290 posts · 230,091 views
Associate Professor of Biology at The University of Texas-Pan American.
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- June 10, 2013
- 04:00 PM
- 29 views
Back room science
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
We now return to our regular features, “Let’s impugn all the bloggers.” Let’s start with Geoffrey North, using a pulpit of Current Biology.
But there is also, I think, a danger here, which lies in the very speed of response, and the way that blogs are essentially “vanity publications” which lack the constraints of more conventional publishing — they are not reviewed, and do not even have to pass the critical eye of any editor.
North is not alone. Fred Schram, the Journal of Cru........ Read more »
North Geoffrey. (2013) Social Media Likes and Dislikes. Current Biology, 23(11). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.073
- May 23, 2013
- 04:24 PM
- 317 views
All lobsters are mortal
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
This appeared earlier today on the Facebook feed I Fucking Love Science:
Argh!
I remember seeing a shark documentary as a kid, hosted by Burgess Meredith, if I remember correctly. It made the same basic claim about great white sharks: too big to have predators, nobody had ever seen them die except by accident or by human hands, blah blah blah, therefore “some have suggested” they are immortal.
That I can remember the end of the show all these years later shows you what a terrific close........ Read more »
Bodnar A.G. (2009) Marine invertebrates as models for aging research. Experimental Gerontology, 44(8), 477-484. DOI: 10.1016/j.exger.2009.05.001
Klapper Wolfram, Kühne Karen, Singh Kumud K, Heidorn Klaus, Parwaresch Reza, & Krupp Guido. (1998) Longevity of lobsters is linked to ubiquitous telomerase expression. FEBS Letters, 439(1-2), 143-146. DOI: 10.1016/S0014-5793(98)01357-X
- May 22, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 51 views
Down in the underground, scuds lose eyes but keep genes
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
When animals live caves full time, their descendents often lose their eyes. It has happened over and over and over and over again, in all different kinds of animals. But how this happens is not obvious. Stephen Jay Gould wrote that some people would use cave fish as an argument that “Lamarck must have been on to something” with his idea that acquired characteristics can be inherited. Well, no, that’s not that case, but it is a good example of how tricky thinking about losses can be.
The l........ Read more »
Carlini David B, Satish Suma, & Fong Daniel W. (2013) Parallel reduction in expression, but no loss of functional constraint, in two opsin paralogs within cave populations of Gammarus minus (Crustacea: Amphipoda). BMC Evolutionary Biology, 13(1), 89. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-13-89
- May 20, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 60 views
Baby geniuses: young guppies show number skills
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
I have vague memories of the first time I counted to a hundred. It felt like one of those landmarks like tying your shoes for yourself the first time, or riding the bicycle more than a few feet without the training wheels or dad holding you up.
Of course, I don't come anywhere near Adam Spencer:
Once when I was about 7, I counted to 10,000 just to check the numbers didn't run out before then #NerdConfessions
Counting large numbers is not something that comes easily for us humans. A new paper c........ Read more »
Piffer Laura, Miletto Petrazzini Maria Elena, & Agrillo Christian. (2013) Large number discrimination in newborn fish. PLOS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062466
- May 17, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 36 views
Colour costs crickets
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
You probably don’t feel tired when you get a tan.
You probably think your friends feel more or less fatigued depending on whether they are dark skinned or fair skinned (like myself).
We know that differences in colour are important lots of other species besides humans. They can play a big part in an animal’s ability to blend into the surrounding environment, for instance. What might be less appreciated is that being a certain colour might take energy. After all, many colours in animals are........ Read more »
Roff DA, & Fairbairn DJ. (2013) The costs of being dark: the genetic basis of melanism and its association with fitness-related traits in the sand cricket. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12150
- May 8, 2013
- 10:43 AM
- 55 views
“Can you hear me now?” The new record holder for hearing
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
This is our new winner, ladies and gentlemen.
This unassuming moth is a greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella). Don’t let its drab appearance fool you, friends. This is a record-setting animal, with one of the most extreme sensory systems yet found. Its speciality? Hearing.
When you listen to anything, there are two main properties inherent in the sound: loudness and tone. The volume is determined by the size of sound waves; the tone is set by the frequency of sound waves. Humans hear t........ Read more »
Moir H. M., Jackson J. C., & Windmill J. F. C. (2013) Extremely high frequency sensitivity in a 'simple' ear. Biology Letters, 9(4), 20130241-20130241. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2013.0241
- April 24, 2013
- 02:06 PM
- 84 views
A true paleo diet: dinosaurs eating fish
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
There’s been a lot of talk about “paleo diets”, but here we have the real deal. A meal caught in the middle of digestion in a dinosaur.
Microraptor gui was introduced back in 2003, and immediately attracted attention because of the its feathers, particularly lots of long, prominent feathers on its hind legs, so unlike any bird or other flying beast we know of. There is good evidence (though disputed) that it was a glossy, black animal, rather like the grackles that hang around my campus.
........ Read more »
Xing Lida, Persons W. Scott, Bell Phil R., Xu Xing, Zhang Jianping, Miyashita Tetsuto, Wang Fengping, & Currie Philip J. (2013) Piscivory in the feathered dinosaur Microraptor . Evolution. DOI: 10.1111/evo.12119
- April 16, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 47 views
Tuesday Crustie: Clarity
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
Last week, the science news world was all a-flutter about a new technique to clear brains described in the paper, “Structural and molecular interrogation of intact biological systems.” (Argh, what a title. Would you have guessed what they did from that title?)
We in the invertebrate neuroscience community have been clearing brains for decades. Here are some examples from my own work.
Assembled in the dying days of straight edges and Letraset and photographing photographs, here are leg moto........ Read more »
Chung Kwanghun, Wallace Jenelle, Kim Sung-Yon, Kalyanasundaram Sandhiya, Andalman Aaron S., Davidson Thomas J., Mirzabekov Julie J., Zalocusky Kelly A., Mattis Joanna, & Denisin Aleksandra K. (2013) Structural and molecular interrogation of intact biological systems. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature12107
Tyrer N. M., & Altman J. S. (1974) Motor and sensory flight neurones in a locust demonstrated using cobalt chloride. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 157(2), 117-138. DOI: 10.1002/cne.901570203
- April 1, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 110 views
Better off blind
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
Eyes are good things to have in the light. But if you lived in the dark... all the time... would those eyes become so much a nuisance that you might lose them?
Animals that live in caves are often blind. People sometimes mistake this as evidence that features can be lost just by a “Use it or lose it” rule. That would be an example of inheriting an acquired character, which doesn’t happen in evolution. Instead, the typical explanation is that because there is no advantage to maintaining ey........ Read more »
Klaus S, Mendoza JCE, Liew JH, Plath M, Meier R, & Yeo DCJ. (2013) Rapid evolution of troglomorphic characters suggests selection rather than neutral mutation as a driver of eye reduction in cave crabs. Biology Letters, 9(2), 20121098-20121098. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.1098
- March 28, 2013
- 12:22 PM
- 121 views
A short tale about a very short tail
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
As I’ve mentioned before, scientists are so conservative that when you see an adjective like “extraordinary” in the title, you should at least open up the paper if you can and have a peek.
I came across a paper titled, “An extraordinary tail – integrative review of the agamid genus Xenagama” in Google Reader *. I was a bit curious (and miffed) because I had no idea from the title what kind of organism this paper would be about. All kinds of animals have tails.
I love me spikes........ Read more »
Wagner Philipp, Mazuch Tomas, & Bauer Aaron M. (2013) An extraordinary tail - integrative review of the agamid genus Xenagama . Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research. DOI: 10.1111/jzs.12016
- March 25, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 84 views
Steering into the skid: what can we fix with formal training in grad school?
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
A couple of years ago, I got into a car wreck. A tire blew out on a truck to my right. It swerved and hit me. I skidded across the road. You know what you’re supposed to do in that situation, right?
You’re supposed to steer into the skid.
I did not. I was unable to correct the skid, and wound up crossing a couple of lanes of the highway. There was no oncoming traffic, and I was fine.
I was trained to do the correct thing and steer into the skid. I took driving lessons. Steering into the s........ Read more »
Fang F. C., Steen R. G., & Casadevall A. (2012) Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(42), 17028-17033. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1212247109
- March 18, 2013
- 04:27 PM
- 125 views
Today in cognitive dissonance: celebrating “landmark” openness in a closed journal
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
A new editorial in The Journal of Comparative Neurology celebrates a paper that goes the extra mile in making its anatomical data available:
(The authors) provide an unprecedented level of access to their supporting data by publishing their full set of experimental outcomes in the form of virtual slides, or whole‐slide images.
The editorial nicely summarizes why archiving data from brain slices is particularly important. Brains are complex structures, and there is necessarily a lot of inter........ Read more »
Karten Harvey J., Glaser Jack R., & Hof Patrick R. (2013) A landmark in scientific publishing. Journal of Comparative Neurology. DOI: 10.1002/cne.23329
- March 18, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 118 views
The costs of being tall: lessons from giraffes
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
True facts about giraffes!
They’re tall. And I use the word precisely. They’re not just big; their legs are about half again as long as you’d predict based on their mass and bodies of other mammals.
Being tall has distinct consequences for the nervous system. The distances that signals have to travel might mean there is lots of lag between something happening out in the world, the signal getting to the brain, and the appropriate response going all the way back down to the muscles the........ Read more »
More H. L., O'Connor S. M., Brondum E., Wang T., Bertelsen M. F., Grondahl C., Kastberg K., Horlyck A., Funder J., & Donelan J. M. (2013) Sensorimotor responsiveness and resolution in the giraffe. Journal of Experimental Biology, 216(6), 1003-1011. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.067231
- February 15, 2013
- 01:44 PM
- 194 views
Sea cucumbers, the original “buttchuggers”?
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
A while ago, there were some reports of young men at universities who came up with an interesting way of imbibing alcohol. It was nicknamed “buttchugging.”
Yeah.
This method of alcohol delivery is, from a certain very twisted point of view, quite clever. The gut is a tube. This means that regardless of which orifice alcohol enters your gut,you can still uptake the alcohol into your system and enjoy the intoxicating effects.
Now, a new paper from Jaeckle and Strathmann looks whether sea ........ Read more »
Jaeckle William. B., & Strathmann Richard. R. (2013) The anus as a second mouth: anal suspension feeding by an oral deposit-feeding sea cucumber. Invertebrate Biology. DOI: 10.1111/ivb.12009
- January 28, 2013
- 10:00 AM
- 143 views
Whales: big enough, too big, or bigger than big?
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
This picture can’t do them justice. No picture can.
That’s because this is a picture of a blue whale, the largest animal to live on this planet. Ever.
Goodness knows, people try to show you the size. They put up mounts of blue whale skeletons in museums, or life sized models. There’s a very cool online animation that shows images from the blue whale full sized, on your computer screen, as has it drift by lazily. But I suspect that even these clever things do the trick of conveying what ........ Read more »
Aaron Clauset. (2013) How large should whales be?. PLOS ONE, 8(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0053967
- January 18, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 128 views
What we know and don’t know about crustacean pain
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
Summary
What we know about crustacean pain?
Crabs, and probably other big decapod crustaceans, avoid electric shock in the short term.
They can learn to avoid places where they were shocked over slightly longer terms.
There may be substantial variation across individuals in their ability to learn.
The evidence is consistent with pain.
Pain is hard to prove, even in humans.
What don’t we know?
Whether electric shock is normally relevant to crustaceans.
Whether electric shock processed ........ Read more »
Magee B., & Elwood R. W. (2013) Shock avoidance by discrimination learning in the shore crab (Carcinus maenas) is consistent with a key criterion for pain. Journal of Experimental Biology, 216(3), 353-358. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.072041
- December 19, 2012
- 08:00 AM
- 158 views
That looks like it smells: a tale of sensory mash-up
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
We normally think that each of our senses is more or less distinct. Sure, there’s that condition called synesthesia, where people experience numbers with colours and that sort of thing, but that’s pretty rare, right?
Maybe not. A new paper suggests our different senses may be influencing each other more often than we think. The team looked at how smell, something we normally think of as one of our weaker, less important senses, hold sway over our vision, the sense that most people normall........ Read more »
Zhou W., Zhang X., Chen J., Wang L., & Chen D. (2012) Nostril-Specific Olfactory Modulation of Visual Perception in Binocular Rivalry. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(48), 17225-17229. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2649-12.2012
- December 3, 2012
- 08:00 AM
- 231 views
Prime times for survival
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
How long can an insect live? Cicadas might be up near the top. Some cicadas are famous for remaining in the larval stage for thirteen and seventeen years/ That makes them a pretty long lived insect, even if they spend most of that time as larvae underground, out of sight.
A lot of cicadas are synced up in these thirteen and seventeen year cycles, so that in peak years, huge numbers of these insects emerge. Then they are everywhere, singing to attract mates so they can get the next brood of bab........ Read more »
Koenig Walter D., & Liebhold Andrew M. (2012) Avian Predation Pressure as a Potential Driver of Periodical Cicada Cycle Length. The American Naturalist. DOI: 10.1086/668596
- November 29, 2012
- 08:00 AM
- 220 views
A map of pain
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
There are maps of your body in your brain. Some maps represent the control over your muscles. Other maps show the input coming in from your senses. One of the best known sensory maps is the one for touch.
But we might think of everything we feel with our skin as one sense – touch – these are several separate sense. We feel pressure. We feel changes in temperature, and and different neurons handle warmth and chills.
And we feel pain.
While Wilder Penfield published the famous maps of the ........ Read more »
Mancini F., Haggard P., Iannetti G. D., Longo M. R., & Sereno M. I. (2012) Fine-Grained Nociceptive Maps in Primary Somatosensory Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(48), 17155-17162. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3059-12.2012
- November 28, 2012
- 08:00 AM
- 186 views
Building memory by not building molecules
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
Honeybees are clever wee beasties. If you give a honeybee a scent, then give her food, she can quickly learn to extend her mouthparts when she smells the scent alone. And they can remember this for at least a whole 24 hour day. This is a classic learning test made famous by Pavlov’s dogs. So honeybees are at least as smart as dogs, for this test anyway.
What’s going on in that tiny little head as they learn that some arbitrary smell means food? Usually, neurons need to make new “stuff........ Read more »
Ganeshina O., Erdmann J., Tiberi S., Vorobyev M., & Menzel R. (2012) Depolymerization of actin facilitates memory formation in an insect. Biology Letters, 8(6), 1023-1027. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0784
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