Neurological condition probably caused medieval scribe’s shaky handwriting Manuscript analysis suggests 13th cen

Scribes usually have pretty good handwriting. That’s not the case for one prolific 13th century writer known to scholars only as the Tremulous Hand of Worcester. Now scientists suggest the writer suffered from a neurological condition called essential tremor. Neurologist Jane Alty and historical handwriting researcher Deborah Thorpe, both of the University of York in England, made the retrospective diagnosis August 31 in Brain after studying the spidery wiggles that pervade the scribe’s writing. Essential tremor can cause shaking of the hands, head and voice and is distinct from other tremor-causing conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.

Here, the anonymous writer’s peculiar script is evident (lighter portion of text) in an early Middle English version of the Nicene Creed, a summary of the Christian faith. Buried in the manuscript are clues that helped the researchers conclude that essential tremor plagued the Tremulous Hand.

Chimpanzees show surprising flexibility on two feet

Chimpanzees don’t strut. But their surprisingly flexible two-legged stride suggests that, more than 3 million years ago, members of the human evolutionary family walked pretty well, a new study concludes.
Chimps rotate their upper bodies about as much as people do while walking, thus countering the force of their swinging hips, say paleoanthropologist Nathan Thompson of Stony Brook University in New York and his colleagues. So even if Australopithecus afarensis, a hominid best known for Lucy’s partial skeleton, had a somewhat chimplike build, that didn’t prevent these ancient hominids from sauntering efficiently across East African landscapes, the researchers propose October 6 in Nature Communications.
“We know now that the more chimplike aspects of Lucy’s trunk wouldn’t have posed a barrier to upright walking,” Thompson says.