Humans developing a tip at the back of the head

Blame the smartphones

Humans develop a bone tip at the back of the head caused by looking at electronic equipment from top to bottom, according to a new study

The tip is at the back of your skull, just above your neck. Your body is thought to be reacting to the use of the smartphone by growing new layers of bone.

In the medical world, there is known an occipital outer protuberance and David Shahar, a health scientist at the University of Sunshine Coast, Australia, told BBC.com that in the last twenty years of his career he had noticed more protrusion that was once considered rare.

French scientist Paul Broca noticed the peak in 1885. It was however rare.

In a study published in the Journal of Anatomy in 2016, Shahar and his co-author described how he had more often located occipital outer protuberances in the x-rays of relatively young patients in his clinic. To find out more, he examined 218 X-rays of the lateral cervical spine, where the occipital outer protuberance appears, in people aged 18 to 30 years. Growth should be at least 5 mm long to be counted as an outer occipital protuberance, anything greater than 10 mm being classified as enlarged.

Of the group, 41% had mass, with 10% having a peak of at least 20 mm. It was more common among men than women, at 67% versus 20%. The longest was 35.7 mm in a man and 25.5 mm in a woman.

This accumulation of bone on the outer occipital protuberance is a type of enthesophytes. It is thought that bone projection on a tendon or ligament develops gradually over time, which is not expected in young people. Enthusiasts are relatively common among the elderly.

Shahar told BBC.com that when we watch devices like smartphones and tablets, our neck has to work to keep our heads in place. Prolonged efforts could cause the body to build new bones to increase the surface, thereby supporting this mass.

In another study published in the journal Scientific reports In 2018, involving 1,200 participants aged 18 to 86, Shahar found that older people were less likely than younger people to have an occipital outer protuberance.

Shahar told BBC.com that he hoped the outer occipital protuberances would become larger: "Imagine if you have stalactites and stalagmites, if nobody bother them, they will continue to grow."