Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death • Hacker News Board

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#41

Post by eigenket » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #35

eigenket wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This research is being done by US and Australian universities on remains from the UK. If you turn up in the UK and try to dig up random skeletons and send them to the US or Australia without the correct permissions, you're gonna get arrested. Probably very quickly, probably at the first grave yard you visit. You get the permission from whoever owns the land the graves are in, as well as the UK government.

If I get your drift, you mean that research papers should henceforth have disclaimer, saying that "no law was broken during our research"? Fair enough, but I don't think that's what they were signaling by the quote in question somehow.

I think the point is that there are many places where (especially indigenous) remains don't have the same level of legal protection as they do in the UK. The universities also want to make sure their researchers get permission from whoever they should/can even in those places.

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#42

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:16 PM UTC

samus wrote: post #34

sokoloff wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consistent with the precedent the British established with all of those Egyptian mummies? I mean, I agree they need permission, but it’s at least a little ironic…

Good example for why such rules were introduced. Although not perfectly applicable since there is no hope to locate an Egyptian mummy's heirs nowadays. Although we are quite sure that they would have disapproved.

> teeth of 235 individuals who were buried across 27 archaeological sites in England and Scotland from about 2,200 B.C. to A.D. 1853

Some (most?) of these remains have the same order of magnitude problem to find descendants as Egyptian mummies would.

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#43

Post by dijit » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:33 PM UTC

b800h wrote: post #39

dijit wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a limit, surely. After 3 generations of nobody having known you living: surely your body must have reverted to general property. I don't want to start a holy war, I understand sentimentality. But if you dug up my great grandfathers great grandfather then honestly I have absolutely no connection to the man and his body could be anywhere on earth. It's not my property and despite sharing some of my genes it's p…

That would be massively influenced by culture. An atheist materialist from the West is going to have a totally different view to someone from a culture where burial has all sorts of codified behaviours and beliefs associated with it.

The point I'm trying to make (badly) is that at some point bodies are returned to the earth.

Otherwise the whole planet is a gravesite and we cannot farm/build or exist without unintentionally desecrating graves.

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#44

Post by canarypilot » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:39 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #2

Studying the calcified plaque in the teeth of ancient populations can be a better proxy for understanding the oral microbiomes in pre-industrialized societies than using present day indigenous societies practicing subsistence lifestyle. Using this method this study might just prove, or at least insinuate, that the survivors of the Second Plague Pandemic that earned higher incomes and could afford higher-calorie foods…

One hop from the parent article is a discussion on why these researchers believe it matters.

Hacker News comments have been in a bit of an anti-academia, pro-business mood recently, so most relevant question copied below.

Imagine an (exploitative? Creative?) product launch for a probiotic yogurt made “to give you the biome of a true paleo”. We might want to ensure those whose mouths were swabbed to unlock that tag line were compensated.

> Q: What is microbiome ownership, and why is it important? Weyrich: This means that someone could own or have rights to their own bacteria. The ‘next generation’ of probiotics to support health are coming from people who donate their microbes — not yogurts or fermented foods, so establishing a framework for people to own their microbes means that they could benefit or profit from the commercialization of these microbes. This framework is important for providing equal benefits for research participants, research teams and companies that may want to commercialize someone’s microbes to make ‘next generation’ probiotics.

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#45

Post by dghughes » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

basisword wrote: post #4

leoedin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That part jumped out at me. Why on earth do they need the permission of the descendents of someone who lived 500+ years ago? And how on earth are they even going to get it? Surely even if one guy says it's ok (and you can prove he's descended from a body you found), what happens if another person says no? It's obviously nonsense - so why claim it? The part about indiginous research is kind of mad as well - "This rese…

Why do you think you’re entitled to dig up peoples bodies and conduct research on indigenous people? That kind of entitlement is the cause of everything bad in the tech industry.

How many bodies do UK museums have stolen from other countries? The British museum alone states 6,000 human remains of which I don't know how many are non-UK.

>"Held in a number of departments for display and research, over 6,000 human remains are in the care of the Museum"

https://www.britishmuseum.org/our-work/departments/human-rem...

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#46

Post by sheepshear » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #2

Studying the calcified plaque in the teeth of ancient populations can be a better proxy for understanding the oral microbiomes in pre-industrialized societies than using present day indigenous societies practicing subsistence lifestyle. Using this method this study might just prove, or at least insinuate, that the survivors of the Second Plague Pandemic that earned higher incomes and could afford higher-calorie foods…

Legally, I can destructively analyze your ancestor's genetics, use it to get rich selling you skinny pills instead of an inexpensive one-time therapy, and unknowingly destroy the genetic information that would have unlocked a remedy for a birth defect that runs in your family. The law is very underdeveloped in this area, so ethics stand in for now.

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#47

Post by smogcutter » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #43

b800h wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be massively influenced by culture. An atheist materialist from the West is going to have a totally different view to someone from a culture where burial has all sorts of codified behaviours and beliefs associated with it.

The point I'm trying to make (badly) is that at some point bodies are returned to the earth. Otherwise the whole planet is a gravesite and we cannot farm/build or exist without unintentionally desecrating graves.

No one’s talking about farming, they’re digging up actual graves.

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#48

Post by stareatgoats » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

canarypilot wrote: post #44

stareatgoats wrote: post #2

Studying the calcified plaque in the teeth of ancient populations can be a better proxy for understanding the oral microbiomes in pre-industrialized societies than using present day indigenous societies practicing subsistence lifestyle. Using this method this study might just prove, or at least insinuate, that the survivors of the Second Plague Pandemic that earned higher incomes and could afford higher-calorie foods…

One hop from the parent article is a discussion on why these researchers believe it matters. Hacker News comments have been in a bit of an anti-academia, pro-business mood recently, so most relevant question copied below. Imagine an (exploitative? Creative?) product launch for a probiotic yogurt made “to give you the biome of a true paleo”. We might want to ensure those whose mouths were swabbed to unlock that tag li…

OK so this just confirmed my hunch: the driver for this type of research is ideological. I'm not overly disgusted by it such as someone in the "anti-academia, pro-business" camp might be, I pick the chips on my shoulder with some care. But I much prefer research that is not ideologically biased - in any direction. The more extremist, the less I prefer it.

I'm familiar with the notion that "everything is politics" and the like, but it is a completely useless rule of thumb for everyone but undergraduate zealots and ideologues, who ultimately prefer to spend their energy defending their bias instead of looking at the data.

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#49

Post by dijit » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

smogcutter wrote: post #47

dijit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I'm trying to make (badly) is that at some point bodies are returned to the earth. Otherwise the whole planet is a gravesite and we cannot farm/build or exist without unintentionally desecrating graves.

No one’s talking about farming, they’re digging up actual graves.

Are you intentionally missing the point?

Re: Study of ancient British oral microbiomes reveals shift following Black Death

#50

Post by red-iron-pine » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

canarypilot wrote: post #44

stareatgoats wrote: post #2

Studying the calcified plaque in the teeth of ancient populations can be a better proxy for understanding the oral microbiomes in pre-industrialized societies than using present day indigenous societies practicing subsistence lifestyle. Using this method this study might just prove, or at least insinuate, that the survivors of the Second Plague Pandemic that earned higher incomes and could afford higher-calorie foods…

One hop from the parent article is a discussion on why these researchers believe it matters. Hacker News comments have been in a bit of an anti-academia, pro-business mood recently, so most relevant question copied below. Imagine an (exploitative? Creative?) product launch for a probiotic yogurt made “to give you the biome of a true paleo”. We might want to ensure those whose mouths were swabbed to unlock that tag li…

> an anti-academia, pro-business mood recently

recently? bro this is an incubator for SV startups -- its always been that way.