The phylum Chordata is a large and diversified group containing more than 35,000 species, ranging from small wormlike forms to man. All chordates have three characteristics in common at some stage of their life cycle; a human embryo has the same notochord, a single, dorsal, tubular nerve cord, and pharyngeal gill slits as the lowest ancestral chordates. The primitive notochord, the predecessor ...

This paper illustrates a bio-inspired approach to effective, smooth and safe navigation in the human body and, in particular, in the gastrointestinal tract. This idea originates from the medical need to develop more powerful tools for microendoscopy, which is one of the most challenging frontiers of modern medicine. Understanding motion and perception systems of lower animal forms, such as para...

Review INTRODUCTION: OBESITY AND THE MICROBIOTA The human body is colonized by microorganisms that number in the hundreds of trillions (1014), essentially outnumbering the total number of eukaryotic cells (60 trillion) that make up a human.1 These organisms can be found all over the body and throughout the gastrointestinal (GI) system from the mouth to the rectum, with the highest concentration...

Human head lice (Anoplura: Pediculidae: Pediculus) are pandemic, parasitizing countless school children worldwide due to the evolution of insecticide resistance, and human body (clothing) lice are responsible for the deaths of millions as a result of vectoring several deadly bacterial pathogens. Despite the obvious impact these lice have had on their human hosts, it is unclear whether head and ...

Essentially, people's diet and nutritional status has been changed substantially worldwide and several lines of evidence suggest that these changes are to the detriment of their health. Additionally, it has been well documented that unhealthy diet especially the fast foods, untraditional foods or bad-eating-habits influence the human gut microbiome. The gut microbiota shapes immune responses du...