Tricycle | Awake in the World

Did heavy makeup bring down the shogunate? It's possible. Remains of children of samurai show sky-high levels of lead in their bones, most likely from their mothers, who adorned their faces with white, lead-based powder. Idiocy was apparently epidemic among the Edo-era shogunate, with lead levels far above those associated with intellectual impairment. This may have had political consequences, according to an an MSNBC report, which cites the research of Tamiji Nakashima, an anatomist at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Kitakyushu: More »