Powerful Nutrient Cocktail Can Put Kids With Crohn's Into Remission

Treating children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) usually involves the same steroids-based medication prescribed to adults. But such treatments can have negative side effects for kids and teens dealing with IBD. A researcher now promotes liquid nutrition to combat inflammatory bowel disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

3-D, Real-time X-ray Images May Be Closer To Reality

Three-dimensional, real-time X-ray images may be closer to reality. New work on a process called high-harmonic generation, or HHG. X-ray radiation can be created by focusing an optical laser into atoms of gaseous elements – usually low-electron types such as hydrogen, helium, or neon.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Early and Easy Detection Of Alzheimer's Disease?

A new diagnostic technique which may greatly simplify the detection of Alzheimer's disease has been discovered. There is currently no accepted blood test for Alzheimer's, and the diagnosis is usually based on expensive and labor-intensive neurological, neuropsychological and neuroimaging evaluations.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Hybrid System Of Human-Machine Interaction Created

Scientists have created a "hybrid" system to examine real-time interactions between humans and machines (virtual partners). By pitting human against machine, they open up the possibility of exploring and understanding a wide variety of interactions between minds and machines, and establishing the first step toward a much friendlier union of man and machine, and perhaps even creating a different kind of machine altogether.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

New Nanoparticles Could Lead To End Of Chemotherapy

Specially engineered nanoparticles could someday target and destroy tumors, sparing patients from toxic, whole-body chemotherapies.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Developmental Experiences May Explain 'Unexplained' Medical Symptoms?

A new theory on the role of developmental experiences has been described. Maternal perception of a threatening environment may be transmitted to the fetus when hormones cross the placenta and affect fetal physiology, effectively 'programming' the fetal stress response system and associated behaviors toward enhanced vigilance.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Same-sex Behavior Seen In Nearly All Animals, Review Finds

Same-sex behavior is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, common across species, from worms to frogs to birds, concludes a new review of existing research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Fossil Teeth Of Three-toed Browsing Horse Found In Panama Canal Earthworks

Rushing to salvage fossils from the Panama Canal earthworks, a paleontology intern unearthed a set of fossil teeth. Experts identified the fossil as Anchitherium clarencei, a three-toed browsing horse.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Trans Fats Hinder Multiple Steps In Blood Flow Regulation Pathways

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in processed foods contain trans fatty acids that interfere with the regulation of blood flow. A new report reveals a new way in which these "trans fats" gum up the cellular machinery that keeps blood moving through arteries and veins.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Cells Are Like Robust Computational Systems, Scientists Report

Gene regulatory networks in cell nuclei are similar to cloud computing networks, such as Google or Yahoo!, researchers report in the journal Molecular Systems Biology. The similarity is that each system keeps working despite the failure of individual components, whether they are master genes or computer processors.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Dingoes 'could help rare species'

Replenishing huge areas of Australia with dingoes would help endangered animals and could aid some farmers, researchers say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2009 | 1:42 pm

Powerful Ideas: Wii Aids Doctors and Patients

Scientists now are using Nintendo Wii to help doctors heal the body.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2009 | 1:29 pm

10 Historically Significant Political Protests (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Iran's capital of Tehran is currently mired in political protests over its recent and disputed presidential election. Most of the demonstrators are gathered in the hopes of forcing a vote recount, and they may well get it, if history is any indication.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 12:38 pm

In Japan, it's raining tadpoles ...

... and fish and frogs. Downpours that deposit dead creatures from Hiroshima to Iwate bewilder meteorologists

Japan is no stranger to heavy downpours during the early summer rainy season.

But in recent days the proverbial "cats and dogs" have been joined by tadpoles, fish and the occasional frog.

Meteorologists admit they are bewildered by a spate of incidents in which the creatures appear to have fallen from the sky. People around the country have reported witnessing the phenomenon since the first sightings of stranded tadpoles were made in Ishikawa prefecture last week.

People living as far apart as Hiroshima in the south-west and Iwate in the north-east say they have stumbled on the dead creatures near their homes, in fields, school grounds, and on car roofs and windscreens.

In Ishikawa prefecture, on the Japan Sea coast, a resident found 13 crucian carp on and around his truck, each about 3cm long.

One popular theory is that the creatures were sucked up by waterspouts but meteorologists say no strong winds have been reported in the areas where tadpoles were found. One expert said gusts too weak to be picked up by observatories might have sucked up small quantities of water, along with a few unfortunate tadpoles. Ornithologists said it was too early too rule out their feathered friends.

Kimimasa Tokikuni, head of the Ishikawa branch of the Japanese Society for the Preservation of Birds, told the Yomiuri Shimbun that bigger birds, such as herons and black-tailed gulls, might have dropped the tadpoles after being disturbed in mid-flight.

But the startled bird theory fails to answer a simple question: why haven't the "flying" tadpoles been noticed before?

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Jun 2009 | 12:37 pm

'Genius Fish' Strategizes Like Humans

The nine-spined stickleback can think and learn like we humans do, researchers find.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jun 2009 | 12:10 pm

Gas leak delays space shuttle launch for second time

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA canceled the launch of space shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday for the second time after a potentially dangerous hydrogen gas leak surfaced while the ship was being fueled for flight.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 11:32 am

Shuttle launch delayed to July by hydrogen leak (AP)

AP - For the second time in four days, a potentially dangerous hydrogen gas leak forced NASA to delay shuttle Endeavour's launch to the international space station, this time until July at the earliest.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 11:05 am

The stickleback - 'forgotten genius' of the fish world

Experts find the way fish learn could be much closer to the human way of thinking than previously thought.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2009 | 10:45 am

Dinosaur Looked, Behaved Like a Parrot

A newly-found dino resembled a parrot on steroids, but it was likely not a close relative.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jun 2009 | 10:40 am

Gas Leak Srubs Another Shuttle Launch

A hydrogen gas leak again delays Endeavour's launch until at least July.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jun 2009 | 10:20 am

Nagging leak delays NASA shuttle launch to July (AFP)

AFP - NASA deferred the launch of its shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday for the second time in less than a week due to a nagging hydrogen leak whose cause experts are struggling to figure out.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 10:05 am

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - Moderate to heavy rainfall is expected to drench much of the Midwest and Eastern United States on Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 9:53 am

2,500-year-old bird's nest found

Hundreds of generations of gyrfalcons have used the same nest site, but climate change might soon drive the birds out.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2009 | 9:01 am

Gas Leak Prevents Space Shuttle Launch Again (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Endeavour's launch plans were thwarted again early Wednesday when a hydrogen gas leak, the same glitch that stopped the spacecraft from lifting off last week, appeared for a second time.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 8:46 am

Climate change hits China's 'poor hardest' (AFP)

AFP - Climate change hits China's poor the hardest and also forces some of those lifted out of hardship back into it, activist groups Greenpeace and Oxfam said Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 8:31 am

Shuttle launch delayed until July

A fresh fuel leak forces the postponement of the space shuttle Endeavour until July at the earliest, Nasa says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2009 | 8:06 am

Boiling carrots whole boosts health benefits, researchers find

Medical properties can be enhanced if vegetables are not diced before cooking, experiments show

The medical properties of carrots – including the boost they provide to night vision, which led to them being fed to RAF pilots during the second world war – can be enhanced by the way in which they are cooked, researchers say.

Food chemists at Newcastle University have found that boiling the vegetables whole rather than slicing them up increases the supply of healthy ingredients by a quarter.

Dicing carrots – still the commonest way of cooking them in Britain – resulted in the loss of 25% of their compound falcarinol, a series of experiments using laboratory rats revealed.

The naturally occurring sugars have anti-cancer properties and also give carrots their slightly sweet taste.

Dr Kirsten Brandt, of the university's school of agriculture, food and rural development, said pre-cut carrots presented a larger surface area, allowing more falcarinol to come out.

Helped by researcher Ahlam Rashed, Brandt found that more sugar and vitamin C was also lost through slicing because more carrot cells heated up and lost their ability to keep out the boiling water.

Presenting her findings to a conference in Lille yesterday, Brandt said: "By cooking carrots whole and chopping them up afterwards, you are locking in both taste and nutrients so the carrot is better for you all round."

A blind tasting carried out by just under 100 volunteers found that 80% considered carrots cooked whole to be tastier.

"We all want to try to improve our health and diet by getting the right nutrients and eating our five a day," Brandt said.

"The great thing about this is it's a simple way for people to increase their uptake of a compound we know is good for us. All you need is a bigger saucepan."

The online World Carrot Museum has yet to add the findings to its food and recipe section, but suggests adding whole carrots to fried onions in the carrot and lentil soup in its recipe section.

Brandt's team, working with colleagues from the University of Southern Denmark, discovered the health benefits of falcarinol in a series of experiments with rats four years ago.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Jun 2009 | 7:46 am

Lifestyle May Counter Blood Pressure Genes (HealthDay)

HealthDay - TUESDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) --Being born with genes that predispose you to high blood pressure doesn't mean you're doomed to have it, a long-term study shows.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 3:49 am

No Benefit in Testing for Genes Linked to Leg Clots (HealthDay)

HealthDay - TUESDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- There's no proof that genetic testing can help prevent the potentially dangerous blood clots called deep vein thrombosis, a new U.S. government report shows.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 3:49 am

ConocoPhillips chief warns of impending oil crisis (AFP)

AFP - Government efforts to curb climate change could soon spur an oil crisis more severe than those already experienced, the head of oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips has said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 2:25 am

Fish Are Surprisingly Smart

A certain type of fish uses social learning strategies, researchers find.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2009 | 2:24 am

Fish can learn despite small brains

LONDON (Reuters) - A small fish found in streams across Europe has a human-like ability to learn, British scientists reported Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 1:27 am

Climate change is happening 'here, now': US report (AFP)

AFP - The harmful effects of global warming are being felt "here and now and in your backyard," a groundbreaking US government report on climate change has warned.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2009 | 1:04 am

High-speed 'wedge' for re-entry

A special sensor-packed wedge-shaped spacecraft is to be built in Europe to test re-entry technologies.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2009 | 12:14 am

From Sewage to Salmon, Climate Change Hitting Here and Now

The impacts of climate change are as American as Vermont maple syrup, according to the surprisingly unchanged final version of a Bush-era report on global warming within our borders, released Tuesday by the Obama administration.

Assembled by scientists from 13 federal agencies, the report represents the most comprehensive effort to detail the changes wrought by a warming Earth on the United States.

In a White House press conference Tuesday, a parade of speakers drove home the message that climate change is happening now and it’s threatening not just important infrastructure, but symbolic American industries. Rising temperatures have already pushed the center of maple production into Canada and will also hamper efforts to restore salmon populations in the Northwest.

“I really believe this report is a game changer. Much of the foot dragging is a reflection of the perception that climate change is way down the road,” said Jane Lubchenko, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “This report demonstrates and provides the concrete scientific information unequivocally that it’s happening now and in our own backyards, and it affects the things people care about.”

The report itself contained no new science. Instead, it collected and synthesized previous scientific work into a relatively slim volume (200 pages) for the public and policymakers. In contrast to the apocalyptic visions often associated with climate change, it’s the widespread mundanity of climate-linked transformation that the report highlights.

The report calls attention to specific examples of plans to adapt to climate change, like the Boston Harbor’s Deer Island sewage plant that was raised to avoid the impact of future sea-level rise. In many ways, the new assessment illustrates what hydrologists, biologists and engineers working in a variety of fields have known for years: Climate change isn’t just something showing up in computer models or Greenland.

It’s not just going to be animals and ecosystems that are impacted but human systems: roads, power production and health care.

“There is a whole transportation infrastructure that is developed on the climate of the past,” said Tom Karl, head of NOAA’s National Climactic Data Center.

While some might have expected a different kind of report under the Obama administration, Karl and a host of other scientists said political considerations didn’t play into their deliberations under either Bush or Obama.

“There was no political pressure for us to change anything in this report,” Jerry Melillo, an ecologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, told reporters. “This is about scientific integrity. and none of the authors would participate in that kind of a process.”

The document itself appears the reflect that. Only relatively minor and generally cosmetic changes were made to the Bush-era draft released in July. If anything, some of the wording was softened, as in a wording change from “tipping point,” with connotations of irreversibility, to “threshold.”

The apparent effort to cite more specific findings is also apparent in the new summaries of the reports created by the federal effort. Regional water problems are featured more prominently with specific impacts spelled out. Crop and livestock production also get a bullet point.

The findings might not have changed much, but their presentation seems designed to connect the seemingly impossibly large problem of climate change with the grounded, local experiences that scientists have observed.

And it helps, Karl said, that the levels of uncertainty around certain impacts have come down, as predicted outcomes of climate change have been observed in the field.

“In 2000, we certainly didn’t have the understanding we have today in the changes of stream flow,” Karl said. “The earlier snowmelt and the change in the alteration of stream flow would actually be observed today. That was something we expected to see in the future.”

See Also:

• Humans Halfway to Causing Dangerous Climate Change
• Climate Change Killing America’s Trees at Ever Faster Rates
• Climate Change Could Choke Oceans for 100000 Years
• Urban Sprawl, Climate Change Fueled Atlanta Tornado
• The IPCC’s Climate Change Report as Told by Dire Headlines
• U.S. and China Water Down Climate Change Report

Image: Deer Island Sewage Plant. flickr/docsearls

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and book site for The History of Our Future; Wired Science on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Jun 2009 | 11:57 pm

Op-Ed: Microbes May Be More Networked Than You Are

When we think of networks, we think of humans and the cables we’ve run around the world to connect our species. Figuring out how to move electrons has transformed human society, but we are not the only species on earth that lives in a wired world.

A few years ago, microbiologist Gemma Reguera of Michigan State University reported that a certain type of bacteria could use rust to grow electrically conductive appendages. Shortly thereafter, my lab showed that many more bacterial species also had the ability to grow nanowires. The oxygen-making cyanobacteria that “invented” photosynthesis produce conductive nanowires in response to limited amounts of carbon dioxide. Heat-loving, methane-producing consortia of microorganisms even appear to produce nanowires that connect organisms from separate domains of life.

We are slowly, yet steadily, realizing that many (perhaps most?) bacteria produce nanowires. And the extracellular structures connecting bacterial cells into complex integrated communities create a pattern that looks suspiciously like a neural network.

I believe we now stand at the edge of a new scientific frontier. The study of Electromicrobiology will certainly provide new insights into the components, reactivity and roles of bacterial nanowires. Deeper knowledge of bacterial activity is tantamount to greater knowledge of our own bodies and the Earth. A human body contains a natural complement of 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells. Prokaryotes, organisms that lack a cell nucleus like bacteria and archaea, form the majority of the Earth’s biomass and are responsible for cycling its most important nutrients.

We’re still in the early stages of this research: Only six studies have been published on bacterial nanowires, but a number of intriguing possibilities exist about what role they could play in the bacterial world.

It is already generally accepted that many species of bacteria communicate by releasing and sensing certain types of chemical signals. One of the most exciting hypotheses concerning bacterial nanowires is the possibility that they are part of another type of primitive (or advanced?) communication system. When one considers that individual cells — each with their own set integrated of metabolic reactions — are connected by electrically conductive filaments, this hypothesis is quite reasonable. The rate or frequency of electron transfer from one organism to another could reasonably serve a form of communication.

Demonstrating that bacteria can communicate using integrated neurobiological circuitry will be no easy feat, but success in this pursuit will fundamentally change our understanding of microbial physiology and ecology.

Scientists in my lab and others are still characterizing these tiny electrical appendages. We know that nanowires are composed largely of protein, but the type of proteins appears to vary from organism to organism. They can grow to be more than ten times the length of a typical bacterium and are typically 8 to 10 nanometers in diameter. Long wires like this could be used as a kind of breathing tube. The evidence suggests that nanowires can transfer electrons over distances ten times the length of an individual cell. This would allow cells to access an energy source that is relatively far away from them, but it’s still unclear whether the nanowires can be used this way.

Perhaps more importantly, understanding the strategies for efficient energy distribution and communication in the oldest organisms on the planet may serve as useful analogies of sustainability within our own species.

See Also:

• Wired Science’s Complete ‘From the Fields’ Series
• Op-Ed: Why the Elevator Floor Is So Interesting
• Op-Ed: Stop Trying to Save the Planet
• Op-Ed: What Marmots Teach Us About Terrorism
• Op-Ed: Reversing the Congressional Science Lobotomy

Image: Yuri Gorby

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Jun 2009 | 11:55 pm

'Major Tim will get into space'

New UK astronaut candidate Tim Peake will go into orbit despite a looming shortage of rides, says the European Space Agency.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jun 2009 | 11:04 pm

Alan Pickup's Spacewatch

A hydrogen fuel leak from the shuttle Endeavour meant that its launch last Saturday had to be cancelled. The flight to the International Space Station (ISS) is now scheduled to lift off at 10:40 BST today. The mission, which carries the 500th person to reach orbit, is to be a busy one with five spacewalks involving four astronauts. One of its seven crew members is also to exchange places with one of the six who now staff the ISS.

Today's shuttle launch also delays the launch of Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and its companion, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) from today until tomorrow evening UK time. LRO is to spend at least a year in a low pole-to-pole orbit about the Moon. The mission will measure the heat and other radiation from the lunar surface, provide 3-D mapping and high resolution images of potential future landing sites and the historic sites visited by the Apollo missions almost 40 years ago.

LRO will pay particular regard to cold sheltered areas near the poles where the Moon's only water may be frozen. LCROSS will watch for icy debris as the final stage of the launch rocket hits such a region near the south pole, flying through the debris plume before it too impacts only four minutes later. Observers at the Anglo-Australian telescope photographed a similar lunar impact by Japan's Kaguya probe only last Wednesday, just as others in Hawaii watched Europe's Smart 1 crash there in 2006.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm

Obituary: Max Lake

Surgeon, winemaker, writer and bon vivant

Max Lake, who has died aged 84, was not only his country's first hand surgeon, but also one of the giants of the Australian wine industry. Lake's Folly, his Hunter Valley winery, was a pioneer in two respects: for its "boutique" character, having a high reputation that made it possible for this small operation to thrive, chiefly by selling to the fans on its mailing list; and for being among the first to have a success planting both chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon when they were still novel varieties in the region.

A militant hedonist, Lake prided himself on being an all-round sensualist, someone who paid as much attention to the evidence provided by his nose and taste buds as to that proceeding from sight and sound; he loved food as much as wine, and women more than either. In 1989 the London publisher John Murray printed his first book released outside Australia, Scents and Sensuality: The Essence of Excitement. Lake wrote many books on wine and related subjects, and was an early proponent of the sort of (non-vanity) self-publishing that is beginning to flourish today.

Though a large, gruffly outspoken bear of a man, Lake was more teddy than grizzly to his friends. Though there was a coolness in his relations with Len Evans, the other celebrated wineman of the Hunter Valley, the most important wine region of New South Wales, they both exerted an enormous influence over the Australian wine scene, as winemakers, connoisseurs and judges, and both were important ambassadors for Australian wines, especially in Britain.

Max was born in the US, in Albany, upstate New York. His mother, Hannah, worked in the film industry, as did his Australian father, David, who was of Russian extraction and who had adopted the surname Lake. They went to live in Sydney, where David was the Australian sales manager for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, at a time when that involved travelling to cinemas with the reels of film. The first-born of five, Max came to regard himself as the head of the family, possibly a little resentfully, as he was pushed hard to achieve, and had to cope with what he called his mother's "mood swings".

In a 2005 TV documentary on Lake, in the series Australian Biography, Max said that when his youngest brother, Trevor, died of meningitis, his mother's ambition for him was "to find the cause of meningitis and save the world".

While studying medicine at Sydney University, Max became engaged to Joy Townsend, also a medical student, on their graduation in 1946; they married two years later. In 1953 they moved to London, where Max worked towards admission to the Royal College of Surgeons; Joy later gave up her career to look after their twins, David and Paula, born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1950, and Stephen, born when they returned to Sydney in 1955. Lake graduated top of his year in clinical surgery and was, for a time, Australia's only surgeon specialising in operating on the hand; he practised for 40 years until he gave up surgery for winemaking.

In 1960, Lake wrote, he tasted a "perfectly balanced wine with such elegance of fragrance and flavour" that he determined to discover its secret - it was a Dalwood Hunter River 1930 cabernet. He was saddened to learn that the vines had been grubbed up; however, this was the origin of his 1963 scheme for planting Lake's Folly with the world's two best-known grape varieties, not then known or grown in the Hunter Valley. The wines he made were superb, and aged brilliantly.

His son Stephen became the winemaker in 1980, until the family decided to sell the winery in 2000 and Lake began another career as a "flavourologist", trying to understand the evolution of taste, smell and flavour.

Joy died in 2007. Lake is survived by a sister, Jan, his three children, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

• Max Lake, hand surgeon, viticulturist and writer, born 24 July 1924; died 14 April 2009

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm

10 Historically Significant Political Protests

Political protests have a rich past, with varied degrees of success. Here are some of the most memorable.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 10:16 pm

Sticklebacks show human-like intelligence when searching for food

Nine-spined sticklebacks prove it's not the size of your brain that matters, it's what you do with it

They're small in size but big in mind: sticklebacks display a remarkably human-like intelligence when it comes to searching for food, according to scientists in the UK. By comparing their own experiences with the behaviour of their fellow fish, the sticklebacks are able to improve their success rate.

The discovery of this sophisticated type of social learning in sticklebacks, known as a "hill-climbing" strategy, suggests that such cognitive tricks might be more common among non-human animals than previously thought.

The study also shows that big brains like humans' might not be the only way to produce a cumulative culture within a species.

"Small fish may have small brains but they still have some surprising cognitive abilities," said Jeremy Kendal from Durham University's anthropology department. "Hill-climbing strategies are widely seen in human society whereby advances in technology are down to people choosing the best technique through social learning and improving on it, resulting in cumulative culture. But our results suggest brain size isn't everything when it comes to the capacity for social learning."

Kevin Laland of St Andrews University, who also took part in the study, said: "Nine-spined sticklebacks may be the geniuses of the fish world. It's remarkable that a form of learning found to be optimal in humans is exactly what these fish do."

In the experiment, reported in tomorrow's issue of the journal Behavioral Ecology, scientists caught 270 nine-spined sticklebacks from the Melton Brook in Leicestershire. The fish were placed in a tank with two feeders, one of which supplied a lot more food than the other, known as the "rich feeder".

The fish that learned to prefer the rich feeder were then allowed to watch their fellow fish feeding in a separate test but, this time, the two feeders had been swapped. After watching for a while, the observers were allowed to choose a feeder for themselves and around 75% were able to work out from their observations that the feeders had been switched.

Lots of animals learn from their more experienced peers to gain skills such as hunting, foraging or evading predators.

"But it is not always a recipe for success to simply copy someone," said Kendal. "Animals are often better off being selective about when and who they copy. These fish are obviously not at all closely related to humans, yet they have this human ability to only copy when the pay-off is better than their own. You might expect this ability in animals who are closely related to humans. In the case of the nine-spined stickleback, they have most likely adapted to their local ecology."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Jun 2009 | 10:15 pm

Cell Phone to Recharge with Radio Waves

Nokia's new prototype cell phone aims to harvest ambient radio waves.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 9:30 pm

Keeping an Open Mind to Animal Homosexuality

When it comes to same-sex sexual behavior, scientists need to keep an open mind.

Sure, it’s widely recognized that the animal kingdom is full of male-on-male and female-on-female action, from fruit flies on up to bottlenose dolphins and, of course, Homo sapiens.

But though the origins and evolutionary consequences of homosexuality are varied, biologists tend to oversimplify such behavior, write University of California at Riverside biologists Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk in a same-sexuality review published Tuesday in Trends in Ecology & Evoloution.

Beyond searching for mechanistics explanations in simple creatures like fruit flies — who rely on smell to recognize each other, and aren’t very good at it — biologists have focused on homosexuality as a paradox, write Bailey and Zuk. They’ve tended to explain homosexuality as an adaptation that serves to strengthen social bonds, reduce sexual competition and refine mating technique.

(A few particularly arresting examples: male dung flies are believed to mate with other males simply to occupy their time, thus denying them a chance to reproduce; small male Goodeid fishes camouflage themselves as female, and mate with females while males pursue them. And young fruit flies seem to do better at heterosexual mating once they’ve had some same-sex practice.)

Such explanations are sometimes useful, but only to a point. In the Laysan albatross, for example, where monogamy is common but females outnumber males, nearly one-third of all couples are female-female pairs. They’re better at rearing chicks than single females, and their coupling reduces the likelihood of single females luring married men from the nest.

Homosexuality benefits the Laysan albatross community at large. That’s also one possible consequence, albeit unmentioned in this study, for human homosexuality. Perhaps communities in which some non-reproducing, same-sex-preferring members devoted their energies to caring for unrelated individuals have historically been healthier than those in which heterosexuality was absolute.

See Also:

• Is Homosexuality an Evolutionary Step Towards the Superorganism?
  
• Altruism’s Bloody Roots
• Animals Get Freaky at Museum of Sex

Citation: “Same-sex sexual behavior and evolution.” By Nathan W. Bailey and Marlene Zuk. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Vol. 24, Iss. 7, July 2009.

Image: Eric VanderWerf

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reporting outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Jun 2009 | 9:17 pm

Brit Judge Denies Bloggers' Anonymity Rights

Bloggers can't hide their identities, a British judge ruled.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 9:06 pm

Storms Turn Beijing Day to Night

An ABC cameraman and a reporter "saw day turn into night as a freak storm swept across the capital."
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 7:51 pm

Bioelectricity Beats Biofuel

Biofuels such as ethanol were once thought of as planet-savers. Convert biomass to electricity.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 6:53 pm

Renewed Call to Get Antibiotics Out of Food

The dangers of antibiotic abuse in industrial-scale animal meat production are well known.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 6:25 pm

White House: Climate Change Happening Now

The Obama administration issues the strongest White House statement yet on warming.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Jun 2009 | 6:12 pm

Swine Flu Shots May Be Given at Schools

A swine flu vaccine could be administered to children in schools this fall.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Contracts give impetus to Galileo

Europe's satellite-navigation system takes a big step forward with the signing of new industrial contracts.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jun 2009 | 5:30 pm

How to Bring Back that Lovin' Feeling

Variety is more than the spice of life. Recalling variety is the key to bringing back that loving feeling for old experiences that now bore us.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 5:00 pm

Water Probe to Scope Far Side of Moon

A probe's search for lunar water is the first step in a plan to return people to the moon.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Jun 2009 | 4:20 pm

Same-Sex Behavior Found in Nearly All Animals

A new review article says that same-sex sexual behavior is almost universal in the animal kingdom
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Jun 2009 | 4:02 pm

Europe Wants Space Station Extended to 2025

The European Space Agency is working to keep the space station alive longer.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Jun 2009 | 3:30 pm

Open road

Why a new hydrogen car is going 'open source'
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jun 2009 | 3:23 pm

Thousands of bees return to Kew

Honeybees are making a comeback to Kew Gardens in London.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Jun 2009 | 2:05 pm

Australian Forests Best at Locking Up Carbon

The highest amount of carbon is found locked in an Australian mountain ash forest.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Jun 2009 | 1:14 pm

Outsmarted by a piece of string

Strings experiment shows limits of feline intelligence

It will cause outrage among some cat owners, but research suggests the pets are not as clever as some humans assumed – or at least they think in a way we have yet to fathom.

Psychology lecturer Britta Osthaus says cats do not understand cause-and-effect connections between objects. She tested the thought processes of 15 of them by attaching fish and biscuit treats to one end of a piece of string, placing them under a plastic screen to make them unreachable and then seeing if the cats could work out that pulling on the other end of the string would pull the treat closer.

They were tested in three ways, using a single baited string, two parallel strings where only one was baited, and two crossed strings where only one was baited.

The single string test proved no problem, but unlike dogs (which Osthaus has previously tested) no cat consistently chose correctly between two parallel strings. With two crossed strings, one cat always made the wrong choice and others succeeded no more than might be expected by chance.

Osthaus, of Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, said: "This finding is somehow surprising as cats regularly use their paws and claws to pull things towards them during play and hunting. They performed even worse than dogs, which can at least solve the parallel string task."

The study helped show the limits of feline intelligence, said Osthaus, who conducted the research while a teaching fellow at Exeter University. "If we know their limits we won't expect too much of them, which in turn is important for their welfare. I am not trying to say cats are stupid, just they are different. We are so anthropomorphic we can't see the world through their eyes."

There is just one consolation. Humans don't understand string theory either.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Jun 2009 | 1:08 pm