modern human’s skeleton, Lucy's bones are rife with
evidence clearly pointing to bipedality. Her distal femur
shows several traits unique to bipedality. The shaft is angled
relative to the condyles (knee joint surfaces), which allows
bipeds to balance on one leg at a time during locomotion.
There is a prominent patellar lip to keep the patella (knee
cap) from dislocating due to this angle. Her condyles are
large and are thus adapted to handling the added weight that
results from shifting from four limbs to two. The pelvis
exhibits a number of adaptations to bipedality. The entire
structure has been remodeled to accommodate an upright
stance and the need to balance the trunk on only one limb
with each stride. The talus, in her ankle, shows evidence for a
convergent big toe, sacrificing manipulative abilities for
efficiency in bipedal locomotion. The vertebrae show
evidence of the spinal curvatures necessitated by a permanent
upright stance. https://iho.asu.edu/about/lucys-story
[ 3 ]High on life in the Pleistocene. Given humanity's love of
drugs and alcohol, you might assume getting high is an
ancient, even prehistoric tradition. Some researchers have
suggested prehistoric cave paintings were made by humans
experiencing altered states of consciousness. Others, perhaps
inspired more by hallucinogens than hard evidence, suggest
that drugs triggered the evolution of human consciousness.
Yet there's surprisingly little archeological evidence for
prehistoric drug use. https://phys.org/news/ 2021 - 07 - humans-
alcohol-drugs.html
[ 4 ]The enhancement of human cognitive processes has long
been a focus of scientific experimentation, and transcranial
direct current stimulation (tDCS) has recently come to the
fore as a promising tool for modulating cognitive and motor
skills (Nitsche and Paulus, 2000 ). Popularity of the technique
has grown over the past decade, as exemplified in a PubMed
search, returning 1 , 500 published articles containing the
phrase “tDCS” between 2011 and 2015 , in comparison to just
65 articles published between 2000 and 2005. tDCS involves
the emission of a weak electrical current, traditionally via the
placement of two electrodes attached to the scalp of a
participant. In this traditional, unihemispheric tDCS set-up,
one electrode is known as the target electrode, and the other
the reference electrode. Some montages place the reference
electrode extracephalically, for example on the upper arm.
On the other hand, electrodes may be placed
“bihemispherically” to emit dual stimulation to two parallel
cortices (e.g., the parietal cortices—Benwell et al., 2015 ).
This refers to purposefully upregulating one region of the
brain, while downregulating another (Lindenberg et al.,
2010 ). It is also now becoming common to use several
smaller electrodes, rather than a singular target and reference
electrode (see section What Size should the Electrodes Be?).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/ 10. 3389 /fnins. 2017. 0064
1 /full[ 5 ]THC or Tetrahydrocannabinol is the major psychoactive
component and one of the 113 cannabinoids recognized in
cannabis. A synthetic formulation of THC, dronabinol, is
FDA approved to manage chemotherapy-induced nausea and
vomiting and for appetite stimulation in HIV/AIDS anorexia.
Another synthetic THC, nabilone, is FDA approved for use
in chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. Aside from
these two synthetic THC formulations of THC that are FDA
approved. Cannabis and, therefore, THC, which is the major
psychoactive component, is legal in several states and used
by several patients for medical and recreational purposes.
However, FDA classifies cannabis under Schedule 1 , and
thus its use is forbidden in any products. This activity will
highlight the indications, contraindications, off-label uses,
pharmacodynamics, and adverse events in the use of THC
synthetic analogs for interprofessional team members
managing the care of patients with chemotherapy-induced
nausea and vomiting or AIDS-related anorexia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK 563174 /[ 6 ]Direct evidence of the use of multiple drugs in Bronze
Age Menorca (Western Mediterranean) from human hair
analysis. E. Guerra-Doce, C. Rihuete-Herrada, R. Micó, R.
Risch, V. Lull & H. M. Niemeyer. Scientific Reports volume
13 , Article number: 4782 ( 2023 ) Abstract: Human hair dated
to Late Prehistory is exceedingly rare in the Western
Mediterranean. Archaeological excavations in the Bronze
Age burial and cult cave of Es Càrritx, in Menorca (Balearic
Islands) provided some human hair strands involved in a
singular funerary rite. This finding offered the opportunity to
explore the possible use of drug plants by Late Bronze Age
people. Here we show the results of the chemical analyses of
a sample of such hair using Ultra-High-Performance Liquid
Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry
(UHPLC-HRMS). The alkaloids ephedrine, atropine and
scopolamine were detected, and their concentrations
estimated. These results confirm the use of different alkaloid-
bearing plants by local communities of this Western
Mediterranean island by the beginning of the first
millennium cal BCE.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s 41598 - 023 - 31064 - 2[ 7 ]Enlène, which has always been easily accessible, is not
just a prehistoric settlement. It was also the necessary
passage to the cave of Trois-Frères with which it
communicates by a long tunnel. During the Middle Bronze
Age ( 1200 BC) it was used as a necropolis that was