Copper toxicity toxicity. Some of the effects of aging may be associated with excess copper. One manifestation of copper toxicity, cirrhosis of the liver in children (Indian childhood cirrhosis), has been linked to boiling milk in copper cookware. The Merck Manual states recent studies suggest that a genetic defect is associated with this particular cirrhosis. An inherited condition called Wilson's disease causes the body to retain copper, since it is not excreted by the liver into the bile. This disease, if untreated, can lead to brain and liver damage, and bis-choline tetrathiomolybdate is under investigation as a therapy against Wilson's disease. Elevated
Brain-to-body mass ratio whales have very small brains compared to their weight, and small rodents like mice have a relatively large brain, giving a brain-to-body mass ratio similar to humans. One explanation could be that as an animal's brain gets larger, the size of the neural cells remains the same, and more nerve cells will cause the brain to increase in size to a lesser degree than the rest of the body. This phenomenon can be described by an equation of the form E = CS, where "E" and "S" are brain and body weights, "r" a constant that depends on animal family