RARE
I have presented my RARE project in Austin, TX, for the Human Biology Association; Orlando, FL, and Austin, TX, for the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology; Radford, VA for the RARE symposium and for both the 27th and the 28th Annual Radford University Student Engagement Forum; and for the Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Research Conference in Blacksburg, VA.
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Much research has been done on the long-term adaptive consequences of migration; however, less attention has been focused on short-term health effects of traveling. When traveling, people experience new environments and new microbiomes that affect the individual’s health. While this travel might be short-lived, there may be longer-term consequences to this activity. What happens to an individual’s immune response and vital signs when they are introduced to a new environment? How might this impact immigration patterns and spread of disease across native and immigrant populations? This research examined the physiological changes that a group of 29 individuals experienced while living in the Peruvian Amazon for three weeks. The variables examined in this analysis were diet, activity, heart rate, blood pressure, weight, body temperature, blood sugar, and heterophil/lymphocyte ratio. These variables were measured before departure, several times during travel and after their return to the United States. All collected data was analyzed using ANOVA and PCA. Initial results suggest no adverse health effects induced by travel, and in fact, overall health markers either altered to healthier levels and/or maintained at a healthy level during travel. This may be due to increased physical activity during the travel, or an underlying beneficial effect of travel to new places.
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Tibial Torsion
This research was presented at the 27th Annual Radford University Student Engagement Forum and at the American Association of Physical Anthropology meetings in Cleveland, OH.
This is an experimental study with anthropometric and biomechanical data used to test for a relationship between tibial torsion angle and pressure patterns under the foot during walking in human subjects. Subjects’ tibial torsion and foot angle are measured with a non-invasive, purpose-built device, our “tibial torsion-inator.” Pressure distribution across the sole of the foot during walking will be measured with a MatScan pressure mat. Subjects for this study are adult men between the ages of 18 and 30, recruited from the local population. We have chosen this population to allow us to compare our experimental data with osteometric data collected from a skeletal sample of males aged 18 to 30.
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Biparietal Osteodystrophy: Etiology and Implications
This research was presented at the 27th Annual Radford University Student Engagement Forum and at the American Association of Physical Anthropology meetings in Cleveland, OH.
Two adult individuals from the Robinson site, an enslaved community located in Virginia, were found with thinning of the parietal bones. A differential diagnosis and skeletal analysis are undertaken to shed light on not only the disease etiology, but also on how this condition might have affected their lived experiences. This lesion has been noted in the archaeological and modern medical literature and typically presents symmetrically on both parietals. It does not appear more often in any region of the world, but it does appear more often in older females. There has been no definitive answer to why this condition forms. Multiple conditions could lead to parietal thinning including: pressure atrophy, osteoporosis, growth defect, age atrophy, congenital, and biparietal osteodystrophy (also known as biparietal symmetric atrophy). After skeletal analysis and comparison of the disease presentation, biparietal osteodystrophy seems the most likely cause. The age and sex of the individuals, as post-menopausal women, as well as the lesion presentation make this condition the best fit. While the underlying cause of biparietal osteodystrophy have been debated; a review of the clinical literature suggests it may be the result of an endocrine disruption of sex hormones due to menopause. As this condition is progressive, these women would have lived for a period of time before it would have been noticeable. While they may have experienced no difference in their day-to-day life, the clinical literature notes that painful headaches are sometimes experienced with this condition.