How skin cancer leapt after bikinis hit the beaches
How skin cancer leapt after bikinis hit the beaches: Rate went up 400% between the 1930s and 1960s
- Twenties swimwear exposed around 20 per cent of men and women's skin
- Skimpy outfits meant rise to 80 per cent for women and 89 per cent for men
- Modern-day bikinis expose 92 per cent of women's skin to harmful UV rays
- Cases of deadliest skin cancer rose from 1,800 in 1975 to 13,000 today
In the 1920s the amount of women's
skin exposed in swimwear was 20 per cent, but after Louis Reard invented
the bikini (pictured) that went to 80 per cent
The
bikini could be to blame for increasing rates of skin cancer,
researchers have concluded after analysing 100 years of beachwear.
Skimpy swimming costumes which became fashionable in the 1940s exposed more of the body to sunlight than ever before.
And with that greater exposure came a greater risk of melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer.
The
study found that even taking into account increasingly early diagnosis
and wider reporting of cancer, changing tastes in clothing must have
played their part too.
The
team from New York University’s Langone Medical Centre said that in the
early 1900s tanned skin was frowned upon as being working class - and
porcelain skin was prized.
In
the 1920s men’s and women’s swimwear was very conservative and exposed
around 23 per cent and 18 per cent of the total skin surface area
respectively.
That
all changed in 1946 when French designer Louis Reard invented the
bikini which was quickly adopted in the US and then the rest of the
world.
But it increased skin exposure in women to 80 per cent as most of their body was open to the elements.
Men’s skin exposure also went up to 89 per cent as the swimming top was replaced by a bare chest and shorts.
The
study says: ‘People also began to enjoy more leisure time and to favour
swimwear and sportswear that progressively covered less skin.
‘Voices that raised concern about the dangers of UV exposure were largely ignored.’
The
study points to actresses like Bond Girl Ursula Andress as popularising
the tan which became associated with notions of ‘sexy, young, healthy,
and wealthy women’.
Yet from the 1930s to the 1960s US cancer rates in men and women increased by 69 per cent and 18 per cent.
Melanoma incidence went up by more than 300 per cent in men and 400 per cent in women.
The
study says: ‘This increase in melanoma incidence occurred in parallel
with changes in fashion, travel, and leisure that resulted in increased
skin and UV exposure.’
The authors add that in more recent years the rising use of tanning salons has increased the rise in melanoma rates further.
The study found that in recent years the bikini has become even more skimpy and even more damaging to women.
With
the emergence of ‘strapless tops and low-rise bottoms’ it now has a 92
per cent skin exposure, more than men who have stayed at 89 per cent.
The
researchers lay the blame for the popularity of tanning at the door of
women’s magazines and due to ‘celebrity promotion’ during the last
century.
Modern designs have increased the
amount of skin exposed to nearly 92 per cent. Cases of malignant
melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, have risen to 13,000 a year
from 1,800 in 1975
In
Britain figures from Cancer Research UK show that more than 13,000
people a year develop malignant melanoma - the most deadly type of skin
cancer.
The total is expected to surge to 20,000 a year by 2027. In 1975 the figure was just 1,800.
The shocking rise has been blamed on the legacy of sunshine package holidays which became popular in the 1960s.
Many of the patients being diagnosed today suffered cancer-causing sunburn in their youth, experts have said.
Adding
to the problem was in the 1960s - often dubbed the ‘Bronze Age’ - few
people were aware of the dangers of sunbathing in the way they are now,
meaning they unknowingly caused themselves long term damage.
Since
then the majority have shied away from a deep tan popularised by the
likes of George Hamilton including many celebrities, for whom a healthy
glow is considered enough.
Among
those who were have been treated for skin cancer in the UK is Tiny De
Vries, a 63-year-old businesswoman and author from Bath.
She regularly went bright red after tanning all day on cheap package holidays to Spain during the 1960s and 70s.
In
an interview she has said: ‘I’m far more cautious these days, but 40
years ago no one knew any better. How I wished I’d been more aware of
the dangers before it was too late.’
This
is a correlation but not necessarily a causal link.
Two other things
that have changed since the 1920s is that people as a whole have far
more leisure time and actually take holidays in the sun and on the
beach.
The average worker in the 1930s couldn't afford to do more than
go to Margate or Weston on the train for a weekend.
The other thing
that has changed is the erosion of the ozone layer, not just from CFCs
but from all the other pollutants and chemicals we have increasingly
poured into the atmosphere in the second half of the 20th century.
This
has allowed far more UV to pass through to affect people, animals and
plants, and the ozone layer is only now showing some very small signs of
recovery. Many agricultural workers always used to do the harvest
stripped to the waist but is there evidence of their rates of skin
cancer?
Cheap 3D printed robotic arm controlled by the mind | Reuter
Cheap 3D printed robotic arm controlled by the mind | Reuters
www.reuters.com/.../us-austria-mind-controlled-arm-idUSKBN0OH2QT...
www.reuters.com/.../us-austria-mind-controlled-arm-idUSKBN0OH2QT...
Cheap 3D printed robotic arm controlled by the mind
For Easton LaChappelle, a 19-year-old from Colorado in the United States (U.S.), the difficulty with robotics has never been the technology itself - something he says he managed to master in a matter of months from his bedroom in his parent's house - but the cost.
The technology used by most robotic arms and hands on the market - and many more of those in development - typically comes with large overheads.
In the last five years, though, learning almost exclusively online in forums and emails, LaChappelle has managed to synthesize a series of robotic hands that could change industries and lives - and most of which cost just a few hundred dollars.
While other developments in countries like Austria and Argentina have pushed the boundaries of prosthetic offerings, helping those missing limbs to start to regain use of them with robotics, LaChappelle has done so using 3D printing.
And he's made one that he says can read your mind. It's called Anthromod.
"This reads right about 10 channels of the brain, so it kind of works kind of like a muscle sensor in that it picks up small electric discharges and turns that into something you can actually read within software, and then we actually track patterns and try and convert that into movement. So with this I'm actually able to change grips, grip patterns, based on facial gestures, and then use the raw actual brainwaves and focus to actually close the hand or open the clamp or hand," he told Reuters Television.
One of the most important aspects of the Anthromod design is the way in which it's controlled by the software, which LaChappelle says is different from the types of control that exist in other robotic platforms.
While it's the hand itself that moves, as more advanced controls are created it's the software that's doing the heavy lifting, using algorithms that make the arm easier to use.
"A good example is we actually had an amputee use the wireless brainwave headset to control a hand, and he was able to fluently control the robotic hand in right around about 10 minutes, so the learning curve is hardly a learning curve any more," he said.
The arms themselves might not look polished and ready for the shop floor - but LaChappelle sees them as cutting edge.
His robotic arms are all prototypes, each fulfilling a different need according to their design, with some using a wireless brainwave headset, designed more for prosthetic use. Another of his tele-robotic controlled hands was created with dangerous environments in mind, where human-like robots could be sent to allow people to monitor situations and intervene from afar.
"I really tried to make this as human-like as possible - this is probably about my fifth generation of the full robotic arm, and this is controlled using a full tele-robotic system, so there's actually a glove that you wear that tracks your hand movements, accelerometers to track your wrist and elbow, and then an IMU sensor as well to track your bicep rotation as well as your shoulder movement, and that gets all translated wirelessly to the robotic arm where it will copy what you do," he said.
One of the most impressive aspects of the arm is not the hardware itself, or even the software that controls it - but the fact that it can be 3D printed for a fraction of the cost of modern prosthetics.
This allows him to make complex internal structures to the designs which would otherwise be impossible, using not just any 3D printer, but precisely the kind many expect people to have at home in the near future.
"So 3D printing allows you to create something that's human-like, something that's extremely customized, again for a very low cost, which for certain applications such as prosthetics, is a really big part of it," he told Reuters.
"The full robotic arm is actually open source, and so people are now actually able to take this, reproduce it, and adapt it for different situations, applications, and really see what you can do with it," he added.
The Anthromod itself cost only about 600 dollars to make, LaChappelle said.
His work is documented in the videos he made at home, showing his handiwork - all part of his effort at making the invention open source - which means anyone can take his technology and customize and build on it.
The idea, he said, is not to create something that can solve problems for those with prostheses and other needs for robotic arms like the ones he's invented - but rather to create a platform that people around the world can use to customize their own versions of to suit their needs.
"A big reason we designed this on the consumer level is because we made this open source, we want someone that has a 3D printer, or very little printing experience, to be able to replicate this, to be able to use this for new applications, to be able to adapt it into new situations, so it's really exciting to see what people will start doing with something like this," he said.
"For the actual arm, we designed everything to be modular, meaning all the joints can actually interchange, and there's a universal bolt pattern. So you can now create something human-like, or you can create a big 20 degree freedom arm for complex filming or even low cost automations. So we really want to make a robotics platform, not so much just a robotics hand from this," he added.
LaChappelle hopes his efforts will contribute to developments in bomb defusal robots, heavy equipment and heavy industrial automation robotic arms, as well as exoskeletons.
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