historian Donatella Lippi from the University of Florence found a letter from the Medici family physician, warning of a malaria infestation at the chosen site. A second letter, written by Cosimo himself, describes Giovanni's high fever and death, perhaps hinting at malaria instead of a family cover-up for Cosimo's rage, as had been suggested.A team led by Dr. Arthur Aufderheide, director of the paleobiology laboratory at the University of Minnesota at Duluth School of Medicine, is now testing samples from the boys' vertebrae for DNA evidence of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for the deadliest of all forms of malaria.Despite their incredible wealth, the family's bones already have borne the evidence of many health problems: chronic illness throughout Garcia's childhood, a painful condition later in Cosimo's life in which three of his vertebrae fused together, and a severe calcium deficiency for Eleanora."Eleanora may have been literally the wealthiest woman in the world," Brier said, "but her teeth were terrible."Even fame and fortune, it seems, had their limits in the Renaissance.