The prevalence of toxoplasmosis is an important factor in the prevalence of epilepsy with a probable link in the cryptogenic epilepsies. An area with a reduced burden of toxoplasmosis will also have a reduced burden of epilepsy. Neuropathophysiology findings from various studies show a common physical relationship of microglial nodule formation in Toxoplasma gondii infection and epilepsy. This analysis raises the possibility that one of the many causes of epilepsy may be an infectious agent, or that cryptogenic epilepsy may be a consequence of latent toxoplasmosis infection. This raises the possibility that public health measures to reduce toxoplasmosis infection may also result in a reduction in epilepsy.

Coroners vary considerably in the verdicts they give to individuals who probably died by suicide. This may compromise the usefulness of suicide statistics for assessing area differences in rates for public health surveillance.

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There have been a number of hypotheses regarding abiogenesis, the ‘Metabolism First’ model and the ‘RNA World Hypothesis’ are two such examples. All theories on abiogenesis make a set of unstated assumptions with regard to the elemental make up of life or only apply the theory to a primitive earth model. This paper reviews current knowledge from the myriad of observations from a variety of scientific disciplines and applies generally understood thermodynamic reasoning to explain the formation of molecules known to be used by life. These arguments are used in this paper to construct a set of new hypotheses which govern universal abiogenesis. The intention of this paper is to show by the application of our known laws of science that life is the end sequence of events of the fundamental forces which affect the entire universe. From these events a new hypotheses on abiogenesis can be formulated. The hypotheses proposed by this paper are incorporated in many of the current theories of abiogenesis, either assumed or accepted but very rarely stated or explained. The proposed set of five hypotheses are: (1) any celestial mass that has a body of liquid water and therefore has access to energy will form at least the building blocks of life, if not life itself. (2) The major component of any life form anywhere in the universe will be H2O. (3) Any organism, anywhere in the universe, will be carbon-based. (4) All life in the universe will be composed of nucleic acid based molecules as its code for life. (5) The cell is the universal unit of life. Throughout this paper the background to the formulation of these hypotheses is discussed, as is the explanation of why these hypotheses are universal and not limited to an application of a primitive earth model. This set of hypotheses is also testable as any investigation of a celestial body which contains liquid water (e.g. Europa) will quickly provide evidence to prove or refute the proposed theory.

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