YOU keep him waiting for three hours. And if you told that joke in Africa, you'd get more hearty laughs than in Asia. Naturalists have discovered orang-utans and other Asian apes laugh less than their African cousins, such as gorillas and chimps. And they also found that, while humans first learned to laugh from their ape ancestors millions of years ago, we have since learned to use laughter to sneer, mock and ridicule.
'Our observations showed strong differences in the use of laughter between the Asian great apes (orang-utans) and the African great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos),' said Dr Marina Davila Ross, of the UK's University of Portsmouth.
'Asian apes and humans laugh clearly more often.'
Evolution has enabled humans to use laughter to mock others while apes simply laugh to enjoy themselves and influence others, she concluded.
'But something happened in the last 5 million years which means humans use laughter for a much wider range of situations.'
Dr Ross, who worked with the University of Veterinary Medicine in Germany, also showed sounds other than laughter can evolve in the context of tickling. Mammals, including flying foxes, make sounds when they are tickled but they are not necessarily laughing.
Metro Ireland, 12 January 2010, p5.
Showing posts with label scientific research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scientific research. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Fish 'acts like Lord Sugar when dealing with subordinates'
A species of fish exhibits traits similar to Lord Sugar when dealing with subordinates who fail in a task, new research has shown.
Published: 7:30AM GMT 08 Jan 2010
Cleaner wrasse, which live on reefs, provide a valuable service by feeding on the parasites of ''client'' fish.
Males are in charge in communities of cleaner wrasse and the new research shows they have much in common with their ''Lord Sugar'' style human counterparts.
Like the belligerent Amstrad founder and boss on the television show The Apprentice, male cleaner wrasse will not tolerate failure.
When the females fall down on the job by offending a client, they are chased aggressively by the angry males.
The behaviour is an unusual example of animals delivering a ''third-party punishment'' for misdeeds that do not directly affect them.
Although cleaner fish pick parasites off their larger reef-mates, they can get a bigger meal by taking a bite of the mucus on a client's skin. However this is seen as an offensive ''cheating'' act, and likely to drive the ''customer'' away.
Any female spotted committing such a flagrant breach of the rules provokes a sharp reaction from the boss.
The boss/employee relationship between male and female cleaner fish was investigated in the laboratory by scientists led by a team from the Zoological Society of London.
A plate full of ordinary food and more tempting prawns was offered to the fish, but removed whenever one of them ate a prawn.
Researchers quickly saw that males would chase females who could not resist the prawns, thereby causing the food plate to be lost. After being punished, the females were less likely to eat a prawn again.
The study, reported in the journal Science, shed light on what occurred between the fish and their ''clients'' in nature.
Dr Nichola Raihani, from the Zoological Society of London, said: ''Clients will leave if they are cheated at a cleaning station. That means the male's dinner leaves if the female cheats. By punishing cheating females, the males are not really sticking up for the clients but are making sure that they get a decent meal.''
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6947717/Fish-acts-like-Lord-Sugar-when-dealing-with-subordinates.html
Published: 7:30AM GMT 08 Jan 2010
Cleaner wrasse, which live on reefs, provide a valuable service by feeding on the parasites of ''client'' fish.
Males are in charge in communities of cleaner wrasse and the new research shows they have much in common with their ''Lord Sugar'' style human counterparts.
Like the belligerent Amstrad founder and boss on the television show The Apprentice, male cleaner wrasse will not tolerate failure.
When the females fall down on the job by offending a client, they are chased aggressively by the angry males.
The behaviour is an unusual example of animals delivering a ''third-party punishment'' for misdeeds that do not directly affect them.
Although cleaner fish pick parasites off their larger reef-mates, they can get a bigger meal by taking a bite of the mucus on a client's skin. However this is seen as an offensive ''cheating'' act, and likely to drive the ''customer'' away.
Any female spotted committing such a flagrant breach of the rules provokes a sharp reaction from the boss.
The boss/employee relationship between male and female cleaner fish was investigated in the laboratory by scientists led by a team from the Zoological Society of London.
A plate full of ordinary food and more tempting prawns was offered to the fish, but removed whenever one of them ate a prawn.
Researchers quickly saw that males would chase females who could not resist the prawns, thereby causing the food plate to be lost. After being punished, the females were less likely to eat a prawn again.
The study, reported in the journal Science, shed light on what occurred between the fish and their ''clients'' in nature.
Dr Nichola Raihani, from the Zoological Society of London, said: ''Clients will leave if they are cheated at a cleaning station. That means the male's dinner leaves if the female cheats. By punishing cheating females, the males are not really sticking up for the clients but are making sure that they get a decent meal.''
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6947717/Fish-acts-like-Lord-Sugar-when-dealing-with-subordinates.html
Friday, 8 January 2010
Earliest Four-Limbed Animals Left Mud Tracks
The finding of 395-million-year-old footprints in Poland turns back the clock on the evolution of four-legged creatures.
By Jennifer Viegas Wed Jan 6, 2010 07:57 AM ET
The fossilized footprints from these animals are 18 million years older than the earliest tetrapod body fossils, pushing the emergence of four-limbed creatures back to at least the early Middle Devonian period, according to two papers published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
Tracks left behind by the animals 397 million years ago show how they walked on their short, thick legs through the mud of what was once a coral reef lagoon. That type of location, with its regular tides and abundant food sources consisting of "washed-up dead animals," likely set the stage for the fish-to-land animal transition, according to the authors.
The crawlers have not yet been identified, but co-author Per Ahlberg told Discovery News that they were "basal tetrapods, the common ancestral stock of all the living tetrapod groups."
Dogs, cats, humans and any other animal with four limbs fall into that large overall group.
But there was something fishy about these early animals.
"There isn't anything living today with the strange combination of fish and tetrapod-like characteristics that we see in the earliest fossil tetrapods," said Ahlberg, an Uppsala University Professor of Evolutionary Organismal Biology.
Ahlberg and his colleagues found and studied the tracks at what is now the Zachelmie Quarry in southeastern Poland. Their analysis shows some of the animals appear to have moved in a straight line without dragging their bodies on the ground, while others had a less symmetrical gait.
The largest of the individual prints shows not just feet, but the animal's "whole limb as far as the knee," the researchers wrote. On one fossil track, "the tip of each triangular toe shows a small distinct cushion or pad," they added.
Before the discovery of these tracks, it was thought certain fish evolved into four-limbed animals during the Givetian Period, 391 to 385 million years ago. Fossils seemed to neatly support this timing for the fin-to-limb gradual change, since some fish, known as elpistostegids, appeared to belong to a mid-point stage where the fish had tetrapod-like heads and bodies, but retained fish characteristics, such as paired fins.
"In fact, tetrapods and elpistostegids coexisted for at least 10 million years," the researchers point out. "This implies that the elpistostegid morphology was not a brief transitional stage, but a stable adaptive position in its own right."
The scientists compare the coexistence of four-limbed animals and these fish with what happened to dinosaurs and birds. Dinosaurs didn't all just evolve into birds. Feathered and winged theropod dinosaurs were still around long after the first birds appeared about 150 million years ago.
Another revision to the animal history books concerns the habitat of the first tetrapods, according to Philippe Janvier and Gael Clement of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
In a separate commentary in Nature, they call the new finds a "stunning discovery." They write that the sea and lagoon location described by Ahlberg and his colleagues "is at odds with the long-held view that river deltas and lakes were the necessary environments for the transition from water to land during vertebrate evolution."
Given this difference, and the very early date of the tracks, Janvier and Clement believe the new findings "lob a grenade" into accepted theories of the fish-to-tetrapod transition.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/tetrapod-tracks-poland.html
By Jennifer Viegas Wed Jan 6, 2010 07:57 AM ET
This is a sketch of a Devonian tetrapod making tracks. It is based on a species from the Late Devonian of Greenland but is a reasonable approximation to the track-maker of newly-found prints in Poland.
Per Ahlberg
The world's first four-limbed animals, called tetrapods, crawled on land much earlier than scientists thought, judging by tracks left behind by some of the animals in a prehistoric Polish lagoon.Per Ahlberg
The fossilized footprints from these animals are 18 million years older than the earliest tetrapod body fossils, pushing the emergence of four-limbed creatures back to at least the early Middle Devonian period, according to two papers published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
Tracks left behind by the animals 397 million years ago show how they walked on their short, thick legs through the mud of what was once a coral reef lagoon. That type of location, with its regular tides and abundant food sources consisting of "washed-up dead animals," likely set the stage for the fish-to-land animal transition, according to the authors.
The crawlers have not yet been identified, but co-author Per Ahlberg told Discovery News that they were "basal tetrapods, the common ancestral stock of all the living tetrapod groups."
Dogs, cats, humans and any other animal with four limbs fall into that large overall group.
But there was something fishy about these early animals.
"There isn't anything living today with the strange combination of fish and tetrapod-like characteristics that we see in the earliest fossil tetrapods," said Ahlberg, an Uppsala University Professor of Evolutionary Organismal Biology.
Ahlberg and his colleagues found and studied the tracks at what is now the Zachelmie Quarry in southeastern Poland. Their analysis shows some of the animals appear to have moved in a straight line without dragging their bodies on the ground, while others had a less symmetrical gait.
The largest of the individual prints shows not just feet, but the animal's "whole limb as far as the knee," the researchers wrote. On one fossil track, "the tip of each triangular toe shows a small distinct cushion or pad," they added.
Before the discovery of these tracks, it was thought certain fish evolved into four-limbed animals during the Givetian Period, 391 to 385 million years ago. Fossils seemed to neatly support this timing for the fin-to-limb gradual change, since some fish, known as elpistostegids, appeared to belong to a mid-point stage where the fish had tetrapod-like heads and bodies, but retained fish characteristics, such as paired fins.
"In fact, tetrapods and elpistostegids coexisted for at least 10 million years," the researchers point out. "This implies that the elpistostegid morphology was not a brief transitional stage, but a stable adaptive position in its own right."
The scientists compare the coexistence of four-limbed animals and these fish with what happened to dinosaurs and birds. Dinosaurs didn't all just evolve into birds. Feathered and winged theropod dinosaurs were still around long after the first birds appeared about 150 million years ago.
Another revision to the animal history books concerns the habitat of the first tetrapods, according to Philippe Janvier and Gael Clement of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
In a separate commentary in Nature, they call the new finds a "stunning discovery." They write that the sea and lagoon location described by Ahlberg and his colleagues "is at odds with the long-held view that river deltas and lakes were the necessary environments for the transition from water to land during vertebrate evolution."
Given this difference, and the very early date of the tracks, Janvier and Clement believe the new findings "lob a grenade" into accepted theories of the fish-to-tetrapod transition.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/tetrapod-tracks-poland.html
BBC to launch review into allegations of bias in its science coverage
The BBC Trust is to launch an investigation into allegations of bias in its coverage of science.
By Urmee Khan, Digital and Media Correspondent
Published: 3:18PM GMT 06 Jan 2010
The BBC has been criticised for its reporting of science stories in recent months and it has been accused of failing to cover the climate change debate objectively.
The Trust will carry out the review in the spring to assess the "accuracy and impartiality" of the corporation's coverage of science.
The corporation’s governing body said the review follows "heated debates" around topics like GM crops, MMR and global warming.
The BBC came under fire in November, after a broadcaster admitted he knew about controversial emails in which scientists discussed "spinning" climate data long before it reported on them.
Paul Hudson, a BBC weather presenter and climate change expert, said he was sent the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, indicating that researchers massaged figures to mask the fact that world temperatures have been declining in recent years, a month before the story broke.
It raised questions about why the BBC did not report on the matter sooner, and it reignited the debate over whether the corporation is biased on the issue of climate change.
Peter Sissons, the veteran newsreader, claimed last year that it was now "effectively BBC policy" to stifle critics of the consensus view on global warming.
The review, which will be published in 2011, will assess science output relating to public policy and "matters of political controversy".
The "science" label will include technology, medicine and environment coverage that "entails scientific statements, research findings or other claims made by scientists". The review is expected to consult scientists and experts in the field.
Richard Tait, a BBC trustee and chair of the Trust's editorial standards committee (ESC), said: "Science is an area of great importance to licence fee payers, which provokes strong reaction and covers some of the most sensitive editorial issues the BBC faces.
"Heated debate in recent years around topics like climate change, GM crops and the MMR vaccine reflects this, and BBC reporting has to steer a course through these controversial issues while remaining impartial.
"The BBC has a well-earned reputation for the quality of its science reporting, but it is also important that we look at it afresh to ensure that it is adhering to the very high standards that licence fee payers expect."
However, some critics have said the BBC Trust is not in a position to conduct the review as it is regarded as being to close to the corporation.
Godfrey Bloom MEP said: "I would like to see a completely independent judicial review, the BBC cannot be objective as it has consistently shown. It has blocked sceptics of a scientific view point of climate change for years. No debate is allowed. It is biased in its reporting which is a disgrace and nothing less than a fully independent review is good enough."
A BBC Trust spokeswoman said: "As set out in the BBC's Charter and Agreement, the Trust is the body charged with ensuring that the BBC's coverage of any issue is duly impartial. This review, which will be carried out independently on behalf of the Trust, will take an in-depth look at the BBC's coverage of science, taking into account the views of relevant stakeholders, to make sure that the coverage adheres to the high standards that audiences expect."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6941616/BBC-to-launch-review-into-allegations-of-bias-in-its-science-coverage.html
(Submitted by Ray D)
By Urmee Khan, Digital and Media Correspondent
Published: 3:18PM GMT 06 Jan 2010
The BBC has been criticised for its reporting of science stories in recent months and it has been accused of failing to cover the climate change debate objectively.
The Trust will carry out the review in the spring to assess the "accuracy and impartiality" of the corporation's coverage of science.
The corporation’s governing body said the review follows "heated debates" around topics like GM crops, MMR and global warming.
The BBC came under fire in November, after a broadcaster admitted he knew about controversial emails in which scientists discussed "spinning" climate data long before it reported on them.
Paul Hudson, a BBC weather presenter and climate change expert, said he was sent the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, indicating that researchers massaged figures to mask the fact that world temperatures have been declining in recent years, a month before the story broke.
It raised questions about why the BBC did not report on the matter sooner, and it reignited the debate over whether the corporation is biased on the issue of climate change.
Peter Sissons, the veteran newsreader, claimed last year that it was now "effectively BBC policy" to stifle critics of the consensus view on global warming.
The review, which will be published in 2011, will assess science output relating to public policy and "matters of political controversy".
The "science" label will include technology, medicine and environment coverage that "entails scientific statements, research findings or other claims made by scientists". The review is expected to consult scientists and experts in the field.
Richard Tait, a BBC trustee and chair of the Trust's editorial standards committee (ESC), said: "Science is an area of great importance to licence fee payers, which provokes strong reaction and covers some of the most sensitive editorial issues the BBC faces.
"Heated debate in recent years around topics like climate change, GM crops and the MMR vaccine reflects this, and BBC reporting has to steer a course through these controversial issues while remaining impartial.
"The BBC has a well-earned reputation for the quality of its science reporting, but it is also important that we look at it afresh to ensure that it is adhering to the very high standards that licence fee payers expect."
However, some critics have said the BBC Trust is not in a position to conduct the review as it is regarded as being to close to the corporation.
Godfrey Bloom MEP said: "I would like to see a completely independent judicial review, the BBC cannot be objective as it has consistently shown. It has blocked sceptics of a scientific view point of climate change for years. No debate is allowed. It is biased in its reporting which is a disgrace and nothing less than a fully independent review is good enough."
A BBC Trust spokeswoman said: "As set out in the BBC's Charter and Agreement, the Trust is the body charged with ensuring that the BBC's coverage of any issue is duly impartial. This review, which will be carried out independently on behalf of the Trust, will take an in-depth look at the BBC's coverage of science, taking into account the views of relevant stakeholders, to make sure that the coverage adheres to the high standards that audiences expect."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6941616/BBC-to-launch-review-into-allegations-of-bias-in-its-science-coverage.html
(Submitted by Ray D)
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Fossil tracks record 'oldest land-walkers'
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
The oldest evidence of four-legged animals walking on land has been discovered in southeast Poland.
Rocks from a disused quarry record the "footprints" of unknown creatures that lived about 397 million years ago.
Scientists tell the journal Nature that the fossil trackways even retain the impressions left by the "toes" on the animals' feet.
The team says the find means that land vertebrates appeared millions of years earlier than previously supposed.
"This place has yielded what I consider to be some of the most exciting fossils I've ever encountered in my career as a palaeontologist," said team member Per Ahlberg from Uppsala University, Sweden.
"[They are] fossil of footprints that give us the earliest record of how our very distant ancestors moved out of the water and moved on to the land and took their first steps."
Numerous trackways have been identified in the Zachelmie Quarry in the Holy Cross Mountains.
They represent the movements of many animals as they scurried around what would have been a tropical muddy shoreline in the Middle Devonian Period of Earth history.
Slabs of carbonate rock are dappled with prints that range in size and detail.
Some indentations are obscured where successive animals have trampled over the same patch of ground; but others retain exquisite features of the pads and digits that made them.
The animals were probably crocodile-like in appearance and lived an amphibian-like existence (although those specific animal forms did not appear until many millions of years later).
The dimensions of the prints suggest some individuals were more than two metres long.
The Polish and Swedish scientific team analysed the trackway patterns to reconstruct how the ancient creatures would have moved their "hips", "elbows" and "knees".
This confirms that only true four-legged animals, or tetrapods, could have left the marks.
Theory holds that the first land creatures evolved from fish that had pairs of lobed fins. The precise timing of this transition has been a dynamic field of study in recent years.
The assumption of palaeontologists had been that there was a swift but stepwise transition between water and land.
Perhaps the most notable fossil in this story is an organism called Tikaalik rosea, an animal that had features intermediate between fish and tetrapods.
But Tiktaalik lived about 375 million years ago; and although there are slightly older transition fossils, the Zachelmie Quarry tetrapods break the neat and simple timeline.
"The discovery of undoubted trackways from the earliest period of the Eifelian - that is 379 million years ago - pushes back the divergence between fishes and the four-legged vertebrates by about 18 million years, if not probably more," commented Dr Philippe Janvier from the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France.
"I suspect that now we can push the divergence back to the Emsian stage, maybe 400 million years ago. That's surprising, but this is what the fossil evidence tells us," the independent researcher told BBC News.
Another key surprise from the research is the recognition that these tetrapods lived in a marine environment, perhaps a coral lagoon.
The favoured origin before now for the emergence of tetrapods had been marshy environments, such as deltas or lakes where freshwater dominated.
The team behind the latest research said the new explanation made sense because it would have allowed marine ancestors of tetrapods gradually to acquire terrestrial competence while accessing a new and essentially untouched resource of food washed up with the tides.
"In the intertidal setting, you've got a smorgasbord laid out twice a day," said Dr Ahlberg.
"Every time the tide goes out, it leaves behind this drift-line of dead and moribund animals. All this was just left there for vertebrates - our ancestors - to emerge on to land and pick them off."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8443879.stm
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
The oldest evidence of four-legged animals walking on land has been discovered in southeast Poland.
Rocks from a disused quarry record the "footprints" of unknown creatures that lived about 397 million years ago.
Scientists tell the journal Nature that the fossil trackways even retain the impressions left by the "toes" on the animals' feet.
The team says the find means that land vertebrates appeared millions of years earlier than previously supposed.
"This place has yielded what I consider to be some of the most exciting fossils I've ever encountered in my career as a palaeontologist," said team member Per Ahlberg from Uppsala University, Sweden.
"[They are] fossil of footprints that give us the earliest record of how our very distant ancestors moved out of the water and moved on to the land and took their first steps."
Numerous trackways have been identified in the Zachelmie Quarry in the Holy Cross Mountains.
They represent the movements of many animals as they scurried around what would have been a tropical muddy shoreline in the Middle Devonian Period of Earth history.
Slabs of carbonate rock are dappled with prints that range in size and detail.
Some indentations are obscured where successive animals have trampled over the same patch of ground; but others retain exquisite features of the pads and digits that made them.
The animals were probably crocodile-like in appearance and lived an amphibian-like existence (although those specific animal forms did not appear until many millions of years later).
The dimensions of the prints suggest some individuals were more than two metres long.
The Polish and Swedish scientific team analysed the trackway patterns to reconstruct how the ancient creatures would have moved their "hips", "elbows" and "knees".
This confirms that only true four-legged animals, or tetrapods, could have left the marks.
Theory holds that the first land creatures evolved from fish that had pairs of lobed fins. The precise timing of this transition has been a dynamic field of study in recent years.
The assumption of palaeontologists had been that there was a swift but stepwise transition between water and land.
Perhaps the most notable fossil in this story is an organism called Tikaalik rosea, an animal that had features intermediate between fish and tetrapods.
But Tiktaalik lived about 375 million years ago; and although there are slightly older transition fossils, the Zachelmie Quarry tetrapods break the neat and simple timeline.
"The discovery of undoubted trackways from the earliest period of the Eifelian - that is 379 million years ago - pushes back the divergence between fishes and the four-legged vertebrates by about 18 million years, if not probably more," commented Dr Philippe Janvier from the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France.
"I suspect that now we can push the divergence back to the Emsian stage, maybe 400 million years ago. That's surprising, but this is what the fossil evidence tells us," the independent researcher told BBC News.
Another key surprise from the research is the recognition that these tetrapods lived in a marine environment, perhaps a coral lagoon.
The favoured origin before now for the emergence of tetrapods had been marshy environments, such as deltas or lakes where freshwater dominated.
The team behind the latest research said the new explanation made sense because it would have allowed marine ancestors of tetrapods gradually to acquire terrestrial competence while accessing a new and essentially untouched resource of food washed up with the tides.
"In the intertidal setting, you've got a smorgasbord laid out twice a day," said Dr Ahlberg.
"Every time the tide goes out, it leaves behind this drift-line of dead and moribund animals. All this was just left there for vertebrates - our ancestors - to emerge on to land and pick them off."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8443879.stm
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Dolphins Are 'Non-Human Persons'
Scientists agree on this amazing statement
By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor
5th of January 2010, 09:20 GMT
The scientific community has finally come to a consensus regarding dolphins. Experts believe that the marine animals are the second most intelligent species on the planet after humans. The creatures are so smart and bright, that they should be referred to as non-human persons, they add. Recent research has demonstrated that their brains are similar to our own in many key features that denote high intelligence. Other tests have also shown that dolphins can learn basic language, and also that they are a lot smarter than chimpanzees. The primates have been considered for a long time the second most intelligent species, but the new work disproves that, Times Online reports.
“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size. The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions,” zoologist Lori Marino, from the Atlanta, Georgia-based Emory University, explains. The expert scanned the brains of many dolphins using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and also conducted a number of comparative tests between the brains of the marine animals and those of primates.
Previous investigations in dolphins' routines showed that each of the animals had a unique personality that was shaped by the society it lived in, exactly as was the case with humans. They also communicate with each other via a complex language, even if not articulated. They have the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror, which makes them one of a handful of species capable of doing this. Some specialists say that a fully developed dolphin can reach the level of intelligence of a three-year-old human being, which is no small feat.
The animals also have the ability to teach each other various tricks. For example, a formerly captive dolphin that was taught to tail-walk in an aquarium, was seen teaching others to do the same thing, after it was released. Needless to say, the researchers were amazed to see this happening right before their eyes. The feat denotes a high degree of intelligence, trust and cooperation on the animals' part, which is very rare to come by in species other than humans. “The scientific research […] suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” Loyola Marymount University Ethics Professor Thomas White says.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dolphins-Are-Non-Human-Persons-131113.shtml
By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor
5th of January 2010, 09:20 GMT
The scientific community has finally come to a consensus regarding dolphins. Experts believe that the marine animals are the second most intelligent species on the planet after humans. The creatures are so smart and bright, that they should be referred to as non-human persons, they add. Recent research has demonstrated that their brains are similar to our own in many key features that denote high intelligence. Other tests have also shown that dolphins can learn basic language, and also that they are a lot smarter than chimpanzees. The primates have been considered for a long time the second most intelligent species, but the new work disproves that, Times Online reports.
“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size. The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions,” zoologist Lori Marino, from the Atlanta, Georgia-based Emory University, explains. The expert scanned the brains of many dolphins using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and also conducted a number of comparative tests between the brains of the marine animals and those of primates.
Previous investigations in dolphins' routines showed that each of the animals had a unique personality that was shaped by the society it lived in, exactly as was the case with humans. They also communicate with each other via a complex language, even if not articulated. They have the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror, which makes them one of a handful of species capable of doing this. Some specialists say that a fully developed dolphin can reach the level of intelligence of a three-year-old human being, which is no small feat.
The animals also have the ability to teach each other various tricks. For example, a formerly captive dolphin that was taught to tail-walk in an aquarium, was seen teaching others to do the same thing, after it was released. Needless to say, the researchers were amazed to see this happening right before their eyes. The feat denotes a high degree of intelligence, trust and cooperation on the animals' part, which is very rare to come by in species other than humans. “The scientific research […] suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” Loyola Marymount University Ethics Professor Thomas White says.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dolphins-Are-Non-Human-Persons-131113.shtml
Sharks need friends
By danielclark, YourNews contributor
Posted January 4, 2010
SEBASTIAN — Sharks - demons of the sea - or a diverse group of animals that deserves an image makeover?
Marine biologist Hannah Mead will change your perception of them in "Even Sharks Need Friends," a presentation of the Turtle Coast Sierra Club at the Library in Sebastian on Jan. 19, at 7 p.m.
Mead will show you what makes a shark a shark, and how those traits make them susceptible to overfishing. Emerging evidence suggests that the use of unsustainable fishing practices, like long lining and a profitable market for shark fins, are causing the depletion of local and global shark populations.
Mead earned dual degrees in Marine Biology and Ecology from Florida Tech. She recently returned from living in South Africa, where she earned a Master's degree in Zoology from the Marine Biology Research Institute at the University of Cape Town. All of her free time was spent at sea with white sharks, either tagging/observing them for governmental and PhD projects, or as an onboard scientist for a commercial cage diving company, promoting education and conservation among the clients.
Her free time was also spent catching shy sharks for research or cruising with the cow sharks off the Cape peninsula and the whale sharks of Mozambique. Being immersed in such a "sharky" community solidified her commitment to research, and their conservation.
Admission to this program is free and open to the public. A social hour with refreshments begins at 6:30 p.m. The North Indian River County Library is located three miles west of U.S. 1 on Sebastian Boulevard. Call (772) 589-1355 for more information.
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/jan/04/sharks-need-friends-1281/
Posted January 4, 2010
SEBASTIAN — Sharks - demons of the sea - or a diverse group of animals that deserves an image makeover?
Marine biologist Hannah Mead will change your perception of them in "Even Sharks Need Friends," a presentation of the Turtle Coast Sierra Club at the Library in Sebastian on Jan. 19, at 7 p.m.
Mead will show you what makes a shark a shark, and how those traits make them susceptible to overfishing. Emerging evidence suggests that the use of unsustainable fishing practices, like long lining and a profitable market for shark fins, are causing the depletion of local and global shark populations.
Mead earned dual degrees in Marine Biology and Ecology from Florida Tech. She recently returned from living in South Africa, where she earned a Master's degree in Zoology from the Marine Biology Research Institute at the University of Cape Town. All of her free time was spent at sea with white sharks, either tagging/observing them for governmental and PhD projects, or as an onboard scientist for a commercial cage diving company, promoting education and conservation among the clients.
Her free time was also spent catching shy sharks for research or cruising with the cow sharks off the Cape peninsula and the whale sharks of Mozambique. Being immersed in such a "sharky" community solidified her commitment to research, and their conservation.
Admission to this program is free and open to the public. A social hour with refreshments begins at 6:30 p.m. The North Indian River County Library is located three miles west of U.S. 1 on Sebastian Boulevard. Call (772) 589-1355 for more information.
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/jan/04/sharks-need-friends-1281/
Monday, 4 January 2010
Ivory Power
A forensic zoologist has devised a smart way to limit the world trade in illegal ivory. Under EU law, only antique ivory from before 1947 can be traded legally but there was no accurate way to date ivory... until now.
Dr Ross McEwing from Edinbugh Zoo has devised a technique to test for levels of the carbon 14 isotope in bones and tusks. The higher the level, the more likely it is to originate for the post-1947 era. Testing begins this summer.
Metro, 4 January 2010, p9.
Dr Ross McEwing from Edinbugh Zoo has devised a technique to test for levels of the carbon 14 isotope in bones and tusks. The higher the level, the more likely it is to originate for the post-1947 era. Testing begins this summer.
Metro, 4 January 2010, p9.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
UGC forms panel to look into dissections
Saturday, Jan 02, 2010
Special Correspondent
Animal lovers raise hue and cry
NEW DELHI: Giving animal lovers a reason to rejoice, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has set up an expert committee to look into the possibility of banning dissection of animals for zoological experiments in colleges and universities. The five-member committee will hold its first meeting on January 6. Frogs, cockroaches and earthworms are most commonly dissected species from Class X onwards in science groups. Constituted at the initiative of Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, it will suggest ways and means to switch from actual dissection of animals and insects for experiments to virtual experimentation with the help of computers.
The committee is chaired by H.A. Ranganath, Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University, and comprises S. Balasubramanian, Director of DRDO Centre for Life Sciences at Bharathiar University in Coimbatore; Sunil Chhumber of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences; Roop Lal, Department of Zoology of Delhi University; and a nominee of the Director-General of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Talking to The Hindu, Dr. Balasubramanian said: “I have some ideas which I will discuss during the meeting.”
Mr. Sibal’s initiative came after some pharmacology students drew his attention into the issue.
Animal rights activists have been raising the issue and following a hue and cry raised by them, the Ministry of Environment and Forests came up with a set of guidelines to be followed by the institutions and researchers.
http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/02/stories/2010010256910300.htm
Special Correspondent
Animal lovers raise hue and cry
NEW DELHI: Giving animal lovers a reason to rejoice, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has set up an expert committee to look into the possibility of banning dissection of animals for zoological experiments in colleges and universities. The five-member committee will hold its first meeting on January 6. Frogs, cockroaches and earthworms are most commonly dissected species from Class X onwards in science groups. Constituted at the initiative of Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, it will suggest ways and means to switch from actual dissection of animals and insects for experiments to virtual experimentation with the help of computers.
The committee is chaired by H.A. Ranganath, Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University, and comprises S. Balasubramanian, Director of DRDO Centre for Life Sciences at Bharathiar University in Coimbatore; Sunil Chhumber of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences; Roop Lal, Department of Zoology of Delhi University; and a nominee of the Director-General of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Talking to The Hindu, Dr. Balasubramanian said: “I have some ideas which I will discuss during the meeting.”
Mr. Sibal’s initiative came after some pharmacology students drew his attention into the issue.
Animal rights activists have been raising the issue and following a hue and cry raised by them, the Ministry of Environment and Forests came up with a set of guidelines to be followed by the institutions and researchers.
http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/02/stories/2010010256910300.htm
Friday, 1 January 2010
Monogamouse
Dec 30th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Genetically modified prairie voles may illuminate the human condition
LOVE, of course, is what makes the world go round, but what makes love go round? To aesthetes, such a question is imponderable. To scientists, it is not only ponderable but increasingly open to scrutiny---the more so now that Zoe Donaldson and her colleagues at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, have succeeded in creating a new kind of transgenic prairie vole. For, unlikely as it might seem, these tiny rodents could be the key to understanding bonding, trust and even decision-making in humans.
For those unfamiliar with the delightful prairie vole, it is a small rodent found in the grasslands of central North America. What makes it unusual among mammals is that it is both sociable and monogamous. Prairie voles groom each other, nest with one another, collaborate to guard their territory and are affectionate and attentive parents who form, for the most part, devoted couples. Their close relatives the
meadow voles, by contrast, prefer a solitary, promiscuous existence.
It turns out that these large behavioural differences between the two species are caused by small genetic ones. To be precise, they have been linked to a hormone called vasopressin and the protein molecule that acts as its receptor. Prairie voles have many vasopressin receptors in the reward centres of their brains. It seems as though these are wired up in a way that causes the animal to take pleasure from monogamy. In people, by contrast, certain variations of the vasopressin receptor have been linked with rocky marriages, and overenthusiastic journalists have
dubbed it the "divorce gene".
Being able to create genetic variants of prairie voles to order would therefore be helpful to research. And that, as they describe in the December issue of /Biology of Reproduction/ , is what Dr Donaldson and her team have done. Using viruses as carriers, they have introduced novel genetic material into embryonic prairie-vole cells, and then grown each modified cell into a complete animal.
In this case, to prove the point, the gene they introduced was for green fluorescent protein---a molecule derived from jellyfish. This molecule, as its name suggests, glows bright green when exposed to light of a suitable frequency. The resulting glowing prairie voles were evidence that the embryos had indeed been altered, and that the alteration had been transmitted to every cell in the vole's body, including its sex cells. The offspring of such voles will therefore carry the change as well.
Having proved the principle, Dr Donaldson--- or anybody else who wishes to---will now be able to make voles that do more than just glow in the dark. Biologists will thus be able to test theories about how behaviour is governed by the vole's various genes. This, in turn, should help explain complex social interactions seen in both rodents and people.
In some cases the monogamous rodents will, no doubt, become promiscuous. Certainly, the reverse can happen. One study has already shown that it is possible to inject a viral vector for the vasopressin receptor into the brains of the fickle meadow voles and make them better partners and parents. It may be some time before such interventions are available for human males, but women can always live in hope.
From The Economist print edition
Genetically modified prairie voles may illuminate the human condition
LOVE, of course, is what makes the world go round, but what makes love go round? To aesthetes, such a question is imponderable. To scientists, it is not only ponderable but increasingly open to scrutiny---the more so now that Zoe Donaldson and her colleagues at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, have succeeded in creating a new kind of transgenic prairie vole. For, unlikely as it might seem, these tiny rodents could be the key to understanding bonding, trust and even decision-making in humans.
For those unfamiliar with the delightful prairie vole, it is a small rodent found in the grasslands of central North America. What makes it unusual among mammals is that it is both sociable and monogamous. Prairie voles groom each other, nest with one another, collaborate to guard their territory and are affectionate and attentive parents who form, for the most part, devoted couples. Their close relatives the
meadow voles, by contrast, prefer a solitary, promiscuous existence.
It turns out that these large behavioural differences between the two species are caused by small genetic ones. To be precise, they have been linked to a hormone called vasopressin and the protein molecule that acts as its receptor. Prairie voles have many vasopressin receptors in the reward centres of their brains. It seems as though these are wired up in a way that causes the animal to take pleasure from monogamy. In people, by contrast, certain variations of the vasopressin receptor have been linked with rocky marriages, and overenthusiastic journalists have
dubbed it the "divorce gene".
Being able to create genetic variants of prairie voles to order would therefore be helpful to research. And that, as they describe in the December issue of /Biology of Reproduction/ , is what Dr Donaldson and her team have done. Using viruses as carriers, they have introduced novel genetic material into embryonic prairie-vole cells, and then grown each modified cell into a complete animal.
In this case, to prove the point, the gene they introduced was for green fluorescent protein---a molecule derived from jellyfish. This molecule, as its name suggests, glows bright green when exposed to light of a suitable frequency. The resulting glowing prairie voles were evidence that the embryos had indeed been altered, and that the alteration had been transmitted to every cell in the vole's body, including its sex cells. The offspring of such voles will therefore carry the change as well.
Having proved the principle, Dr Donaldson--- or anybody else who wishes to---will now be able to make voles that do more than just glow in the dark. Biologists will thus be able to test theories about how behaviour is governed by the vole's various genes. This, in turn, should help explain complex social interactions seen in both rodents and people.
In some cases the monogamous rodents will, no doubt, become promiscuous. Certainly, the reverse can happen. One study has already shown that it is possible to inject a viral vector for the vasopressin receptor into the brains of the fickle meadow voles and make them better partners and parents. It may be some time before such interventions are available for human males, but women can always live in hope.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Photographs capture baby panda as it tries to escape playpen
These pictures show a baby panda trying – and failing – to make a clean getaway from her playpen in the Sichuan Province, China.
Published: 8:14AM GMT 31 Dec 2009
The images of Wen Li and her twin sister Ya Li were taken at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Institute.
They show Wen Li struggling up the side of her playpen, before losing her balance and toppling over the side. Fortunately the panda cub was caught by one of her handlers before hitting the floor.
Wen Li and Ya Li were born on July 19, 2009. Just two other pandas were born at the institute in the same year, compared to 18 born in 2008.
Researches have argued that mothers at the institute were simply too “exhausted” to have any more babies.
The institute was set up 1987 with six pandas rescued from the wild. Just over two decades later it is home to 83 giant pandas, about a third of the total pandas kept in captivity in China.
They are a source of national pride in China and their dwindling numbers have become a countrywide concern. They are the rarest type of bears and, with fewer than 3,000 still in the wild, are considered to be among the world’s most endangered species.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6914996/Photographs-capture-baby-panda-as-it-tries-to-escape-playpen.html
Published: 8:14AM GMT 31 Dec 2009
The images of Wen Li and her twin sister Ya Li were taken at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Institute.
They show Wen Li struggling up the side of her playpen, before losing her balance and toppling over the side. Fortunately the panda cub was caught by one of her handlers before hitting the floor.
Wen Li and Ya Li were born on July 19, 2009. Just two other pandas were born at the institute in the same year, compared to 18 born in 2008.
Researches have argued that mothers at the institute were simply too “exhausted” to have any more babies.
The institute was set up 1987 with six pandas rescued from the wild. Just over two decades later it is home to 83 giant pandas, about a third of the total pandas kept in captivity in China.
They are a source of national pride in China and their dwindling numbers have become a countrywide concern. They are the rarest type of bears and, with fewer than 3,000 still in the wild, are considered to be among the world’s most endangered species.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6914996/Photographs-capture-baby-panda-as-it-tries-to-escape-playpen.html
Lifeguards to get texts from approaching sharks
December 31, 2009 7:52 AM
Australian lifeguards will soon get text messages when Great White sharks swim near the beaches they are patrolling.
Researchers are electronically tagging the man-eating predators with GPS units which will constantly monitor their movements.
If the sharks then get too near to a beach a satellite receiver will automatically send out emails and text messages to wildlife officials and lifeguards.
Currently 74 white sharks have been tagged and there are 20 communications-equipped monitoring stations have been installed off the Perth coast.
Bosses say they hope the network will "provide timely alerts of tagged sharks' presence close to beaches" -- obviously this is unless the lifeguard is busy playing a game on his phone at the time. Australian Department of Fisheries’ Senior Research Scientist Dr Rory McAuley said: "With more monitors installed we have improved chances of hearing from tagged sharks, when they are around.
"Although sharks are being tagged to improve our understanding of the risk of attacks, it is also important that beachgoers are advised of detections."
http://newslite.tv/2009/12/31/lifeguards-to-get-texts-from-a.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+newslite+%28news%3Alite.tv%29
Australian lifeguards will soon get text messages when Great White sharks swim near the beaches they are patrolling.
Researchers are electronically tagging the man-eating predators with GPS units which will constantly monitor their movements.
If the sharks then get too near to a beach a satellite receiver will automatically send out emails and text messages to wildlife officials and lifeguards.
Currently 74 white sharks have been tagged and there are 20 communications-equipped monitoring stations have been installed off the Perth coast.
Bosses say they hope the network will "provide timely alerts of tagged sharks' presence close to beaches" -- obviously this is unless the lifeguard is busy playing a game on his phone at the time. Australian Department of Fisheries’ Senior Research Scientist Dr Rory McAuley said: "With more monitors installed we have improved chances of hearing from tagged sharks, when they are around.
"Although sharks are being tagged to improve our understanding of the risk of attacks, it is also important that beachgoers are advised of detections."
http://newslite.tv/2009/12/31/lifeguards-to-get-texts-from-a.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+newslite+%28news%3Alite.tv%29
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