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Zoo trumpets birth of rare African okapi :

The Brookfield Zoo announced this week the birth of a baby okapi – an endangered African animal that looks as if it were put together by committee.
With a dark brown body and striped upper hind legs, the 1-month-old female looks a bit like a zebra, but claims closer ties to a giraffe. Her name, Sauda, means “dark beauty” in Swahili.
Not yet on public display, except through a video feed from her quiet nesting area with her mother, baby Sauda will make her debut in the zoo’s African forest exhibit in the spring.
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The zoo is recording Sauda’s movements so scientists can learn more about okapi behavior, Petric said. First discovered by Westerners in the animals’ native Congo in the early 1900s, the secretive okapi, known to live only in a forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, still hold many mysteries for researchers.

Hat-tip: Russ Williams

How Zebra Finches Learn Songs: Cellular Killer Also Important To Memory:

A protein known primarily for its role in killing cells also plays a part in memory formation, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report. Their work exploring how zebra finches learn songs could have implications for treatment of neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
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“Graham had this intuition that growth and memory is really a kind of remodeling,” said Clayton, who is a professor of cell and structural biology. “You can’t have growth without death.”

How Does A Zebrafish Grow A New Tail? The Answer May Help Treat Human Injuries:

If a zebrafish loses a chunk of its tail fin, it’ll grow back within a week. Like lizards, newts, and frogs, a zebrafish can replace surprisingly complex body parts. A tail fin, for example, has many different types of cells and is a very intricate structure. It is the fish version of an arm or leg.

Researchers Uncover New Way Nature Turns Genes On And Off:

Peering deep within the cells of fruit flies, developmental biologists at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia may have discovered a new way that genes are turned on and off during development. If they’re right, and the same processes are at work in higher organisms, including mammals, the findings could eventually have implications for improving the understanding of a range of diseases, including childhood cancer.

Mapping The Mouse Genome:

In a new study published online in the open access journal PLoS Biology, Sagiv Shifman, Jonathan Flint, and colleagues present a high resolution genetic map for the mouse genome–one of the most detailed genetic maps now available aside from that for humans.

Unfolded Proteins May Protect Cells From Dying:

When cells get stressed, their proteins go unfolded. It’s a reaction with a straightforward name: the unfolded protein response. Now, new research from Rockefeller University shows that this phenomenon actually serves a protective role; rather than a sign that the cell has given up, it may be a mechanism by which the cells cope with adversity. The findings were reported as an advance online publication in the EMBO Journal on the Dec. 14.

A Reason Why Video Games Are Hard To Give Up:

Kids and adults will stay glued to video games this holiday season because the fun of playing actually is rooted in fulfilling their basic psychological needs. Psychologists at the University of Rochester, in collaboration with Immersyve, Inc., a virtual environment think tank, asked 1,000 gamers what motivates them to keep playing. The results published in the journal Motivation and Emotion this month suggest that people enjoy video games because they find them intrinsically satisfying.

Maternal Diet During Pregnancy Can Impact Offspring For Generations, Study Shows:

A new study by scientists at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) is the first to show that a mother’s diet during pregnancy influences the health of her grandchildren by changing the behavior of a specific gene. The study was conducted using mice of an unique strain called “viable yellow agouti” also known as Avy in scientific terms. These mice possess a gene that influences the color of their coats as well as their tendency to become obese and develop diabetes and cancer. The new research shows that the diet consumed by a pregnant Avy mouse affects the health of not only her pups, but also their pups — her grandchildren.

Africa’s Least-known Carnivore In Tanzania: Mongoose Is One More Rare Find:

The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced that a camera-trap study in the mountains of Southern Tanzania has now recorded Africa’s least-known and probably rarest carnivore: Jackson’s mongoose, known only from a few observations and museum specimens.

Pet Owners Are Sick More Often And Exercise Less Than Other Working-aged People, Study Finds:

A common perception is that pet owner is a young person who is full of action, exercises a lot, and actively plays with a pet, particularly with a dog. The reality is different, however.

Tweaking The Treatment For Restless Legs:

Last Super Bowl, a TV commercial lauded the power of Requip (ropinirole), the first drug approved to treat restless leg syndrome, a condition whose signature feature is creepy-crawly leg sensations that interfere with sleep and rest in nearly 1 of every 10 adults.

Singing For Survival: Gibbons Scare Off Predators With ‘Song’:

It is well known that animals use song as a way of attracting mates, but researchers have found that gibbons have developed an unusual way of scaring off predators — by singing to them. The primatologists at the University of St Andrews discovered that wild gibbons in Thailand have developed a unique song as a natural defence to predators. Literally singing for survival, the gibbons appear to use the song not just to warn their own group members but those in neighbouring areas.

Scanner Offers Humane Way To Look At Bird Bones:

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the University of Alberta for a bone scan. Dr. Douglas Korver, a professor of poultry nutrition in the U of A Department of Agricultural, Food, and Nutritional Science, has been using some innovative technology to save cash for the poultry industry, and save the chickens from excess pain and suffering. The department’s Quantitative Computed Tomography (QCT) scanner is being used to measure and calculate the bone density in laying chickens, in order to find ways to prevent osteoporosis and bone breaks in the birds.

Neurons Targeted By Dementing Illness May Have Evolved For Complex Social Cognition:

Von Economo neurons (VENs) are uniquely shaped brain cells that seem to have evolved in a select group of socially complex species: great apes, humans, and, as reported last month, whales. Across species, VENs are localized to frontal brain regions associated with cognition, emotion and social behavior. Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a common neurodegenerative condition, is characterized by early breakdown in social and emotional awareness and is accompanied by atrophy and dysfunction in the brain areas where VENs are located.

Expedition Observes Little Known Beaked Whales:

On the 17th of December, Meike Scheidat & Linn Lehnert, the whale watchers on board the research icebreaker Polarstern, made a remarkable cetaceans sighting: Four Arnoux’s Beaked Whales (Berardius arnuxii), observed from the helicopter. The Arnoux’s Beaked Whales is one of the least known species of the Beaked Whales family (Ziphidae), itself poorly known in general. Arnoux’s is one of the biggest species amongst beaked whales. The ones observed were probably 9 metre long. These deep-sea feeding whales are particularly sensitive to underwater acoustic disturbances.

Gene Tied To Longevity Also Preserves Ability To Think Clearly:

A gene variant linked to living a very long life–to 90 and beyond–also serves to help very old people think clearly and retain their memories, according to new research by scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

Cyberspace May Overcome Ethical Constraints In Experiments:

Psychological experiments that stopped 40 years ago because of ethical concerns could instead be conducted in cyberspace in the future. By repeating the Stanley Milgram’s classic experiment from the 1960s on obedience to authority — that found people would administer apparently lethal electrical shocks to a stranger at the behest of an authority figure — in a virtual environment, the UCL (University College London) led study demonstrated for the first time that participants reacted as though the situation was real.

Wolves Are Suffering Less From Inbreeding Than Expected:

Increasing levels of inbreeding is a threat against the viability of the Scandinavian wolf population. A study just coming out in the new journal PLoS ONE now demonstrates that inbreeding is not affecting the wolves as badly as expected. The results show that it is the most genetically variable wolf individuals that are recruited into the breeding population. An important consequence of this action of natural selection is that the negative effects of inbreeding are accumulating much slower than previously believed.

Squirrels Winning At Outwitting Trees’ Survival Strategy:

If you look at evolutionary biology as a big game of “Survivor,” it’s squirrels: one, spruce trees: zero. In the Dec. 22 edition of Science, Andrew McAdam, an assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University, outlines how red squirrels have figured out a way around the elaborate ruse trees have used to protect their crops of tasty seeds. The remarkable part: The squirrels are divining the arrival of bumper crops of spruce cones months before the cones ever materialize and then betting on those crops with the most expensive evolutionary collateral – a second litter of pups.

Study On Accidental Introduction Of Invasive Snails With Parasitic Flatworms May Help Mitigate Spread Of Disease:

A paper that authors are calling a “home run” study on the spread of disease is published in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study traces — through genetic analysis — the accidental introduction of invasive snails with parasitic flatworms. The invaders were probably transported with Japanese seed oysters imported into the waters of the Pacific Northwest over a century ago. It is the first comprehensive genetic analysis of an invasive marine host and its parasites. The study points to broad implications for identifying and mitigating spreading disease in a globalized economy.

Ho! Ho! Huh? Researchers Measure Holiday Spirit:

The holidays just wouldn’t be the same without the decorations. From a single wreath or child’s picture of Santa taped to a window, to displays so elaborate that they can almost be seen from outer space, the festive season seems to spur the need to express the holiday spirit to our neighbors in addition to our closest kin. But neighborhoods also vary in the vigor of their holiday displays, as anyone who tours the streets of their town or city can attest. Scientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, have decided to measure the holiday spirit. A simple scoring system was developed that ranged from zero (no decorations whatsoever) to four (representing different categories of decorations). A high score does not require wealth; even the humble residents of a trailer can score a four if they have the holiday spirit. A special category was even created for the kind of “over the top” display.
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“We have already created GIS maps measuring the quality of neighborhoods based on survey data,” Wilson reports. “Holiday decorations represent a natural expression of community spirit that we can correlate with the survey data.”
According to Wilson, neighborhood-based research in other cities has shown that community spirit, which is also called “social capital,” can have an important influence on everything from crime to healthy child development. Winter holiday decorations might be unduly influenced by a single religious tradition (Christianity), but Wilson and his volunteers mounted a similar effort during Halloween, a holiday with pagan roots.
“No single measure of community spirit is perfect,” Wilson stresses. “So we must be careful to include multiple measurements.”
Whatever it means, the GIS map of Binghamton’s winter holiday decorations is aesthetically pleasing. I’m sending it to all my colleagues, friends, and relations, ” Wilson smiles. “It might be the first holiday card that includes a methods section.”