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New science + good writing = Not Exactly Rocket Science. Articles on new discoveries written so that anyone can understand them.
Ed Yong
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- September 30, 2008
- 11:00 AM
- 2,350 views
Robo-starfish learns about itself and adapts to injuries
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
I am walking strangely. About a week ago, I pulled something to my left ankle, which now hurts during the part of each step just before the foot leaves the ground. As a result, my other muscles are compensating for this to minimise the pain and my gait has shifted to something subtly different from the norm. In similar ways, all animal brains can compensate for injuries by computing new ways of moving that are often very different. This isn't a conscious process and as such, we often take it for granted.
But we can get a sense of how hard it actually is by trying to program a robot to do the same thing. It's far from straightforward. Robots have been used for years to perform structured, repetitive tasks and as engineering has advanced, their movements have become more life-like and more stable. But they still have severe limitations, not the least of which is inflexibility in the face of injury or changes to their body shape. If a robot's leg falls off, it becomes as useful as so much scrap metal.
So for robots, adaptiveness is a desirable virtue, especially if they are to be used in the field. Modern bots can independently develop complex behaviours without any previous programming but usually, this requires trial and error and lots of time. But not always. Josh Bongard and colleagues at Cornell University have developed an adaptable bot that's programmed to continuously assesses its body structure and develop new ways of moving if anything changes.
It differs from other models in that it has no built-in redundancy plans, no strategies for dealing with anticipated problems. It's simply programmed to examine itself and adapt accordingly. The concept of a robot that can adapt to new situations is often the precursor to nightmare scenarios in many a science-fiction film. So it is fortunate that Bongard's robot isn't armed or threatening, but instead looks more like a four-armed starfish.
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J. Bongard, V. Zykov, & H. Lipson. (2006) Resilient Machines Through Continuous Self-Modeling. Science, 314(5802), 1118-1121. DOI: 10.1126/science.1133687
- September 1, 2008
- 09:00 AM
- 2,331 views
European genes mirror European geography
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Within a drop of blood, you can find all the information you need to reasonably guess where a person came from, without ever having to look at their face, name or passport. Small variations in our DNA are enough for the task. They can be used to pinpoint someone's place of origin to a remarkable degree of accuracy, often to within a few hundred kilometres.
The new discovery comes from a team of Swiss and American researchers led by John Novembre at UCLA, who wanted to understand how the human genome varies on a continental scale. To that end, they looked at the genomes of over 1.300 people sampled from almost three dozen countries across Europe. The sample was originally collected by GlaxoSmithKline to hunt out genetic variations that influence the effectiveness of drugs and their side effects, but Novembre's team put it to use in understanding the links between genes and geography instead.
They analysed at single-letter differences in DNA ("single nucleotide polymorphisms" or SNPs) at about 200,000 places in each of the genomes. They compared this data to each person's country of origin as well as that of their grandparents if possible.
To work with this massive collection of information, Novembre applied a mathematical technique called principal component analysis (PCA) to transform the unwieldy set of data into a more manageable form. The technique looked for underlying patterns in the massive collection of SNPs and boiled them all down to just two variables, known as principal components. The upshot is that each person could be plotted as a point on a simple two-dimensional graph, whose axes correspond to the two principal components. It collapsed a complicated cloud of data into a simple sheet.
The result was startling - the genetic and geopolitical maps of Europe overlap to a remarkable degree. On the two-dimensional genetic map, you can make out Italy's boot and the Iberian peninsula where Spain and Portugal sit. The Scandinavian countries appear in the right order and in the south-east, Cyprus sits distinctly off the "coast" of Greece.
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John Novembre, Toby Johnson, Katarzyna Bryc, Zoltán Kutalik, Adam R. Boyko, Adam Auton, Amit Indap, Karen S. King, Sven Bergmann, Matthew R. Nelson.... (2008) Genes mirror geography within Europe. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature07331
- December 27, 2008
- 12:00 PM
- 2,110 views
Lacking control drives false conclusions, conspiracy theories and superstitions
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
"Control - you must learn control!" These wise words were uttered by no less a sage than Yoda, and while he was talking about telekinetically hoisting spacecraft, having control has another important benefit. It protects a person from spotting false patterns that aren't there, from believing in conspiracies and from developing superstitions.
Control and security are vital parts of our psychological well-being and it goes without saying that losing them can feel depressing or scary. As such, people have strategies for trying to regain a sense control even if it's a tenuous one. Jennifer Whitson and Adam Galinsky from the University of Texas have found that one such strategy is to identify coherent and meaningful relationships between things we observe.
These patterns can help us to make sense of past events and predict future ones, affording us a degree of control over our fates, albeit an indirect one. We can't change the weather, for example, but if we can tell when it's going to rain, we can be prepared. At the more extreme end, conspiracy theories can help the bewildered to make sense of otherwise unconnected events. And explaining random events by invoking superstitions or higher beings can help to bring reality's many possibilities within one's understanding, if not under one's heel.
Whitson and Galinsky demonstrated the link between desiring control and seeing patterns through a set of experiments that used a variety of psychological tricks to induce feelings of insecurity among groups of volunteers. With these tricks, they managed to induce a number of different illusions - increasing the risk of seeing false images, making links between unrelated events, creating conspiracy theories and even accepting superstitious rituals. Superficially, all of these behaviours seem quite different but they all involve seeing patterns where none exist. They have a common theme and now, this study suggests that they have a common motive too.
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J. A. Whitson, & A. D. Galinsky. (2008) Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception. Science, 322(5898), 115-117. DOI: 10.1126/science.1159845
- August 30, 2008
- 11:38 AM
- 2,103 views
Too few genes to survive - the bacterium with the world's smallest genome
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
The complex cells that make up plants and animals only survive today because their ancestors formed partnerships with bacteria. In a previous post, I wrote about a microbe called Hatena, which provides us with a snapshot of what the early stages of this alliance might have looked like. Hatena swallows an alga which becomes an integrated part of its body.
Millions of years ago, the ancestors of complex cells did the same thing, taking in bacteria and merging with them to form a single creature. Today, these integrated bacteria are mitochondria, which provide us with energy, and chloroplasts, which allow plants to photosynthesise. Hatena and its algal partner show us what the early steps in this vital alliance might have looked like. Now, another species of bacteria, Carsonella ruddii, embodies a later stage - the transfer of genes.
Typically, the lodging cell would shunt some of its genetic material over to its host. It has permanent room and board and can afford to rid itself of excess genetic baggage that was once necessary for its free-living existence. That's exactly what Carsonella has done, but it has taken this process to an extreme. It has transferred so many of its genes that it now has the smallest genome of any bacterium and it cannot possibly survive outside of its host.
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A Nakabachi, A Yamashita, H Toh, H Ishikawa, H Dunbar, N Moran, & M Hattori. (2006) The 160-Kilobase Genome of the Bacterial Endosymbiont Carsonella. Science, 314(5797), 267-267. DOI: 10.1126/science.1134196
- March 29, 2008
- 02:00 PM
- 2,089 views
A squid's beak is a marvel of biological engineering
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Imagine that you hand is made of jelly and you have to carve a roast using a knife that has no handle. The bare metal blade would rip through your hypothetical hand as easily as it would through the meat. It's clearly no easy task and yet, squid have to cope with a very similar challenge every time they eat a meal.
The bodies of squid, like those of their relatives the cuttlefish and octopus, are mainly soft and pliant, with one major exception. In the centre of their web of tentacles lies a hard, sharp and murderous beak that resembles that of a parrot. The beak is a tool for... Read more »
A Miserez, T Schneberk, C Sun, F Zok, & J Waite. (2008) The Transition from Stiff to Compliant Materials in Squid Beaks. Science, 319(5871), 1816-1819. DOI: 10.1126/science.1154117
- March 2, 2008
- 04:00 PM
- 2,083 views
Snow-making bacteria are everywhere
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
The next time you watch a snowfall, just think that among the falling flakes are some that house bacteria at their core. It's a well known fact that water freezes at 0°C, but it only does so without assistance at -40°C or colder. At higher temperatures, it needs help and relies on microscopic particles to provide a core around which water molecules can clump and crystallise. These particles act as seeds for condensation and they are rather dramatically known as "ice nucleators".Dust and soot are reasonable ice nucleators but they are completely surpass... Read more »
B Christner, C E Morris, C M Foreman, R Cai, & D C Sands. (2008) Ubiquity of Biological Ice Nucleators in Snowfall. Science, 319(5867), 1214-1214. DOI: 10.1126/science.1149757
- October 6, 2008
- 11:00 AM
- 2,072 views
Human gut bacteria linked to obesity
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
There is a widespread belief, that being overweight or obese is a question of failing willpower, fuelled in no small part by food, fitness and beauty industries. But if we look at the issue of obesity through a scientific spyglass, a very different picture emerges. Genes, for example, exert a large influence on our tendency to become obese often by influencing behaviour - a case of nature via nurture. But it's not just our own genes that are important.
In terms of processing food, humans are hardly self-sufficient. Our guts are the home of trillions of bacteria that help to break down foodstuffs that our own cells cannot cope with. Together the genes expressed by these intestinal comrades outnumber our own by thousands of times, and yet we are still largely in the dark what they do.
Over 90% of these bacteria, collectively known as the microbiota, come from just two groups - the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes. Now, new research suggests that the proportion of these groups is linked to the risk of becoming obese.
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Ruth E. Ley, Peter J. Turnbaugh, Samuel Klein, & Jeffrey I. Gordon. (2006) Microbial ecology: Human gut microbes associated with obesity. Nature, 444(7122), 1022-1023. DOI: 10.1038/4441022a
Peter J. Turnbaugh, Ruth E. Ley, Michael A. Mahowald, Vincent Magrini, Elaine R. Mardis, & Jeffrey I. Gordon. (2006) An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest. Nature, 444(7122), 1027-131. DOI: 10.1038/nature05414
- March 10, 2008
- 09:00 PM
- 2,064 views
Immune snakes outrun toxic newts in evolutionary arms races
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
The story of evolution is filled with antagonists, be they predators and prey, hosts and parasites, or males and females. These conflicts of interest provide the fuel for 'evolutionary arms races' - cycles of adaptation and counter-adaptation where any advantage gained by one side is rapidly neutralised by a counter-measure from the other. As the Red Queen of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass said to Alice, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
The Red Queen analogy paints a picture of natural foes, wielding perfectly balanced armaments an... Read more »
Charles Hanifin, Edmund D Brodie, & Edmund D Brodie. (2008) Phenotypic Mismatches Reveal Escape from Arms-Race Coevolution. PLoS Biology, 6(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060060
- December 28, 2008
- 12:00 PM
- 2,040 views
Solar-powered green sea slug steals ability to photosynthesise from algae
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Solar power is a relatively new development for humans but, of course, many living things have been exploiting the power of the sun for millions of years, through the process of photosynthesis. This ability is usually limited to plants, algae and bacteria, but one unique animal can do it too - the emerald green sea slug Elysia chlorotica. This remarkable creature steals the genes and photosynthetic factories of a type of algae that it eats (Vaucheria littorea), so that it can independently draw energy from the sun. Through genetic thievery, it has become a solar-powered animal and a beautifully green one at that.
The cells of algae, like those of plants, contain small compartments called chloroplasts that are its engines of photosynthesis. As the Elysia munches on algae, it takes their chloroplasts into the cells of its own digestive system, where they provide it with energy and sugars. It's a nifty trick that provides the sea slug with an extra energy source, but the problem is that it shouldn't work.
Chloroplasts are not independent modules that can be easily separated from their host cell and implanted into another. They are the remnants of once-independent bacteria that formed such a strong alliance with the cells of ancient plants and algae, that they eventually lost their autonomy and became an integral part of their partner. In doing so, they transferred the majority of their own genes to their host so that today, chloroplasts only have a tiny and depleted genome of their own, containing just 10% of the genes it needs for a free-living existence.
So, shoving a chloroplast from an algal cell into an animal one should be about as effective as installing a piece of specialised Mac software on a PC. The two simply shouldn't be compatible, and yet Elysia and its chloroplasts clearly are. Mary Rumpho from the University of Maine discovered the key to the partnership - the sea slug has also stolen vital genes from the algae that allows it to use the borrowed chloroplast. It has found a way to patch its own genome to make it photosynthesis-compatible.
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M. E. Rumpho, J. M. Worful, J. Lee, K. Kannan, M. S. Tyler, D. Bhattacharya, A. Moustafa, & J. R. Manhart. (2008) From the Cover: Horizontal gene transfer of the algal nuclear gene psbO to the photosynthetic sea slug Elysia chlorotica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(46), 17867-17871. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0804968105
- February 17, 2009
- 08:38 AM
- 2,040 views
Babies' gestures partly explain link between wealth and vocabulary
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Babies can say volume without saying a single word. They can wave good-bye, point at things to indicate an interest or shake their heads to mean "No". These gestures may be very simple, but they are a sign of things to come. Year-old toddlers who use more gestures tend to have more expansive vocabularies several years later. And this link between early gesturing and future linguistic ability may partially explain by children from poorer families tend to have smaller vocabularies than those from richer ones.
Vocabulary size tallies strongly with a child's academic success, so it's striking that the lexical gap between rich and poor appears when children are still toddlers and can continue throughout their school life. What is it about a family's socioeconomic status that so strongly affects their child's linguistic fate at such an early age?
Obviously, spoken words are a factor. Affluent parents tend to spend more time talking to their kids and use more complicated sentences with a wider range of words. But Meredith Rowe and Susan Goldin-Meadow from the University of Chicago found that actions count too.
Children gesture before they learn to speak and previous studies have shown that even among children with similar spoken skills, those who gesture more frequently during early life tend to know more words later on. Rowe and Goldin-Meadow have shown that differences in gesturing can partly explain the social gradient in vocabulary size.
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M. L. Rowe, & S. Goldin-Meadow. (2009) Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry. Science, 323(5916), 951-953. DOI: 10.1126/science.1167025
- March 25, 2009
- 09:17 AM
- 2,040 views
How Kenny Rogers and Frank Sinatra could help stroke patients
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
We're used to thinking of neglect as a lack of appropriate care, but to a neuroscientist, it has a very different meaning. "Spatial neglect" is a neurological condition caused by damage to one half of the brain (usually the right), where patients find it difficult to pay attention to one half of their visual space (usually the left).
This bias can affect their mental images too. If neglect patients are asked to draw clocks, many only include the numbers from 12 to 6, while some shunt all the numbers to the right side. When two famous neglect patients were asked to describe a familiar square in Milan, the city they grew up in, the landmarks they reported shifted depending on where they pictured themselves standing in the square. They would only report buildings to the right of their imagined position - swap the location and new buildings would suddenly come into mental view.
Patients tend to be particularly unaware of things on the left if other objects on the right are vying for their attention - this phenomenon, where only one of two simultaneously presented objects is seen, is called "visual extinction".
Neglect is clearly a fascinating condition but also a debilitating and underappreciated one. It affects up to 60% of patients who suffer strokes on the right side of their brain, and it can hamper recovery and deny patients their independence. As such, there are plenty of researchers interested in finding ways of improving its symptoms. David Soto from Imperial College London is one of them, and he has discovered a deceptively simple way of helping neglect patients to regain their lost awareness - listen to their favourite music.
Soto was encouraged by a recent study, which found that stroke victims showed greater improvements in both memory and attention when they tuned into music than when they listened to audiobooks or worked in silence. And other studies have suggested that emotional faces are less likely to fall prey to visual extinction than less compelling images. But Soto wanted to see if the patient's own emotional state had anything to do with their awareness. Would it be possible to reduce the symptoms of neglect simply by making patients feel happier through the medium of pleasant melodies?
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Soto, D., Funes, M., Guzman-Garcia, A., Warbrick, T., Rotshtein, P., & Humphreys, G. (2009) Pleasant music overcomes the loss of awareness in patients with visual neglect. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0811681106
- October 8, 2008
- 11:00 AM
- 2,030 views
Microraptor - the dinosaur that flew like a biplane
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Many of us believe dinosaurs to be extinct but in truth, they surround us every day. All the world's birds, from the pigeons of our cities to the gulls of our seasides, are descended from dinosaurs, and modern science now classifies the birds with their long-dead kin. The gulf between dinosaurs and modern birds may seem huge, but the discovery of several feathered dinosaurs are seriously blurring the line between the two. And now, new research on the feathered dinosaur Microraptor reveals that birds may have evolved from dinosaur ancestors that flew not on two wings, but on four.
The link between dinosaur and bird was cemented in the last two decades, when palaeontologists unearthed hundreds of beautifully preserved fossils in the Liaoning province of China. Many of the newcomers were small predators, belonging to the same group as the famous Velociraptor (and indeed, most scientists believe that this Hollywood star was also covered in primitive feathers).
The new species run the full evolutionary gamut from flightless dinosaurs to flying birds. They range from Sinosauropteryx with its primitive, downy, proto-feathers to Caudipteryx, a dinosaur with proper flight-capable feathers, to Confuciusornis, a true bird. Together, these species provide a tantalising snapshot of how small prehistoric predators transformed into the familiar fliers of today's skies.
One of these species, Microraptor, stood out among the rest, for it had winged legs as well as arms. The animal's metatarsal bones were covered in long, asymmetric flight feathers. Their shape is clearly designed to produce lift during flight, but how Microraptor used its four wings has puzzled scientists. The species' discoverers believed that by splaying its legs out sideways from its body, it held its wings in tandem like a dragonfly. But for Sankar Chatterjee and R. Jack Templin of Texas Tech University, the facts didn't add up.
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S. Chatterjee, & R. J. Templin. (2007) Biplane wing planform and flight performance of the feathered dinosaur Microraptor gui. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(5), 1576-1580. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0609975104
- October 29, 2008
- 06:43 PM
- 2,026 views
Common pesticide is good news for parasites, bad news for frogs
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Our amphibians are not doing well. Populations of frogs, toads, salamanders and newts the world over are falling dramatically. Their moist, permeable skins and their need for water to reproduce make them vulnerable to a multitude of threats including drought brought on by climate change, a deadly fungus, and other infectious diseases. Now, we can point an accusatory finger at another culprit - a chemical called atrazine that is second most commonly used pesticide in the United States, and perhaps the world.
Jason Rohr and colleagues from the University of Florida found that atrazine exposes the frogs to larger hordes of parasites. The pesticide encourages the growth of algae that is eaten by snails. They are host to parasitic worms called trematodes (flukes), which use snails as a transit station for their journey into the bodies of frogs. More atrazine means more algae, more snails, more parasites and sicker frogs.
Rohr discovered this tangled web by studying the northern leopard frog, a North American species that, like most of its kin, is in decline. Across 18 wetlands in Minnesota, Rohr looked at local frogs, the parasites they carried and the characteristics of their local environment. They measured everything from the numbers of other species, the soil composition, the patchiness of the habitats and the chemicals in the water, to see if anything in the local environment could consistently explain the severity of trematode infections.
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Jason R. Rohr, Anna M. Schotthoefer, Thomas R. Raffel, Hunter J. Carrick, Neal Halstead, Jason T. Hoverman, Catherine M. Johnson, Lucinda B. Johnson, Camilla Lieske, Marvin D. Piwoni.... (2008) Agrochemicals increase trematode infections in a declining amphibian species. Nature, 455(7217), 1235-1239. DOI: 10.1038/nature07281
- November 21, 2008
- 08:30 AM
- 2,016 views
Parasites keep red tides at bay
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Over the past decade, some coastal waters have started turning red with alarming frequency. The cause is not some Biblical plague, but dense concentrations of microscopic algae called dinoflagellates. Red tides can often contain more than a million of these cells in a mere millilitre of water. Many are harmless and essential parts of the ocean environment, but others produce toxins that can kill local wildlife and risk the health of humans who eat their poisoned flesh.
These "harmful algal blooms" are more common in warm waters that mix poorly and are unusually rich in nutrients. Their increasing frequency has been blamed on numerous causes, from natural causes, to agricultural run-offs to increasing sea temperatures caused by climate change. But, as is becoming increasingly apparent in ecology, you're not getting a complete picture of a habitat if you don't know find out what the local parasites are up to.
Aurelie Chambouvet from the Station Biologique found that the algae responsible for red tides are themselves the victims of other parasitic species of dinoflagellates called Amoebophrya. The parasites act as an natural alga-stat that keeps the local algae populations under a tight leash. The red tides are what happens when that leash breaks.
Chambouvet's team discovered the abundance of these parasites by taking water samples from an estuary of the Penze River in northern France over three consecutive years,. They used multi-coloured glowing antibodies designed to recognise and stick to molecules unique to both the host species and their parasites. The fluorescent glows revealed a life cycle that, like those of most parasites, is full of brutality and exploitation.
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A. Chambouvet, P. Morin, D. Marie, & L. Guillou. (2008) Control of Toxic Marine Dinoflagellate Blooms by Serial Parasitic Killers. Science, 322(5905), 1254-1257. DOI: 10.1126/science.1164387
- November 28, 2007
- 05:05 PM
- 2,012 views
Solving the San Francisco plankton mystery
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
... Read more »
James Cloern, Alan Jassby, Janet Thompson, Kathryn Hieb , & . (2007) A cold phase of the East Pacific triggers new phytoplankton blooms in San Francisco Bay. . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(47), 18561-18565.
- July 25, 2008
- 11:00 AM
- 1,998 views
Parasites outweigh top predators and castrators do best of all
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
To a science-fiction filmmaker, the concept of being controlled by unseen forces is creative gold, but for the rest of us, it's a fairly unsettling prospect. But like it or not, it's clear that parasites - creatures that live off (and often control) the bodies of others - are an integral part of the world we live in and carry an influence that far exceeds their small size.
Now, a painstaking survey of the residents of river estuaries shows that parasites do indeed punch above their weight, and they aren't slouches in that department either. Despite their tiny size, their combined ma... Read more »
Armand Kuris, Ryan F Hechinger, Jenny C Shaw, Kathleen L Whitney, Leopoldina Aguirre-Macedo, Charlie A Boch, Andrew P Dobson, Eleca J Dunham, Brian L Fredensborg, Todd C Huspeni.... (2008) Ecosystem energetic implications of parasite and free-living biomass in three estuaries. Nature, 454(7203), 515-518. DOI: 10.1038/nature06970
- September 28, 2008
- 11:00 AM
- 1,998 views
Elephants recognise themselves in mirror
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
You are on a date and by all accounts, it's going well. Midway through dinner, you excuse yourself and head to the bathroom where, to your chagrin, the mirror reveals that you have a streak of sauce on the side of your face. Embarrassed, you wipe it away and rejoin your date.
It's a fairly innocuous scene but it requires an ability that only the most intelligent of animals possess - self-awareness. It's the understanding that you exist as an individual, separate from others. Having it is a vital step to understanding that others are similarly aware and have their own thoughts and desires. As such, it is intimately linked to mental qualities like empathy and selflessness. This may seem obvious to us but even human children only become self-aware in their second year of life.
In the animal kingdom, the skill is even rarer and has only been found in the most intelligent of species - humans, apes, dolphins and more recently, magpies. In 2006, Joshua Plotnik of Emory University added elephants to that list.
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J. M. Plotnik, F. B. M. de Waal, & D. Reiss. (2006) From the Cover: Self-recognition in an Asian elephant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(45), 17053-17057. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0608062103
- October 19, 2008
- 11:00 AM
- 1,995 views
Impulsive minds are primed for drug addiction
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
We've all acted impulsively before, and we have the horrendous clothes, echoing bank accounts and hilarious memories to show for it. But science is beginning to show that impulsive people may be particularly vulnerable to drug addiction, and there is little funny or harmless about that.
According to Government statistics, half a million people in the UK are addicted to class A drugs like cocaine, heroin and amphetamines. All too often, drug addiction and other compulsive disorders like obesity are dismissed as issues of 'willpower' and those who succumb to temptation are labelled as 'weak'. But this attitude is, at best, wrong and, at worst, stigmatising and self-righteous. And it provides no clues for ways of helping people with these problems.
In fact, the evidence suggests that drug addiction is linked to certain personality traits. Being impulsive is one of them, and a tendency to seek out new sensations (often described as "living life to the full") is another. But do these traits drive people towards drug addiction, or are they a result of the drugs themselves?
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J. W. Dalley, T. D. Fryer, L. Brichard, E. S. J. Robinson, D. E. H. Theobald, K. Laane, Y. Pena, E. R. Murphy, Y. Shah, K. Probst.... (2007) Nucleus Accumbens D2/3 Receptors Predict Trait Impulsivity and Cocaine Reinforcement. Science, 315(5816), 1267-1270. DOI: 10.1126/science.1137073
- March 2, 2008
- 04:00 PM
- 1,991 views
Effects of invading island rats ripple across land and sea
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Humans have explored the entire face of the planet, but we haven't done so alone. Animals and plants came along for the ride, some as passengers and other as stowaways. Today, these hitchhikers pose one of the greatest threats to the planet's biodiversity, by ousting and outcompeting local species.
Islands are particularly vulnerable to invaders. Cut off from the mainland, island-dwellers often evolve in the absence of predators and competitors, and are prone to developing traits that make them easy pickings for invaders, like docile natures or flightlessness.
Two years ago... Read more »
C Kurle, D A Croll, & B R Tershy. (2008) Introduced rats indirectly change marine rocky intertidal communities from algae- to invertebrate-dominated. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0800570105
- July 17, 2008
- 07:00 AM
- 1,985 views
Obesity amplifies across generations; can folate-rich diets stop it?
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Many measures to curb the obesity epidemic are aimed at young children. It's a sensible strategy - we know that overweight children have a good chance of becoming overweight adults. Family homes and schools have accordingly become critical arenas where the battle against the nation's growing waistlines is fought. But there is another equally important environment that can severely affect a person's chances of becoming overweight, but is more often overlooked - the womb.
Overweight parents tend to raise overweight children but over the last few years, studies have confirmed that t... Read more »
R Waterland, M Travisano, K G Tahiliani, M T Rached, & S Mirza. (2008) Methyl donor supplementation prevents transgenerational amplification of obesity. International Journal of Obesity. DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2008.100
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