TEXTO

Un gigante vivió hace 1.000 años en al-Ándalus

Hace un milenio, un gigante vivió en una población judía empotrada en la al-Ándalus musulmana del sur de la península Ibérica. La rocambolesca historia de su hallazgo se remonta al 20 de octubre de 2006, cuando un vecino de Lucena (Córdoba) sacó a su perro a pasear. La zona sur del pueblo estaba removida por las obras para construir una nueva carretera de circunvalación. Después de corretear por el terreno, el perro regresó con algo extraño en la boca. Era un fémur humano.

Nervioso, el dueño de la mascota llamó a la Policía Municipal y, en medio del desconcierto, el fémur acabó también rodeado por agentes de la Guardia Civil y de la Policía Nacional, presentes en el pueblo, de 43.000 habitantes. Daniel Botella, el arqueólogo municipal, recuerda que le llamaron aquella misma noche. Había más huesos desperdigados. “En un principio se pensó que eran fosas de la Guerra Civil”, recuerda. Pero, tras una buena inspección, se llegó a otra conclusión: aquello era un enorme cementerio judío con centenares de tumbas. Y en una de ellas se encontraban los restos de un gigante que murió a los 30 años y fue enterrado, desnudo y envuelto en un sudario, con la cara mirando a Jerusalén.

“La maquinaria pesada utilizada para construir la nueva carretera de Lucena se llevó parte de sus piernas por delante, así que no podemos confirmar su estatura”, reconoce el antropólogo Joan Viciano, que estudió sus restos cuando trabajaba en la Universidad de Granada. Sin embargo, los científicos hallaron una “mandíbula enorme” y otros huesos de gran tamaño que sugieren “un probable caso de gigantismo”, según los resultados de años de investigación que se acaban de publicar en la revista especializada Anthropologischer Anzeiger.

El presunto gigante vivió alrededor del año 1050, según dataciones con carbono 14 en puntos cercanos a su tumba. Era el ocaso del Califato de Córdoba. El pueblo de Lucena se llamaba entonces Eliossana (“Dios nos salve”, en hebreo) y vivía su máximo esplendor. Funcionaba como una ciudad judía independiente del poder islámico de Córdoba, Sevilla y Granada. “Los musulmanes y los cristianos tenían prohibida la entrada al interior de su recinto amurallado”, explica Botella, director del Museo Arqueológico y Etnológico de Lucena. Según Ibn Hawqal, un viajero musulmán del siglo X, Lucena era la ciudad en la que los judíos castraban a los esclavos para destinarlos a los palacios de los mandatarios musulmanes.

El País, 26/03/2015. elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/26/ciencia

TEXT

Dr. Melissa Li is a pathologist who specializes in gastrointestinal and autopsy pathology at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Ore. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In mid-February, a committee of top U.S. government scientists and nutritionists presented recommendations for the latest U.S. Dietary Guidelines. They concluded that a diet "higher in plant-based foods … and lower in animal-based foods is more health-promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact."

While those findings aren't news to many working in medicine and nutrition, the report represents a shift in what the government may recommend to the American public in the soon-to-be revised U.S. Dietary Guidelines. And that's a good thing.

As a pathologist, I see disease daily in biopsies, resections and autopsies. When patients provide me with medical histories, it saddens me to see a litany of illnesses — heart disease , cancer, diabetes, obesity and stroke — that are largely preventable through diet. Simply reducing the amount of meat, eggs and dairy we eat has a profound effect on health, yet, instead, patients take a laundry list of drugs to battle their chronic diseases. As a nation, we pour billions of dollars into treating the symptoms of disease and far less into preventing them.

Eating more plant-based meals and less meat has helped prevent and reverse heart disease, and reduce the risk of diabetes, some cancers and obesity. Those findings were supported just weeks ago, at a meeting of the American Heart Association, when researchers released results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, which started in 1992. The lead researcher, Camille Lassale of Imperial College London, concluded, "A pro-vegetarian diet that emphasizes a higher proportion of plant-based foods compared to animal-based foods may help lower the risks of dying from heart disease and stroke by up to 20 percent."

Recommending a more plant-based diet is something that the government has shied away from. This is partly because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which co-authors the guidelines with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for managing and promoting agriculture, including animal agriculture. To put it more simply, the USDA is tasked with promoting animal-based products like meat, dairy, and eggs. So while the agency knows what is in the best interest of Americans (eating more plant-based foods), it is torn between giving sound advice (eating more of said plant-based meals and less meat) and protecting one of the largest industries it is tasked to represent.

The benefits of a more plant-based diet are far-reaching, and not just for impacting public health. Such diets lead to fewer animals bred and confined on factory farms, as well as a lighter footprint on the environment, with subsequently decreased greenhouse gas emissions. Moving to a more plantbased diet also helps conserve precious natural resources like water and oil. And it helps reduce pollution, as waste from factory farms has contributed to a number of environmental disasters.

The good news is plant-based eating is becoming more and more mainstream, with wellknown public health organizations like the American Heart Association, Defeat Diabetes Foundation, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and hospitals — like the one where I work, Providence St. Vincent — recommending people eat a more plant-based diet.

I am seeing that physicians with whom I collaborate on autopsies are now following this advice. For example, my colleagues in neurology who treat patients with neurodegenerative disorders are advocating plant based diets to prevent Alzheimer's disease.

One way we support those recommendations at our hospital is by easing patients into eating more plant-based meals with Meatless Monday. That approach is gaining in popularity at thousands of hospitals, as well as at some of the largest school districts in the country (including in Los Angeles, Detroit and Houston), and at universities like Portland State, Oregon State University, Western Oregon University, and many more. It can be as simple as swapping out chicken nuggets with a bean burrito or a veggie burger instead of a hamburger.

As a doctor, I'm proud to work at a hospital that embraces health care, not only for treatment but also for prevention.

From: http://www.livescience.com April 03, 2015

TEXT

Dr. Melissa Li is a pathologist who specializes in gastrointestinal and autopsy pathology at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Ore. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In mid-February, a committee of top U.S. government scientists and nutritionists presented recommendations for the latest U.S. Dietary Guidelines. They concluded that a diet "higher in plant-based foods … and lower in animal-based foods is more health-promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact."

While those findings aren't news to many working in medicine and nutrition, the report represents a shift in what the government may recommend to the American public in the soon-to-be revised U.S. Dietary Guidelines. And that's a good thing.

As a pathologist, I see disease daily in biopsies, resections and autopsies. When patients provide me with medical histories, it saddens me to see a litany of illnesses — heart disease , cancer, diabetes, obesity and stroke — that are largely preventable through diet. Simply reducing the amount of meat, eggs and dairy we eat has a profound effect on health, yet, instead, patients take a laundry list of drugs to battle their chronic diseases. As a nation, we pour billions of dollars into treating the symptoms of disease and far less into preventing them.

Eating more plant-based meals and less meat has helped prevent and reverse heart disease, and reduce the risk of diabetes, some cancers and obesity. Those findings were supported just weeks ago, at a meeting of the American Heart Association, when researchers released results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, which started in 1992. The lead researcher, Camille Lassale of Imperial College London, concluded, "A pro-vegetarian diet that emphasizes a higher proportion of plant-based foods compared to animal-based foods may help lower the risks of dying from heart disease and stroke by up to 20 percent."

Recommending a more plant-based diet is something that the government has shied away from. This is partly because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which co-authors the guidelines with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for managing and promoting agriculture, including animal agriculture. To put it more simply, the USDA is tasked with promoting animal-based products like meat, dairy, and eggs. So while the agency knows what is in the best interest of Americans (eating more plant-based foods), it is torn between giving sound advice (eating more of said plant-based meals and less meat) and protecting one of the largest industries it is tasked to represent.

The benefits of a more plant-based diet are far-reaching, and not just for impacting public health. Such diets lead to fewer animals bred and confined on factory farms, as well as a lighter footprint on the environment, with subsequently decreased greenhouse gas emissions. Moving to a more plantbased diet also helps conserve precious natural resources like water and oil. And it helps reduce pollution, as waste from factory farms has contributed to a number of environmental disasters.

The good news is plant-based eating is becoming more and more mainstream, with wellknown public health organizations like the American Heart Association, Defeat Diabetes Foundation, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and hospitals — like the one where I work, Providence St. Vincent — recommending people eat a more plant-based diet.

I am seeing that physicians with whom I collaborate on autopsies are now following this advice. For example, my colleagues in neurology who treat patients with neurodegenerative disorders are advocating plant based diets to prevent Alzheimer's disease.

One way we support those recommendations at our hospital is by easing patients into eating more plant-based meals with Meatless Monday. That approach is gaining in popularity at thousands of hospitals, as well as at some of the largest school districts in the country (including in Los Angeles, Detroit and Houston), and at universities like Portland State, Oregon State University, Western Oregon University, and many more. It can be as simple as swapping out chicken nuggets with a bean burrito or a veggie burger instead of a hamburger.

As a doctor, I'm proud to work at a hospital that embraces health care, not only for treatment but also for prevention.

From: http://www.livescience.com April 03, 2015

TEXTE

PENSÉE ET LANGAGE

Quels rapports la pensée et le langage entretiennent-ils? C'est à cette interrogation majeure que des psychologues contemporains se sont efforcés de répondre.

Mais ce qui intéresse surtout, c'est la manière dont pensée et langage se développent chez l'être humain, en particulier au cours de l'enfance.

À propos de ce sujet, un autre thème longuement traité concerne l'opposition entre concepts scientifiques et concepts «quotidiens» ou «spontanés». Le psychologue russe Vygotski souligne le paradoxe suivant: l'enfant formule mieux ce qu'est la loi d'Archimède qu'il ne définit ce qu'est un frère. Alors qu'il a une riche expérience empirique de ce qu'est un frère, il s'embrouille si on lui demande ce que signifie le mot «frère».

De fait, nous explique Vygotski, les concepts quotidiens ne se développent pas du tout comme les concepts scientifiques. Les premiers sont connus dans l'expérience concrète, les seconds à la suite d'une explication du maître, «dans une situation de collaboration entre le pédagogue et l'enfant». L'enfant sait manier les concepts spontanés mais n'en a pas conscience, il a en fait conscience de l'objet beaucoup plus que du concept lui-même. Inversement, l'enfant prend dès le début beaucoup mieux conscience des concepts scientifiques que des objets qu'ils représentent.

Pour bien faire comprendre cette distinction, Vygotski établit un parallèle avec la différence entre l'apprentissage de la langue maternelle et l'apprentissage d'une langue étrangère. La langue maternelle est comme les concepts quotidiens: bien avant l'école, l'enfant en maîtrise pratiquement toute la grammaire, mais sans avoir conscience de ce qu'il fait. En revanche, l'apprentissage d'une langue étrangère va se réaliser de manière radicalement différente: l'élève apprend consciemment des règles formelles de grammaire et les utilise volontairement.

Adapté du texte Pensée et Langage, Jacques Lecomte, 1998.

TEXTO

Un gigante vivió hace 1.000 años en al-Ándalus

Hace un milenio, un gigante vivió en una población judía empotrada en la al-Ándalus musulmana del sur de la península Ibérica. La rocambolesca historia de su hallazgo se remonta al 20 de octubre de 2006, cuando un vecino de Lucena (Córdoba) sacó a su perro a pasear. La zona sur del pueblo estaba removida por las obras para construir una nueva carretera de circunvalación. Después de corretear por el terreno, el perro regresó con algo extraño en la boca. Era un fémur humano.

Nervioso, el dueño de la mascota llamó a la Policía Municipal y, en medio del desconcierto, el fémur acabó también rodeado por agentes de la Guardia Civil y de la Policía Nacional, presentes en el pueblo, de 43.000 habitantes. Daniel Botella, el arqueólogo municipal, recuerda que le llamaron aquella misma noche. Había más huesos desperdigados. “En un principio se pensó que eran fosas de la Guerra Civil”, recuerda. Pero, tras una buena inspección, se llegó a otra conclusión: aquello era un enorme cementerio judío con centenares de tumbas. Y en una de ellas se encontraban los restos de un gigante que murió a los 30 años y fue enterrado, desnudo y envuelto en un sudario, con la cara mirando a Jerusalén.

“La maquinaria pesada utilizada para construir la nueva carretera de Lucena se llevó parte de sus piernas por delante, así que no podemos confirmar su estatura”, reconoce el antropólogo Joan Viciano, que estudió sus restos cuando trabajaba en la Universidad de Granada. Sin embargo, los científicos hallaron una “mandíbula enorme” y otros huesos de gran tamaño que sugieren “un probable caso de gigantismo”, según los resultados de años de investigación que se acaban de publicar en la revista especializada Anthropologischer Anzeiger.

El presunto gigante vivió alrededor del año 1050, según dataciones con carbono 14 en puntos cercanos a su tumba. Era el ocaso del Califato de Córdoba. El pueblo de Lucena se llamaba entonces Eliossana (“Dios nos salve”, en hebreo) y vivía su máximo esplendor. Funcionaba como una ciudad judía independiente del poder islámico de Córdoba, Sevilla y Granada. “Los musulmanes y los cristianos tenían prohibida la entrada al interior de su recinto amurallado”, explica Botella, director del Museo Arqueológico y Etnológico de Lucena. Según Ibn Hawqal, un viajero musulmán del siglo X, Lucena era la ciudad en la que los judíos castraban a los esclavos para destinarlos a los palacios de los mandatarios musulmanes.

El País, 26/03/2015. elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/26/ciencia