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Ticklish Apes? Young Apes Hoot Holler And Laugh In Way Similar To Human InfantsLike human infants, young apes are known to hoot and holler when you tickle them. But is it fair to say that those playful calls are really laughter? The answer to that question is yes, according to new research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Needle Biopsies Safe In 'Eloquent' Areas Of Brain, Study SuggestsScientists have concluded that performing a stereotactic needle biopsy in an area of the brain associated with language or other important functions carries no greater risk than a similar biopsy in a less critical area of the brain.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Immigrants Overcome Great Odds To Raise Children In Foreign Lands, Say ResearchersA recent surge in immigration rates has led psychologists to study how these families are coping and thriving in their adopted countries. Researchers report that close family ties are crucial for immigrants' successful transition to their new country.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Soap-sniffing Technology Encourages Hand Washing To Reduce Hospital-acquired Infections, Save MoneyUsing sensors capable of detecting drugs in breath, new technology monitors health-care workers' hand hygiene by detecting sanitizer or soap fumes given off from their hands. By reminding workers to clean their hands to remove disease-causing organisms such as the bacteria MRSA, the system could help reduce hospital-acquired infections.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Hitting Where It Hurts: Exploiting Cancer Cell 'Addiction' May Lead To New TherapiesA new study uncovers a gene expression signature that reliably identifies cancer cells whose survival is dependent on a common signaling pathway, even when the cells contain multiple other genetic abnormalities. The research identifies critical molecular vulnerabilities, thereby revealing promising therapeutic targets for a common and notoriously treatment resistant cancer.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Beating Bacteria to Prevent Post-LASIK InfectionsSince bacteria mutate frequently and become resistant to new antibiotics, ophthalmic researchers are on a continuous quest to identify the worst offenders and best treatments. Infections occur rarely in LASIK patients, but data show rates are slowly rising.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Elevated Water Temperature And Acidity Boost Growth Of Key Sea Star SpeciesElevated water temperatures and heightened concentrations of carbon dioxide can dramatically increase the growth rate of a keystone species of sea star, according to new research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm Promising Antimicrobial Attacks Virus, Stimulates Immune SystemA promising antimicrobial agent already known to kill bacteria can also kill viruses and stimulate the innate immune system, according to researchers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm Sleuths Follow Lung Stem Cells For Generations To Shed Light On HealingMore than one kind of stem cell is required to support the upkeep and repair of the lungs, according to a new study. Scientists painstakingly followed and counted genetically labeled cells in the mouse lung for over a year, under differing conditions, to learn more about natural renewal and healing processes. This information may shed light on what goes wrong in conditions like lung cancer, chronic bronchitis and asthma.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm Easily Grossed Out? You Might Be A Conservative!Are you someone who squirms when confronted with slime, shudders at stickiness or gets grossed out by gore? If so, you might be politically conservative, according to two new studies.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm Sacred plants of the Maya forestSome of Central America's rainforest's hidden treasures are revealed by the Maya, more than 1,000 years after their demise.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Jun 2009 | 10:03 am The Nation's Weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 9:19 am China: Will ensure stimulus protects environment (AP)AP - China said Friday it will strictly monitor the government's economic stimulus package for projects that cause pollution, addressing worries that officials would ignore the environment in an effort to maintain China's high economic growth rates.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 8:37 am Spacewalk begins after CO2 in spacesuits delay (AP)AP - Two international space station crew members began a spacewalk Friday, despite initial concerns about high carbon dioxide levels in their redesigned Russian space suits.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 8:34 am Scientists find more dinosaur bones at Utah quarry (AP)AP - Scientists at one of Utah's major new dinosaur quarries have found 60 to 70 new bones this spring, including what appears to be a 20-foot-long neck bone discovered this week.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 8:19 am China considering environmental tax: govt (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 7:05 am Glitch Forces Mars Orbiter to Reboot Main Computer (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has unexpectedly rebooted its main computer and entered a protective safe mode after being hit by stray cosmic ray or solar particle as while circling the red planet.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 4:47 am Can We Count on Native Bees to Replace Honeybees?
Counting sheep might put you to sleep, but counting bees is exciting work, say the ecologists organizing a nationwide citizen science project to survey the nation’s bees. More than 65,000 Americans have signed up to plant sunflowers and watch the bees that come to them as part of the Great Sunflower Project, which was masterminded by San Francisco State University biologist Gretchen LeBeun. Over the last month, participants in the project received a packet of Queen Lemon sunflower seeds from LeBeun, and the first bee sightings are beginning to trickle in from around the country. “What you do is you stand out there and you time how long it takes for five bees to visit,” LeBeun said, up to thirty minutes. Then watchers report their results on the website or by mail. Soon participants will be able to upload time-stamped digital photographs to vouch for their observations.
The problem with falling honey bee numbers is there are fewer pollinators out there ensuring that plants bear fruit. That could be a big problem for agriculture, but the relationship between colony collapse disorder and actual pollination levels still needs clarification. “There has been a lot of data on how many bees have been lost, but there hasn’t been any data out there on what effect there has been on pollination,” LeBeun said. “We could learn something interesting about whether colony collapse is having an effect on pollinator service.”
Native bee species do a lot of pollinating too, and it’s possible they could pick up at least some of the slack in the wake of colony collapse disorder. “There have been some studies that show that where you don’t have honey bees, if you have enough habitat for regular bees, they are able to provide full pollinator service for some crops,” she said. The number of native bee species is large and they continue to survive and even thrive in the densest urban areas. The Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City runs a Great Sunflower-affiliated program called the Great Pollinator Project. They’ve had hundreds of people volunteer to help survey the bee population of New York — and they’ve found it’s humming. “Monitoring by everyday New Yorkers helps scientists understand how honey bees and the other 220-plus bee species are doing in NYC and how their populations might change in the future,” said Liz Johnson, the manager of the metropolitan diversity program at the museum. Last year should have been a banner year for LeBeun’s program. She had tens of thousands of people sign up to receive sunflower seeds, but they had a tragically low germination rate. That prevented her from achieving the kind of data depth and breadth that she wanted. Still, she was able to get a sampling that covered the nation (as you can see in the map above). This year, the seeds are sprouting normally and she expects a torrent of data to begin flowing in her direction within the next couple weeks. See Also:
Image: flickr/DavidWatson WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and book site for The History of Our Future; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am Gay Penguins Rear a ChickThe hatched chick is doing well, and the fathers are both happier.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Jun 2009 | 1:17 am Feds release Calif. plan to protect chinook salmon (AP)AP - Federal regulators on Thursday released a court-ordered plan to help struggling chinook salmon that includes opening California dams and restricting pumping, prompting howls of protest from state officials because it will further reduce the amount of water available to farms and urban areas.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jun 2009 | 12:31 am Analyst says new North Korean missile pad is ready (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 11:19 pm Mars orbiter enters safe mode after disturbance (AP)AP - NASA says its powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in safe mode after being hit by a cosmic ray or solar particle.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 11:09 pm Obituary: Gerald MannersEminent geographer with a practical insight into the real world Gerald Manners, who has died of cancer at the age of 76, earned distinction in three areas: as a talented geographer, an adviser to government and as chairman of several major charitable bodies. Throughout his career he demonstrated that scholarship could be applied to real-world challenges of spatial planning, exploitation of resources and environmental conservation. Early on, as a teacher and researcher at University College, Swansea (1957-67), he demonstrated that economic geography need not be a merely descriptive subject, but could provide practical insights into the economic forces creating regional growth or decline. The Geography of Energy (1964) broke new ground, explaining spatial patterns of development affecting, for example, the prospects of the British coal industry. South Wales in the Sixties (also 1964) also offered a forum for politicians and civil servants, as well as academics, to air their views on how this "problem region" might face the future with optimism. Inspired by the géographie active of Jean Labasse in France, this kind of applied geography required media exposure, and Manners argued his case persuasively to the public. In 1967 he moved to University College London, first as reader in geography, then as professor (1980) and professor emeritus (1997). The "French connection" was continued when his family moved into Rodinghead - Charles de Gaulle's residence near Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, during the second world war - and Manners acquired a large Citroën that also greatly impressed younger colleagues. He now faced the challenges of accommodating growth in the south-east. Already an energetic member of the Town and Country Planning Association and the Regional Studies Association, he served on the South East Economic Planning Council in the 1970s, and helped prepare evidence to ministers and the select committees on such matters as the Greater London development plan, Docklands development, London's airports and the Channel tunnel. He was especially active in the Location of Offices Bureau, which sought to steer office work out of the capital to other regions. As a thought-provoking lecturer, displaying an awesome grasp of detail with minimal notes, Manners stimulated generations of students. The collectively edited book Regional Development in Britain (1972) became a bestseller. His inaugural lecture as professor, in 1981, Regional Policies and the National Interest, came at a pivotal moment, since Margaret Thatcher and her advisers had by then abolished the economic planning councils, and the style of planning they represented. The demise of regional planning did not defeat Manners. In 1964, he had spent a year at Resources for the Future, in Washington, and his pioneering study The Changing World Market for Iron Ore (1971) had built on that experience. This revealed his grasp of global commodity markets and his dual expertise in geography and economics. Back in Britain, the future of the coal industry offered a new focus for his attention. He wrote Coal in Britain: an Uncertain Future (1981), as well as a shoal of academic papers, and served as a specialist adviser to the Commons energy committee (1980-92). Later, as new political imperatives emerged, he advised the Lords select committee on sustainable development, and the Commons on environmental audit. In 1977, UCL nominated him as a university trustee of the charitable City Parochial Foundation. He represented the CPF on various bodies, especially the Sadler's Wells foundation, with which he was involved for 17 years, including nine as chairman of the board. Faced with cuts and the challenge of working in an inadequate building, he vigorously argued the case of Sadler's Wells to the Arts Council and ministers. As he stood down as chairman in 1995, he was delighted to learn that the theatre would benefit from one of the first redevelopment projects funded by the Millennium Lottery Fund. In the following year, Manners was elected chairman of the CPF and its associated Trust for London. In 2004, he became chairman of the Association of Charitable Foundations. His knowledge of energy matters was brought to bear on his 17-year trusteeship of the Eaga Partnerships Charitable Trust, concerned with fuel poverty. After 2000, he advised the investment committee of St Paul's cathedral, and in 2005 he was appointed OBE for his services to charitable organisations. Manners was born in County Durham to a family with strong connections to coal and lead mining. His father was a civil servant, and the family was soon relocated to London. Manners was educated at Wallington county grammar school for boys, Surrey, and in 1951, went to read geography at St Catharine's College, Cambridge - the first in his family to attend university. He performed in the Cambridge Footlights in 1952 and graduated with a first. Never afraid of controversy, he was none the less a perceptive, kind and generous man, always gentlemanly in his dealings. He is survived by his second wife, Joy, their son, and by three children from his first marriage. • Gerald Manners, geographer, born 7 August 1932; died 16 February 2009 guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm U.S. judge recommends returning treasure to SpainMIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. judge said a shipwreck found by an American treasure hunting company is the Spanish warship Mercedes and its loot should be returned to Spain, but the firm said on Thursday it would contest the non-binding decision.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 10:25 pm Atlantic Hurricane Season 2009 (weather.com)weather.com -Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 10:05 pm Conservatives Are More Easily DisgustedThe squeamish are more likely to be conservative in attitudes about gays and lesbians.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 9:34 pm Cirque du Soleil owner to travel into spaceMOSCOW (Reuters) - The Canadian billionaire owner of Cirque du Soleil said on Thursday he would realize a boyhood dream when he blasts off into space on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in September.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 8:33 pm Body Part Loss in Fish Yields SurpriseWhen two species evolved and lost their pelvises, the changes were caused by different genes.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 8:21 pm Peru finds human sacrifices from Inca civilizationLIMA (Reuters) - Researchers at an archeological site in northern Peru have made an unusually large discovery of nearly three dozen people sacrificed some 600 years ago by the Incan civilization.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 8:20 pm Pigs an underestimated source of flu: studyWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global health officials underestimated the risk that pig herds might be a source of new influenza strains, choosing instead to focus on the threat of bird flu, researchers in Mexico said on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 8:11 pm Plane Vanished in Ferocious Storm ZoneThe area where Air France Flight 447 went down gives rise to Earth's strongest storms.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Jun 2009 | 7:32 pm Do Dinosaurs Still Exist?The idea of still-living dinosaurs has captured the public imagination for well over a century.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 6:50 pm Why White Men Get Paid MoreCustomers prefer them, and managers frequently hire and set pay based on customer preferences.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 6:24 pm 'Impossibly Perfect' Crystals Found in NaturePart glass, part crystal complex structures are found for the first time in nature.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Jun 2009 | 6:10 pm Party Animals: Early Human Culture Thrived in CrowdsIncreases in population density led to modern human behavior.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Altruism’s Bloody Roots
By favoring acts of battlefield selflessness, Stone Age warfare might have accelerated the development of altruism. A computer model of cultural evolution and between-group competition primed with data taken from studies of mankind’s hyperviolent early years suggests a bloody origin for a celebrated modern behavior. “Altruism will be strongly favored if it leads groups to win wars,” said Sam Bowles, a Santa Fe Institute economist and institutional theorist, and author of the study, published Thursday in Science. “That would counteract the way that selfish individuals usually dominate the altruistic ones in their groups.” That the ability to put others’ well-being ahead of one’s own could have such brutal origins seems counterintuitive. Then again, so is altruism. Genes are supposed to be selfish, not self-sacrificing.
 Cultural Complexity as Function of Networks, Not Biology The first anatomically modern humans appeared about 200,000 years ago, but it took another 100,000 years for abstract art, instrumental music, sophisticated hunting techniques and other modern behaviors to emerge.
Those behaviors arose first in Africa and appear to have disappeared 25,000 years later, only to re-emerge 40,000 years ago, about the same time as the first evidence of modern culture shows up in Europe. It took another 20,000 years for modern behaviors to show up in northern Asia. This chronologically and geographically staggered evolution of cultural complexity is one of the great mysteries of anthropology. Some scientists have suggested that modernity required a genetically based change in our cognitive powers. That’s possible, but there’s no evidence for it in the fossil record. The requisite mutations would have had to evolve at multiple times in different places — again possible, but complicated and speculative. Other researchers posit a social as well as biological change. Communities of growing size and complexity may have favored more sophisticated linguistic communication, which strengthened human minds and provided a cognitive framework for modern behaviors. In a paper published Thursday in Science, archaeologists have proposed another demographic explanation: population density. With enough people in a given area, the transfer of skills and knowledge between individuals and groups could have been sustained and eventually reached a critical point, rather than petering out in isolated pockets. Using a Stone Age-customized version of a cultural evolution model developed by University of British Columbia anthropologist Joe Henrich, researchers have shown that the population density of humans when modern behaviors emerged in Europe would have been ideal for spreading and maintaining modern skills. The researchers then showed that population densities were similar in northern Asia and Africa when modernity appeared. “We’ve probably had the same cognitive capacity from the time of our species’ origin,” said study co-author Adam Powell, a University College London anthropologist. “This model demonstrates that you don’t need to invoke regional genetic change.” Indeed, nearly every non-human example of altruism in the animal world can be explained in terms of kin selection, with individuals sacrificing themselves for genetically similar relatives. Only humans routinely care for total strangers, with no expectation of reward. Such behaviors might be explained as particularly complex forms of self-interest, with apparent altruism actually satisfying social demands or gratifying a conscience weaned on generosity. But even so, they require some initial spark of altruistic possibility. How that came to be is a mystery. In addition to its animal rarity, altruism fares poorly in computer simulations of group interaction. When altruistic individuals emerge in a community characterized by self-interested behavior, selfishness triumphs. Freeloaders fare better than cooperators. The original spark seems doomed — unless, perhaps, something else can coax that spark to life. One plausible candidate is the evolutionary dynamics of combat between small groups, which appears to have been a fundamental part of life for most of human history. “The selfish gain on the altruistic, but once in a while, the groups composed of selfish guys get clobbered in competition with groups that have altruistic individuals,” Bowles said. Bowles is hardly the first researcher to propose such a system. In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote that social virtues could spread when evolution favored groups “with a greater number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members,” who at times of conflict would readily “aid and defend each other.” Despite its pedigree, however, that idea has received little formal attention, in part because it was assumed that altruism would have genetic roots, and that the genetic differences between competing Stone Age groups were insignificant. But as Bowles showed in 2006, genetic analyses of tribes still living a Stone Age life suggests there was enough variation to make group competition a driver of genetic change. And should cultural memes be more important than genes in producing altruistic behavior, then Bowles’ proposed dynamics still apply. According to his analysis of archaeological evidence from Stone Age sites and and ethnographic studies of remaining tribes, combat between groups accounted for about 14 percent of all deaths in hunter-gatherer societies. Composed of a few dozen people with no social institutions, such groups were the dominant community form for most of human history. “These were not modern societies. As with chimpanzees going out on patrol, there was no leadership. You could stay home if you wanted,” said Bowles. After estimating the rate that altruism would reduce an individual’s chances of reproducing, Bowles plugged the numbers into a model of intergroup competition where an individual’s altruism would also improve a group’s chances of combat triumph. Groups with selfless individuals eventually predominated, and altruism predominated within those groups. “Lethal hostility toward other groups could thus underpin cooperation and support within human communities,” writes Ruth Mace, a University College London anthropologist who was not involved in the study, in a commentary accompanying the findings. Asked whether the willingness to participate in battle might be taken for fear of within-group punishment, Bowles said that merely “displaced the question.” “I might hope that someone would punish you, but why should I do it? You might hit back. The idea that I can exert order on you presupposes the idea that someone is altruistic,” he said. A great many assumptions are of course involved in Bowles’ calculations, and other rewards, such as immediate access to the spoils of battle, may outweigh the risks of an apparently selfless decision to fight. But the dynamics are at least plausible. “There are many alternative explanations possible,” notes Ruth, but the findings put the hypothesis “firmly up the list of possibilities to be taken seriously.” See Also:
Citations: “Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?” By Samuel Bowles. Science, Vol. 324 Issue 5932, May 5, 2009. “Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior.” By Adam Powell, Stephen Shennan, Mark G. Thomas. Science, Vol. 324 Issue 5932, May 5, 2009. “On Becoming Modern.” By Ruth Mace. Science, Vol. 324 Issue 5932, May 5, 2009. Images: 1) Mary Jackes/University of Waterloo. 2) Science WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; @WiredScience on Twitter.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Monkey See, Monkey StealCapuchin monkeys make fake predator calls, then steal food left by those who scattered.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 5:22 pm Tickled apes yield laughter clueResearch carried out by tickling apes and infants suggests laughter evolved in a common ancestor of great apes and humans.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:56 pm Cirque du Soleil Founder Headed to Space
The fire-breathing founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberté, aims to become the first Canadian space tourist. He hopes to visit the International Space Station for twelve days in September, thanks to arrangements made with the Russian government by Space Adventures, a private company that provides training and services for aspiring cosmonauts. “I have been described as many things throughout my 25 years with Cirque du Soleil. Fire-breather, entrepreneur, street smart, creative,” said Laliberté in a press release. “I am honored and humbled today with my new description: humanitarian space explorer.” He claims that the purpose of his trip is to raise awareness of water issues on Earth, and calls it the first poetic social mission to space. Several of the obscenely rich people who have made a journey to the orbiting laboratory have claimed to have a serious purpose. Anousheh Ansari, who made a fortune in the telecommunications industry, wrote a blog while visiting the ISS in 2006 and conducted physiology experiments for the European Space Agency. Video game designer Richard Garriott sent ham radio signals from the spacecraft, led educational outreach activities, took photographs, and conducted protein crystallization experiments. Laliberté started the One Drop Foundation in 2007, with the aim of fighting poverty by increasing sustainably increasing access to drinking water. But even if his trip does not raise awareness of water problems on Earth, it will be a great promotion for Cirque du Soleil, which will appear in Russia for the first time this year. Photo: Luis Barreto / flickr See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:42 pm Mammoth Skeleton Unearthed in SerbiaA well-preserved mammoth skeleton believed to be one million years old was discovered.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:10 pm NASA to invite"twedia" to launchCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA, which has tiptoed into the new world of social media with Twittering astronauts and Facebooking rovers, is taking the next step with an invitation-only outreach to "the twedia" to cover a space shuttle launch.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:08 pm Pre-Human Giggles: Laughter Goes Back 10 Million YearsLaughter can be traced to back to the last common ancestor of humans and great apes.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:04 pm Fuzzy Memories of Tiananmen SquareMemories get fuzzy. Do you remember much of the detail about the protest?Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:03 pm Human Laughter Echoes Chimp Chuckles
Scientists have known that great apes vocalize when tickled at least since Charles Darwin’s time. But it was unclear whether these sounds were actually related to human laughter. Now, researchers at the University of Hannover in Germany have concluded that laughter has been evolving in primates over the last 10 to 16 million years, since at least the last common ancestor of humans and modern great apes. “The vocalizations of non-human primates were presumed to be panting and thus dissimilar to human laughter,” said psychologist and lead author Maria Davila Ross. In addition to acoustic differences, humans and other primates produce the sounds in different ways: humans laugh primarily on the exhale, while our fellow primates’ tickle-induced pants flow in and out. These distinctions made it difficult to figure out whether laughter originated before humans, Davila Ross said. Laughter is a key component of social interaction in humans. Humans are 30 times more likely to laugh when in the company of other humans than not, and tickling is inherently social — no animal is capable of tickling itself. Understanding the origins of laughter can also lend insight to the evolution of language, as both behaviors involve breath control and vocal cord vibrations. “Laughter serves as an emotional contagion,” said biologist Jared Taglialatela at Clayton Sate University. “It serves as a way of getting everyone on the same page. Secondly, it serves as a way for individuals to inform their social partners about their intentions, as well as provide information and feedback about their own emotional state.”
In other words, the laughter continuously tells an animal’s playmates that he is happy and merely fooling around, with no intention of picking a fight. This type of play builds social bonds in many mammals, including other primates and mammals like dogs and rats, which are also thought to emit sounds while being tickled. To explore the origins of laughter, Davila Ross and her colleagues tickled infant and juvenile humans, orangutans, chimps, gorillas and bonobos — all great apes — in the armpits or on the palms, feet or necks. These areas are thought to be most ticklish because they are either rarely touched, or are usually in contact with a broad surface. Davila Ross recorded the baby animals as they hooted and squirmed. While the acoustics were different between all species, Davila Ross found that when she mapped the variability onto a phylogenetic tree, it lined up with the primates’ well-established genetic relationships. The closely related chimpanzees and bonobos, for example, had laughs that were more similar to each other’s than to those of gorillas and orangutans, their more distant cousins. The laughter of human babies showed the greatest aberration from that of all other apes, although it was more similar to chimps and bonobos, which are closer on the evolutionary tree. The features of human laughter that most distinguished it from that of the other apes were the regular vibration of the vocal cords (producing the loud guffaws and ‘ha has’) and dominance of exhaling, both of which are dependent on superior breath control. But even these elements could have originated in the other great apes. Davila Ross discovered that orangutans and gorillas were both able to extend their exhalations to three to four times longer than a normal breath, and that bonobo laughter involved vibrations of the vocal cords. Previous work also found vocal cord vibrations during chimp laughter. “It is not simply that there are characteristics that arose de novo in humans,” said Taglialatela. “Rather, there is continuity in what apes do, and in what humans do.” Davila Ross says the differences between these laughs might be due to anatomical differences, as a side-product of speech evolution, for example. But there may also be functional explanations. Unlike other apes, humans can laugh without any contact or threat of contact, as their “play” is often cognitive or linguistic. Because a playmate need not be in reach of an armpit, laughter may require an extra boost from the lungs and vocal cords to reach a companion’s ears. Videos of juvenile orangutan and adolescent gorilla being tickled: Citation: Davila Ross et al., Reconstructing the Evolution of Laughter in Great Apes and Humans, Current Biology, Vol 19, Issue 11 (2009). See Also:
Images: Miriam Wessels, University of Veterinary Medicine/Hannover Videos: Maria Davila Ross (orangutan and gorilla); Dmitry Sergeyev (slow loris) Follow @WiredScience on Twitter.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:01 pm Laughing ApesWhen tickled, a juvenile orangutan and an adolescent gorilla make laughter sounds.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:00 pm Captured on camera: 50 years of climate change in the HimalayasSeries of before and after panoramas of Imja glacier taken five decades apart highlights dramatic reduction of Himalayan ice When Fritz Müller and Erwin Schneider battled ice storms, altitude sickness and snow blindness in the 1950s to map, measure and photograph the Imja glacier in the Himalayas, they could never have foreseen that the gigantic tongue of millennia-old glacial ice would be reduced to a lake within 50 years. But half a century later, American mountain geographer Alton Byers returned to the precise locations of the original pictures and replicated 40 panoramas taken by explorers Müller and Schneider. Placed together, the juxtaposed images are not only visually stunning but also of significant scientific value. The photos have now been united for the first time in an exhibition organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Icimod) and are printed here for the first time in Britain. The Himalaya – Changing Landscapes exhibition opened in Bonn this week as delegates gathered ifor the next round of UN talks aimed at delivering a global deal on tackling global warming. The series of pictures tell a story not only about the dramatic reductions in glacial ice in the Himalayas, but also the effects of climate change on the people who live there. "Only five decades have passed between the old and the new photographs and the changes are dramatic," says Byers. "Many small glaciers at low altitudes have disappeared entirely and many larger ones have lost around half of their volume. Some have formed huge glacial lakes at the foot of the glacier, threatening downstream communities in case of an outburst." His scientific results were published in the Himalayan Journal of Sciences and he is now in the Cordillera Blanca mountains in Peru where he will replicate Schneider's 1930 photos of glaciers. "Much remains uncertain about the melting of glaciers and future water supplies," he said. "But what is certain is that by promoting the conservation and restoration of mountain watersheds we can counter many of the impacts of warming trends, by creating cooler environments, saving biodiversity and protecting water supplies." The effects of climate change are dramatically illustrated at the world's "third pole", so-called because the mountain range locks away the highest volume of frozen water after the north and south poles. The 1956 photograph of the Imja glacier, then one of the largest glaciers at an altitude of around 5,000m, shows a layer of thick ice with small meltwater ponds. But by the time Byers took his shot in 2007, much of the glacier had melted into a vast but stunning blue lake. Today, the Imja glacier, which is just 6km from Everest, continues to recede at a rate of 74m a year - the fastest rate of all the Himayalan glaciers. Nepal's average temperature has increased by 1.5C since 1975 . A major UN Environment Programme report last year warned that at current rates of global warming, the Himalayan glaciers could shrink from 500,000 square kilometres to 100,000 square kilometres by the 2030s - a prediction supported by the rate of retreat seen in Byers' pictures. Imja is one of 27 glacial lakes in Nepal classified as potentially dangerous. If the moraines which dam the lake are breached, thousands of lives in the most densely populated Sherpa valley in Nepal are at risk from flooding and landslides. Himalayan glaciers also feed into major Asian river systems including the Ganges, Indus, Mekong and Yangtze. If glacial meltwaters turn to a trickle, widespread droughts will threaten the 1.3 billion people that depend on water flowing in those rivers . Andreas Schild, the director general of Icimod, said the photographs reveal just "the tip of the iceberg". "Scientific evidence shows that the effects of globalisation and climate change are being felt in even the most remote Himalayan environments," he said. "While climate change is mostly caused by the highly industrialised parts of the world, the effects are taking their toll in the sensitive mountain areas. The signs are visible, but the in-depth knowledge and data from the Himalayan region is largely missing. What happens in this remote mountain region is a serious concern for the whole world." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:00 pm Chimps, Other Apes Laugh Like PeopleChimps and other primates laugh the way we do, research finds.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Jun 2009 | 4:00 pm Mumps cases rising in parts of Europe: expertsLONDON (Reuters) - Mumps has made a resurgence in parts of Europe in the past year with outbreaks in Britain, the Balkans and Moldova, health experts said Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 3:31 pm New approaches lower aneurysm risk: studyLONDON (Reuters) - Better diagnosis and treatment over the last 30 years have considerably reduced the risk of dying from a highly fatal type of aneurysm, Dutch scientists reported on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 3:28 pm Apes have been laughing for 10m yearsStudy that involved tickling apes suggests laughter is not a uniquely human trait after all The first hoots of laughter from an ancient ancestor of humans rippled across the land at least 10 million years ago, according to a study of giggling primates. Researchers used recordings of apes and babies being tickled to trace the origins of laughter back to the last common ancestor that humans shared with the modern great apes, which include chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans. The finding challenges the view that laughter is a uniquely human trait, suggesting instead that it emerged long before humans split from the evolutionary path that led to our primate cousins, between 10m and 16m years ago. "In humans, laughing is a complex and intriguing expression. It can be the strongest way of expressing how much we are enjoying ourselves, but it can also be used in other contexts, like mocking," said Marina Davila Ross, a psychologist at Portsmouth University. "I was interested in whether laughing had a pre-human basis, whether it emerged earlier on than we did." Davila Ross travelled to seven zoos around Europe and visited a wildlife reserve in Sabah, Borneo, to record baby and juvenile apes while their caretakers tickled them. Great apes are known to make noises that are similar to laughter when they are excited and while they are playing with each other. "The caretakers play with the apes all the time and tickling is a very important part of that. There are certain body parts that are more ticklish than others, depending on the individual. Some were tickled on their necks or armpits, while others offered their feet to be tickled," said Davila Ross. In total, Davila Ross collected recordings of mirth from 21 chimps, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos and added recordings of three babies that were tickled to make them laugh. To analyse the recordings, the team fed them into a computer program that arranged them on an "evolutionary tree" based on how related to each other they seemed to be. Remarkably, the laughter recorded from different primates linked together in a way that matched the evolutionary tree linking all of the species to one common ancestor. "Our evolutionary tree based on these acoustic recordings alone showed that humans were closest to chimps and bonobos, but furthest from orang-utans, with gorillas somewhere intermediate. And that is what you see in the well-established evolutionary tree of great apes," said Davila Ross. "What this shows is strong evidence to suggest that laughing comes from a common primate ancestor." Human laughter sounds very different from the noises produced by great apes. The differences are thought to have arisen when certain acoustic features became exaggerated in early humans after they split from ancestors they shared with chimps and bonobos around 5.5m years ago. Humans laugh as they exhale, but chimps can laugh as they breathe in as well. The human laugh is also produced by more regular vibrations of the vocal cords than in any of the apes. Few studies have been carried out into the role of laughter in primates, but at least one study has suggested that it is important in expressing excitement and arousal. Laughing might also have been important for bonding within groups of animals. Robert Provine, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Maryland and author of the book Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, said students who took part in his own studies likened chimp "laughter" to a dog panting, an asthma attack or hyperventilation. Some even thought the noise was caused by someone sawing. "The means of production of human and ape laughter are as different as the sound, with the ape vocalisation being produced during both inward and outward breaths, while the human parse an outward breath into 'ha-ha'," he said. "The simplicity and stereotypy of laughter provides a valuble tool with which to trace vocal evolution, much as simpler systems of molecular biology are useful for investigating complex life processes," he added. In March, reseachers reported that a chimp at a zoo in Sweden had started to challenge scientists' views about the unique nature of human behaviour. The 31-year-old male, Santino, regularly displayed thuggish behaviour by preparing piles of rocks while the zoo was closed and then lobbing them at visitors when the gates opened. The chimp has since been castrated. Zookeepers at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC have reported another human trait in one of its long-time residents, Bonnie, a 30-year-old orang-utan. Researchers believe Bonnie learned to whistle by copying the zookeepers. Although she is unable to hold a tune, other apes at the zoo have reportedly begun copying her. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jun 2009 | 3:26 pm Sedatives may increase elderly suicide risk: studyLONDON (Reuters) - Sedatives and sleeping pills prescribed to ease depression, anxiety and sleep problems appear to increase the risk of suicide four-fold among the elderly, Swedish researchers said on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 3:26 pm NASA clears space shuttle for June 13 launchCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA managers cleared the space shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday for a June 13 launch on a mission to outfit the International Space Station with a Japanese-built outdoor porch for science experiments.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 3:24 pm Pacific islands seek low-cost storm protectionBONN, Germany (Reuters) - Pacific islands are trying low-cost ways to protect crops and coasts from cyclones that are a bigger threat -- for now -- than rising sea levels that could wipe low-lying nations off the map.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jun 2009 | 3:20 pm “Missing Link” Could Add Mediterranean Chapter to Story of Human Evolution
The skull possesses a combination of primitive features previously unseen in a primate, along with a flat, anatomically modern face — the earliest such face in the fossil record. These characteristics qualified it as the founding member of a new genus and species, Anoiapithecus brevirostris. The findings, described Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follow in the wake of Ida, a fossil lemur whose made-for-TV hype far outpaced its scientific value. But A. brevirostris, despite its lack of fanfare, may be far more significant. According to the Catalan Institute of Paleontology researchers who found the skull, A. brevirostris represents the last common ancestor of humans and the other great apes. Only more fossils and years of study will reveal if that bold statement is true. If so, then our evolutionary history is rooted in a primate lineage that arose in Africa, wandered into Eurasia, and then went back to Africa before returning to Eurasia in modern human form. The “Out of Africa” theory, which postulates a tidy, totally African origin for modern humans and is a near-consensus position among scientists, would go out the window. See Also: Citation: “A unique Middle Miocene European hominoid and the origins of the great ape and human clade Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.” By Moya-Sola, S., Alba, D., Almecija, S., Casanovas-Vilar, I., Kohler, M., De Esteban-Trivigno, S., Robles, J., Galindo, J., & Fortuny, J. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 22, June 1, 2009. Images: 1. PNAS 2. Autonomous University of Barcelona Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Jun 2009 | 2:22 pm Circus chief to be space touristThe founder of Cirque du Soleil, the circus performance group, is set to become Canada's first space tourist in September.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jun 2009 | 1:42 pm Urine, Fingernail-Filled 'Witch Bottle' FoundA urine-filled "witch bottle" designed to ward off spells is unearthed.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Jun 2009 | 1:15 pm Huge Waves Detected in AtmosphereRadar detects giant, fast-moving atmospheric waves over Alaska.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Jun 2009 | 12:10 pm Sir David Attenborough: 'There should be a morality about living'Sir David talks about the changes in public attitudes to wasting energy and the prospects for mitigating climate change
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jun 2009 | 9:26 am
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It didn’t have a TV special, book deal or media-friendly pimping from the mayor of New York City, but a 12 million-year-old skull recently unearthed in Spain just might end up actually deserving the label of “missing link.”