Gene Regulation Differences Between Humans, Chimpanzees Very Complex..

Changes in gene regulation have been used to study the evolutionary chasm that exists between humans and chimpanzees despite their largely identical DNA. However, scientists from the University of Chicago have discovered that mRNA expression levels, long considered a barometer for differences in gene regulation, often do not reflect differences in protein expression -- and, therefore, biological function -- between humans and chimpanzees. The work was published Oct. 17 inScience.

"We thought that we knew how to identify patterns of mRNA expression level differences between humans and chimpanzees that would be good candidates to be of functional importance," said Yoav Gilad, PhD, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. "Now we see that even such mRNA patterns are not translated to the protein level. Which means that it is unlikely that they can affect a functional phenotypic difference."

For genes to be expressed, DNA must be transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), which then code for proteins, the biological building blocks and engines that drive cellular function. Although humans and chimpanzees share highly similar genomes, previous studies have shown that the species evolved major differences in mRNA expression levels. Many of these differences were thought to indicate areas of evolutionary divergence, thus pointing to genes important for human-specific traits.

To test this, Gilad, Jonathan Pritchard, PhD, currently at Stanford University, and their team, spearheaded by postdoctoral fellow Zia Khan, PhD, used high-resolution mass spectrometry to compare the expression levels of thousands of proteins with corresponding mRNA expression data in human and chimpanzee cell lines.

The team found 815 genes with differing mRNA expression levels but only 571 genes that differed in protein expression. In total, they identified an estimated 266 genes with mRNA differences that did not lead to changes in protein levels. They found similar results in rhesus macaque cell lines when compared to both chimpanzees and humans, confirming the trend.

"Some of these patterns of mRNA regulation have previously been thought of as evidence of natural selection for important genes in humans, but this can no longer be assumed," Gilad said.

The study raises questions over why mRNA expression levels differ between species if they do not necessarily cause protein differences. Although further study is needed, Gilad believes this study suggests that protein expression levels evolve under greater evolutionary constraint than mRNA levels, via a yet-uncharacterized compensation or buffering mechanism.

For now, research that uses mRNA expression levels as a measure of the functional importance of a gene requires reassessment, and not just in studies on evolution.

"We've gained insight into complex diseases by studying mRNA transcripts, but we also have a lot of gaping holes in our knowledge. Perhaps some of them are because of this disparity," Gilad said.

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Bugs and the Body

Do bacteria contribute to human health, and how?

As organizers and participants gear up for the Fourth International Human Microbiome Congress 2013 in Hangzhou, September 13th–15th, research reports continue to document the critical role of bacteria in human health. At the same time, a wealth of probiotic mythology promising that good gut bacteria can cure everything from Crohn’s disease and obesity to cancer continues to be misleading.
But there is some truth in advertising, if the power of the biome could be harnessed in a rational way. As Martin J. Blaser, M.D., Muriel G. and George W. Singer professor of translational medicine and director of Human Microbiome Program at the New York University School of Medicine, put it in an interview for a New Yorker article, “Germs make us sick. But everyone focuses on the harm. And it’s not that simple, because without most of these organisms we could never survive.”
The almost ten thousand bacterial species we share our bodies with, scientists say, outnumber our own by ten to one, and weigh about three pounds—the same as our brain. This “microbiome” plays such a crucial role in our lives that scientists like Blaser have begun to reconsider “what it means to be human.”

The Human Microbiome Project

In Nature last January, David A. Relman, M.D., and his colleagues commented that “the shared evolutionary fate of humans and their symbiotic bacteria has selected for mutualistic interactions that are essential for human health, and ecological or genetic changes that uncouple this shared fate can result in disease. In this way, looking to ecological and evolutionary principles might provide new strategies for restoring and maintaining human health.”

But while knowledge continues to accumulate detailing how bacteria interact among themselves, with human cells, and how their metabolism affects their human habitats, “there are relatively few circumstances where you can meet a patient who is benefitting from this,” says Dr. Relman, adding that our biome is “a complex and dynamic network.” Dr. Relman is a professor of medicine and of microbiology & immunology at Stanford University, and his research program focuses on the human microbiome.

And an individual’s microbiome is as unique as the DNA in their cells, investigators are discovering. In June 2012, in an article in Nature entitled “Structure, function, and diversity of the healthy human microbiome,” results of studies conducted by the Human Microbiome Project reported, “We found the diversity and abundance of each habitat’s signature microbes to vary widely even among healthy subjects, with strong niche specialization both within and among individuals,” niche meaning the intestinal tract and other body mucosa that microbes habitually inhabit.

The five-year NIH-funded $157 million project sequenced and classified 900 microbes believed to play a role in human health. Goals of the project included development of microbiome taxonomic, metagenomic, and functional data from clinical biospecimens obtained from a cohort(s) of carefully phenotyped subjects with a specific disease or health state, and the combination of the microbiome and host data to produce a community resource.

But Dr. Relman noted with regard to expectations generated around the information produced from the microbiome project, “There’s sensitivity about the expected returns. We need to be grounded about what it is we’ll be able to gain at what point in time. I think the shorter-term gains may be around diagnostics, and novel ways of classifying both health and disease.”

The long-term objective of the initiative is to develop a dataset that the community can utilize to explore whether study of the human microbiome beyond sequenced-based analyses will yield important new insights in understanding human health and disease.

The consortium of scientists have already found the diversity and abundance of each habitat’s (gut, skin, and vagina) signature microbes varied widely even among healthy subjects, with strong niche specialization both within and among individuals.

The project encountered an estimated 81–99% of the genera, enzyme families, and community configurations occupied by the healthy Western microbiome. Metagenomic carriage of metabolic pathways was stable among individuals despite variation in community structure, and ethnic/racial background proved to be one of the strongest associations of both pathways and microbes with clinical metadata.

Analysis of the sequences of the first 178 microbes, which was published in the May 21, 2010, issue of Science, “held some surprises” particularly with regard to the extent and complexity of microbial diversity. About 90% of their DNA was previously unknown. The study also identified novel genes and proteins that contribute to human health and disease.

Data emerging from this project, consortium investigators hope, could lead to development of new diagnostic tests because individual biomes are as unique, some scientists say, as an individual’s DNA.

Quantitative Metagenomics

And this data is already enabling new research. Earlier this year, Danish research, citing the obesity epidemic in developed nations, reported the human gut microbial composition in a population sample of 123 nonobese and 169 obese Danish individuals. Establishment of a catalog of bacterial genes from the human gut, the researchers said, encouraged them to ask whether variation in the gut microbiome at gene and species levels defines subsets of individuals in the adult population who are at increased risk of obesity-related metabolic disorders.

The abundance of known intestinal bacteria can be assessed, the authors said, by the mapping of a large number of sequencing reads from total fecal DNA onto a reference set of their genomes. This “quantitative metagenomics” approach was extended by the authors to assess the abundance of genes from the reference catalog in a cohort of 292 nonobese and obese individuals.

They found that two groups of individuals differed by the number of gut microbial genes and therefore, gut bacterial richness. Individuals with a low bacterial richness (23% of the population) were characterized by more marked overall adiposity, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia and a more pronounced inflammatory phenotype when compared with high bacterial richness individuals.

The obese individuals among the lower bacterial richness group also gain more weight over time. Only a few bacterial species are sufficient to distinguish between individuals with high and low bacterial richness, and even between lean and obese participants. Our classifications based on variation in the gut microbiome identify subsets of individuals in the general white adult population who may be at increased risk of progressing to adiposity-associated comorbidities.

Probiotics

The implications individual microbiomes has, investigators discovered, clear implications for health and disease. Jeffrey Gordon, M.D., director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, and his researchers in his laboratory at Washington University, who this August reported experiments introducing gut microbiomes from lean and obese humans into mice with some unexpected results, showed the bacteria could transfer characteristic of lean animals into obese animal, or prevent the development of obesity.

Several years ago, in another study, Dr. Gordon described two groups of beneficial bacteria that are dominant in the human gut, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes. When Gordon’s team had 12 obese people follow either a low-fat or a low-carb diet to lose weight, the result was more Bacteroidetes and fewer Firmicutes—the profile of slim people. The more Bacteroidetes, the more weight the volunteers lost.

The scientists showed that the relative proportion of Bacteroidetes is decreased in obese people by comparison with lean people, and that this proportion increases with weight loss on two types of low-calorie diet. Their findings indicate that obesity has a microbial component, which might have potential therapeutic implications. But these findings, and relatively simplistic interpretations, helped fuel the frenzy to sell probiotics, rationally or not, despite Dr. Gordon’s clear statements about the importance of how the microbiome operates in relation to diet.

But according to Dr. Gordon, at the moment, a far more complicated picture has emerged than just ingesting the right bacteria. He says, “There’s an intricate relationship between our diet and how our gut bugs alternately affect us.”

“Cocktails of classic probiotics, which people have been trying for years, may have some benefit but the effect seems to be quite small,” says Dr. Relman. A targeted approach that manipulates specific species could be more effective, but, Relman adds, “I don’t think we’re there yet”.

Bacteria from Lean Humans Can Slim Obese Mice

A new study suggests that more complex interactions between diet, body mass, and gut microbiota underlie metabolic disturbances than previously thought.

 

·                                 Patricia Fitzpatrick Dimond, Ph.D.

        The mouse models employed in this study could be used to identify other aspects of how the human gut microbiota and our diets influence human health. [© Mirko Raatz - Fotolia.com]

Graduate student Vanessa Ridaura and colleagues at the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology,University of Washington School of Medicine reported in the September 6 issue of Science that mice lacking bacterial colonies of their own that received gut bacteria from obese humans put on more weight and accumulated more fat than mice that were given bacteria from the guts of lean humans.

To directly test the influence of the human gut microbiome on obesity, the investigators sampled microbes living in the guts of human fraternal and identical twins, one of whom was lean while the other, obese. They introduced these microbes into germ-free mice fed low-fat mouse chow, as well as diets representing different levels of saturated fat and fruit and vegetable consumption typical of the U.S. diet. Increased total body and fat mass, as well as obesity-associated metabolic phenotypes, were transmissible with uncultured fecal communities and with their corresponding fecal bacterial culture collections.

“The first thing that Vanessa identified in these mice, which were consuming a standard mouse diet, was that the recipients of the obese twins' microbiota gained more fat than the recipients of the lean twins' microbiota,” Jeffrey Gordon, M.D., director of the Center and a co-author of the Science report, explained. Since, he said, the differences could not be attributed to the amount of food the mice consumed, “there was something in the microbiota that was able to transmit this trait. Our question became: What were the components responsible?"

To perform what Dr. Gordon called “The Battle of the Microbiota,” the investigators housed mice that had received microbes from a lean twin (Ln mice) with mice that were given microbes from an obese twin (Ob mice). “Mice—delicately put—exchange their microbes readily,” said Dr. Gordon, referring to coprophagia, or the consumption of feces.

When Ridaura and her colleagues housed Ln mice with Ob mice for 10 days, they discovered that the Ob mice—affected by their cage mates’ microbes—slimmed down, adopting the “leaner” metabolism of the Ln mice. Ln mice, on the other hand, appeared unaffected and maintained their own metabolism, they say. The “rescue” of mice from obesity was correlated with colonization of specific members of Bacteroidetes bacteria that were part of the Ln biota, and, importantly, was diet-dependent. Only those mice eating a low-saturated fat, high fruit and vegetable diet became colonized with the Ln–associated bacteria. These animals did not become obese.

These findings suggest that more complex interactions between diet, body mass, and gut microbiota underlie human metabolic disturbances than previously understood. The mouse models employed by investigators could be used to identify other aspects of how the human gut microbiota and our diets influence human health.

“We now have a way of identifying such interactions, dependent on diet, and thinking about what features of our unhealthy diets we could transform in ways that would encourage bacteria to establish themselves in our guts, and do the jobs needed to improve our well-being,” said Dr. Gordon. “In the future, the nutritional value and the effects of food will involve significant consideration of our microbiota—and developing healthy, nutritious foods will be done from the inside-out, not just the outside-in.”

The study appears in the September 6 issue of Science with the title, “Gut Microbiota from Twins Discordant for Obesity Modulate Metabolism in Mice”.

Interesting Biotechnology Things!

We did not know of all these interesting facts by ourselves. We searched and found all these. Enjoy!

1.The Breen in Star Trek use starships with organic technology. The starship USS Voyager used bio-neural gel pack circuitry. Species 8472 used organic spacecraft.

2.The Yuuzhan Vong in Star Wars exclusively use organic technology and regard mechanical technology as blasphemy.

3. In the book/movie Jurrassic Park, biotechnology is also involved!

Ingen, the company which created Jurassic Park, created the dinosaurs from dinosaur gene sequences present in a fossilised mosquito trapped in a piece of amber, with certain sections being taken from frog DNA.

web.reed.edu/nsfaire/images/nsfaire_biology.jpg

4. Did you know that researchers have reversed the aging process in brain cells? They have successfully induced brain cells to revert back to neural stem cells.

5.Did you know that....

the Centers for Disease Control estimates that some 18 million courses of antibiotics are prescribed for colds each year even though colds are caused by viruses?

6. Did you know that scientists are making plans to build a device that will detect all life outside of Earth?

7. Did you know that researchers have restored sight to blind dogs by injecting them with a genetically engineered gene?

8. Did you know that scientists have produced bone from skin and gum tissue?

9. Did you know that researchers have devised a method of isolating and extracting specific brain cells from cadavers that are able to divide and develop into other types of brain cells?

Interesting facts on the development of biotechnology in India

                                                                                                      

i. To evolve integrated plans and programmes in biotechnology and biotechnology related manufacturing.

ii. Establishment of infrastructure support at the national level

iii. To evolve bio-safety guidelines for laboratory research, production and applications.

iv. To initiate scientific and technical efforts related to biotechnology.

v. To act as an agent of the government for import of new recombinant DNA based biotechnological processes, products and technology

Fun Facts About Biotech and Health Care

The End of Our World as We Know It
A group of viruses and bacteria recently got together and put Homo sapiens on the endangered species list.

Now we Know How He Got the Idea
The inventor of colonoscopy, before he invented colonoscopy, worked for the Internal Revenue Service.

Everything is Gene-Based Now
Researchers in Toledo (Ohio, not Spain) have identified the gene that determines whether you have an innie or an outie.

Perhaps Better than Coffee and Red Wine too
A new research study provided data indicating that basic health care is better medicine than laughter.

It's Worked Great for ADHD and RLS
The best way to sell a new drug or device is to convince people that they have a new disease.

If You Don't Get Sick at Work or on a Plane
One of the best places to catch an infection is in a hospital.

The Revenge of the Lab Rat
The FDA has announced that it will accept data from research on humans to determine the safety and efficacy of drugs to be used to resuscitate lab rats.

A Once in a Lifetime Opportunity
A general practitioner in Paducah, Ky., one day saw all his patients at the exact time of their appointments.

Dealing with Rowdy Neanderthal Children
Researchers believe that Neanderthal man developed the first medical device: an earplug made of sandstone.

And How Much Did This Research Cost?
New research carried out by optometrists and psychologists in Australia shows that motorists suffering from cataracts are less able to spot potentially dangerous hazards on the roads.

Fun Facts About Microbes

• Microbes first appeared on earth about 3.5 billion years ago. They are critically important in sustaining life on our planet.

• Microbes outnumber all other species and make up most living matter.

• Less than .5% of the estimated 2 to 3 billion microbial species have been identified.

• Microbes comprise ~60% of the earths biomass.                             

• Microbes drive the chemistry of life and affect the global climate.

• Microbial cycling of such critical chemical elements as carbon and nitrogen helps keep the world inhabitable for all life forms.

• Microbes generate at least half the oxygen we breathe.

• Microbes thrive in an amazing diversity of habitats in extremes of heat, cold, radiation, pressure, salinity, acidity, and darkness, and often where no other life forms could exist and where nutrients come only from inorganic matter.

• Microbes offer unusual capabilities reflecting the diversity of their environmental niches. These may prove useful as a source of new genes and organisms of value in addressing bioremediation, global change, biotechnology, and energy production.

• Microbial studies will help us define the entire repertoire of organisms in specialized niches and, ultimately, the mechanisms by which they interact in the biosphere.

• Diversity patterns of microorganisms can be used for monitoring and predicting environmental change.

• Microbes are roots of life's family tree. An understanding of their genomes will help us understand how more complex genomes developed.

• Microbial genomes are modest in size and relatively easy to study (usually no more than 10 million DNA bases, compared with some 3 billion in the human and mouse genomes).

• Microbial communities are excellent models for understanding biological interactions and evolution.

• Most microbes do not cause disease.

Biotech’s First Musical Instrument Plays Proteins Like Piano Keys
 

A biophysicist and composer have banded together to create a music box that turns biology into sound

By Nona Griffin and Daniel Grushkin

The chromochord holds 12 vials, each paired to a different electronic sound. Find out more in the Slide Show.Image: Karen Ingram (kareningram.com

First comes a cacophony of gongs, then flutters of chimes, then a deep melodic whale call—these are the sounds of the first musical instrument powered by biotechnology. The music comes from a black box in the home lab of Josiah Zayner, a biophysicist at the University of Chicago. Inside the box blue lights pulse on vials of proteins, which in turn trigger the sounds. Zayner calls it the chromochord. “Chromo” refers to the colored lights and “chord” refers to the strings of a musical instrument. Essentially, it’s light activated. “Scientists see beauty in a well-crafted experiment,” Zayner says. “The chromochord allows other kinds of people to experience that beauty.”

The chromochord relies on proteins fromplants that respond to sunlight, known as light-, oxygen- and voltage-sensing (LOV) proteins. Sunlight causes proteins in leaves and stems to expand, which sets off a cascade of cellular signals that allows plants to grow toward a light source. Zayner isolated LOV proteins from oats, collected them in vials and bioengineered each sample to react differently to blue light. “People don’t have the chance to consciously experience life on the cellular level,” says Zayner, who studies LOV protein activation and movement in his research. “This brings it smack-dab in their ears.”

The chromochord holds 12 vials, each paired with a different sound. When light shines on one vial the proteins inside swell, changing the wavelength they absorb. A sensor measures the change in absorption and cues the sounds. As one set of proteins slowly expands, the chromochord emits the deep thrum of a bass; as another setquickly shrinks, out comes the sound of glass chimes.

“There is something conceptually appealing about hearing the sounds of biological things,” says Jason Freeman, interim director of the Center for Music Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “These proteins have their own music to them. People make music out of mold, nanoparticles or all kinds of things. There’s something intrinsically interesting about these projects because they’re seeking to make audible that which is normally inaudible to us, to reveal something that may be a little bit mysterious or invisible to us in nature.”

The first chromochord prototype had a push-button interface but Zayner found it unwieldy and finicky when he first played it at a physics conference in Berlin. Instead, he wanted to create a more portable and reliable device, so he partnered with composer Francisco Castillo Trigueros on a second version. The two met after Zayner sent a mass e-mail to composers at the local conservatory. “Francisco was the only one who responded,” Zayner says. Trigueros wrote the music and Zayner translated it into automated light pulses and built the machine.

The two make a surprising pair: Zayner has a lip piercing and a large cross tattoo on his chest, whereas Trigueros wears V-neck sweaters and collared shirts and is often mistaken for the scientist.

In May the collaborators had their first two-day musical installation at the University of Chicago. The room was dark and the sounds were eerily calming. On the front wall projections of deep-blue blobs morphed into one another, a visual representation of the sounds. But on the second day of the show the proteins began to stick together. The musical phrases turned into noise and the visuals faded. “The installation that we set up had beautiful music,” says Zayner, “but then over time the music would slowly be distorted as the proteins started to fail.”

The breakdown surprised Trigueros: “I had to rethink my role as a musician.” But it was Zayner’s intention. “In our bodies, there might be a million proteins in a cell. Some of them get damaged—things happen,” Zayner says. “In the end it’s not perfect, but it’s still beautiful almost because of that imperfection.”

Others seem to have agreed. “I think the audience was pretty enamored with it,” says Julie Marie Lemon, the program director and curator of the Arts|Science Initiative at the University of Chicago. “In a sense, the life of the protein was being experienced.”

Zayner and Trigueros next plan to create another musical instrument, this time using cells and sound, rather than light to stimulate them. They hope to expose bacterial and one day human cells to music and measure how the cells’ pressure-sensitive ion channels respond. When sound waves hit the channels, a surplus of ions floods through the cell and elicits a response that can be translated into new, different music. “This is just the seed, and we will see how the tree grows, but it could be really strange,” Trigueros says.

Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using biotechnology. (Indirect genetic modification through artificial selectionhas been practiced for centuries.) New DNA may be inserted in the host genome by first isolating and copying the genetic material of interest using molecular cloning methods to generate a DNA sequence, or by synthesizing the DNA, and then inserting this construct into the host organism.Genes may be removed, or "knocked out", using a nuclease. Gene targeting is a different technique that uses homologous recombination to change an endogenous gene, and can be used to delete a gene, remove exons, add a gene, or introduce point mutations.

An organism that is generated through genetic engineering is considered to be a genetically modified organism (GMO). The first GMOs were bacteria in 1973; GM mice were generated in 1974. Insulin-producing bacteria were commercialized in 1982 and genetically modified food has been sold since 1994. Glofish, the first GMO designed as a pet, was first sold in the United States December in 2003.^[1]

Genetic engineering techniques have been applied in numerous fields including research, agriculture, industrial biotechnology, and medicine. Enzymes used in laundry detergent and medicines such as insulin and human growth hormone are now manufactured in GM cells, experimental GM cell lines and GM animals such as mice or zebrafish are being used for research purposes, and genetically modified crops have been commercialized.

POTENTIAL USES OF STEM CELL

POTENTIAL USES OF STEM CELL

History Of Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC)

Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC)

Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained | 2003 | Copyright

Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC)

The enigma of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is considered the most bizarre and frightening of all the phenomena in the world of the unexplained and the unknown. Some believe that stories of SHC are only urban legends, eerie tales of people bursting into flames that never really happened to real people. But this is not the case. Urban legends happen to a friend of a friend, but are really untraceable back to any true original narrator of the event. In the case of spontaneous human combustion, one is left with the charred remains and ashes of individuals who were once fully living, breathing, feeling human beings.

Spontaneous human combustion is included in the chapter on ghosts and hauntings because for centuries certain scientists and psychical researchers have suggested that the phenomena may be due to some kind of internalized psychokinetic facet of the human mind. Poltergeists have been known to cause spontaneous outbreaks of fires, and mysterious fires and lights have been part of the repertoire of a haunted house since humans first began to keep records of such phenomena. Then, too, there are those theorists who place the blame for SHC directly on vengeful spirits or malicious entities from other dimensions of reality. Whatever the true cause of SHC, such accounts have haunted men and women for centuries, thus the mystery is placed in this chapter.

In December 2001, a 73-year-old woman in Garden Grove, California, died from the third-degree burns that she had suffered over 90 percent of her body. Firefighters and the coroner's office were left with the puzzle of how this could be possible when the fire took only four minutes to extinguish and was confined to a couch, a table, and the chair in which the victim was sitting.

Was this another case of spontaneous human combustion? In many ways it is similiar to so many other unexplained instances of SHC.

On March 24, 1997, 76-year-old John O'Connor was found dead in his living room at Gortaleen in northernIreland. An intense and localized heat had left only his head, upper torso, and feet unburned, as well as the chair in which he was sitting. There was very little smoke damage done to the room or the furniture.

In December 1956, Virginia Caget of Honolulu, Hawaii, walked into the room of Young Sik Kim, a 78-year-old disabled person, to find him enveloped in blue flames. By the time firemen arrived on the scene, Kim and his easy chair were ashes. Strangely enough, nearby curtains and clothing were untouched by fire, in spite of the fierce heat that would have been necessary to consume a human being.

On August 19, 1966, Doris Lee Jacobs of Occano, California, burned to death in her trailer home at 1342 23rd Street. Although Jacobs suffered burns on over 95 percent of her body, the inside of the trailer was only partially scorched. Officials could offer no explanation for the fire, because it was the woman, not the trailer, who had burst into flames.

How can human flesh be heir to such dangers as spontaneous combustion? Spontaneous combustion, it is assumed, is confined to oily rags and newspapers piled up in poorly ventilated corners of basements and garages.

On September 20, 1938, in Chelmsford, England, a woman burst into blue flames in the midst of a crowded dance floor. No one was able to extinguish the blaze that seemed to be fed by her own flesh, and in minutes she was but a heap of ashes.

On July 30, 1937, a woman who had been paddling about in a small boat with her husband and children at England's Norfolk Broads was engulfed by terrible blue flames and was nothing but a mound of ash in a matter of a few horrifying moments. Neither any member of her family nor the wooden boat was harmed.

Dr. D. J. Gee, a lecturer in forensic medicine at the University of Leeds, England, wrote of a case of SHC for the journal Medicine, Science and the Law (5:37–8, January 1965). According to Gee, the victim was a slim, 85-year-old woman who lived with her son and daughter-in-law in a ground-floor apartment. Her family had left the apartment by 9:30 a.m. on the day she died. Neighbors had discovered smoke issuing from a kitchen window and found the smoldering remains of a human body on the hearth.

When Gee visited the apartment two hours later, he noticed that the room was exceedingly warm and the ceiling felt hot. The paintwork was blistered and the walls and furnishings begrimed by soot. Only a part of the wooden edge of the hearth was burned, and a small section, approximately one foot in diameter, of the floor was damaged. The rug had not been burned, but it was greasy with tiny fragments of fat. A tea towel lying near where the body had been found was barely singed, and a large pile of dry firewood remained unaffected.

Gee concluded from his examination that the woman must have suffered a heart attack and fallen into the fire. The body was ignited at the head by the fire and had been sufficiently inflammable to burn to such an extensive degree without any other source of heat, like a candle. The draft from the chimney had prevented the spread of flames to other parts of the room.

In a 1961 study Dr. Gavin Thurston studied the literature of SHC and came to a number of conclusions, among them:

1. That under certain conditions a body will burn in its own fat with little or no damage to surrounding objects.
2. The combustion is not spontaneous, but started by an external source of heat.
3. This has occurred where the body has been in the path of a draft up a chimney from a lighted fire. Oxygenation of the flue prevents outward spread of the fire.

In order to test Thurston's theories, Gee conducted some experiments of his own. He learned that human fat, when melted in a crucible, would only burn at a temperature somewhere near 250 degrees centigrade. However, a cloth wick prepared in liquid fat will burn even when the temperature of the fat has dropped as low as 24 degrees centigrade.

Gee also enveloped a layer of human fat in several layers of thin cloth in order to produce a roll about eight inches long. Combustion of the roll proceeded slowly along its length, burning with a smoky yellow flame and producing a great deal of soot. In both of these experiments, a fan was arranged so that combustion would proceed in a direction opposite the flow of air.

Gee admitted that these experiments were by no means conclusive, but argued that they supported the theory put forward by Thurston, which he believed to be the most reasonable explanation for the occurrence of spontaneous human combustion.

On April 7, 1969, Grace Walker of Long Beach, California, was found on the floor of her living room with burns covering 90 percent of her body. Although she was still alive when discovered, she was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Investigating police officers said that the only signs of fire in the house were the ashes left from Walker's clothes, which had been burned from her body by the flames from her flesh. There were no burners lighted on the stove and not a single match was to be found in Walker's house. Friends and relatives said that the woman did not smoke and never carried matches on her person.

The strange phenomenon of ball lightning has been used by many scientists in an attempt to explain the even stranger mystery of spontaneous human combustion, but it is as difficult to isolate in laboratories for study as SHC. In 1960, Louise Matthews of South Philadelphia survived an eerie experience that might substantiate the theory of ball lightning as a factor in at least some of the mysterious cremations that have taken place throughout the world and throughout all recorded time. Matthews claimed that she was lying on her living room sofa when she glanced up to see a large red ball of fire come through both the closed window and the venetian blinds without harming either. At first Matthews thought that an atomic bomb had fallen, and she buried her face in the sofa. But the ball of fire passed through the living room, into the dining room, and drifted out through a closed dining room window. Matthews said that it made a sizzling noise as it floated through her house. And she was able to exhibit visible proof of her experience: As the ball of fire had passed over her, she had felt a tingling sensation in the back of her head. Her scalp was left as smooth and clean as her face.

In his experiments regarding the effects of fire on flesh and bone, Dr. Wilton Krogman, professor of physical anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, tested bones still encased in human flesh, bones devoid of flesh but not yet allowed to dry out, and bones that have dried. He burned cadavers in a wide variety of fires fed by such combustibles as hickory and oak, gasoline, oil, coal, and acetylene. Krogman learned that it takes a terrific amount of heat to completely consume a human body, both flesh and skeleton. Cadavers that were burned in a crematorium burn at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for more than eight hours, burning under the best possible conditions of both heat and combustion, with everything controlled, are still not reduced to ash or powder. Only at temperatures in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit did he observe bone fuse so that it ran and became volatile.

How, then, can a human being burn beyond recognition—in a number of cases in less than an hour—yet not cause the fire to spread beyond the chair in which the victim was sitting or the small area of the floor on which he or she might have sprawled? According to Krogman, the temperatures required to bring about such immolation should ignite and consume anything capable of burning within a considerable radius of the blaze.

In what has become one of the classic cases of SHC, Mary H. Reeser of St. Petersburg, Florida, was last seen relaxing comfortably in an armchair in her apartment at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday evening, July 2, 1951. When a telegram was delivered to her 11 hours later, nothing remained of the 170-pound woman but a skull that had shrunk to the size of a baseball, one vertebra, and a left foot wearing the charred remains of a black slipper.

St. Petersburg Fire Chief Nesbit said that he had never seen anything like it in all his years of investigating fires. Police Chief J. R. Reichart received an FBI report stating that there was no evidence that any kind of inflammable fluids, volatile liquids, chemicals, or other accelerants had been used to set the widow's body ablaze. A spokesman for a St. Petersburg mattress company pointed out that there is not enough material in any overstuffed chair to cremate a human body. Cotton, he said, comprises the basic stuffing of such a chair, and this material is often combined with felt and hair or foam-rubber cushions. None of these materials is capable of bursting suddenly into violent flames, although they do possess properties that enable them to smolder for long periods of time.

At first Krogman theorized that a "super lightning bolt" might have struck Reeser, her body serving as a conductor to ground the current through a wall-type heater behind the chair. He discarded this theory as soon as he learned that local weather bureau records showed no lightning in St. Petersburg on the night Reeser met her bizarre death.

Krogman remarked that he had never seen a skull so shrunken or a body so completely consumed by heat. Such evidence was contrary to normal experience, and he regarded it as the most amazing thing he had ever seen. If he were living in the Middle Ages, he mused, he would suspect black magic.

Spontaneous human combustion seems to strike without warning and without leaving a clue. It seems to occur primarily among the elderly and among women, but there is no standard rule for these grim cases of preternatural combustibility. Nearly every theory, such as that those who imbibe heavily might be more susceptible to the burning death, has been disproved and rejected. At this time, no investigator has determined the critical set of circumstances that might bring body cells to the stage at which they might spontaneously burst into the flames that feed on the body's own fatty tissue, and SHC remains a baffling mystery in the annals of the unexplained and the unknown.

Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC)

Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) describes reported cases of the burning of a living (or very recently deceased) human body without an apparent external source of ignition. As of 1995, there have been about 200 cited cases^[1] worldwide over a period of around 300 years.

There are many hypotheses that attempt to explain human spontaneous combustion. These include several natural explanations as well as supernatural and biblical explanations.

Natural explanations include those:

• Intestinal conversion of food into methane by methanogens which when released through the pores of the skin can catch fire when triggered by various sources (e.g., silk cloth generating static electricity).^[2]
• Based on unknown or otherwise unobserved phenomena (e.g., that the production of abnormally concentrated gas or raised levels of blood alcohol might cause spontaneous ignition)^{[citation needed]}
• Relating to health and lifestyle factors (e.g. smoking, not consuming adequate levels of water, etc.)^{[citation needed]}
• That involve an external source of ignition (e.g., the victim was drunk and dropped a cigarette)^{[citation needed]}

Objections to natural explanations typically refer to the degree of burning of the body with respect to its surroundings. Indeed, one of the common markers of a case of SHC is that the body – or part of it – suffered an extraordinarily large degree of burning while the surroundings or the lower limbs remained comparatively undamaged.^[1]

Supernatural^{[citation needed]} and biblical explanations of spontaneous human combustion remain popular. In the latter case, some people^{[according to whom?]} interpret Bible passages (such as Num 11:1^[3]) to be indicative of spontaneous human combustion.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Characteristics
• 2 Forensic investigation
• 3 Suggested explanations
  • 3.1 Natural explanations
  • 3.2 Unverified natural phenomena
• 4 Notable examples
• 5 See also
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Characteristics[edit source | editbeta]

The spontaneous combustion of people (i.e. death from a fire originating within the victim’s body without a direct external cause) is a theoretical explanation for a number of unexplained cases, some of which are well-documented but many of which are not. The more intriguing cases share the following characteristics:

• The body is completely or almost completely incinerated, while nearby furniture exposed to high temperatures remains intact. Damage is limited to the victim’s body and clothing, to the area of the floor or furniture on which he or she died and to the ceiling above the corpse.
• The torso is the focus of the fire and if remains are found these are of the extremities, such as the feet.
• There are no traces of fire accelerant and the fire does not have an evident external cause.
• Often the combustion seems to happen simultaneously at many parts of the body, usually without any obvious points of origin.
• The victim is typically alone at the time of death and is thought to have been alive when the fire started, despite showing little sign of having struggled.^[4]

Forensic investigation[edit source | editbeta]

An extensive two-year research project—involving thirty historical cases of alleged SHC—was conducted in 1984 by science investigator Joe Nickell and forensic analyst John F. Fischer. Their lengthy, two-part report was published in the journal of theInternational Association of Arson Investigators,^[5][6] as well as part of a book.^[7] Nickell has written frequently on the subject,^[5][6][7]appeared on television documentaries, conducted additional research, and lectured at the New York State Academy of Fire Science at Montour Falls, NY, as a guest instructor.

Nickell and Fischer’s investigation—which looked at cases in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries—showed that, again and again, the burned bodies were near plausible sources for the ignition: candles, lamps, fireplaces, and so on. Sometimes these sources were left out of popular accounts of the alleged phenomenon while they were hyped as mysterious. The investigations also found that there was a correlation between alleged SHC deaths and victims’ drunkenness or other incapacitation that could have caused them to be careless with fire and less able to respond properly to an accident. Where the destruction of the body was not extensive, the significant fuel source was the victim’s clothing.

However, where the destruction was extensive, additional fuel sources were involved, such as chair stuffing, floor coverings, the flooring itself, and the like. The investigators described how such materials helped retain melted fat to burn and destroy more of the body, yielding still more liquified fat, in a cyclic process known as the “wick effect” (or “candle effect”).

That nearby objects often went undamaged was not a scientific mystery but a matter of physics. Fire tends to burn upward, and it burns laterally with some difficulty. The fires in question are relatively small, achieving considerable destruction by the wick effect, and relatively nearby objects may not be close enough to catch fire themselves (much as one can get rather close to a modest campfire without burning). As with other mysteries, Nickell and Fischer cautioned against a one-explanation-fits-all approach but rather urged investigating on a case-by-case basis.^{[citation needed]}

Suggested explanations[edit source | editbeta]

Many hypotheses attempt to explain how SHC might occur but according to those that rely on scientific understanding, incidents that might appear as spontaneous combustion actually had an external source of ignition – and the likelihood of true spontaneous human combustion is quite low.^[8] Benjamin Radford, science writer and deputy editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer, casts doubt on the plausibility of spontaneous human combustion, “If SHC is a real phenomenon (and not the result of an elderly or infirm person being too close to a flame source), why doesn’t it happen more often? There are 6 billion people in the world, and yet we don’t see reports of people bursting into flame while walking down the street, attending football games, or sipping a coffee at a local Starbucks.”^[9]Paranormal researcher Brian Dunning states that SHC stories “are simply the rare cases where a natural death in isolation has been followed by a slow combustion from some nearby source of ignition.” Other stories of people suddenly aflame should be called “Unsolved deaths by fire”; just because the cause was not discovered does not mean SHC occurs.^[10]

Natural explanations[edit source | editbeta]

• Almost all cases of SHC involve persons with low mobility, due to advanced age or obesity, along with poor health.^[11] Victims show a high likelihood of having died in their sleep, or of being unable to move once they had caught fire.
• Cigarettes are often seen as the source of fire, as the improper disposal of smoking materials causes one of every four fire deaths in the USA.^[12] Natural causes such as heart attacks may lead to the victim dying, subsequently dropping the cigarette, which after a period of smouldering can ignite the victim’s clothes.^[13]
• The “wick effect” hypothesis suggests that a small external flame source, such as a burning cigarette, chars the clothing of the victim at a location, splitting the skin and releasing subcutaneous fat, which is in turn absorbed into the burned clothing, acting as a wick. This combustion can continue for as long as the fuel is available. This hypothesis has been successfully tested with animal tissue (pig) and is consistent with evidence recovered from cases of human combustion.^[14][15] The human body typically has enough stored energy in fat and other chemical stores to fully combust the body; even lean people have several pounds of fat in their tissues. This fat, once heated by the burning clothing, wicks into the clothing much as candle wax (which typically was originally made of animal fat) wicks into a lit candle wick to provide the fuel needed to keep the wick burning.^[16]
• Scalding can cause burn-like injuries, including death, without setting fire to clothing. Although not applicable in cases where the body is charred and burnt, this has been suggested as a cause in at least one claimed SHC-like event.^[17]
• Brian J. Ford has suggested that ketosis, possibly caused by alcoholism or low-carb dieting, produces acetone, which is highlyflammable and could therefore lead to apparently spontaneous combustion.^[18][19]

Unverified natural phenomena[edit source | editbeta]

• Another hypothesis suggests high-energy particles or gamma rays^[1] coupled with susceptibilities in the potential victim (e.g., increased alcohol in the blood) trigger the initial reaction. This process may use no external oxygen to spread throughout the body, since it may not be an “oxidation-reduction” reaction. However, no reaction mechanism has been proposed.

• Ball lightning, a mysterious and debated phenomenon itself, has been suggested as a possible cause of spontaneous combustion.^{[citation needed]}

Notable examples[edit source | editbeta]

Henry Thomas, a 73-year-old man, was found burned to death in the living room of his council house on the Rassau council estate inEbbw Vale, south Wales in 1980. His entire body was incinerated, leaving only his skull and a portion of each leg below the knee. The feet and legs were still clothed in socks and trousers. Half of the chair in which he had been sitting was also destroyed. Police forensic officers decided that the incineration of Thomas was due to the wick effect. His death was ruled 'death by burning', as he had plainly inhaled the contents of his own combustion.^[20]

In December 2010, the death of Michael Faherty in County Galway, Ireland was recorded as "spontaneous combustion" by the coroner. Dr Ciaran McLoughlin, made this statement at the inquiry into the death: "This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation."^[21]

In August 2013, Rahul, a two and half months old infant from Tamil Nadu, India, has had four reported burn injuries since he was born. He is being treated at the Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital in Chennai.^[2][22] Initial tests results showed normal functioning of his liver and kidneys; no bone damage was detected. Analysis on his blood, urine and sweat have not been completed.^[23]