Category Archives: Science News

Cyprian Honeybees Kill Their Enemy By Smothering Them:

For the first time, researchers have discovered that when Cyprian honeybees mob and kill their arch enemy, the Oriental hornet, the cause of death is asphyxiation. They reported their findings in Current Biology.

More…
Cell Death In Sparrow Brains May Provide Clues In Age-related Human Diseases:

A remarkable change takes place in the brains of tiny songbirds every year, and some day the mechanism controlling that change may help researchers develop treatments for age-related degenerative diseases of the brain such as Parkinson’s and dementia.

Which is very interesting to people who don’t care at all about human medicine, but one gotta sell the study to the media somehow…
New Light Shed On Hybrid Animals:

What began more than 50 years ago as a way to improve fishing bait in California has led a University of Tennessee researcher to a significant finding about how animal species interact and that raises important questions about conservation. In the middle of the 20th century, local fishermen who relied on baby salamanders as bait introduced a new species of salamander to California water bodies. These Barred Tiger salamanders came into contact with the native California Tiger salamanders, and over time the two species began to mate.

How Some Algae Tolerate Very Salty Environments:

Researchers have identified unique proteins that allow a unicellular alga called Dunaliella salina to proliferate in environments with extreme salt content. These results might provide ways to help crop plants resist the progressive accumulation of salt in soil, which is a major limitation for agricultural productivity worldwide.

Mathematics Might Save You A Trip To The ER:

Since the days of Hippocrates, people have known that certain illnesses come and go with the seasons. More recently, researchers have learned that these cyclic recurrences of disease, known as seasonality, are often related to the weather. In order to accurately predict when outbreaks of disease will occur, and how many people will be effected, Elena Naumova, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Public Heath and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, and colleagues, are studying seasonality by creating mathematical models based on environmental factors like outdoor temperature.

Shape Encoding May Start In The Retina:

New evidence from the University of Southern California suggests that there may be dedicated cells in the retina that help compile small bits of information in order to recognize objects. The research was conducted by Ernest Greene, professor of psychology in the area of brain and cognitive sciences at USC. It is well established that the images the observer sees are divided in half as they are sent to the two hemispheres of the brain. When a person looks at the center of an object, the image from the right half of the object will be sent to one hemisphere of the brain and the image of the left half is sent to the other. This is true whether a person uses one eye or two to look at the object. “Given that the primary visual areas in each hemisphere are seeing only half of the object, it has been assumed that communication between the hemispheres was needed to combine the information,” said Greene.

What Makes One Wasp Queen? Old Developmental Pathways Spawn Revolutionary Evolutionary Changes:

When the larvae of the primitive social insect Polistes metricus, a paper wasp, slips into the quiet pupal stage, she doesn’t know if she’ll arise a worker or gyne (future queen) — unless she consults with Arizona State University’s social insect researcher Gro Amdam. Amdam’s group is shedding new light on the development of colonial insects from solitary ancestors through study of a primitive social order of wasps. In a paper highlighted on the cover and published Aug. 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), ASU’s Amdam and Florian Wolschin teamed up with Kari Norberg, from Amdam’s laboratory at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and James Hunt and others from the University of Missouri. They reveal that the Polistes larvae that can become future queens show signs of developmental diapause, a period of overt quiescence and a life history trait of many insect orders.

Who Went There? Matching Fossil Tracks With Their Makers:

Fossilized footprints are relatively common, but figuring out exactly which ancient creature made particular tracks has been a mystery that has long stumped paleontologists. In the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a team of researchers overcome this dilemma for the first time, and link a fossil trackway to a well-known fossil animal.

Bird Completes Epic Flight Across The Pacific:

A female bar-tailed godwit, a large, streamlined shorebird, has touched down in New Zealand following an epic, 18,000-mile-long (29,000 km) series of flights tracked by satellite, including the longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird.

Primate Behavior Explained By Computer ‘Agents’:

The complex behaviour of primates can be understood using artificially-intelligent computer ‘agents’ that mimic their actions, shows new research published in a special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and presented at the BA Festival of Science in York.

Human C-reactive Protein Regulates Myeloma Tumor Cell Growth And Survival:

Scientists report that a protein best known as a common marker of inflammation plays a key role in the progression of human cancer. The research, published in the journal Cancer Cell, implicates C-reactive protein (CRP) as a potential target for cancer treatment.

Mother’s Milk A Gift That Keeps On Giving:

Extensive medical research shows that mothers’ milk satisfies babies’ nutritional needs far better than any manufactured infant formula. It also protects babies against many common infectious diseases and certain inflammatory diseases, and probably helps lower the risk of a child later developing diabetes, lymphoma and some types of leukemia.

Extra Gene Copies Were Enough To Make Early Humans’ Mouths Water:

To think that world domination could have begun in the cheeks. That’s one interpretation of a discovery, published online September 9 in Nature Genetics, which indicates that humans carry extra copies of the salivary amylase gene. Humans have many more copies of this gene than any of their ape relatives, the study found, and they use the copies to flood their mouths with amylase, an enzyme that digests starch. The finding bolsters the idea that starch was a crucial addition to the diet of early humans, and that natural selection favored individuals who could make more starch-digesting protein.

Very Young Children Can Step Into The Minds Of Storybook Characters:

A large part of enjoying a good book is getting immersed in the life of a character, especially a character’s thoughts and feelings. A new University of Waterloo psychology study shows that preschoolers can already perform this impressive perspective-taking feat and get into the minds of story characters.

Manic Phase Of Bipolar Disorder Benefits From Breast Cancer Medication:

The medication tamoxifen, best known as a treatment for breast cancer, dramatically reduces symptoms of the manic phase of bipolar disorder more quickly than many standard medications for the mental illness, a new study shows. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) who conducted the study also explained how: Tamoxifen blocks an enzyme called protein kinase C (PKC) that regulates activities in brain cells. The enzyme is thought to be over-active during the manic phase of bipolar disorder.

Is Social Networking Changing The Face Of Friendship?:

Online social networks tend to be far larger than their real-life counterparts, but online users say they have about the same number of close friends as the real-life average person. The advent of online social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook is changing the average number of friends people have, with some users befriending literally thousands of others, Dr Will Reader of Sheffield Hallam University told the BA Festival of Science on September 10. Past research by Professor Robin Dunbar at the Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioural Ecology Research Group at Liverpool University has shown that the average person has a social network of around 150 friends, ranging from very close friends to casual acquaintances.

Condoms Are Not ‘One Size Fits All’:

The following article considers condoms that don’t fit well, a brief and effective treatment for sexual problems that occur after treatment for gynecological cancers, and how to set health and fitness goals that really work.

Ethical Issues Of Scientific Research In Developing World Examined:

The first comprehensive examination of the ethical, social and cultural (ESC) challenges faced by major science programs in developing countries has identified a complex assortment of issues with the potential to slow critical global health research if left unaddressed.

Fire Ants Killing Baby Song Birds At High Rates:

Red imported fire ants may be killing as many as a fifth of baby song birds before they leave the nest, according to research recently completed at Texas A&M University.

Ecologist Finds Dire Devastation Of Snake Species Following Floods:

In science, it’s best to be good, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky.

Fossil Whale Puts Limit On Origin Of Oily, Buoyant Bones In Whales:

A fossilized whale skeleton excavated 20 years ago amid the stench and noise of a seabird and elephant seal rookery on California’s Año Nuevo Island turns out to be the youngest example on the Pacific coast of a fossil whale fall and the first in California, according to University of California, Berkeley, paleontologists.

Wild Male Chimpanzees Use Stolen Food To Win Over The Opposite Sex:

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and the same could be said for female chimpanzees. Researchers studying wild chimps in West Africa have discovered that males pinch desirable fruits from local farms and orchards as a means of attracting female mates.

Predation Linked To Evolution, Study Suggests:

The fossil record seems to indicate that the diversity of marine creatures increased and decreased over hundreds of millions of years in step with predator-prey encounters, Virginia Tech geoscientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Coral Reef Fish Harbor An Unexpectedly High Biodiversity Of Parasites:

IRD researchers showed that Epinephilus maculates, a fairly abundant species of grouper off New Caledonia, was parasitized by 12 species of microscopic monogenean worms. This diversity of parasites has just been confirmed also in the malabar grouper, Epinephilus malabaricus, another the coral reef species. If such a level of parasite diversity prevails in all coral-reef fish, tens of thousands of parasite species are in this ecosystem waiting to be discovered.

‘Killer Bees’ Now Established In New Orleans:

Africanized honeybees have been found in the New Orleans area since July of 2005, but the regularity and frequency of finding them there is new cause for concern.

Ancient Egyptians Mummified Their Cats With Utmost Care:

Examination of Egyptian mummies has shown that animals such as cats and crocodiles were given a far more careful and expensive trip to the afterlife than previously thought.

Extinction Crisis Escalates: Red List Shows Apes, Corals, Vultures, Dolphins All In Danger:

Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken, according to the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Was Ability To Run Early Man’s Achilles Heel?:

The earliest humans almost certainly walked upright on two legs but may have struggled to run at even half the speed of modern man, new research suggests.

Tasmanian Tiger No Match For Dingo:

The wily dingo out-competed the much larger marsupial thylacine by being better built anatomically to resist the “mechanical stresses” associated with killing large prey, say Australian scientists.

A Dog In The Hand Scares Birds In The Bush:

New research showing that dog-walking in bushland significantly reduces bird diversity and abundance will lend support to bans against the practice in sensitive bushland and conservation areas.

Neuronal Conduction Of Excitation Without Action Potentials Based On Ceramide Production:

Researchers have succeeded in demonstrating that a neuronal network in mammals can work perfectly with a mode of conduction of excitation that is independent of action potentials. This new mechanism involves molecules known to play a role in numerous mechanisms of cell functioning, but not hitherto in conduction of excitation. To elucidate this mechanism, the teams have used a model of integrated physiology on an in vitro preparation in the mammal. This study has been performed using neuropharmacological and biochemical techniques.

Chocolate Is The Most Widely Craved Food, But Is It Really Addictive?:

Chocolate is the most widely and frequently craved food. People readily admit to being ‘addicted to chocolate’ or willingly label themselves as ‘chocoholics’. A popular explanation for this is that chocolate contains mood-enhancing (psychoactive) ingredients that give it special appeal.

How Vitamin C Stops Cancer:

Nearly 30 years after Nobel laureate Linus Pauling famously and controversially suggested that vitamin C supplements can prevent cancer, a team of Johns Hopkins scientists have shown that in mice at least, vitamin C – and potentially other antioxidants – can indeed inhibit the growth of some tumors ¯ just not in the manner suggested by years of investigation.

Molecular Probe ‘Paints’ Cancer Cells In Living Animals, Researchers Find:

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a molecular probe that sets aglow tumor cells within living animals. Their goal is to use the probe to improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases.

Efforts To Save Greenback Cutthroat Trout Snagged: Wrong Fish Restocked For Decades:

A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder indicates biologists trying to save Colorado’s native greenback cutthroat trout from extinction over the past several decades through hatchery propagation and restocking efforts have, in most cases, inadvertently restored the wrong fish.

Gray Whales A Fraction Of Historic Levels, Genetic Research Shows:

Gray whales in the Pacific Ocean, long thought to have fully recovered from whaling, were once three to five times as plentiful as they are now, according to a new article.

Why Genes Of One Parent Are Expressed Over Genes Of The Other: New Ideas In Genomic Imprinting:

How we come to express the genes of one parent over the other is now better understood through studying the platypus and marsupial wallaby — and it doesn’t seem to have originated in association with sex chromosomes.

Wild Male Chimpanzees Use Stolen Food To Win Over The Opposite Sex:

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and the same could be said for female chimpanzees. Researchers studying wild chimps in West Africa have discovered that males pinch desirable fruits from local farms and orchards as a means of attracting female mates.

Prehistoric Reptiles From Russia Possessed The First Modern Ears:

The discovery of the first anatomically modern ear in a group of 260 million-year-old fossil reptiles significantly pushes back the date of the origin of an advanced sense of hearing, and suggests the first known adaptations to living in the dark.

Biological Invasions Can Begin With Just One Insect:

A new study by York University biologists Amro Zayed and Laurence Packer has shown that a lone insect can initiate a biological invasion.

Student Proves Giant Whorled Sunflower’s Extreme Rarity:

For several months last spring, the Vanderbilt greenhouse held more individual plants of a rare species of native sunflower than are known to exist in the wild. This unusual bounty was the result of research being conducted by Jennifer Ellis, a doctoral student in the biological sciences department.

Download the actual papers and blog away!

Device To Predict Proper Light Exposure For Human Health:

Scientists have long known that the human body runs like clockwork, guided by a circadian system that responds to daily patterns of light and darkness. Now a team of researchers is developing a personal device to measure daily light intake and activity, which could allow them to predict optimal timing for light therapy to synchronize the circadian clock to the 24-hour solar day and relieve psychosocial stress.

Pivotal Hearing Structure Revealed:

Scientists have shed light on how our bodies convert vibrations entering the ear into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the brain. Exactly how the electrical signal is generated has been the subject of ongoing research interest. When a noise occurs, such as a car honking or a person laughing, sound vibrations entering the ear first bounce against the eardrum, causing it to vibrate. This, in turn, causes three bones in the middle ear to vibrate, amplifying the sound. Vibrations from the middle ear set fluid in the inner ear, or cochlea, into motion and a traveling wave to form along a membrane running down its length.

PCBs May Threaten Killer Whale Populations For 30-60 Years:

Orcas or killer whales may continue to suffer the effects of contamination with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) for the next 30 — 60 years, despite 1970s-era regulations that have reduced overall PCB concentrations in the environment, researchers in Canada report. The study calls for better standards to protect these rare marine mammals.

Marine Team Finds Surprising Evidence Supporting A Great Biblical Flood:

Did the great flood of Noah’s generation really occur thousands of years ago? Was the Roman city of Caesarea destroyed by an ancient tsunami? Will pollution levels in our deep seas remain forever a mystery? These are just a few of the questions that are being addressed by a new environmental marine research team from Tel Aviv University and the non-profit research and education organization, EcoOcean.

Dinosaur To Birds: Height Or Flight?:

Paleontologists have long theorized that miniaturization was one of the last stages in the long series of changes required in order for dinosaurs to make the evolutionary “leap” to take flight and so become what we call birds. New evidence from a tiny Mongolian dinosaur, however, may leave some current theories about the evolution of flight up in the air.

Primates Expect Others To Act Rationally:

When trying to understand someone’s intentions, non-human primates expect others to act rationally by performing the most appropriate action allowed by the environment, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University. The work was led by Justin Wood, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, with David Glynn, a research assistant, and Marc Hauser, professor of psychology at Harvard, along with Brenda Phillips of Boston University.

Brain’s Timing Linked With Timescales Of The Natural Visual World:

Researchers have long attempted to unravel the cryptic code used by the neurons of the brain to represent our visual world. By studying the way the brain rapidly and precisely encodes natural visual events that occur on a slower timescale, a team of Harvard bioengineers and brain scientists from the State University of New York have moved one step closer towards solving this riddle.

Role Reversal: Humans Suck Life Out Of Leeches:

Global warming may be to blame for the gradual extinction of cold-loving species, and the European land leech in particular, according to Ulrich Kutschera and colleagues from the University of Kassel in Germany and the Karl-Franzens-University of Graz in Austria.

Cell Phones Should Be Kept Away From Hospital Beds, Dutch Experts Say:

Cell phones should come no closer than one meter to hospital beds and equipment, according Dutch research published in the online open access journal, Critical Care. Scientists demonstrated that incidents of electromagnetic interference (EMI) from second and third generation mobile phones occurred even at distance of three meters.

The Hygiene Hypothesis: Are Cleanlier Lifestyles Causing More Allergies For Kids?:

A little dirt never hurt. But in today’s super-clean world, vaccinations, anti-bacterial soaps, and airtight doors and windows are keeping dirt and disease-causing germs at bay. While staying germ-free can prevent the spread of disease and infections, leading a cleanlier lifestyle may be responsible for an increase in allergies among children.

Adult Brain Can Change, Study Confirms:

It is well established that a child’s brain has a remarkable capacity for change, but controversy continues about the extent to which such plasticity exists in the adult human primary sensory cortex. Now, neuroscientists from MIT and Johns Hopkins University have used converging evidence from brain imaging and behavioral studies to show that the adult visual cortex does indeed reorganize–and that the change affects visual perception.

Ecologists Get To The Bottom Of Why Bears Rub Trees:

Ecologists have at last got to the bottom of why bears rub trees – and it’s not because they have itchy backs. Speaking at the British Ecological Society’s Annual Meeting in Glasgow the week of September 10, Dr Owen Nevin of the University of Cumbria will reveal that adult male grizzly bears use so-called “rub trees” as a way to communicate with each other while looking for breeding females, and that this behaviour could help reduce battles between the bears.

Females Promiscuous For The Sake Of Their Grandchildren:

Female animals that mate with multiple partners may be doing so to ensure the optimum health of their grandchildren, according to researchers at the universities of Leeds and Exeter. Despite mating being a risky business for females – not least with the threat of injury, sexually transmitted diseases and vulnerability to predators – polyandry (females taking multiple mates) is widespread in the animal kingdom.

Force For Democracy — Or Information Chaos? Expert Forum Spotlights Blogging:

Controversial Internet entrepreneur turned cultural critic Andrew Keen, who says the revolution of interactivity and user-generated content on the internet is leading to ‘less culture, less reliable news and a chaos of useless information’ is one contributor certain to ignite debate at the two-day conference at the University of York. The conference is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through its e-Society programme.

Future Career Path Of Gifted Youth Can Be Predicted By Age 13 By SAT:

The future career path and creative direction of gifted youth can be predicted well by their performance on the SAT at age 13, a new study from Vanderbilt University finds. The study offers insights into how best to identify the nation’s most talented youth, which is a focus of the new $43 billion America Competes Act recently passed by Congress to enhance the United States’ ability to compete globally.

Polar Bear Population Predicted To Dwindle WIth Retreating Ice:

Future reduction of sea ice in the Arctic could result in a loss of 2/3 of the world’s polar bear population within 50 years according to a series of studies just released by the U.S. Geological Survey. Last December, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) was proposing to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In January 2008, following a one-year review period, the Service is expected to make a recommendation to Secretary Kempthorne on whether or not to list the polar bear as threatened.

A Balanced Memory Network:

A critical component of cognition is memory–the ability to store information, and to readily retrieve it on cue. Existing models postulate that recalled items are represented by self-sustained activity; that is, they are represented by activity that can exist in the absence of input. These models, however, are incomplete, in the sense that they do not explain two salient experimentally observed features of persistent activity: low firing rates and high neuronal variability. Here we propose a model that can explain both. The model makes two predictions: changes in synaptic weights during learning should be much smaller than the background weights, and the fraction of neurons selective for a memory should be above some threshold. Experimental confirmation of these predictions would provide strong support for the model, and constitute an important step toward a complete theory of memory storage and retrieval.

Adaptive Evolution of Conserved Noncoding Elements in Mammals:

Conservation of DNA sequences across evolutionary history is a highly informative signal for identifying regions with important biological functions. In particular, conserved noncoding regions have been shown to be good candidates for containing regulatory elements that have roles in gene regulation. Recent studies have found that there are many thousands of conserved noncoding elements (CNCs) in vertebrate genomes and have suggested possible functions for some of these elements, but the function of most CNCs remains unknown. To study the evolution of CNCs, we developed a statistical method to identify CNCs that show changes in evolutionary rates on particular branches of the mammalian phylogenetic tree. Those rate changes may indicate changes in the function of a CNC. We applied our method to CNCs of five mammalian genomes, and found that, indeed, many CNCs have experienced rate changes during their evolution. We also found a subset of CNCs showing accelerations in evolutionary rate that actually exceed the neutral rates, suggesting that adaptive evolution has shaped the evolution of those elements.

‘Alien’ Jaws Help Moray Eels Feed:

Moray eels have a unique way of feeding reminiscent of a science fiction thriller, researchers at UC Davis have discovered. After seizing prey in its jaws, a second set of jaws located in the moray’s throat reaches forward into the mouth, grabs the food and carries it back to the esophagus for swallowing.

More here and here (you can see the video on both places).
Migrating Squid Drove Evolution Of Sonar In Whales And Dolphins, Researchers Argue:

Behind the sailor’s lore of fearsome battles between sperm whale and giant squid lies a deep question of evolution: How did these leviathans develop the underwater sonar needed to chase and catch squid in the inky depths? Now, two evolutionary biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, claim that, just as bats developed sonar to chase flying insects through the darkness, dolphins and other toothed whales also developed sonar to chase schools of squid swimming at night at the surface.

Higher Social Skills Are Distinctly Human, Toddler And Ape Study Reveals:

Apes bite and try to break a tube to retrieve the food inside while children follow the experimenter’s example to get inside the tube to retrieve the prize, showing that even before preschool, toddlers are more sophisticated in their social learning skills than their closest primate relatives, according to a report published in the 7 September issue of the journal Science.

Human-Animal Hybrid Embryos Approved For Research In Britain:

The following is the statement by the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority, the body which oversees human embryo research in Britain. The group will allow the creation of part-human, part-animal hybrid embryos for research purposes. British regulations already require that human embryos for research purposes are destroyed within 14 days of their creation.

Failing Protection Of Africa’s National Parks:

For years, biologists in Africa have known that large mammals – including antelopes and their predators – were disappearing outside reserves. Now a raft of studies, published in the September 2007 issue of the African Journal of Ecology, show that we have moved beyond this. We are losing species from national parks, bastion of biodiversity conservation. Worryingly, this includes the continent’s crown jewels such as Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.

Specific Neurons Involved In Memory Formation Identified:

In a remarkable new study, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have unlocked one of the secrets of how memory is formed. Working with a unique breed of transgenic mice, the new study has shown for the first time that the same neurons activated during fear conditioning are, in fact, reactivated during memory retrieval.

Nicotine In Breast Milk Disrupts Infants’ Sleep Patterns:

A study from the Monell Chemical Senses Center reports that nicotine in the breast milk of lactating mothers who smoke cigarettes disrupts their infants’ sleep patterns.

River Blindness Parasite Becoming Resistant To Standard Treatment:

Ivermectin, the standard drug for treating river blindness (onchocerciasis), is causing genetic changes in the parasite that causes the disease, according to a new study by Roger Prichard (McGill University, Canada) and colleagues, published on August 30, 2007 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Small Animal Imaging Facility Is Big Boon To Research:

When powerful magnets line up the body’s protons before radiofrequency waves can grab their attention away, it’s called spin physics. When signals generated by the movement are mathematically transformed into dramatic images of hearts, lungs and other organs it’s called a magnetic resonance image.

First Beehives In Ancient Near East Discovered:

Archaeological proof of the Biblical description of Israel really as “the land of milk and honey” (or at least the latter) has been uncovered by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archaeology.

Fighting Malaria By Tricking Mosquito’s Sense Of Smell:

By mapping a specialized sensory organ that the malaria mosquito uses to zero in on its human prey, an international team of researchers has taken an important step toward developing new and improved repellents and attractants that can be used to reduce the threat of malaria, generally considered the most prevalent life-threatening disease in the world.

Neurotransmitter Current Not Flowing Through Ion Channels:

In studying how neurotransmitters travel between cells — by analysis of events in the dimensions of nanometers — Cornell researchers have discovered that an electrical current thought to be present during that process does not, in fact, exist.

How Drones Find Queens: Odorant Receptor For Queen Bee Pheromone Identified:

The mating ritual of the honey bee is a mysterious affair, occurring at dizzying heights in zones identifiable only to a queen and the horde of drones that court her. Now a research team led by the University of Illinois has identified an odorant receptor that allows male drones to find a queen in flight. The receptor, on the male antennae, can detect an available queen up to 60 meters away.

Gender And Handedness Influences On Monkeys’ Brains Similar To Humans:

Capuchin monkeys are playful, inquisitive primates known for their manual dexterity, complex social behavior, and cognitive abilities. New research now shows that just like humans, they display a fundamental sex difference in the organization of the brain, specifically in the corpus callosum, the region that connects the two cerebral lobes.

Investigating The Evolution Of Drug Resistance In Malaria Parasites:

Funded by a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, scientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, hope to understand how the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum evolved resistance to the once-effective medication chloroquine.

There are 38 new articles on PLoS ONE today. Below are some of my own picks, but you look around, read what you like, rate, comment and annotate:
Studying Seabird Diet through Genetic Analysis of Faeces: A Case Study on Macaroni Penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus):

Determining what seabirds have eaten is typically accomplished with stomach flushing. Here, Deagle and colleagues use non-invasive DNA-based analysis of faeces as an alternative way to examine the diet of Macaroni penguins on Heard Island in the southern Indian Ocean. Their results show that the technique can detect changes in the birds’ diet over time and suggest it will be useful in long-term monitoring studies.

Plants Attract Parasitic Wasps to Defend Themselves against Insect Pests by Releasing Hexenol:

Many plants release compounds that evaporate easily and defend the plant against insects by attracting natural enemies of those insects. This study examined the attraction of leafminer parasitoids to plants damaged by leafminers. The results reveal that the compound hexenol, released by diverse plant species following mechanical damage, attracts a leafminer parasite to the plant.

Malaria in Africa: Vector Species’ Niche Models and Relative Risk Maps:

A central theoretical goal of epidemiology is the construction of spatial models of disease prevalence and risk, including maps for the potential spread of infectious disease. We provide three continent-wide maps representing the relative risk of malaria in Africa based on ecological niche models of vector species and risk analysis at a spatial resolution of 1 arc-minute (9 185 275 cells of approximately 4 sq km). Using a maximum entropy method we construct niche models for 10 malaria vector species based on species occurrence records since 1980, 19 climatic variables, altitude, and land cover data (in 14 classes). For seven vectors (Anopheles coustani, A. funestus, A. melas, A. merus, A. moucheti, A. nili, and A. paludis) these are the first published niche models. We predict that Central Africa has poor habitat for both A. arabiensis and A. gambiae, and that A. quadriannulatus and A. arabiensis have restricted habitats in Southern Africa as claimed by field experts in criticism of previous models. The results of the niche models are incorporated into three relative risk models which assume different ecological interactions between vector species. The “additive” model assumes no interaction; the “minimax” model assumes maximum relative risk due to any vector in a cell; and the “competitive exclusion” model assumes the relative risk that arises from the most suitable vector for a cell. All models include variable anthrophilicity of vectors and spatial variation in human population density. Relative risk maps are produced from these models. All models predict that human population density is the critical factor determining malaria risk. Our method of constructing relative risk maps is equally general. We discuss the limits of the relative risk maps reported here, and the additional data that are required for their improvement. The protocol developed here can be used for any other vector-borne disease.

Is Transcriptional Regulation of Metabolic Pathways an Optimal Strategy for Fitness?:

Transcriptional regulation of the genes in metabolic pathways is a highly successful strategy, which is virtually universal in microorganisms. The lac operon of E. coli is but one example of how enzyme and transporter production can be made conditional on the presence of a nutrient to catabolize.
With a minimalist model of metabolism, cell growth and transcriptional regulation in a microorganism, we explore how the interaction between environmental conditions and gene regulation set the growth rate of cells in the phase of exponential growth. This in silico model, which is based on biochemical rate equations, does not describe a specific organism, but the magnitudes of its parameters are chosen to match realistic values. Optimizing the parameters of the regulatory system allows us to quantify the fitness benefit of regulation. When a second nutrient and its metabolic pathway are introduced, the system must further decide whether and how to activate both pathways.
Even the crudest transcriptional network is shown to substantially increase the fitness of the organism, and this effect persists even when the range of nutrient levels is kept very narrow. We show that maximal growth is achieved when pathway activation is a more or less steeply graded function of the nutrient concentration. Furthermore, we predict that bistability of the system is a rare phenomenon in this context, but outline a situation where it may be selected for.

Bonobo Handshake: What Makes Our Chimp-like Cousins So Cooperative?:

What’s it like to work with relatives who think sex is like a handshake, who organise orgies with the neighbours, and firmly believe females should be in charge of everything? On September 11, researcher Vanessa Woods will journey to Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary in Congo with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute in Germany to study our mysterious cousin, the bonobo.

Rare Breeds Of Farm Animals Face Extinction:

With the world’s first global inventory of farm animals showing many breeds of African, Asian, and Latin American livestock at risk of extinction, scientists from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) called for the rapid establishment of genebanks to conserve the sperm and ovaries of key animals critical for the global population’s future survival.

Ancient Pig DNA Study Sheds New Light On Colonization Of Europe By Early Farmers:

The earliest domesticated pigs in Europe, which many archaeologists believed to be descended from European wild boar, were actually introduced from the Middle East by Stone Age farmers, new research suggests.

Auto Immune Response Creates Barrier To Fertility; Could Be A Step In Speciation:

Plant biologists at the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that an autoimmune response, triggered by a small number of genes, can be a barrier to producing a viable offspring.

Population Movements And Money Remittances Spur Forest Regrowth:

A study of forest cover in El Salvador in the September issue of BioScience presents novel findings on how economic globalization, land policy changes, and monies sent to family members by emigrants have transformed agriculture and stimulated forest regrowth.

Inside The Brain Of A Crayfish:

Voyage to the bottom of the sea, or simply look along the bottom of a clear stream and you may spy lobsters or crayfish waving their antennae. Look closer, and you will see them feeling around with their legs and flicking their antennules – the small, paired sets of miniature feelers at the top of their heads between the long antennae. Both are used for sensing the environment. The long antennae are used for getting a physical feel of an area, such as the contours of a crevice. The smaller antennules are there to both help the creature smell for food or mates or dangerous predators and also to sense motion in the water that also could indicate the presence of food, a fling or danger. The legs also have receptors that detect chemical signatures, preferably those emanating from a nice hunk of dead fish.

Male Deer Are Born To Live Fast, Die Young:

In the September issue of The American Naturalist, Juan Carranza (Biology and Ethology Unit, University of Extremadura, Spain) and Javier Pérez-Barbería (Macaulay Institute, United Kingdom) offer a new explanation for why males of ungulate species subjected to intense competition are born with lower survival expectancies than females.

Lack Of Sleep Among New School-goers Leads To Behavioral, Cognitive Problems:

The first investigation of developmental sleep duration patterns throughout childhood shows that children just beginning school and who get little sleep are more likely to have behavioral and cognitive problems in the classroom, according to a new study.

Teenagers’ Use Of Cell Phones After Bedtime Contributes To Poor Sleep:

The use of modern means of interpersonal and mass communication has become an essential part of being young. Technology has enabled two people to connect with each other virtually anywhere and at any time, a privilege that, according to new research, is often abused by youngsters and cutting into their sleep time. A new study finds that cell phone use after bedtime is very prevalent among adolescents, and its use is related to increased levels of tiredness after one year.

Obesity And The Central Nervous System — The State Of The Art:

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of information regarding the role of the central nervous system (CNS) in the development of obesity and the influence of peripheral, hormonal signals that regulate CNS function to regulate food intake and metabolism. A symposium held recently in Washington, DC, organized by The Journal of Physiology, focused on recent work in talks by leaders in the field.

One Species’ Entire Genome Discovered Inside Another’s:

Scientists at the University of Rochester and the J. Craig Venter Institute have discovered a copy of the entire genome of a bacterial parasite residing inside the genome of its host species. The finding, reported in Science August 30, suggests that lateral gene transfer–the movement of genes between unrelated species–may happen much more frequently between bacteria and multicellular organisms than scientists previously believed, posing dramatic implications for evolution.

More…
Fruit Flies Prefer Fizzy Drinks:

That fruit fly hovering over your kitchen counter may be attracted to more than the bananas that are going brown; it may also want a sip of your carbonated water.

A Genetic Trigger For The Cambrian Explosion Unraveled?:

A team of scientists led by young Croatian evolutionary geneticist Tomislav Domazet-Lošo from Ruder Boškovic Institute (RBI) in Zagreb, Croatia, developed a novel methodological approach in evolutionary studies. Using the method they named ‘genomic phylostratigraphy’, its authors shed new and unexpected light on some of the long standing macroevolutionary issues, which have been puzzling evolutionary biologists since Darwin.

Wolves Find Happy Hunting Grounds In Yellowstone National Park:

If Mark Boyce could converse with elk, he might give them a word of advice: avoid open, flat, snowy areas near rivers and roads. A biological scientist at the University of Alberta, Boyce analyzed 774 wolf-elk kill sites and concluded that spatial patterns of predation between wolves and elk are more strongly influenced by landscape features than by wolf distribution.

Saving Tiny Sea Turtles Nesting By The Space Shuttle:

On Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Space Shuttle Endeavour sat bathed in glowing light, silhouetting the vehicle against the dark night sky over the seaside complex. It may sound like an awesome and idyllic scene, but not for nesting sea turtles and their newly hatched babies. During their summer nesting season, these turtles emerge from the ocean along the pristine beach within 200 yards of the space shuttle launch pads. The light emanating from the pads can deter the adults from coming ashore to lay their eggs and disorient the hatchlings as they emerge from their nests and head toward the moonlit sea.

Eating Together As A Family Creates Better Eating Habits Later In Life:

Eating together as a family during adolescence is associated with lasting positive effects on dietary quality in young adulthood, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota.

When Bivalves Ruled The World:

Before the worst mass extinction of life in Earth’s history — 252 million years ago — ocean life was diverse and clam-like organisms called brachiopods dominated. After the calamity, when little else existed, a different kind of clam-like organism, called a bivalve, took over.

Baiji Dolphin Previously Thought Extinct Spotted In The Yangtze River:

The reported sighting of a Yangtze River dolphin, or Baiji, means there is still a chance for people to take further action and protect the cetaceans in the Yangtze from extinction, according to World Wildlife Fund.

Humpback Whales Recorded Clicking And Buzzing While Feeding For First Time:

For the first time, researchers have recorded “megapclicks” — a series of clicks and buzzes from humpback whales apparently associated with nighttime feeding behaviors — in and around NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

Mystery Of A Third Olfactory System Unlocked:

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have found a “nose within the nose,” a unique olfactory system within the noses of mice that is able to “smell” hormones involved in regulating water and salt balance in the body. This research may lead to new insights into the complex system of “chemical communication” between individuals.

First Orchid Fossil Puts Showy Blooms At Some 80 Million Years Old:

Biologists at Harvard University have identified the ancient fossilized remains of a pollen-bearing bee as the first hint of orchids in the fossil record, a find they say suggests orchids are old enough to have co-existed with dinosaurs.

Amber Specimen Captures Ancient Chemical Battle:

It appears that chemical warfare has been around a lot longer than poison arrows, mustard gas or nerve weapons — about 100 million years, give or take a little.

Household Mold Linked To Depression:

A groundbreaking public health study has found a connection between damp, moldy homes and depression. The study, led by Brown University epidemiologist Edmond Shenassa, is the largest investigation of an association between mold and mood and is the first such investigation conducted outside the United Kingdom.

Social Parasites Of The Smaller Kind:

Cooperation is widespread in the natural world but so too are cheats — mutants that do not contribute to the collective good but simply reap the benefits of others’ cooperative efforts. In evolutionary terms, cheats should indeed prosper, so how cooperation persists despite the threat of cheat takeover is a fundamental question. Recently, biologists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford have found that in bacteria, cheats actually orchestrate their own downfall.

Cats Do Suffer From Arthritis, Study Shows:

New research at the University of Glasgow has found that arthritis in cats is far more common than previously thought.

There are 32 new articles on PLoS ONE this week. Here are some titles that caught my eye – go read, rate, annotate and comment:
Why Men Matter: Mating Patterns Drive Evolution of Human Lifespan:

Evolutionary theory predicts that senescence, a decline in survival rates with age, is the consequence of stronger selection on alleles that affect fertility or mortality earlier rather than later in life. Hamilton quantified this argument by showing that a rare mutation reducing survival is opposed by a selective force that declines with age over reproductive life. He used a female-only demographic model, predicting that female menopause at age ca. 50 yrs should be followed by a sharp increase in mortality, a “wall of death.” Human lives obviously do not display such a wall. Explanations of the evolution of lifespan beyond the age of female menopause have proven difficult to describe as explicit genetic models. Here we argue that the inclusion of males and mating patterns extends Hamilton’s theory and predicts the pattern of human senescence. We analyze a general two-sex model to show that selection favors survival for as long as men reproduce. Male fertility can only result from matings with fertile females, and we present a range of data showing that males much older than 50 yrs have substantial realized fertility through matings with younger females, a pattern that was likely typical among early humans. Thus old-age male fertility provides a selective force against autosomal deleterious mutations at ages far past female menopause with no sharp upper age limit, eliminating the wall of death. Our findings illustrate the evolutionary importance of males and mating preferences, and show that one-sex demographic models are insufficient to describe the forces that shape human senescence.

Phylogenomics Reshuffles the Eukaryotic Supergroups:

Resolving the phylogenetic relationships between eukaryotes is an ongoing challenge of evolutionary biology. In recent years, the accumulation of molecular data led to a new evolutionary understanding, in which all eukaryotic diversity has been classified into five or six supergroups. Yet, the composition of these large assemblages and their relationships remain controversial.
Here, we report the sequencing of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) for two species belonging to the supergroup Rhizaria and present the analysis of a unique dataset combining 29908 amino acid positions and an extensive taxa sampling made of 49 mainly unicellular species representative of all supergroups. Our results show a very robust relationship between Rhizaria and two main clades of the supergroup chromalveolates: stramenopiles and alveolates. We confirm the existence of consistent affinities between assemblages that were thought to belong to different supergroups of eukaryotes, thus not sharing a close evolutionary history.
This well supported phylogeny has important consequences for our understanding of the evolutionary history of eukaryotes. In particular, it questions a single red algal origin of the chlorophyll-c containing plastids among the chromalveolates. We propose the abbreviated name ‘SAR’ (Stramenopiles+Alveolates+Rhizaria) to accommodate this new super assemblage of eukaryotes, which comprises the largest diversity of unicellular eukaryotes.

Quadrupling Muscle Mass in Mice by Targeting TGF-ß Signaling Pathways:

Myostatin is a transforming growth factor-ß family member that normally acts to limit skeletal muscle growth. Mice genetically engineered to lack myostatin activity have about twice the amount of muscle mass throughout the body, and similar effects are seen in cattle, sheep, dogs, and a human with naturally occurring loss-of-function mutations in the myostatin gene. Hence, there is considerable interest in developing agents capable of inhibiting myostatin activity for both agricultural and human therapeutic applications. We previously showed that the myostatin binding protein, follistatin, can induce dramatic increases in muscle mass when overexpressed as a transgene in mice. In order to determine whether this effect of follistatin results solely from inhibition of myostatin activity, I analyzed the effect of this transgene in myostatin-null mice. Mstn−/− mice carrying a follistatin transgene had about four times the muscle mass of wild type mice, demonstrating the existence of other regulators of muscle mass with similar activity to myostatin. The greatest effect on muscle mass was observed in offspring of mothers homozygous for the Mstn mutation, raising the possibility that either myostatin itself or a downstream regulator may normally be transferred from the maternal to fetal circulations. These findings demonstrate that the capacity for increasing muscle growth by manipulating TGF-ß signaling pathways is much more extensive than previously appreciated and suggest that muscle mass may be controlled at least in part by a systemic mode of action of myostatin.

Insights from Amphioxus into the Evolution of Vertebrate Cartilage:

Central to the story of vertebrate evolution is the origin of the vertebrate head, a problem difficult to approach using paleontology and comparative morphology due to a lack of unambiguous intermediate forms. Embryologically, much of the vertebrate head is derived from two ectodermal tissues, the neural crest and cranial placodes. Recent work in protochordates suggests the first chordates possessed migratory neural tube cells with some features of neural crest cells. However, it is unclear how and when these cells acquired the ability to form cellular cartilage, a cell type unique to vertebrates. It has been variously proposed that the neural crest acquired chondrogenic ability by recruiting proto-chondrogenic gene programs deployed in the neural tube, pharynx, and notochord. To test these hypotheses we examined the expression of 11 amphioxus orthologs of genes involved in neural crest chondrogenesis. Consistent with cellular cartilage as a vertebrate novelty, we find that no single amphioxus tissue co-expresses all or most of these genes. However, most are variously co-expressed in mesodermal derivatives. Our results suggest that neural crest-derived cartilage evolved by serial cooption of genes which functioned primitively in mesoderm.

The Antibacterial Protein Lysozyme Identified as the Termite Egg Recognition Pheromone:

Social insects rely heavily on pheromone communication to maintain their sociality. Egg protection is one of the most fundamental social behaviours in social insects. The recent discovery of the termite-egg mimicking fungus ‘termite-ball’ and subsequent studies on termite egg protection behaviour have shown that termites can be manipulated by using the termite egg recognition pheromone (TERP), which strongly evokes the egg-carrying and -grooming behaviours of workers. Despite the great scientific and economic importance, TERP has not been identified because of practical difficulties. Herein we identified the antibacterial protein lysozyme as the TERP.

Corpus Callosum Morphology in Capuchin Monkeys Is Influenced by Sex and Handedness:

Sex differences have been reported in both overall corpus callosum area and its regional subdivisions in humans. Some have suggested this reflects a unique adaptation in humans, as similar sex differences in corpus callosum morphology have not been reported in any other species of primate examined to date. Furthermore, an association between various measurements of corpus callosum morphology and handedness has been found in humans and chimpanzees. In the current study, we report measurements of corpus callosum cross-sectional area from midsagittal MR images collected in vivo from 14 adult capuchin monkeys, 9 of which were also characterized for hand preference on a coordinated bimanual task. Adult females were found to have a significantly larger corpus callosum: brain volume ratio, rostral body, posterior midbody, isthmus, and splenium than adult males. Left-handed individuals had a larger relative overall corpus callosum area than did right-handed individuals. Additionally, a significant sex and handedness interaction was found for anterior midbody, with right-handed males having a significantly smaller area than right-handed females. These results suggest that sex and handedness influences on corpus callosum morphology are not restricted to Homo sapiens.

Simple Sequence Repeats Provide a Substrate for Phenotypic Variation in the Neurospora crassa Circadian Clock:

WHITE COLLAR-1 (WC-1) mediates interactions between the circadian clock and the environment by acting as both a core clock component and as a blue light photoreceptor in Neurospora crassa. Loss of the amino-terminal polyglutamine (NpolyQ) domain in WC-1 results in an arrhythmic circadian clock; this data is consistent with this simple sequence repeat (SSR) being essential for clock function.
Since SSRs are often polymorphic in length across natural populations, we reasoned that investigating natural variation of the WC-1 NpolyQ may provide insight into its role in the circadian clock. We observed significant phenotypic variation in the period, phase and temperature compensation of circadian regulated asexual conidiation across 143 N. crassa accessions. In addition to the NpolyQ, we identified two other simple sequence repeats in WC-1. The sizes of all three WC-1 SSRs correlated with polymorphisms in other clock genes, latitude and circadian period length. Furthermore, in a cross between two N. crassa accessions, the WC-1 NpolyQ co-segregated with period length.
Natural variation of the WC-1 NpolyQ suggests a mechanism by which period length can be varied and selected for by the local environment that does not deleteriously affect WC-1 activity. Understanding natural variation in the N. crassa circadian clock will facilitate an understanding of how fungi exploit their environments.

Super Spiders Make Bolder Birds:

Recent research has revealed that by feeding spiders to their chicks, birds can manipulate the personality and learning ability of their young. In a report recently published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, University of Glasgow researchers reveal that birds preferentially feed their young spiders containing taurine.
Taurine is an amino acid which is also found in breast milk and energy drinks. The beneficial qualities of taurine include aiding the development of premature babies and reducing blood pressure in human adults, but it has not previously been known how taurine influences the development of birds.
By comparing the behaviour of wild blue tits that were fed a taurine supplement, mimicking a diet rich in spiders, with blue tits that were not, researchers were able to observe the long term impacts of this vital nutrient.

Sleep Apnea Treatment Option: Innovative Surgery:

Sleep disorder and ear, nose and throat specialists at Thomas Jefferson University are examining an innovative procedure to treat obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

New Light-sensing Ability Discovered In Disease-causing Bacteria:

The bacteria that cause brucellosis can sense light and use the information to regulate their virulence, according to a study in the August 24 issue of the journal Science. The discovery comes after 120 years of research into the disease, which causes abortions in livestock and fevers in humans. Researchers found that two other bacteria, including a species that attacks plants, sense light using the same type of protein structure, and at least 94 more species possess the code for it in their DNA.

‘Mighty Mice’ Made Mightier:

The Johns Hopkins scientist who first showed that the absence of the protein myostatin leads to oversized muscles in mice and men has now found a second protein, follistatin, whose overproduction in mice lacking myostatin doubles the muscle-building effect.

New Golden Frog Discovered In Remote Region Of Colombia:

A new poisonous frog was recently discovered in a remote mountainous region in Colombia by a team of young scientists supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP). The new frog, which is almost two centimetres in length, was given the name the “golden frog of Supatá.”

Saving The Remarkable Kakapo Bird From Extinction:

One of the strangest and most endangered birds in the world, the kakapo, is being brought back from the brink of extinction with the help of scientists from the University of Glasgow.

The Molecular Anatomy of Spontaneous Germline Mutations in Human Testes:

The frequency of Apert syndrome mutations is 100-1,000 times higher than expected from average mutation rates, and it is due to positive selection in the testis increasing the frequency of germ cells carrying the defect.

Enlightening Energy Parasitism by Analysis of an ATP/ADP Transporter from Chlamydiae:

This paper explores the functional basis of how the intracellular P. amoebophila manages to effectively exploit the energy pool of its host cell by using the nucleotide transporter PamNTT1.

Emergence of Large-Scale Cell Morphology and Movement from Local Actin Filament Growth Dynamics:

Mathematical modeling predicts global modifications of the shape and behavior of migrating cells from knowledge of detailed multiscale protein interactions.

Qualitative Research: Understanding Patients’ Needs and Experiences:

Why do up to half of all patients with tuberculosis (TB) fail to adhere to drug treatment [1]? The answer to this question is a matter of life and death, since nonadherence contributes to disease relapse and mortality.

Setting Priorities in Child Health Research Investments for South Africa:

This paper aims to define health research priorities in South Africa, where it is estimated that nearly 100,000 children under 5 years of age still die each year.

Echidna’s Sex Life Under Study:

A University of Adelaide-led project will study the genetic makeup of one of Australia’s most iconic animals, the echidna, to give an unprecedented insight into their sex life and behaviour. World echidna expert Dr Peggy Rismiller and geneticist Dr Frank Grützner will collaborate with the Monarto and Adelaide Zoos and South Australian Museum to learn more about these unique egg-laying mammals known as monotremes.

Sharks’ ‘Bite Force’ Under The Spotlight:

While sharks instill fear in beachgoers worldwide, they instill a deep sense of curiosity in UT assistant professor and shark expert Dan Huber. There are still many mysteries surrounding what makes sharks such perfect predators, so Huber’s research on sharks’ “bite force” – their hunting performance – may offer new insights on sharks’ habits, capabilities and evolution. The research may also lead to advances in protective swimwear, shark-proofing equipment and a better understanding of flexible cartilage – which forms the sharks’ whole skeletons, much like human ears and noses.

Pollution Harms Top Marine Predators:

A new study provides some of the first evidence that albatrosses in the North Pacific may be affected by environmental contamination. Alterations in the immune function of the black-footed albatross were associated with elevated blood levels of nonpoint source contaminants. Nonpoint source pollution comes from a wide variety of sources such as farms, cars, roads and highways, and lawns. This kind of pollution is ubiquitous and can pose a significant threat to wildlife.

Monkeys Use ‘Baby Talk’ To Interact With Infants:

Female rhesus monkeys use special vocalizations while interacting with infants, the way human adults use motherese, or “baby talk,” to engage babies’ attention, new research at the University of Chicago shows. “Motherese is a high pitched and musical form of speech, which may be biological in origin,” said Dario Maestripieri, Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University. “The acoustic structure of particular monkey vocalizations called girneys may be adaptively designed to attract young infants and engage their attention, similar to how the acoustic structure of human motherese, or baby talk, allows adults to visually or socially engage with infants.”

Wind Turbine Has Switch To Move Clear Of Migrating Birds:

The wind turbine off in the distance is flopped over on its side – the 11-foot blades suspended just above the ground at one end and a 2,000-pound, bulbous, galvanized steel counterbalance pitched into the air at the other. The unique turbine isn’t broken; it was lowered from a height of 80 feet to test the ability to bring it down at the drop of a hat should foul weather set in or should the migratory songbirds and nesting seabirds that frequent this 95-acre island run afoul of the whirling blades.

Mouse Vision Has A Rhythm All Its Own:

In the eyes of mammals, visual information is processed on a daily schedule set within the eyes themselves–not one dictated by the brain, according to a new report in the journal Cell. The researchers found in mice that the eyes’ normal rhythmic response to light requires only that a molecular “clock” inside the retina go on ticking. The retina is a layer of nerve tissue covering the back of the eyeball, which is often likened to the film in a camera; without it, images can’t be captured.

How Snakes Survive Starvation:

Starving snakes employ novel survival strategies not seen before in vertebrates, according to research conducted by a University of Arkansas biologist. These findings could be used in conservation strategies to determine the health of snake populations.

Giant Panda Can Survive:

The giant panda is not at an “evolutionary dead end” and could have a long term viable future, according to new research involving scientists from Cardiff University.

Viagra Increases Release Of Key Reproductive Hormone, Study Finds:

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report this month that sildenafil increases the amount of oxytocin released by stimulation of the posterior pituitary gland, a small structure directly underneath the brain that regulates hormone levels in response to neural signals.

Mice Provide Important Clues To Obsessive-compulsive Disorder:

Mice born without a key brain protein compulsively groom their faces until they bleed and are afraid to venture out of the corner of their cages. When given a replacement dose of the protein in a specific region of the brain, or the drugs used to treat humans suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), many of these mice seem to get better.

Brain Research Shows Why Long-term Drug Users Just Can’t Say No:

New research from the University of Melbourne has shed new light on why long term drug users find it hard to say no, despite dire consequences to their health. A study into the frontal cortex, the key region of the brain involved in decision making, has shown that drug users have to place much greater demand on the brain to control impulses.

Longer Life? ‘Longevity’ Genes Protect Very Old People From The Bad Genes’ Harmful Effects:

People who live to 100 or more are known to have just as many–and sometimes even more–harmful gene variants compared with younger people. Now, scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered the secret behind this paradox: favorable “longevity” genes that protect very old people from the bad genes’ harmful effects. The novel method used by the researchers could lead to new drugs to protect against age-related diseases.

Tone Deafness Explained:

Do people cringe when you sing? You’ve got company. But researchers have found that only 1 in 20 people truly has amusia, the technical term for tone deafness. Tests have shown that some people with bad singing voices hear music just fine. Amusics are a smaller group with a perceptual problem: They can’t pick out differences in pitch or follow the simplest tunes, reports the September 2007 issue of the Harvard Health Letter.

Crested Auklet Birds Rub Tick-repelling Perfume On Their Mates During Courtship:

Hitting it off with members of the opposite sex takes chemistry. University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Hector Douglas has found that, for crested auklets, chemistry has both amorous and practical applications. The birds rub a citrus-like scent, secreted in wick-like feathers on their backs, on each other during courtship, a behavior called alloanointing. It is well known among some mammals, such as peccaries, but until now was not documented among birds. His research also indicates that the behavior could help protect the birds from parasites, such as ticks.

Natural Insecticide Re-created In The Lab:

Twenty-two years of dedicated research has finally resulted in success: In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a British team headed by Steven V. Ley at the University of Cambridge reports the first synthesis of azadirachtin, a natural compound that stops predatory insects from feeding.

Martian Life? Small Percentage Of Martian Soil Samples Could Have Biological Origin:

A new interpretation of data from NASA’s Viking landers indicates that 0.1% of the Martian soil tested could have a biological origin.

Are Homosexual Civil Unions A 600-year-old Tradition?:

A compelling new study from the September issue of the Journal of Modern History reviews historical evidence, including documents and gravesites, suggesting that homosexual civil unions may have existed six centuries ago in France. The article is the latest from the ongoing “Contemporary Issues in Historical Perspective” series, which explores the intersection between historical knowledge and current affairs.

First Out-of-body Experience Induced In Laboratory Setting:

A neuroscientist working at UCL (University College London) has devised the first experimental method to induce an out-of-body experience in healthy participants. In a paper published in Science, Dr Henrik Ehrsson, UCL Institute of Neurology, outlines the unique method by which the illusion is created and the implications of its discovery.

Tracking Feline Memories On The Move:

When a cat steps over an obstacle with its front legs, how do its hind legs know what to do? A new study in Current Biology reveals that it is the foreleg stepping movement itself that leaves a lasting impression. By comparison, feline memories of having just seen an obstacle proved rather fleeting. Indeed, the researchers found that cats could remember having stepped over a hurdle for at least ten minutes. The findings suggest that cats’ working memories can extend much longer than earlier studies had shown, according to the researchers.

Elephantnose Fish ‘See’ With Their Chin:

Originating in Central Africa, Peters’ elephantnose fish (Gnathonemus petersii), finds its bearings by means of weak electrical fields. Scientists from the University of Bonn have now been able to show how well this works. In complete darkness the animals can even distinguish the material of objects at a distance or dead organisms from living ones. The results have now been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

More….
Claims Of Sex-related Differences In Genetic Association Studies Often Not Properly Validated:

A review of previous research suggests that prominent claims of sex differences of gene-disease associations are often insufficiently documented and validated, according to an article in the August 22/29 issue of JAMA.

First Finding Of A Metabolite In One Sex Only:

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a chemical compound in male blue crabs that is not present in females — the first time in any species that an entire enzyme system has been found to be activated in only one sex.

How To Share A Bat:

New research shows how different species of plants evolve unique floral adaptations in order to transfer pollen on different regions of bats’ bodies, thus allowing multiple plant species to share bats as pollinators.

Global Warming Threatens Moose, Wolves:

Global warming is impacting more than the water levels in the Great Lakes. It could be the beginning of the end for the moose and wolves of Isle Royale. And if it is, a Michigan Technological University scientist places the blame squarely on the human race.

Female Hyenas Avoid Incest By Causing Male Relatives To Leave Home:

Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the UK and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin, Germany, have found that female hyenas avoid inbreeding with their male relatives by giving them little choice but to leave their birth group.

Rare Condor Dies While Undergoing Lead Poisoning Treatment At The LA Zoo:

One of only 145 free-flying condors in the world unexpectedly died following treatment for dangerously high blood lead levels recently at the Los Angeles Zoo.

T. Rex Quicker Than Professional Athlete, Say Scientists:

T. rex may have struggled to chase down speeding vehicles as the movie Jurassic Park would have us believe but the world’s most fearsome carnivore was certainly no slouch, new research out suggests.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot: New Study Suggests Ways To Control Fever-induced Seizures:

When your body cranks up the heat, it’s a sign that something’s wrong–and a fever is designed to help fight off the infection. But turning up the temperature can have a down side: in about one in 25 infants or small children, high fever can trigger fever-induced (febrile) seizures. While the seizures themselves are generally harmless, a prolonged fever resulting from infection or heatstroke of over 108 °F (42 °C) can eventually lead to respiratory distress, cognitive dysfunction, brain damage or death.

Marburg Virus Found In African Fruit Bats:

A collaborative team of scientists reported findings today demonstrating the presence of Marburg virus RNA genome and antibodies in a common species of African fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus).

Last Hope For Cambodia’s Parachuting Bird:

The Bengal florican – the rarest of the globe’s 27 bustards – is amongst 189 critically endangered birds being targeted by an initiative to find companies and individuals who will highlight each species’ plight and contribute funds towards helping them.

Frog Plus Frying Pan Equals Better Antibiotic:

What do you get when you cross a frog with a frying pan? Possibly a solution to the problem of drug-resistant bugs, research suggests.

Researchers Track Declining Timber Rattlesnakes:

Western Carolina University researchers are using geographic information systems technology and radio transmitters to track timber rattlesnakes this fall to determine whether new mountain subdivisions and road-building are pushing an animal listed as a “species of special concern” toward the endangered list.

Birds With Child-care Assistance Invest Less In Eggs:

An Australian bird has been found to produce smaller, less nourishing eggs when it breeds in the presence of other ‘helper’ birds that provide child-care assistance. This unique adaptation enables the birds to live longer and breed more often than females without helpers. The research, led by a University of Cambridge academic, was published in Science.

Uncertainties Of Savanna Habitat Drive Birds To Cooperative Breeding:

Delaying having kids to help raise the offspring of others seems like a bad choice if you want to reproduce, but many African starlings have adopted this strategy to deal with the unpredictable climate of their savanna habitats, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University biologists.

There are 30 new papers published in PLoS ONE this week. Here are a couple of my picks (under the fold). You know the drill, go read, rate, annotate and comment:

Continue reading →

The Scent of the Waggle Dance by Corinna Thom, David C. Gilley, Judith Hooper, and Harald E. Esch:

A honey bee colony consists of many thousands of individuals, all of which help to perform the work that allows their colony to thrive. To coordinate their efforts, honey bees have evolved a complex communication system, no part of which is more sophisticated than the waggle dance. The waggle dance is unique, because it exhibits several properties of true language, through which a forager communicates the location and profitability of a food source to other bees in the darkness of the hive. The information coded in the dance has been extensively researched, but we still do not understand how information is actually transferred from the dancing bee to the receivers of the message. Because information is often transferred by scent in honey bee colonies, we investigated whether waggle dancers produce a scent that distinguishes them from foragers that do not dance. We found that dancers produce four hydrocarbons that distinguish them from nondancing foragers, and that, when blown into the hive, increase foraging activity. These results show that waggle-dancing bees produce a unique scent that affects the behavior of their fellow foragers. We discuss likely meanings of this olfactory message and its potential role in waggle-dance communication.

Conserving Biodiversity Efficiently: What to Do, Where, and When by Kerrie A. Wilson, Emma C. Underwood, Scott A. Morrison, Kirk R. Klausmeyer, William W. Murdoch, Belinda Reyers, Grant Wardell-Johnson, Pablo A. Marquet, Phil W. Rundel, Marissa F. McBride, Robert L. Pressey, Michael Bode, Jon M. Hoekstra, Sandy Andelman, Michael Looker, Carlo Rondinini, Peter Kareiva, M. Rebecca Shaw, and Hugh P. Possingham:

Given limited funds for biodiversity conservation, we need to carefully prioritise where funds are spent. Various schemes have been developed to set priorities for conservation spending among different countries and regions. However, there is no framework for guiding the allocation of funds among alternative conservation actions that address specific threats. Here, we develop such a framework, and apply it to 17 of the world’s 39 Mediterranean-climate ecoregions. We discover that one could protect many more plant and vertebrate species by investing in a sequence of conservation actions targeted towards specific threats, such as invasive species control and fire management, rather than by relying solely on acquiring land for protected areas. Applying this new framework will ensure investment in actions that provide the most cost-effective outcomes for biodiversity conservation.

….and more, so check them out for yourself.

Male Elephants Get ‘Photo IDs’ From Scientists:

Asian elephants don’t carry photo identification, so scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and India’s Nature Conservation Foundation are providing the service free of charge by creating a photographic archive of individual elephants, which can help save them as well.

Cat Disease Linked To Flame Retardants In Furniture And To Pet Food:

A mysterious epidemic of thyroid disease among pet cats in the United States may be linked to exposure to dust shed from flame retardants in household carpeting, furniture, fabrics and pet food, scientists are reporting in a new study.

DNA Replication Behavior In Complex Organisms May Foreshadow Leaps In Genomic Discoveries:

For the first time, findings by scientists at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) may be paving the way for more efficient analyses and tests related to the replication of cells, and ultimately, to the better understanding of human biology, such as in stem cell research.

Adaptation To Parasites Drive African Fishes Along Different Evolutionary Paths:

An international team of scientists from Canada (Université Laval), the U.K. (University of Hull, Cardiff University) and Spain (Doòana Biological Station), have discovered that a pair of closely related species of East African cichlid fishes — a group of fish whose diversity comprising hundreds of species has puzzled evolutionary biologists for decades — evolved divergent immune gene adaptations which might explain why they do not interbreed, despite living side by side.

There are 29 new papers on PLoS ONE this week, and it is difficult to narrow down to just a few of my own ‘choices’:
An Inhibitory Sex Pheromone Tastes Bitter for Drosophila Males:

For animals to breed successfully they must avoid trying to mate with individuals of the same sex. Lacaille and colleagues show that an organic compound, Z-7-tricosene, is carried on the cuticular surface of the fruit fly Drosophila. This compound tastes bitter to flies and acts as a pheromone that prevents male-male courtship.

Protistan Diversity in the Arctic: A Case of Paleoclimate Shaping Modern Biodiversity?:

It is likely that extreme changes in world climate over geological time have shaped the diversity of life on earth. Stoeck and colleagues compared the diversity of single-celled organisms from a very hot refuge (hydrothermal vent communities) with those from a very cold refuge (a tidal flat in the Arctic). Their data suggests that the Arctic community is more diverse, leading to the idea that cold refuges have persisted throughout eukaryote evolution.

The Intersexual Genetic Correlation for Lifetime Fitness in the Wild and Its Implications for Sexual Selection:

The genetic benefits of mate choice are limited by the degree to which male and female fitness are genetically correlated. If the intersexual correlation for fitness is small or negative, choosing a highly fit mate does not necessarily result in high fitness offspring.
Using an animal-model approach on data from a pedigreed population of over 7,000 collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis), we estimate the intersexual genetic correlation in Lifetime Reproductive Success (LRS) in a natural population to be negative in sign (−0.85±0.6). Simulations show this estimate to be robust in sign to the effects of extra-pair parentage. The genetic benefits in this population are further limited by a low level of genetic variation for fitness in males.
The potential for indirect sexual selection is nullified by sexual antagonistic fitness effects in this natural population. Our findings and the scarce evidence from other studies suggest that the intersexual genetic correlation for lifetime fitness may be very low in nature. We argue that this form of conflict can, in general, both constrain and maintain sexual selection, depending on the sex-specific additive genetic variances in lifetime fitness.

Biphasic Hoxd Gene Expression in Shark Paired Fins Reveals an Ancient Origin of the Distal Limb Domain:

The evolutionary transition of fins to limbs involved development of a new suite of distal skeletal structures, the digits. During tetrapod limb development, genes at the 5′ end of the HoxD cluster are expressed in two spatiotemporally distinct phases. In the first phase, Hoxd9-13 are activated sequentially and form nested domains along the anteroposterior axis of the limb. This initial phase patterns the limb from its proximal limit to the middle of the forearm. Later in development, a second wave of transcription results in 5′ HoxD gene expression along the distal end of the limb bud, which regulates formation of digits. Studies of zebrafish fins showed that the second phase of Hox expression does not occur, leading to the idea that the origin of digits was driven by addition of the distal Hox expression domain in the earliest tetrapods. Here we test this hypothesis by investigating Hoxd gene expression during paired fin development in the shark Scyliorhinus canicula, a member of the most basal lineage of jawed vertebrates. We report that at early stages, 5′Hoxd genes are expressed in anteroposteriorly nested patterns, consistent with the initial wave of Hoxd transcription in teleost and tetrapod paired appendages. Unexpectedly, a second phase of expression occurs at later stages of shark fin development, in which Hoxd12 and Hoxd13 are re-expressed along the distal margin of the fin buds. This second phase is similar to that observed in tetrapod limbs. The results indicate that a second, distal phase of Hoxd gene expression is not uniquely associated with tetrapod digit development, but is more likely a plesiomorphic condition present the common ancestor of chondrichthyans and osteichthyans. We propose that a temporal extension, rather than de novo activation, of Hoxd expression in the distal part of the fin may have led to the evolution of digits.

More…
Optimal Conservation of Migratory Species:

Migratory animals comprise a significant portion of biodiversity worldwide with annual investment for their conservation exceeding several billion dollars. Designing effective conservation plans presents enormous challenges. Migratory species are influenced by multiple events across land and sea-regions that are often separated by thousands of kilometres and span international borders. To date, conservation strategies for migratory species fail to take into account how migratory animals are spatially connected between different periods of the annual cycle (i.e. migratory connectivity) bringing into question the utility and efficiency of current conservation efforts.
Here, we report the first framework for determining an optimal conservation strategy for a migratory species. Employing a decision theoretic approach using dynamic optimization, we address the problem of how to allocate resources for habitat conservation for a Neotropical-Nearctic migratory bird, the American redstart Setophaga ruticilla, whose winter habitat is under threat. Our first conservation strategy used the acquisition of winter habitat based on land cost, relative bird density, and the rate of habitat loss to maximize the abundance of birds on the wintering grounds. Our second strategy maximized bird abundance across the entire range of the species by adding the constraint of maintaining a minimum percentage of birds within each breeding region in North America using information on migratory connectivity as estimated from stable-hydrogen isotopes in feathers. We show that failure to take into account migratory connectivity may doom some regional populations to extinction, whereas including information on migratory connectivity results in the protection of the species across its entire range.
We demonstrate that conservation strategies for migratory animals depend critically upon two factors: knowledge of migratory connectivity and the correct statement of the conservation problem. Our framework can be used to identify efficient conservation strategies for migratory taxa worldwide, including insects, birds, mammals, and marine organisms.

Is Bacterial Persistence a Social Trait?:

The ability of bacteria to evolve resistance to antibiotics has been much reported in recent years. It is less well-known that within populations of bacteria there are cells which are resistant due to a non-inherited phenotypic switch to a slow-growing state. Although such ‘persister’ cells are receiving increasing attention, the evolutionary forces involved have been relatively ignored. Persistence has a direct benefit to cells because it allows survival during catastrophes-a form of bet-hedging. However, persistence can also provide an indirect benefit to other individuals, because the reduced growth rate can reduce competition for limiting resources. This raises the possibility that persistence is a social trait, which can be influenced by kin selection. We develop a theoretical model to investigate the social consequences of persistence. We predict that selection for persistence is increased when: (a) cells are related (e.g. a single, clonal lineage); and (b) resources are scarce. Our model allows us to predict how the level of persistence should vary with time, across populations, in response to intervention strategies and the level of competition. More generally, our results clarify the links between persistence and other bet-hedging or social behaviours.

Wrinkly-Spreader Fitness in the Two-Dimensional Agar Plate Microcosm: Maladaptation, Compensation and Ecological Success:

Bacterial adaptation to new environments often leads to the establishment of new genotypes with significantly altered phenotypes. In the Wrinkly Spreader (WS), ecological success in static liquid microcosms was through the rapid colonisation of the air-liquid interface by the production of a cellulose-based biofilm. Rapid surface spreading was also seen on agar plates, but in this two-dimensional environment the WS appears maladapted and rapidly reverts to the ancestral smooth (SM)-like colony genotype. In this work, the fitness of WS relative to SM in mixed colonies was found to be low, confirming the WS instability on agar plates. By examining defined WS mutants, the maladaptive characteristic was found to be the expression of cellulose. SM-like revertants had a higher growth rate than WS and no longer expressed significant amounts of cellulose, further confirming that the expression of this high-cost polymer was the basis of maladaptation and the target of compensatory mutation in developing colonies. However, examination of the fate of WS-founded populations in either multiple-colony or single mega-colony agar plate microcosms demonstrated that the loss of WS lineages could be reduced under conditions in which the rapid spreading colony phenotype could dominate nutrient and oxygen access more effectively than competing SM/SM-like genotypes. WS-like isolates recovered from such populations showed increased WS phenotype stability as well as changes in the degree of colony spreading, confirming that the WS was adapting to the two-dimensional agar plate microcosm.

Predicting Prokaryotic Ecological Niches Using Genome Sequence Analysis:

Automated DNA sequencing technology is so rapid that analysis has become the rate-limiting step. Hundreds of prokaryotic genome sequences are publicly available, with new genomes uploaded at the rate of approximately 20 per month. As a result, this growing body of genome sequences will include microorganisms not previously identified, isolated, or observed. We hypothesize that evolutionary pressure exerted by an ecological niche selects for a similar genetic repertoire in those prokaryotes that occupy the same niche, and that this is due to both vertical and horizontal transmission. To test this, we have developed a novel method to classify prokaryotes, by calculating their Pfam protein domain distributions and clustering them with all other sequenced prokaryotic species. Clusters of organisms are visualized in two dimensions as ‘mountains’ on a topological map. When compared to a phylogenetic map constructed using 16S rRNA, this map more accurately clusters prokaryotes according to functional and environmental attributes. We demonstrate the ability of this map, which we term a “niche map”, to cluster according to ecological niche both quantitatively and qualitatively, and propose that this method be used to associate uncharacterized prokaryotes with their ecological niche as a means of predicting their functional role directly from their genome sequence.

Now, you know what to do: read the papers, rate them, add comments/questions….

Interaction Of Just Two Genes Governs Coloration Patterns In Mice:

Biologists at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, have found that a simple interaction between just two genes determines the patterns of fur coloration that camouflage mice against their background, protecting them from many predators. The work, published recently in the journal PLoS Biology, marks one of the few instances in which specific genetic changes have been linked to an organism’s ability to survive in the wild.

More…
Birds Learn To Fly With A Little Help From Their Ancestors:

A researcher at the University of Sheffield has discovered that the reason birds learn to fly so easily is because latent memories may have been left behind by their ancestors. It is widely known that birds learn to fly through practice, gradually refining their innate ability into a finely tuned skill. However, according to Dr Jim Stone from the University of Sheffield´s Department of Psychology, these skills may be easy to refine because of a genetically specified latent memory for flying.

More…
Conquest Of Land Began In Shark Genome:

Scientists at the University of Florida have identified genetic activity in sharks required for the development of hands, feet, fingers and toes in limbed animals. The finding shows what was thought to be a relatively recent evolutionary innovation existed eons earlier than previously believed, potentially providing insight for scientists seeking ways to cure human birth defects.

Largest Butterfly In Western Hemisphere Needs Help To Avoid Extinction:

The Homerus swallowtail is the Western Hemisphere’s largest butterfly, but University of Florida researchers say its numbers are so small that conservation and captive breeding efforts are needed to save the insect, found only in two parts of Jamaica.

Tropical Insects ‘Go The Distance’ To Inform Rainforest Conservation:

The long-held belief that plant-eating insects in tropical forests are picky eaters that stay “close to home” — dining only on locale-specific vegetation — is being challenged by new research findings that suggest these insects feast on a broader menu of foliage and can be consistently found across hundreds of miles of tropical forestland.

Simulated Relationships Offer Insight Into Real Ones:

Is it me, or are you a less than ideal partner? For psychologists studying how people manage romantic relationships, that’s not an easy question to answer. What if one of the partners is deeply afraid of intimacy? Could she be acting in ways that undermine the relationship? Or is her partner contributing to the problem? In a new study appearing in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers at the University of Illinois explore these issues by looking at the choices people make in simulated online dating relationships. By standardizing the behavior of the romantic “partner,” the study clarifies how each participant’s outlook influences his or her choices and satisfaction with the romance.

A nice integration over several levels of analysis:
Adaptive Variation in Beach Mice Produced by Two Interacting Pigmentation Genes by Cynthia C. Steiner, Jesse N. Weber, and Hopi E. Hoekstra:

The tremendous amount of variation in color patterns among organisms helps individuals survive and reproduce in the wild, yet we know surprisingly little about the genes that produce these adaptive patterns. Here we used a genomic analysis to uncover the molecular basis of a pale color pattern that camouflages beach mice inhabiting the sandy dunes of Florida’s coast from predators. We identified two pigmentation genes, the melanocortin-1 receptor (Mc1r) and its ligand, the agouti signaling protein (Agouti), which together produce a light color pattern. We show that this light pigmentation results partly from a single amino acid mutation in Mc1r, which reduces the activity of the receptor but does not affect the gene’s expression level, and partly from the derived Agouti allele, which shows no change in protein sequence but does exhibit an increase in mRNA expression. We also show that these two genes do not act additively to produce pale color; rather, the derived Agouti allele must be present to see any effect of Mc1r on pigmentation. Thus, the light color pattern of beach mice largely results from the physical interaction between a structural change in a receptor (reducing Mc1r activity) and a regulatory change in the receptor’s antagonist (increasing Agouti expression).

Navigation: Using Geometry To Navigate Is Innate, At Least For Fish:

Many animals, including humans, frequently face the task of getting from one place to another. Although many navigational strategies exist, all vertebrate species readily use geometric cues; things such as walls and corners to determine direction within an enclosed space. Moreover, some species such as rats and human children are so influenced by these geometric cues that they often ignore more reliable features such as a distinctive object or colored wall.
This surprising reliance on geometry has led researchers to suggest the existence of a geometric module in the brain. However, since both humans and laboratory animals typically grow up in environments not entirely made up of right angles and straight lines, the prevalent use of geometry could reflect nurture rather than nature. A new study published in the July issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, is the first attempt to examine whether early exposure to strong geometric cues influences navigational strategy.

Unravelling New Complexity In The Genome:

A major surprise emerging from genome sequencing projects is that humans have a comparable number of protein-coding genes as significantly less complex organisms such as the minute nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. Clearly something other than gene count is behind the genetic differences between simpler and more complex life forms.

Rainforest Biodiversity Shows Differing Patterns:

Rainforests are the world’s treasure houses of biodiversity, but all rainforests are not the same. Biodiversity may be more evenly distributed in some forests than in others and, therefore, may require different management and preservation strategies. That is one of the conclusions of a large-scale Smithsonian study of a lowland rainforest in New Guinea, published in the Aug. 9 issue of the journal Nature.

Evolution Is Driven By Gene Regulation:

It is not just what’s in your genes, it’s how you turn them on that accounts for the difference between species — at least in yeast — according to a report by Yale researchers in this week’s issue of Science.

Gene Regulation, Not Just Genes, Is What Sets Humans Apart:

The striking differences between humans and chimps aren’t so much in the genes we have, which are 99 percent the same, but in the way those genes are used, according to new research from a Duke University team. It’s rather like the same set of notes being played in very different ways.

Which Came First, The Moth Or The Cactus?:

It’s not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket… unless you’re a senita moth. Found in the parched Sonoran desert of southern Arizona and northern Mexico, the senita moth depends on a single plant species — the senita cactus — both for its food and for a place to lay eggs. The senita cactus is equally dependent upon the moth, the only species that pollinates its flowers. Senita cacti and senita moths have a rare, mutually dependent relationship, one of only three known dependencies in which an insect actively pollinates flowers for the purpose of assuring a food resource for its offspring.

There are 27 new papers appearing on PLoS ONE today. A quick scan of the titles makes me want to read the following more carefully:
Plasticity of the Intrinsic Period of the Human Circadian Timing System by Frank A. J. L. Scheer, Kenneth P. Wright, Richard E. Kronauer and Charles A. Czeisler:

Human expeditions to Mars will require adaptation to the 24.65-h Martian solar day-night cycle (sol), which is outside the range of entrainment of the human circadian pacemaker under lighting intensities to which astronauts are typically exposed. Failure to entrain the circadian time-keeping system to the desired rest-activity cycle disturbs sleep and impairs cognitive function. Furthermore, differences between the intrinsic circadian period and Earth’s 24-h light-dark cycle underlie human circadian rhythm sleep disorders, such as advanced sleep phase disorder and non-24-hour sleep-wake disorders. Therefore, first, we tested whether exposure to a model-based lighting regimen would entrain the human circadian pacemaker at a normal phase angle to the 24.65-h Martian sol and to the 23.5-h day length often required of astronauts during short duration space exploration. Second, we tested here whether such prior entrainment to non-24-h light-dark cycles would lead to subsequent modification of the intrinsic period of the human circadian timing system. Here we show that exposure to moderately bright light (~450 lux; ~1.2 W/m2) for the second or first half of the scheduled wake episode is effective for entraining individuals to the 24.65-h Martian sol and a 23.5-h day length, respectively. Estimations of the circadian periods of plasma melatonin, plasma cortisol, and core body temperature rhythms collected under forced desynchrony protocols revealed that the intrinsic circadian period of the human circadian pacemaker was significantly longer following entrainment to the Martian sol as compared to following entrainment to the 23.5-h day. The latter finding of after-effects of entrainment reveals for the first time plasticity of the period of the human circadian timing system. Both findings have important implications for the treatment of circadian rhythm sleep disorders and human space exploration.

Acoel Flatworms Are Not Platyhelminthes: Evidence from Phylogenomics by Herve Philippe, Henner Brinkmann, Pedro Martinez, Marta Riutort and Jaume Baguna:

Acoel flatworms are small marine worms traditionally considered to belong to the phylum Platyhelminthes. However, molecular phylogenetic analyses suggest that acoels are not members of Platyhelminthes, but are rather extant members of the earliest diverging Bilateria. This result has been called into question, under suspicions of a long branch attraction (LBA) artefact. Here we re-examine this problem through a phylogenomic approach using 68 different protein-coding genes from the acoel Convoluta pulchra and 51 metazoan species belonging to 15 different phyla. We employ a mixture model, named CAT, previously found to overcome LBA artefacts where classical models fail. Our results unequivocally show that acoels are not part of the classically defined Platyhelminthes, making the latter polyphyletic. Moreover, they indicate a deuterostome affinity for acoels, potentially as a sister group to all deuterostomes, to Xenoturbellida, to Ambulacraria, or even to chordates. However, the weak support found for most deuterostome nodes, together with the very fast evolutionary rate of the acoel Convoluta pulchra, call for more data from slowly evolving acoels (or from its sister-group, the Nemertodermatida) to solve this challenging phylogenetic problem.

Regional Decline of Coral Cover in the Indo-Pacific: Timing, Extent, and Subregional Comparisons by John F. Bruno and Elizabeth R. Selig:

The Indo-Pacific region contains 75% of the world’s coral reefs, but little is known about ongoing changes to the level of coral cover across this region. Bruno and Selig find that levels of coral cover in the Indo-Pacific are currently much lower than expected, and that the rate of coral loss is between 1% and 2% per year.

Biometric Evidence that Sexual Selection Has Shaped the Hominin Face by Eleanor M. Weston, Adrian E. Friday and Pietro Lio:

Men and women tend to have differently shaped faces. Weston and colleagues show that these differences cannot simply be explained in terms of overall body size differences, and that some of them seem to be related to a rotation during development of the upper jaw. Some of these features may have emerged during evolution through selection for facial attractiveness.

…and many, many more. So, as always, go, read, annotate, rate and comment.

The Circadian Clock Regulates Auxin Signaling and Responses in Arabidopsis by Michael F. Covington and Stacey L. Harmer:

Most higher organisms, including plants and animals, have developed a time-keeping mechanism that allows them to anticipate daily fluctuations of environmental parameters such as light and temperature. This circadian clock efficiently coordinates plant growth and metabolism with respect to time of day by producing self-sustained rhythms of gene expression with an approximately 24-h period. One of the major contributors in specifying spatial patterns of plant growth and development is auxin, a hormone essential for nearly all stages of plant development. Auxin also helps the plant orient itself properly in response to environmental cues such as light, gravity, and water. We have now found circadian-regulated expression of components from nearly every step in the auxin-signaling pathway, from synthesis to response. We demonstrate the relevance of this observation by showing that plants have differential sensitivity to auxin at different times of day: the clock controls plant sensitivity to auxin at both the level of transcription and stem growth. Our work demonstrates an intimate connection between the clock- and auxin-signaling pathways, and suggests that other auxin-regulated processes may also be under circadian control.

Also read the synopsis by Mary Hoff:

Buried in historical scientific literature are hints that auxin might affect plants differently at different times of day. This makes sense from an adaptive standpoint: an internal clock allows plants to respond to stimuli such as sun, rain, and being eaten in the context of regular rhythms of the inescapable world around them. But how do they do it? The mechanisms tuning growth to internal rhythms, with implications for everything from growing crops to protecting biodiversity in the face of global climate change, have remained a mystery. Now, Michael Covington and Stacey Harmer have discovered clues to the roots of rhythmic growth.

Spatial Learning Depends on Both the Addition and Removal of New Hippocampal Neurons by David Dupret, Annabelle Fabre, Màtè Dàniel Döbrössy, Aude Panatier, José Julio Rodríguez, Stéphanie Lamarque, Valerie Lemaire, Stephane H. R. Oliet, Pier-Vincenzo Piazza, and Djoher Nora Abrous:

The birth of adult hippocampal neurons is associated with enhanced learning and memory performance. In particular, spatial learning increases the survival and the proliferation of newborn cells, but surprisingly, it also decreases their number. Here, we hypothesized that spatial learning also depends upon the death of newborn hippocampal neurons. We examined the effect of spatial learning in the water maze on cell birth and death in the rodent hippocampus. We then determined the influence of an inhibitor of cell death on memory abilities and learning-induced changes in cell death, cell proliferation, and cell survival. We show that learning increases the elimination of the youngest newborn cells during a specific developmental period. The cell-death inhibitor impairs memory abilities and blocks the learning-induced cell death, the survival-promoting effect of learning on older newly born neurons, and the subsequent learning-induced proliferation of neural precursors. These results show that spatial learning induces cell death in the hippocampus, a phenomenon that subserves learning and is necessary for both the survival of older newly born neurons and the proliferation of neural precursors. These findings suggest that during learning, neuronal networks are sculpted by a tightly regulated selection of newly born neurons and reveal a novel mechanism mediating learning and memory in the adult brain.

Glia Play An Important Role In Circadian Timing:

Glial cells of the nervous system, once thought to function strictly as support cells for neurons, are now thought to actively modulate them. Providing further evidence in support of this theory, researchers at the Department of Neuroscience and the Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR) at Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) recently identified a specific population of glial cells that is required for the control of circadian behavior in Drosophila (the fruit fly). Their findings, which confirm and extend their earlier work, are published in the August 2, 2007, issue of Neuron.

Why Were Prehistoric Insects Huge?:

Alexander Kaiser, Ph.D., of Midwestern University’s Department of Physiology, Division of Basic Sciences, was the lead author in a recent study to help determine why insects, once dramatically larger than they are today, have seen such a remarkable reduction in size over the course of history.

Old McDonald’s Has A Hold On Kids’ Taste Buds, Study Finds:

Asked to sample two identical foods from the fast-food giant McDonald’s, children preferred the taste of the version branded with the restaurant’s familiar “Golden Arches” to one extracted from unmarked paper packaging, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

Lost Forest Yields Several New Species:

An expedition led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to a remote corner of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has uncovered unique forests which, so far, have been found to contain six animal species new to science: a bat, a rodent, two shrews, and two frogs.

First Giant Anteater Born At The National Zoo:

A giant anteater was born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo the morning of Tuesday, July 24–a first in the Zoo’s 118-year history.

Immunity In Social Amoeba Suggests Ancient Beginnings:

Finding an immune system in the social amoeba (Dictyostelium discoideum) is not only surprising but it also may prove a clue as to what is necessary for an organism to become multicellular, said the Baylor College of Medicine researcher who led the research that appears in the journal Science.

Penguin Guano Shows Problem Of Pollution:

Penguin guano in the Antarctic is adding to organic pollutant problems there, according to a report to be featured in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication.

Tipping Points: Exploring How Agriculture Contributes To Global Change:

Growing food and fiber entails the use of fertilizer and irrigation systems and results in land clearing. These ‘side effects’ of agriculture can lead to regime shifts–or ‘tipping points’ which include desertification, salinisation, water degradation, and changes in climate due to altered water flows from land to atmosphere.

Source Of Fever Identified:

With the finding that fever is produced by the action of a hormone on a specific site in the brain, scientists have answered a key question as to how this adaptive function helps to protect the body during bacterial infection and other types of illness.

Fruit Bats Discovered To Have Menstrual Cycles:

Scientists have discovered that a type of fruit bat menstruate in a similar way to women.

Community-supported Agriculture Serves As Counterexample To Market Demands Of Globalization:

A compelling new paper from the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research explores the community-supported agriculture movement and its survival in the face of economic globalization. Organic food was once an economic haven for small farms who distributed their goods predominantly through local channels such as farmers’ markets and food co-ops. In the contemporary marketplace, however, the vast majority of organic food production occurs on large-scale, industrial farms whose goods flow through global supply chains. In the United States, more than eighty percent of all sales in the organic category hail from brands owned by corporate conglomerates.

Secret Life Of Elephant Seals Not Secret Anymore!:

The measurements reveal in detail where the seals go on their winter feeding trips, where they find food and where they don’t, and help explain why some populations have remained stable since 1950 while others have declined.

Sensory Organ, Not Brain, Differentiates Male And Female Behavior In Some Mammals:

For years, scientists have searched in vain for slivers of the brain that might drive the dramatic differences between male and female behavior. Now biologists at Harvard University say these efforts may have fallen flat because such differences may not arise in the brain at all.

‘Convenience’ Foods Save Little Time For Working Families At Dinner:

Two-income families in Los Angeles don’t live so much in a fast food nation as they do in a Hamburger Helper hamlet on the edge of a packaged lettuce greenbelt, according to the first academic study to track American families moment by moment as they make dinner.

PERIOD-TIMELESS Interval Timer May Require an Additional Feedback Loop by Robert S. Kuczenski, Kevin C. Hong, Jordi García-Ojalvo and Kelvin H. Lee:

The ability of an organism to adapt to daily changes in the environment, via a circadian clock, is an inherently interesting phenomenon recently connected to several human health issues. Decades of experiments on one of the smallest model animals, the fruit fly Drosophila, has illustrated significant similarities with the mammal circadian system. Within Drosophila, the PERIOD and TIMELESS proteins are central to controlling this rhythmicity and were recently shown to have a rapid and stable association creating an “interval” timer in the cell’s cytoplasm. This interval timer creates the necessary delay between the expression and activity of these genes, and is directly opposed to the previous hypothesis of a delay created by slow association. We use several mathematical models to investigate the unknown factors controlling this timer. Using a novel positive feedback loop, we construct a circadian model consistent with the interval timer and many wild-type and mutant experimental observations. Our results suggest several novel genes and interactions to be tested experimentally.

Distributed Representations Accelerate Evolution of Adaptive Behaviours by James V. Stone:

Some behaviours are purely innate (e.g., blinking), whereas other, “apparently innate,” behaviours require a degree of learning to refine them into a useful skill (e.g., nest building). In terms of biological fitness, it matters how quickly such learning occurs, because time spent learning is time spent not eating, or time spent being eaten, both of which reduce fitness. Using artificial neural networks as model organisms, it is proven that it is possible for an organism to be born with a set of “primed” connections which guarantee that learning part of a skill induces automatic learning of other skill components, an effect known as free-lunch learning (FLL). Critically, this effect depends on the assumption that associations are stored as distributed representations. Using a genetic algorithm, it is shown that primed organisms can evolve within 30 generations. This has three important consequences. First, primed organisms learn quickly, which increases their fitness. Second, the presence of FLL effectively accelerates the rate of evolution, for both learned and innate skill components. Third, FLL can accelerate the rate at which learned behaviours become innate. These findings suggest that species may depend on the presence of distributed representations to ensure rapid evolution of adaptive behaviours.

There are 32 new papers that just went live on PLoS ONE and here are a couple of titles that got my immediate attention:
Changing Hydrozoan Bauplans by Silencing Hox-Like Genes by Wolfgang Jakob and Bernd Schierwater:

Regulatory genes of the Antp class have been a major factor for the invention and radiation of animal bauplans. One of the most diverse animal phyla are the Cnidaria, which are close to the root of metazoan life and which often appear in two distinct generations and a remarkable variety of body forms. Hox-like genes have been known to be involved in axial patterning in the Cnidaria and have been suspected to play roles in the genetic control of many of the observed bauplan changes. Unfortunately RNAi mediated gene silencing studies have not been satisfactory for marine invertebrate organisms thus far. No direct evidence supporting Hox-like gene induced bauplan changes in cnidarians have been documented as of yet. Herein, we report a protocol for RNAi transfection of marine invertebrates and demonstrate that knock downs of Hox-like genes in Cnidaria create substantial bauplan alterations, including the formation of multiple oral poles (“heads”) by Cnox-2 and Cnox-3 inhibition, deformation of the main body axis by Cnox-5 inhibition and duplication of tentacles by Cnox-1 inhibition. All phenotypes observed in the course of the RNAi studies were identical to those obtained by morpholino antisense oligo experiments and are reminiscent of macroevolutionary bauplan changes. The reported protocol will allow routine RNAi studies in marine invertebrates to be established.

Parts, Wholes, and Context in Reading: A Triple Dissociation by Denis G. Pelli and Katharine A. Tillman:

Research in object recognition has tried to distinguish holistic recognition from recognition by parts. One can also guess an object from its context. Words are objects, and how we recognize them is the core question of reading research. Do fast readers rely most on letter-by-letter decoding (i.e., recognition by parts), whole word shape, or sentence context? We manipulated the text to selectively knock out each source of information while sparing the others. Surprisingly, the effects of the knockouts on reading rate reveal a triple dissociation. Each reading process always contributes the same number of words per minute, regardless of whether the other processes are operating.

The Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle, an Ancient Metabolic Network with a Novel Twist by Ranji Singh, Vasu D. Appanna, Robert D. Hamel, Ryan J. Mailloux, Joseph Lemire, Daniel R. Chénier and Robin Bériault:

The tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle is an essential metabolic network in all oxidative organisms and provides precursors for anabolic processes and reducing factors (NADH and FADH2) that drive the generation of energy. Here, we show that this metabolic network is also an integral part of the oxidative defence machinery in living organisms and α-ketoglutarate (KG) is a key participant in the detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Its utilization as an anti-oxidant can effectively diminish ROS and curtail the formation of NADH, a situation that further impedes the release of ROS via oxidative phosphorylation. Thus, the increased production of KG mediated by NADP-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase (NADP-ICDH) and its decreased utilization via the TCA cycle confer a unique strategy to modulate the cellular redox environment. Activities of α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (KGDH), NAD-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase (NAD-ICDH), and succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) were sharply diminished in the cellular systems exposed to conditions conducive to oxidative stress. These findings uncover an intricate link between TCA cycle and ROS homeostasis and may help explain the ineffective TCA cycle that characterizes various pathological conditions and ageing.

Rate of Decline of the Oriental White-Backed Vulture Population in India Estimated from a Survey of Diclofenac Residues in Carcasses of Ungulates by Yadvendradev Jhala, Rhys E. Green, Deborah J. Pain, Richard Cuthbert, Bindu Raghavan, Kalu Ram Senacha and Mark A. Taggart:

The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac is a major cause of the rapid declines in the Indian subcontinent of three species of vultures endemic to South Asia. The drug causes kidney failure and death in vultures. Exposure probably arises through vultures feeding on carcasses of domesticated ungulates treated with the drug. However, before the study reported here, it had not been established from field surveys of ungulate carcasses that a sufficient proportion was contaminated to cause the observed declines. We surveyed diclofenac concentrations in samples of liver from carcasses of domesticated ungulates in India in 2004-2005. We estimated the concentration of diclofenac in tissues available to vultures, relative to that in liver, and the proportion of vultures killed after feeding on a carcass with a known level of contamination. We assessed the impact of this mortality on vulture population trend with a population model. We expected levels of diclofenac found in ungulate carcasses in 2004-2005 to cause oriental white-backed vulture population declines of 80-99% per year, depending upon the assumptions used in the model. This compares with an observed rate of decline, from road transect counts, of 48% per year in 2000-2003. The precision of the estimate based upon carcass surveys is low and the two types of estimate were not significantly different. Our analyses indicate that the level of diclofenac contamination found in carcasses of domesticated ungulates in 2004-2005 was sufficient to account for the observed rapid decline of the oriental white-backed vulture in India. The methods we describe could be used again to assess changes in the effect on vulture population trend of diclofenac and similar drugs. In this way, the effectiveness of the recent ban in India on the manufacture and importation of diclofenac for veterinary use could be monitored.

Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward by Serge H. Ahmed, Fuschia Serre, Lauriane Cantin and Magalie Lenoir:

Refined sugars (e.g., sucrose, fructose) were absent in the diet of most people until very recently in human history. Today overconsumption of diets rich in sugars contributes together with other factors to drive the current obesity epidemic. Overconsumption of sugar-dense foods or beverages is initially motivated by the pleasure of sweet taste and is often compared to drug addiction. Though there are many biological commonalities between sweetened diets and drugs of abuse, the addictive potential of the former relative to the latter is currently unknown.
Here we report that when rats were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between water sweetened with saccharin-an intense calorie-free sweetener-and intravenous cocaine-a highly addictive and harmful substance-the large majority of animals (94%) preferred the sweet taste of saccharin. The preference for saccharin was not attributable to its unnatural ability to induce sweetness without calories because the same preference was also observed with sucrose, a natural sugar. Finally, the preference for saccharin was not surmountable by increasing doses of cocaine and was observed despite either cocaine intoxication, sensitization or intake escalation-the latter being a hallmark of drug addiction.
Our findings clearly demonstrate that intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward, even in drug-sensitized and -addicted individuals. We speculate that the addictive potential of intense sweetness results from an inborn hypersensitivity to sweet tastants. In most mammals, including rats and humans, sweet receptors evolved in ancestral environments poor in sugars and are thus not adapted to high concentrations of sweet tastants. The supranormal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, would generate a supranormal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus to lead to addiction.

Analysis of Expressed Sequence Tags of the Cyclically Parthenogenetic Rotifer Brachionus plicatilis by Atsushi Hagiwara, David Mark Welch, Yukari Tanaka, Koushirou Suga and Yoshitaka Sakakura:

Rotifers are among the most common non-arthropod animals and are the most experimentally tractable members of the basal assemblage of metazoan phyla known as Gnathifera. The monogonont rotifer Brachionus plicatilis is a developing model system for ecotoxicology, aquatic ecology, cryptic speciation, and the evolution of sex, and is an important food source for finfish aquaculture. However, basic knowledge of the genome and transcriptome of any rotifer species has been lacking.
We generated and partially sequenced a cDNA library from B. plicatilis and constructed a database of over 2300 expressed sequence tags corresponding to more than 450 transcripts. About 20% of the transcripts had no significant similarity to database sequences by BLAST; most of these contained open reading frames of significant length but few had recognized Pfam motifs. Sixteen transcripts accounted for 25% of the ESTs; four of these had no significant similarity to BLAST or Pfam databases. Putative up- and downstream untranslated regions are relatively short and AT rich. In contrast to bdelloid rotifers, there was no evidence of a conserved trans-spliced leader sequence among the transcripts and most genes were single-copy.
Despite the small size of this EST project it revealed several important features of the rotifer transcriptome and of individual monogonont genes. Because there is little genomic data for Gnathifera, the transcripts we found with no known function may represent genes that are species-, class-, phylum- or even superphylum-specific; the fact that some are among the most highly expressed indicates their importance. The absence of trans-spliced leader exons in this monogonont species contrasts with their abundance in bdelloid rotifers and indicates that the presence of this phenomenon can vary at the subphylum level. Our EST database provides a relatively large quantity of transcript-level data for B. plicatilis, and more generally of rotifers and other gnathiferan phyla, and can be browsed and searched at gmod.mbl.edu.

Flip Of Genetic Switch Causes Cancers In Mice To Self-destruct:

Killing cancerous tumors isn’t easy, as anyone who has suffered through chemotherapy can attest. But a new study in mice shows that switching off a single malfunctioning gene can halt the limitless division of tumor cells and turn them back to the path of their own planned obsolescence.

Zebrafish Research Provides Answers About Neurological Development:

Zebrafish cost about a dollar at the pet store. They grow from eggs to hunting their own food in three days. Adults can lay up to 500 eggs at once… and you have more in common with them than you think. “For all their differences, humans and zebrafish aren’t that dissimilar,” said Rice University zebrafish expert Mary Ellen Lane. “For every zebrafish gene we isolate, there is a related gene in humans.”
In her most recent work, Lane, graduate students Catherine McCollum and Shivas Amin, and undergraduate Philip Pauerstein zeroed in on a gene called LMO4 that’s known to play roles in both cell reproduction and in breast cancer. Using the tools of biotechnology, the team studied zebrafish that couldn’t transcribe the LMO4 gene, and they observed marked enlargement in both the forebrain and optical portions of the embryos.

Rare Example Of Darwinism Seen In Action:

A research team, including UC Riverside biologists, has found experimental evidence that supports a controversial theory of genetic conflict in the reproduction of those animals that support their developing offspring through a placenta.

Coelacanth Fossil Sheds Light On Fin-to-limb Evolution:

A 400 million-year-old fossil of a coelacanth fin, the first finding of its kind, fills a shrinking evolutionary gap between fins and limbs. University of Chicago scientists describe the finding in the July/August 2007 issue of Evolution & Development.

Chickens Dieting To Help Delaware Waterways:

Millions of chickens in Delaware–one of the nation’s top poultry producers–have been on a diet to reduce their impact on the environment and improve the health of the state’s waterways, and it appears to be working.

Goats’ Milk Is More Beneficial To Health Than Cows’ Milk, Study Suggests:

Researchers have carried out a comparative study on the properties of goats’ milk compared to those of cows’ milk. They found reason to believe that goats’ milk could help prevent diseases such as anemia and bone demineralization. Goats’ milk was found to help with the digestive and metabolic utilization of minerals such as iron, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium.

Is there a new Tuberculosis vaccine in the making?
Another movie is being made about Ivory-Bill woodpeckers.
A new astronomical explanation for the cycles of extinctions.

Sleep-Wake Controls Identified: Implications For Coma Patients And Those Under Anesthesia:

How do we wake up? How do we shift from restful sleep to dreaming? Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have discovered a new brain mechanism that just might explain how we do that. This new mechanism also may help us understand how certain anesthetics put us to sleep and how certain stimulants wake us up. In their first published study on this topic, researchers in the UAMS Center for Translational Neuroscience found that some neurons in the reticular activating system, a region of the brain that controls sleep-wake states, are electrically coupled.

Infant Hearing Test Results May Predict Sudden Infant Death Syndrome:

One of the greatest medical mysteries of our time has taken a leap forward in medical understanding with new study results announced by Dr. Daniel D. Rubens of Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. Rubens’ study published in July, 2007 in Early Human Development found all babies in a Rhode Island study group who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) universally shared the same distinctive difference in their newborn hearing test results for the right inner ear, when compared to infants who did not have SIDS.

Low Literacy Equals Early Death Sentence:

Not being able to read doesn’t just make it harder to navigate each day. Low literacy impairs people’s ability to obtain critical information about their health and can dramatically shorten their lives.

Obesity Is ‘Socially Contagious’:

Are your friends making you fat? Or keeping you slender? According to new research from Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, the short answer on both counts is “yes.” Appearing in the July 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a study coauthored by Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of UC San Diego suggests that obesity is “socially contagious,” spreading from person to person in a social network.

Hearing Colors And Seeing Sounds: How Real Is Synesthesia?:

In the psychological phenomenon known as “synesthesia,” individuals’ sensory systems are a bit more intertwined than usual. Some people, for example, report seeing colors when musical notes are played. One of the most common forms is grapheme-color synesthesia, in which letters or numbers (collectively called “graphemes”) are highlighted with particular colors. Although synesthesia has been well documented, it is unknown whether these experiences, reported as vivid and realistic, are actually being perceived or if they are a byproduct of some other psychological mechanism such as memory.

Context Affects Opinion About Novel Energy Sources:

Opinions people have about innovations are influenced by the context in which they form their opinion. For example, opinions about a novel energy source like biomass are influenced by thoughts regarding other energy sources. The less knowledge, interest or time people have, the stronger this effect. Sustainable energy options must therefore be promoted in the right context says Dutch researcher Wouter van den Hoogen.

Prenatal Stress Keeps Infants, Toddlers Up At Night, Study Says:

Anxious or depressed mothers-to-be are at increased risk of having children who will experience sleep problems in infancy and toddlerhood, finds a study that published this month in Early Human Development.

Resisting Peer Pressure: New Findings Shed Light On Adolescent Decision-making:

The capacity to resist peer pressure in early adolescence may depend on the strength of connections between certain areas of the brain, according to a study carried out by University of Nottingham researchers.

Humanitarians, You’re Not As Generous As You Think:

A new study out of Carnegie Mellon University reveals that people who regard themselves as humanitarians are even more likely than others to base donations to the poor on whether they believe poverty is a result of bad luck or bad choices.

Anger, Depression Much Higher Among Jailed Teen Girls Than Boys:

A new study reveals that girls in juvenile detention centers face surprisingly different psychological issues than average teen girls and, in some ways, more severe problems than incarcerated boys.

Learning A Second Language: Is It All In Your Head?:

Think you haven’t got the aptitude to learn a foreign language? New research led by Northwestern University neuroscientists suggests that the problem, quite literally, could be in your head. … Based on the size of Heschl’s Gyrus (HG), a brain structure that typically accounts for no more than 0.2 percent of entire brain volume, the researchers found they could predict — even before exposing study participants to an invented language — which participants would be more successful in learning 18 words in the “pseudo” language.

Why Do People Love Horror Movies? They Enjoy Being Scared:

A bedrock assumption in theories that explain and predict human behavior is people’s motivation to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. How can this be reconciled with the decision to engage in experiences known to elicit negative feelings, such as horror movies” It certainly seems counterintuitive that so many people would voluntarily immerse themselves in almost two hours of fear, disgust and terror. “Why do people pay for this?” “How is this enjoyable?”

How To Manipulate Perceptual Focus In Advertisements:

In a new study from the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers from Northwestern University demonstrate how advertisements can be manipulated to cause overemphasis of a particular feature and increase the likelihood that a certain product is chosen. Their finding runs contrary to economic models, which assume that choices are based on stable preferences and should not be influenced by the inclusion of inferior options.

College Science Success Linked To Math And Same-subject Preparation:

Researchers at Harvard University and the University of Virginia have found that high school coursework in one of the sciences generally does not predict better college performance in other scientific disciplines. But there’s one notable exception: Students with the most rigorous high school preparation in mathematics perform significantly better in college courses in biology, chemistry, and physics.

Relational Uncertainty Sparks Negativity In Marital Conversations:

Spouses who experience doubts about their marriage, even weak doubts, make pessimistic judgments about their partner’s behavior in conversation. That’s the conclusion of researchers who have conducted the first study to examine the link between relational uncertainty and conversation within marriage.

Why We May Feel Guilty:

Guilt plays a vital role in the regulation of social behavior. That worried feeling in our gut often serves as the impetus for our stab at redemption. However, psychologists have trouble agreeing on the function of this complex emotion.

Electronic Eggs Used To Help Save Threatened African Bird:

This is an important summer for kori bustards at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Four chicks of this threatened African bird have hatched in June and July. Along with the bumper crop of baby birds is a bumper crop of new information for scientists working to preserve the species, thanks to an electronic egg that transmits real-time incubation data from the nest.

Reef Corals: How To Structure A Complex Body Plan:

Phenotypic flexibility enables multicellular organisms to adjust morphologies to variable environmental challenges. Such plastic variations are also documented in reef corals. Coral colonies are made of multiple genetically identical physiologically integrated modules (polyps).

Fossils Older Than Dinosaurs Reveal Pattern Of Early Animal Evolution On Earth:

The abundant diversity of characteristics within species likely helped fuel the proliferation and evolution of an odd-looking creature that emerged from an unprecedented explosion of life on Earth more than 500 million years ago. University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster reports this finding in the July 27 issue of the journal Science.

Curiosities: Why Do Flowers Smell, And Why Do Plants Smell, Too?:

The luscious aroma of flowers attracts lovers, and the biological role of that smell is similar: to attract pollinators. “Plants need to attract insects, bats and hummingbirds to transfer the pollen and create fertile seeds,” says Hugh Iltis, professor emeritus of botany at UW-Madison.

Mystery Of Mammalian Ears Solved:

A 30-year scientific debate over how specialized cells in the inner ear amplify sound in mammals appears to have been settled more in favor of bouncing cell bodies rather than vibrating, hair-like cilia, according to investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

In A Bug-eat-bug World, Researchers Use Unique Chinese Wasp To Battle Soybean Aphids:

The days of soybean aphids feasting on soybean fields may be numbered, thanks to a unique import from China. University of Minnesota scientists are field testing a beneficial insect, a stingless wasp from China also known as Binodoxys communis, that kills soybean aphids. A successful field test would be a major breakthrough in controlling a damaging crop pest. The U of M received permission from the federal government to conduct this test and is the leading institution in the testing.

Surprising New Species Of Light-harvesting Bacterium Discovered In Yellowstone:

In the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, a team of researchers has discovered a novel bacterium that transforms light into chemical energy. The researchers also discovered that the new genus and species belongs to a new phylum, Acidobacteria — only the third time in the past 100 years that a new bacterial phylum has been added to the list of those with chlorophyll-producing members, of which there are now only six.

Humboldt Squid On The Move:

Over the last five years, large, predatory Humboldt squid have moved north from equatorial waters and invaded the sea off Central California, where they may be decimating populations of Pacific hake, an important commercial fish.

There are 31 new papers published on PLoS ONE this week, and here are some of my first, quick picks of titles that got my attention, but you should go and see them all, then rate, annotate and comment on them:
Stable Isotope Ratios in Hair and Teeth Reflect Biologic Rhythms by Otto Appenzeller, Clifford Qualls, Franca Barbic, Raffaello Furlan and Alberto Porta:

Biologic rhythms give insight into normal physiology and disease. They can be used as biomarkers for neuronal degenerations. We present a diverse data set to show that hair and teeth contain an extended record of biologic rhythms, and that analysis of these tissues could yield signals of neurodegenerations. We examined hair from mummified humans from South America, extinct mammals and modern animals and people, both healthy and diseased, and teeth of hominins. We also monitored heart-rate variability, a measure of a biologic rhythm, in some living subjects and analyzed it using power spectra. The samples were examined to determine variations in stable isotope ratios along the length of the hair and across growth-lines of the enamel in teeth. We found recurring circa-annual periods of slow and fast rhythms in hydrogen isotope ratios in hair and carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in teeth. The power spectra contained slow and fast frequency power, matching, in terms of normalized frequency, the spectra of heart rate variability found in our living subjects. Analysis of the power spectra of hydrogen isotope ratios in hair from a patient with neurodegeneration revealed the same spectral features seen in the patient’s heart-rate variability. Our study shows that spectral analysis of stable isotope ratios in readily available tissues such as hair could become a powerful diagnostic tool when effective treatments and neuroprotective drugs for neurodegenerative diseases become available. It also suggests that similar analyses of archaeological specimens could give insight into the physiology of ancient people and animals.

The Perils of Picky Eating: Dietary Breadth Is Related to Extinction Risk in Insectivorous Bats by Justin G. Boyles and Jonathan J. Storm:

Animals inhabiting small and specialized habitats tend to be more threatened by extinction than more generalist relatives. This study examined the diets of 44 bat species and found that those of conservation concern were also more likely to have a specialized food source. This correlation was independent of other known extinction risks, making dietary specialization an important factor for evaluating threats to insectivorous bats.

Vision and Foraging in Cormorants: More like Herons than Hawks? by Craig R. White, Norman Day, Patrick J. Butler and Graham R. Martin:

We measured the aquatic visual acuity of great cormorants under a range of viewing conditions (illuminance, target contrast, viewing distance) and found it to be unexpectedly poor. Cormorant visual acuity under a range of viewing conditions is in fact comparable to unaided humans under water, and very inferior to that of aerial predators. We present a prey detectability model based upon the known acuity of cormorants at different illuminances, target contrasts and viewing distances. This shows that cormorants are able to detect individual prey only at close range (less than 1 m). We conclude that cormorants are not the aquatic equivalent of hawks. Their efficient hunting involves the use of specialised foraging techniques which employ brief short-distance pursuit and/or rapid neck extension to capture prey that is visually detected or flushed only at short range. This technique appears to be driven proximately by the cormorant’s limited visual capacities, and is analogous to the foraging techniques employed by herons.

Population Bottlenecks Promote Cooperation in Bacterial Biofilms by Michael A. Brockhurst:

Population bottlenecks are assumed to play a key role in the maintenance of social traits in microbes. Ecological parameters such as colonisation or disturbances can favour cooperation through causing population bottlenecks that enhance genetic structuring (relatedness). However, the size of the population bottleneck is likely to play a crucial role in determining the success of cooperation. Relatedness is likely to increase with decreasing bottleneck size thus favouring the evolution of cooperation. I used an experimental evolution approach to test this prediction with biofilm formation by the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens as the cooperative trait. Replicate populations were exposed to disturbance events every four days under one of six population bottleneck treatments (from 103 to 108 bacterial cells). In line with predictions, the frequency of evolved cheats within the populations increased with increasing bottleneck size. This result highlights the importance of ecologically mediated population bottlenecks in the maintenance of social traits in microbes.

The US Anti-Prostitution Pledge: First Amendment Challenges and Public Health Priorities by Nicole Franck Masenior and Chris Beyrer:

In order for an HIV organization to receive funding from the United States, grantees must explicitly oppose prostitution.

Male Circumcision for Prevention of HIV Transmission: What the New Data Mean for HIV Prevention in the United States by Patrick S. Sullivan, Peter H. Kilmarx, Thomas A. Peterman, Allan W. Taylor, Allyn K. Nakashima, Mary L. Kamb, Lee Warner and Timothy D. Mastro:

Recent clinical trials in Africa found that male circumcision reduces the risk of acquiring HIV from heterosexual sex–what are the implications of these studies for the United States?

A Student-Led Campaign to Help Tackle Neglected Tropical Diseases by Sandeep P. Kishore and Prabhjot S. Dhadialla:

The authors propose that innovative student-led campaigns to address neglected diseases can and do make a practical difference.

Plasticity of Central Chemoreceptors: Effect of Bilateral Carotid Body Resection on Central CO2 Sensitivity by Albert Dahan, Diederik Nieuwenhuijs and Luc Teppema:

Bilateral carotid body resection in three individuals led to reduced sensitivity of central chemoreceptors to CO2, followed by a gradual return, providing evidence of central plasticity within the ventilatory control system.

Patient Adherence to Tuberculosis Treatment: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research by Salla A. Munro, Simon A. Lewin, Helen J. Smith, Mark E. Engel, Atle Fretheim and Jimmy Volmink:

From a systematic review of qualitative research, Munro and coauthors found that a range of interacting factors can lead to patients deciding not to complete their course of tuberculosis treatment.

Did Pterosaurs Feed by Skimming? Physical Modelling and Anatomical Evaluation of an Unusual Feeding Method by Stuart Humphries, Richard H. C. Bonser, Mark P. Witton and David M. Martill:

Just because a component of an extinct animal resembles that of a living one does not necessarily imply that both were used for the same task. The lifestyles of pterosaurs, long-extinct flying reptiles that soared ancient skies above the dinosaurs, have long been the subject of debate among palaeontologists. Similarities between the skulls of living birds (black skimmers) that feed by skimming the water surface with their lower bill to catch small fish, and those of some pterosaurs have been used to argue that these ancient reptiles also fed in this way. We have addressed this question by measuring the drag experienced by model bird bills and pterosaur jaws and estimating how the energetic cost of feeding in this way would affect their ability to fly. Interestingly, we found that the costs of flight while feeding are considerably higher for black skimmers than previously thought, and that feeding in this way would be excessively costly for the majority of pterosaurs. We also examined pterosaur skulls for specialised skimming adaptations like those seen in modern skimmers, but found that pterosaurs have few suitable adaptations for this lifestyle. Our results counter the idea that some pterosaurs commonly used skimming as a foraging method and illustrate the pitfalls involved in extrapolating from living to extinct forms using only their morphology.

Proboscidean Mitogenomics: Chronology and Mode of Elephant Evolution Using Mastodon as Outgroup by Nadin Rohland, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Joshua L. Pollack, Montgomery Slatkin, Paul Matheus and Michael Hofreiter:

We determined the complete mitochondrial genome of the mastodon (Mammut americanum), a recently extinct relative of the living elephants that diverged about 26 million years ago. We obtained the sequence from a tooth dated to 50,000-130,000 years ago, increasing the specimen age for which such palaeogenomic analyses have been done by almost a complete glacial cycle. Using this sequence, together with mitochondrial genome sequences from two African elephants, two Asian elephants, and two woolly mammoths (all of which have been previously sequenced), we show that mammoths are more closely related to Asian than to African elephants. Moreover, we used a calibration point lying outside the Elephantidae radiation (elephants and mammoths), which enabled us to estimate accurately the time of divergence of African elephants from Asian elephants and mammoths (about 7.6 million years ago) and the time of divergence between mammoths and Asian elephants (about 6.7 million years ago). These dates are strikingly similar to the divergence time for humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas, and raise the possibility that the speciation of mammoth and elephants and of humans and African great apes had a common cause. Despite the similarity in divergence times, the substitution rate within primates is more than twice as high as in proboscideans.

Paleontologists Study A Remarkably Well-preserved Baby Siberian Mammoth:

University of Michigan paleontologist Daniel Fisher just returned from Siberia where he spent a week as part of a six-member international team that examined the frozen, nearly intact remains of a 4-month-old female woolly mammoth.

Steroids, Not Songs, Spur Growth Of Brain Regions In Sparrows:

Neuroscientists are attempting to understand if structural changes in the brain are related to sensory experience or the performance of learned behavior, and now University of Washington researchers have found evidence that one species of songbird apparently has something in common with a few baseball sluggers. Both rely on steroids, birds to increase the size of song production areas of their brain and some players, apparently, to knock a fastball out of the park.

Feeding Habits Of Flying Reptiles Uncovered:

Scientists at the University of Sheffield, collaborating with colleagues at the Universities of Portsmouth and Reading, have taken a step back in time and provided a new insight into the lifestyle of a prehistoric flying reptile.

High-flying Honkers Have Superhuman Power:

They may seem deceptively innocuous mixed in with other waterfowl, but bar-headed geese can do with ease what most elite high altitude athletes can’t. Now a UBC zoologist is learning how. Native to South and Central Asia, bar-headed geese, named for the dark stripes on the backs of their heads, are often bred in captivity as domestic garden birds. In the wild, they migrate annually between India and the Tibetan plateau in China, flying over the world’s highest mountains on their way.

Mothers Invest More In Reproduction When Their Mates Are Attractive:

Animals in nature can behave according to basic rules of economics, such as investing in agreement with their expected payoff. A French team of behavioural ecologists demonstrated that, in the Peafowl, females paired with attractive males invested more resources in their eggs than females paired with unattractive males. They laid larger eggs and deposited more testosterone in egg yolk, potentially offering a better prospective to their offspring.

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Number Of Published Science And Engineering Articles Flattens, But US Influence Remains Strong:

A new National Science Foundation (NSF) report finds the number of U.S. science and engineering (S&E) articles in major peer-reviewed journals flattened in the 1990s, after more than two decades of growth, but U.S. influence in world science and technology remains strong.

Art And Music For The Birds:

Nature is a valued source of inspiration for artists. But what have artists offered the natural world? Would a bird even like rock and roll? Conceptual sculptor Elizabeth Demaray, an assistant professor of fine arts at Rutgers University–Camden, is testing the musical tastes of our fine feathered friends with an exhibition featuring four 10-foot red perches offering what are considered to be the best in classical, rock, country, and jazz for local birds.

Genetic Diversity In Honeybee Colonies Boosts Productivity:

Why do queen honeybees mate with dozens of males? Does their extreme promiscuity, perhaps, serve a purpose? An answer to this age-old mystery is proposed in the July 20 issue of Science magazine by Cornell scientists: Promiscuous queens, they suggest, produce genetically diverse colonies that are far more productive and hardy than genetically uniform colonies produced by monogamous queens.

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