Scientists Discover New Type Of ‘Cross-Presenting’ White Blood Cell

Researchers in Newcastle and Singapore have identified a new type of white blood cell that activates a killing immune response to an external source.
Researchers have identified a new type of white blood cell that activates a killing immune response to an external source – a feature known as ‘cross-presentation.’
Publishing in the journal Immunity, the team of researchers from Newcastle University and A*STAR’s Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) describe a new human tissue dendritic cell with cross-presenting function.
Dendritic cells (DCs) are a type of white blood cell that orchestrate our body’s immune responses to infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. The cells kick start an immune response by presenting small fragments of the foreign micro-organism – called antigens – on their surface, which then activate T cells that eliminate the cancerous or infected cells.
Unlike most cells which are only able to present antigens from within themselves, and so will only elicit an immune response if they are infected, a specialized subset of DCs is able to generate a response to an external source of antigen. But the identity of human tissue DCs that are capable of ‘cross-presentation’ has remained a mystery until now.

“These are the cells we need to be targeting for anti-cancer vaccines,” said lead author Dr. Muzlifah Haniffa of Newcastle University. “Our discovery offers an accessible, easily targetable system which makes the most of the natural ability of the cell.”

The researchers also showed for the first time that dendritic cell subsets are conserved between humans and mice.
To compare between species, the team isolated cross-presenting DCs from human skin and also from mouse blood, lung, and liver. Using gene expression analysis, they identified gene signatures for each human dendritic cell subset. Mouse orthologues of these genes were identified and computational analysis was used to match subsets across species.

“The cross-species map is in effect a Rosetta stone that deciphers the language of mouse into human,” said senior co-author Matthew Collin, who is a professor of hematology at Newcastle University.

Honeybee Brains Can Process Complex Visual Cues, Study

Researchers have discovered that although honeybees do not possess large primate brains, they can still process high-level cognitive tasks and solve complex visual problems.

AsianScientist (May 14, 2012) – An international research team has discovered that although honeybees do not possess large primate brains, they can still process high-level cognitive tasks and solve complex visual problems.
The research, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, hold important implications for our understanding of how cognitive capacities for viewing complex images evolved in brains, said study author Dr. Adrian Dyer from RMIT University.
Rule learning is a fundamental cognitive task that allows humans to operate in complex environments, explained Dyer.

“For example, if a driver wants to turn right at an intersection then they need to simultaneously observe the traffic light color, the flow of oncoming cars and pedestrians to make a decision,” he said.

With experience, human brains can conduct these complex decision-making processes, but this is a type of cognitive task beyond current machine vision.
The researchers wanted to understand if such simultaneous decision making required a large primate brain, or whether a honeybee might also demonstrate rule learning.
To do so, lead author Dr. Aurore Avargues-Weber from the Université de Toulouse in France trained individual honeybees to fly into a Y-shaped maze which presented different elements in specific relationships like above/below, or left/right.
With extended training the bees were able to learn that the elements had to have two sets of rules including being in a specific relationship like above/below, while also possessing elements differing from each other.
The findings, which showed that possessing a large complex brain as found in humans was not necessary to master multiple simultaneous conceptual rule learning, may someday lead to new machines that possess artificial vision.

Ocean Waters Ablaze With Flame Shells

A massive colony of these bad-hair-day shellfish, called flame shells, has been discovered off the coast of Scotland. Its inhabitants are thought to number over 100 million, making it possibly the largest grouping of flame shells in the world.
The critters are a species of saltwater clam (Limaria hians), named for the fiery orange tentacles fringing their two half-shells. (To see these tentacles in action, check out this video of a flame shell propelling itself along the seafloor.) Despite their loud coloration, flame shells are actually pretty hard to find since they build reefs on the seafloor. These reefs, in turn, provide a safe haven for the larvae of many other species, including fish and scallops.
The recently discovered colony covers a whopping 185 acres, and was found during the Loch Alsh survey commissioned by Marine Scotland earlier this year. The find strengthens environmentalists’ case for designating the vicinity a Marine Protected Area, a move presently being considered by the Scottish Government.

Giant Pandas hold new weapon in fight against superbugs

Their endangered status and distinctive, cuddly appearance has turned them into the poster-child of wildlife conservation, but now there may be a new reason to save the giant panda from extinction.

Scientists have discovered that the animals, of which there are around 1,600 in the wild, produce a powerful antibiotic in their blood stream that kills bacteria and fungi.

They believe the substance could be used to create potent new treatments against drug resistant superbugs and other diseases.

The antibiotic is thought to be released by the bear’s immune system to protect them infections when they are living in the wild. Researchers discovered the compound, known as cathelicidin-AM, after analysing the panda’s DNA.

Fortunately, scientists will not need to depend upon the animal’s notoriously unreliable breeding capacity to harvest the new antibiotic as they have been able to synthesis it artificially in the lab by decoding the genes to produce a small molecule known as a peptide.

Dr Xiuwen Yan, who led the research at the Life Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University in China, said: “It showed potential antimicrobial activities against wide spectrum of microorganisms including bacteria and fungi, both standard and drug-resistant strains.
“Under the pressure of increasing microorganisms with drug resistance against conventional antibiotics, there is urgent need to develop new type of antimicrobial agents.
“Gene-encoded antimicrobial peptides play an important role in innate immunity against noxious microorganisms. They cause much less drug resistance of microbes than conventional antibiotics.”
Pandas have dwindled considerably as their bamboo forest habitat in China and south east Asia has been destroyed. Attempts increase their numbers have been frustrated the extreme difficulty in getting them to breed in captivity.
They are notoriously poor at breeding, even in the wild, as the females only come into season once a year.
Despite millions of pounds being spent using expensive artificial breeding techniques, their numbers have increased little, leading to arguments about whether the money could be put to better use on other conservation projects.
But many argue that the black and white bears act as a symbol of the need to save wildlife from extinction and help with fund-raising for conservation projects.
The discovery that they produce powerful compounds that can be used to make new drugs will almost certainly strengthen the case to conserve the endangered creatures.
The Chinese researchers found that the cathelicidin-AM, which is produced by immune cells in the animal’s blood, was found to kill bacteria in less than an hour while other well known antibiotics took more than six hours.
They hope to develop the substance either as a new drug to tackle superbugs or as an antiseptic for cleaning surfaces and utensils. Dr Yan and his colleagues also believe there may be other potential drugs hidden within the panda genome.
They have also found other powerful antimicrobial compounds in the mucus produced by snails and in some amphibians.
Dr Yan said: Antimicrobial peptides are important components in innate immunity – they can provide an effective and fast acting defence against harmful microorganisms.
“More than 1000 antimicrobial peptides have been found from animals, plants, and microorganisms. Analysis revealed that the panda cathelicidin had the nearest evolution relationship with dog cathelicidin.”

Asparagus Hangover Prevention Power

Asparagus may accelerate the body's ability to metabolize alcohol and also protects liver cells.
Jason Webber

Many of us ring in the New Year with a glass (or two) of champagne, but we would do well to pair that and other alcoholic beverages with a dish of asparagus. This veggie may alleviate hangovers and protect liver cells against toxins, a study finds.

As a press release issued this week by the Institute of Food Technologists shared: "Asparagus may aid the body in accelerating the metabolism of alcohol."
The amino acids and minerals found in the vegetable hold the secret to this biochemical benefit.
Researchers at the Institute of Medical Science and Jeju National University in Korea figured this out after analyzing the components of young asparagus shoots and leaves. They studied how these components interacted with both rat and human liver cells made "toxic" by alcohol.
"Cellular toxicities were significantly alleviated in response to treatment with the extracts of asparagus leaves and shoots," B.Y. Kim, lead author of the paper, said in the press release. "These results provide evidence of how the biological functions of asparagus can help alleviate alcohol hangover and protect liver cells."
"The amino acid and mineral contents were found to be much higher in the leaves than the shoots," Kim added.
DISCOVERY NEWS: Fruits and Vegetables
According to some sources, these leaves, along with berry-looking seed pods, are mildly toxic, so it's best to consume the typical asparagus stalks that you find in grocery stores and farmer's markets. A few companies also offer asparagus concentrate, which may be made from other parts of the asparagus plant.
If you are a teetotaler, you might as well still have that plate of asparagus. It's a good source of Vitamin C, potassium, folate and other beneficial compounds. It also has antifungal, anti-inflammatory and diuretic properties.

Voyager 1 is leaving the solar system, but the journey continues

 

At 18.5 billion kilometres from Earth, the Voyager 1 space probe is the most distant human-made object ever to leave our planet.
And now the spacecraft, which was launched in September 1977, has discovered a new region at the edge of our solar system.
Voyager 1 is now entering what space scientists think is the final region of the “heliosphere” – the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself – before it reaches interstellar space.
For a spacecraft that’s now in the darkest reaches of the solar system, it’s easy to forget its mission is really all about the Sun.
Voyager 1 and 2 are now in the “heliosheath” – the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas.
On Earth, we are at the mercy of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and the vast amounts of electromagnetic energy and particles those phenomena fling our way. We can’t see these particles, but they can take out power grids and exposed satellites.
There are several missions close to the Sun, including NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is studying the dynamics of the Sun, 36,000km from Earth. Questions of interest include: where does the sun’s energy come from? And how is it stored and released in the sun’s atmosphere?
Voyager 1 is at the other end of the solar system, where the solar wind starts to meet with particles and magnetic fields from outside the solar system. And it seems that the interaction is more complex than we could have predicted.
Interstellar turbulence
Since December 2004 Voyager 1 has been travelling in the “heliosheath” where the solar wind has slowed from supersonic speeds and become turbulent.
This set of animations show NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft exploring a new region in our solar system called the “magnetic highway.” In this region, the Sun’s magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines, allowing particles from inside the heliosphere to zip away and particles from interstellar space to zoom in.
From August 2012 Voyager 1 has entered a region where these solar winds have sped up and where high-energy particles from outside the solar system are also entering the heliosphere.
According to Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist: "Voyager 1 still is inside the the Sun’s environment, we can now taste what it is like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway."
It’s an intense magnetic region that was not expected from models and will take some time to understand and interpret.
This discovery is remarkable in itself – more remarkable in that it was reported by an instrument designed in the early 1970s.
Old-time tech
Data from Voyager 1’s ten instruments, including three cameras, are stored on a 500 megabit (62.5MB) tape recorder.
That is sufficient capacity to store about 100 images or a few graphs worth of data at a time, before it is beamed to Earth as a stream of binary data, with a theoretical upper rate of 14.4 kilobits per second, a rate far slower than a dial-up modem of 56 kilobits per second.
Both Voyager spacecraft – you might remember that Voyager 1 has a twin, Voyager 2 – have three computers. One decodes commands from Earth and issues them to the other two, one handles data from the instruments, and one manages the spacecraft.
The computers have a tiny amount of memory, with memories ranging from 4 to 8KB, barely enough to run a modern car’s trip computer.
It’s not about the destination…On its journey to the extremities of the Sun’s influence, Voyager 1 revealed Jupiter’s rings and moons to us in May 1979. It flew by Saturn, snapping photos of the planet’s rings and the mysterious hazy atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan.
Then it left the ecliptic – the plane in which most of the planets orbit the sun – heading “up”, out of the solar system.
During 1998 Voyager 1 overtook the slower Pioneer 10 and 11 crafts – which were launched to investigate Jupiter and more – becoming the furthest human artefact from Earth. It’s a record that’s likely to stand for some time, given Voyager 1 is travelling at some 520 million kilometres a year.
Its twin, Voyager 2, was actually launched before Voyager 1, on August 20, 1977. Its interplanetary grand tour took it past Jupiter in July 1979, Saturn in August 1981, Uranus in June 1986 and Neptune in August 1989. Now travelling at a mere 470 million kilometres every year it is heading out of the solar system, below the ecliptic plane.
Both Voyagers took advantage of a planetary alignment that only occurs once every 170 years. Their trajectories enabled the Voyagers to receive a gravity-assisted boost to their speed and direction. Without this, the trip to Neptune would have take 30 rather than ten years and they would be far short of their current positions.
Echoes in space
Currently, our sense of the interstellar boundary comes from the merest whisper. Voyager 1 outputs 23W of radio power – barely even a glow by light-bulb standards. We hear this whisper on Earth at the limit of NASA’s Deep Space Network, requiring the pooled resources of two antennae at whichever site is in contact, at a ghostly 6x10-18 W – an almost unimaginably small signal.
This remarkable spacecraft represents the extent of our physical senses in the solar system. From the surface of the Earth, our astronomers can remotely sense faraway galaxies and observe intergalactic events far into the distance and deep in time.
But closer to home, there’s so much we don’t know. And opportunities to continue our exploration outside the bubble are limited.
Powering downVoyager 1 has only five functioning instruments left from its original ten. As the power in its plutonium-238 batteries runs down towards 2050, the instruments will be turned off one by one, much like house lights winking out in the night.
Voyager 1’s whisper will at last fall silent and the same fate awaits Voyager 2.
How will we feel when we can no longer “see” beyond the enigmatic borders of the sun’s influence? How will we feel when the solar system appears to contract around us?
Of course, even when the two Voyagers stop communicating with Earth, their journey will continue apace, pushing beyond the confines of our solar system into the unfathomable vastness beyond.

Weta use lipids to hear

Research in the iconic, and some say maligned, New Zealand weta is challenging ideas about how a large group of insects including crickets and katydids hear, and has revealed an unexpected similarity to whale hearing.
Scientists from the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Auckland, with colleagues from Plant & Food Research in New Zealand and the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, have discovered that weta rely on a unique lipid (a compound that includes oils and fats) to hear the world around them.
“In the weta, as in other members of the Ensiferan group which includes katydids and crickets, sound is detected by ear drums on the front legs,” explains Dr Kate Lomas from The University of Auckland who led the research.
The sound is known to be transmitted through a liquid-filled cavity to reach the hearing organs, but until the current research was done it was presumed that the liquid was simply the insect equivalent of blood (called haemolymph).
The researchers found that it was in fact a lipid of a new chemical class. They believe the role of the lipid is to efficiently transmit sound between compartments of the ear, and perhaps to help amplify quiet sounds.
Whales are the only other creatures known to use lipids to hear: with no external ears they use lipid-filled cavities in their jaw to detect sound vibrations in the water.
Using new tissue analysis and three-dimensional imaging techniques the scientists also discovered a tiny organ in the insects’ ears, which they named the olivarius after Dr Lomas’ son Ollie. The organ appears to be responsible for producing the all-important lipid.
It may have been overlooked in previous studies because standard analytical techniques, which are much harsher, would have damaged or destroyed the fragile tissue. “The ear is surprisingly delicate so we had to modify how we looked at its structure and in doing so we discovered this tiny organ,” says Dr Lomas.
The researchers did their work with the Auckland tree weta. They believe that the same method of hearing is likely to be used by other members of its biologic class, including crickets and katydids, which are famous for the sounds they produce.
“We suspect that the use of lipid in insect ears is much more common than previously realised and that other researchers in the field may need to rethink how these animals hear,” says Associate Professor Stuart Parsons from The University of Auckland.
As to why both weta and whales – creatures that couldn’t be further apart in terms of their biology or public appeal – use lipids to hear: “The short answer is we don’t know, though it’s likely they both converged on a very similar solution to a similar problem,” he says.

 

Saving Malherbe's parakeets

After moving captive-bred Malherbe's parakeets to sanctuaries with no mammal predators, the population of this native New Zealand birds jumped from 11 to nearly 100 in five years. There are less than 1000 orange-fronted parakeets left and the species is still considered critically endangered by the IUCN. 

The critically endangered orange-fronted parakeets are thriving at Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds, a new study has found.
A base population of 11 has jumped to nearly 100 since the birds were moved to the predator-free sanctuary five years ago. However, there are still less than 1000 birds worldwide.
The study, by Dr Luis Ortiz-Catedral and Professor Dianne Brunton from Massey University’s Institute of Natural Sciences, investigated what happened after 11 captive-bred Malherbe’s parakeets (Cyanoramphus malherbi) or kakariki karaka weremoved to Maud Island in 2007.
A native New Zealand bird, the orange-fronted parakeets are listed as critically endangered on Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In 2004 it was estimated there were between 300 and 500 Malherbe’s parakeets left in the world.
In December 2005, captive-bred birds were moved to Chalky Island in Fiordland, and in 2007 transported to Maud Island began. Further populations were moved to Tuhua Island in December 2009 and Blumine Island in 2011 and this year.
With funding from the Department of Conservation, Forest & Bird and the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, Dr Ortiz-Catedral surveyed the Maud Island birds. He used a simple methodology based on sightings and estimated their survival during the study period, known as “mark-resighting”.
Due to the secretive nature of New Zealand parakeets, this methodology had not been used before. However, on Maud Island the tameness of parakeets allowed for detailed, repeated observations of the birds in their new habitat. Dr Ortiz-Catedral says after success with the parakeets, this method could be applied to similar species in other island populations in New Zealand and around the world.
Since March 2007, regular surveys were conducted on Maud Island to record juveniles hatched on site and others released on the island. Within two years, Dr Ortiz-Catedral estimates the population increased from 11 to a maximum of 97 birds, due to the high reproductive potential of the species, and the absence of introduced mammalian predators.
“The evidence from this study suggests translocating captive-bred birds to sanctuaries like Maud Island, which are free of invasive predators, is an effective management method for increasing the global population size of the species,” he says. “It is hoped this will eventually downgrade its IUCN threat category.”
Dr Brunton says the study is an excellent starting point for further monitoring programmes for other parakeets managed through translocation, and proves such a managed conservation programme is effective.
Orange-fronted parakeets remain one of the least known forest birds in New Zealand due to their rarity, and the ambiguity of their status as a separate species.

Insects unearth gold

By analysing small ant and termite mounds, researchers will be able to find new gold and other mineral deposits in an environmentally friendly and cost effective way. 

 

Research published in science journals PLoS ONE and Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis, found that at a test site in the West Australian goldfields termite mounds contained high concentrations of gold. This gold indicates there is a larger deposit underneath.
“We’re using insects to help find new gold and other mineral deposits. These resources are becoming increasingly hard to find because much of the Australian landscape is covered by a layer of eroded material that masks what’s going on deeper underground,” Dr Aaron Stewart, CSIRO entomologist said.
"We’re using insects to help find new gold and other mineral deposits."
Termites and ants burrow into this layer of material where a fingerprint of the underlying gold deposit is found, and bring traces of this fingerprint to the surface.
“The insects bring up small particles that contain gold from the deposit’s fingerprint, or halo, and effectively stockpile it in their mounds,” Dr Stewart said.
“Our recent research has shown that small ant and termite mounds that may not look like much on the surface, are just as valuable in finding gold as the large African mounds are that stand several metres tall.”
Mineral resources make up A$86.7 billion of Australia’s exports and new discoveries in many commodities are required to sustain production. After 150 years of mining, gold and other mineral deposits near the surface have been discovered and miners need new tools to explore deeper underground.
Insects could provide a new, cost effective and environmentally friendly way of exploring for new mineral deposits, avoiding the traditional method of expensive and often inaccurate drilling.
Dr Stewart’s work has also found that insects carry metals in their bodies.
“We’ve found that metals accumulate in excretory systems of termites,” he said.
“Although the insects may not concentrate metals in their bodies, they actively rid their bodies of excess metals. This process shows up as little stones, much like kidney stones in people. This finding is important because these excretions are a driving force in redistribution of metals near the surface.”
 

New Species of 'Decoy' Spider Likely Discovered At Tambopata Research Center

The decoy spider constructed out of leaves.
Image by Phil Torres

From afar, it appears to be a medium sized spider about an inch across, possibly dead and dried out, hanging in the center of a spider web along the side of the trail. Nothing too out of the ordinary for the Amazon. As you approach, the spider starts to wobble quickly forward and back, letting you know this spider is, in fact, alive. 

Step in even closer and things start to get weird- that spider form you were looking at is actually made up of tiny bits of leaf, debris, and dead insects. The confusion sets in. How can something be constructed to look like a spider, how is it moving, and what kind of creature made this!?

It turns out the master designer behind this somewhat creepy form is in fact a tiny spider, only about 5mm in body length, that is hiding behind or above that false, bigger spider made up of debris. After discussing with several spider experts, we've determined it is quite probable that this spider is a never-before-seen species in the genus Cyclosa. This genus is known for having spiders that put debris in their webs to either attract prey or, as in this case, confuse anything trying to eat them.

The actual spider (left) and examples of the constructed, false spiders (right).
Images by Jeff Cremer and Phil Torres.

You could call it a spider decoy, in a sense. The spiders arrange debris along specialized silk strands called stabilimenta in a symmetrical form that makes it look almost exactly like a larger spider hanging in the web. Studies have found that some Cyclosa species have a higher survival rate against potential predators like paper wasps because the wasps end up attacking the debris in the web rather than the spider itself. As seen here, Cyclosa can make debris look a bit like a spider, but not nearly as detailed as the spiders found at the Tambopata Research Center which have a complex form that actually looks like a bigger version of themselves, complete with legs and all.

After asking other experts, I cannot seem find another example of an animal creating a bigger, decoy version of itself to escape predation, making this species not only interesting to taxonomists naming new species but to those who study animal behavior, as well. 

After 3 days of searching we found about 25 of the spiders found in one floodplain area surrounding the Tambopata Research Center. Extensive searches in other areas did not turn up any of the spiders, showing that they have a rather restricted range, at least locally.

Arsenic linked to lung disease

A new study, led by an environmental health researcher from The University of Western Australia, has uncovered likely mechanisms for the link between arsenic in drinking water and increased risk of developing chronic lung disease.
The study, published in the leading international environmental health journal Environmental Health Perspectives, investigated the impact that low dose exposure to arsenic from drinking water can have on lung development in the womb.
Lead author Kathryn Ramsey said the research team used animal models to determine that even low levels of arsenic exposure in the womb alone could cause serious problems in lung development which may increase the risk of chronic respiratory infections in childhood.
"When we examined mice that had been exposed to the same levels of arsenic in drinking water as many humans, we were able to see just what sort of impact this chemical can have on lung development," Ms Ramsey said.
"What we found was abnormal lung development and structural damage to an extent that is likely to cause problems later in life. We also found that arsenic increased the amount of mucous produced by the lungs which may reduce the ability to clear respiratory pathogens."
"These findings are significant because whilst arsenic is well known for its cancer-causing properties, its impact on lung health is less known."
The Telethon Institute research adds to existing studies on the impact of arsenic on lung development.
 A previous report from Chile has shown that exposure to high levels of arsenic via drinking water in early life increases by 40 times the likelihood of dying of a chronic lung disease as an adult.
"The contamination of drinking water with naturally occurring arsenic is a significant environmental health problem which affects millions of people around the world. Arsenic has been found at high concentrations in ground water around Australia but tap water is very closely monitored and regulated for arsenic. However, the concern for Australia is the consumption of untreated bore water in rural and regional areas, which is a largely unexplored source of exposure," Ms Ramsey said.
"The next step in our research is to try and identify at what concentration arsenic causes detectable changes in lung growth so we can better inform public health policies around water quality."

Three New Species of Venomous Primate Identified by MU Researcher

A venomous primate with two tongues would seem safe from the pet trade, but the big-eyed, teddy-bear face of the slow loris (Nycticebus sp.) has made them a target for illegal pet poachers throughout the animal’s range in southeastern Asia and nearby islands. A University of Missouri doctoral student and her colleagues recently identified three new species of slow loris. The primates had originally been grouped with another species. Dividing the species into four distinct classes means the risk of extinction is greater than previously believed for the animals but could help efforts to protect the unusual primate.
“Four separate species are harder to protect than one, since each species needs to maintain its population numbers and have sufficient forest habitat,” said lead author Rachel Munds, MU doctoral student in anthropology in the College of Arts and Science. “Unfortunately, in addition to habitat loss to deforestation, there is a booming black market demand for the animals. They are sold as pets, used as props for tourist photos or dismembered for use in traditional Asian medicines.”
According to Munds, slow lorises are not domesticated and are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. She contends that keeping the animals as pets is cruel and that domesticating them is not feasible.
“Even zoos have difficulty meeting their nutritional needs for certain insects, tree gums and nectars,” said Munds. “Zoos rarely succeed in breeding them. Nearly all the primates in the pet trade are taken from the wild, breaking the bonds of the lorises’ complex and poorly understood social structures. The teeth they use for their venomous bite are then torn out. Many of them die in the squalid conditions of pet markets. Once in the home, pet keepers don’t provide the primates with the social, nutritional and habitat requirements they need to live comfortably. Pet keepers also want to play with the nocturnal animals during the day, disrupting their sleep patterns.”
The newly identified species hail from the Indonesian island of Borneo. Munds and her colleagues observed that the original single species contained animals with significantly different body sizes, fur thickness, habitats and facial markings. Museum specimens, photographs and live animals helped primatologists parse out four species from the original one. Now instead of one animal listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, there may be four endangered or threatened species. This potential change in conservation status may serve to draw attention the plight of the primates and increase legal protections.
“YouTube videos of lorises being tickled, holding umbrellas or eating with forks have become wildly popular,” said Anna Nekaris, study co-author, primatology professor at Oxford Brookes University and MU graduate. “CNN recently promoted loris videos as ‘feel good’ entertainment. In truth, the lorises gripping forks or umbrellas were simply desperate to hold something. The arboreal animals are adapted to spending their lives in trees constantly clutching branches. Pet keepers rarely provide enough climbing structures for them.”
The pet trade isn’t the only threat to loris survival. The animals also are used in Asian traditional medicines. The methods used to extract the medicines can be exceedingly violent, according to Nekaris, who also is director of the slow loris advocacy organization, Little Fireface Project. For example, in order to obtain tears of the big-eyed lorises, skewers are inserted into the animals’ anuses and run through their bodies until they exit the mouth. The still-living animals are then roasted over a smoky fire and the tea

King Crabs Poised to Wipe Out Rare Antarctic Ecosystem of Invertebrates

The crabs' arrival due to warming seas could deal a crushing blow to archaic species of starfish, sea spiders and ribbon worms at the Antarctic continental shelf

By Douglas Fox and Nature magazine

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King crabs (Neolithodes yaldwyni) are invading Antarctic seas, where they prey on local species. Image: Flickr/Travis S.

On a dim February evening, seven people crowded around a row of television monitors in a shack on the rear deck of the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer. The research icebreaker was idling 30 kilometers off the coast of Antarctica with a cable as thick as an adult's wrist dangling over the stern. At the end of that cable, on the continental shelf 1,400 meters down, a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) skimmed across the sea floor, surveying a barren, grey mudscape. The eerie picture of desolation, piped back to the television monitors, was the precursor to an unwelcome discovery.
The ROV had visited 11 different sea-floor locations during this 57-day research cruise along the Antarctic Peninsula in 2010. Each time, it had found plenty of life, mostly invertebrates: sea lilies waving in the currents; brittlestars with their skinny, sawtoothed arms; and sea pigs, a type of sea cucumber that lumbers along the sea floor on water-inflated legs. But at this spot, they were all absent. After 15 minutes, the reason became clear: a red-shelled crab, spidery and with a leg-span as wide as a chessboard, scuttled into view of the ROV's cameras. It probed the mud methodically — right claw, left claw, right claw — looking for worms or shellfish. Another crab soon appeared, followed by another and another. The crowded shack erupted into chatter. “They're natural invaders,” murmured Craig Smith, a marine ecologist from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “They're coming in with the warmer water.”
Cold temperatures have kept crabs out of Antarctic seas for 30 million years. But warm water from the ocean depths is now intruding onto the continental shelf, and seems to be changing the delicate ecological balance. An analysis by Smith and his colleagues suggests that 1.5 million crabs already inhabit Palmer Deep, the sea-floor valley that the ROV was exploring that night (see 'A warming welcome'). And native organisms have few ways of defending themselves. “There are no hard-shell-crushing predators in Antarctica,” says Smith. “When these come in they're going to wipe out a whole bunch of endemic species.”
Researchers are worried that rising crab populations and other effects of the warming waters could irrevocably change a sea-floor ecosystem that resembles no other on Earth. Scientists are racing to document these effects, even as they continue to explore this little-understood region. “This could have a really major reorganizing impact on these unique and endemic marine communities,” says Richard Aronson, a marine biologist at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, who was part of a team that found crabs on another part of Antarctica's continental shelf in December 2010. “It's a fascinating thing,” he says. “A little scary, because it's a very obvious footprint of climate change.”
Cut off by cold
Aronson has worried about the fragility of life on the Antarctic shelf for more than a decade. He spent December 1994 collecting fossils from Seymour Island, on the northeast fringe of the Antarctic Peninsula. The island's bare, crumbling hills contain the remnants of an ancient sea floor. In 200 meters of layered rock and fossils exposed by wind erosion, Aronson saw evidence of the most pivotal event in Antarctica's history: the continent's final separation from South America, starting around 40 million years ago. This event allowed the emergence of the circumpolar ocean current, which isolated Antarctica from warmer air and water masses farther north, and plunged it into perpetual winter. Aronson and his students analyzed 10,000 fossils from before and after that sudden cooling, and a striking pattern emerged.

Dogs sense when humans are in distress

Dogs may empathise with humans more than any other animal, including humans themselves, two new studies suggest.
The latest research, published in the journal Animal Cognition, found that pet dogs may truly be man (or woman's) best friend if a person is in distress. That distressed individual does not even have to be someone the dog knows.
"I think there is good reason to suspect dogs would be more sensitive to human emotion than other species," says co-author Deborah Custance.
"We have domesticated dogs over a long period of time. We have selectively bred them to act as our companions."
"Thus," she adds," those dogs that responded sensitively to our emotional cues may have been the individuals that we would be more likely to keep as pets and breed from."
Custance and colleague Jennifer Mayer, both from the Department of Psychology at the University of London Goldsmiths College, exposed 18 pet dogs - representing different ages and breeds - to four separate 20-second human encounters. The human participants included the dogs' owners as well as strangers.
During one experimental condition, the people hummed in a weird way. For that one, the scientists were trying to see if unusual behaviour itself could trigger canine concern. The people also talked and pretended to cry.
The majority of the dogs comforted the person, owner or not, when that individual was pretending to cry. The dogs acted submissive as they nuzzled and licked the person, the canine version of "there there."
Custance and Mayer say this behaviour is consistent with empathic concern and the offering of comfort.

Brain signals

As for what could be going on in the dog's head, yet another recent study, published in PLoS ONE , showed how the brains of dogs react as the canines view humans. In this case, the researchers trained dogs to respond to hand signals that meant the pups would receive a hot dog treat. Another signal meant no such treat was coming.
The caudate region of the dogs' brains, an area associated with rewards in humans, showed activation when the canines knew a tasty food treat was coming.
"These results indicate that dogs pay very close attention to human signals," says lead researcher Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy. "And these signals may have a direct line to the dog's reward system."
In that study, the reward was food, but Custance and Mayer think canines over the thousands of years of domestication have been rewarded so much for approaching distressed human companions that this may somehow be hardwired into today's dogs.
The phenomenon in some cases could even have a subconscious element. Consider what happens when a person yawns and a dog is in the room.
"Dogs show contagious yawning to human yawns," says Matthew Campbell, an assistant professor in Georgia State University's Department of Psychology.
"We have selected dogs to be in tune with us emotionally," Campbell says.
Custance and Mayer next hope to determine how empathetic wolves may be.
"It would be interesting to see how wolves who have been raised in human households would respond if they took part in our experiment," says Custance.
"Would they behave like domestic dogs or show less response to a crying human? It would be fascinating to find out."

Potential drug for deadly brain cancer

Potential drug for deadly brain cancer

Current therapies for glioblastoma multiforme wipe out the tumour cells initially, but cancer stem cells may cause the tumours to recur. The new potential drug targets the biomarker for the cancer stem cells and can therefore stop tumour growth altogether.  Image: janulla/iStockphoto A*STAR scientists have identified a biomarker of the most lethal form of brain tumours in adults - glioblastoma multiforme. The scientists found that by targeting this biomarker and depleting it with a potential drug, they were able to prevent the progression and relapse of the brain tumour. This research was conducted by scientists at A*STAR's Institute of Medical Biology led by Dr Prabha Sampath, Principal Investigator, in collaboration with A*STAR's Bioinformatics Institute (BII), and clinical collaborators from Medical University of Graz, Austria, and National University of Singapore. The research findings were published on Aug 23 in the scientific journal, Cell Reports from Cell Press. The scientists found that the biomarker, miR-138, is highly expressed in cancer stem cells compared to normal neural stem cells. They thus carried out in vitro experiments to deplete miR-138 in these cancer stem cells with a potential drug, antimiR-138, to observe the effect. They found that when miR-138 is depleted, the cancer cells are completely destroyed. This is an important breakthrough as current therapies such as gamma radiation and surgical methods proved to be inadequate in treating these brain tumours, which tend to re-grow from cancer stem cells and become extremely lethal. Dr Sampath said, "In this study we have identified a master regulator, miR-138, which is essential for the progression and relapse of a deadly form of brain cancer. By targeting this regulator we can effectively prevent the recurrence of this lethal form of cancer. This promising finding will pave the way for the development of a novel therapy to successfully treat the aggressive forms of brain cancer." Studies were also done in mice to determine whether antimiR-138 could effectively inhibit the growth of tumours. These experiments were conducted with a control drug as well, revealing that tumours continued to be present when mice were injected with the control, while injection with the antimiR-138 showed no tumour growth after nine months. Dr Alan Colman, Executive Director of Singapore Stem Cell Consortium and a Principal Investigator at IMB said, "Malignant gliomas are a particularly devastating and lethal form of human brain cancer. As with a growing number of other cancers, evidence is accumulating that the persistence and chemo-resistance of this cancer is due to the presence of glioma stem cells (GSCs). In this exciting publication, Sampath and colleagues indicate that in the tumours, these GSCs express the microRNA-138 (miR-138) and that the targeted elimination of this RNA markedly reduced the growth and survival of GSCs in cell culture. This work highlights the possible significance of miR-138 as a prognostic biomarker and also suggests miR-138 synthesis as a target for therapeutic intervention." Prof Sir David Lane, Chief Scientist at A*STAR, added, "These findings will facilitate the translation of basic research into clinical applications such as targeted drug design to treat brain cancer. This is an excellent example of how A*STAR's impactful research can be applied to develop treatments for diseases like cancer."

Robot learns to recognise itself in a mirror

Nico the robot looking at its reflection in the mirror. Image: Justin Hart/ Yale University

Self-awareness is the next big step for thinking robots.
A robot at Yale University, US, has passed an important milestone of self-awareness by interpreting information from the real world i.e. observing its reflection in the mirror and determining the perspective from this information. It’s not quite up to the standards of Ridley Scott’s replicants or WALL-E, but it’s a notable step in the world of artificial intelligence.
“Self-awareness is a key developmental step on the road to social intelligence,” says Dr Mary-Anne Williams from the University of Technology, Sydney, who was not involved with the study. “Society does not want robotists to develop robots with cognitive disorders and deficiencies so robotics researchers are increasingly spending more effort developing social skills for robots so that they can interact and collaborate with people more effectively.”
The robot, named Nico, is part of an experiment to see whether a robot can fulfill a classic trial of self-awareness, called the ‘mirror test.’ This test usually involves an animal being assessed on whether it can recognise that a mark on the body it sees in the mirror is its own. The alternative is that the animal perceives the mirror as being an extension to another room, which is why pets will often make a fuss when they see their reflection, believing it to be a stranger rather than their own image. So far, only dolphins, orcas, elephants, magpies, humans and a few other apes have passed.
Nico has been able to pass the test, and is able to look in the mirror and see its hand, which it recognises because of a visual token attached to it. “The robot watches its arm move in its visual field, and learns about the structure of the arm, how it moves through space, and the relationship between the arm and the visual field,” says PhD student Justin Hart, who conducted the research under the supervision of Professor Brian Scassellati. “It builds an expectation of where it expects to see its hand, visually, in both 3D and 2D—as imaged by the robot’s cameras—after a motion.”
From here, it is able to infer the perspective of reflections in the mirror based on watching the motion of its arm. Knowing this perspective allows the robot to accurately estimate where objects are in space based on their reflections. “It is important to distinguish that this is unique from the traditional mirror test, as proposed by Gordon Gallup in 1970,” Hart says. “This test is specifically about the robot being able to use a mirror for spatial reasoning.”
Hart believes that this work will aid in bringing robots into people’s everyday lives. He has demonstrated that the robot is already able to adjust its model in order to use tools, and that similar adaptations could compensate for damage to the robot. For example, letting a robot perform tasks unforeseen by the engineers who developed it by allowing it to learn and reason about its body in order to attempt to perform the task at hand.
“What makes this exciting, in terms of self-awareness, is that the robot is able to use knowledge that it has learned about itself in order to reason about a thing in its environment—the mirror—in a way that robots really haven’t been able to do before,” Hart says. “I believe that self-awareness is an important part of the picture in artificial intelligence, but it is not the endgame. It is just a step along the way.”

The pigmented cells in the skin of squid, octopi and cuttlefish are called chromatophores. The chromatophores are under muscular and neurological control, and they can change in size as well as color intensity, which is why these animals ca

n brilliantly camouflage and change their appearance so dramatically. So what happens when you insert an electrode into the fin nerve of a squid and hook it up to some groovy tunes on an ipod nano? Dancing chromatophores!

Watch the video: http://bit.ly/TFeteS

amazing shot

An amazing shot of the Northern Lights or aurora borealis over Iceland. This beautiful phenomenon, most commonly witnessed close to the North or South Pole, occurs when particles expelled from the Sun pass through the Earth's magnetic field and interact with atoms of oxygen, nitrogen and other elements.

Small male fish have 'Napoleon complex'

Monday, 03 September 2012

 

A male desert goby performing an aggressive display. By being more aggressive early on, the small males may hope to scare their opponent off and avoid a fight altogether, according to the researchers. These males were dubbed as having he 'Napoleon complex', after the French general Napoleon Bonaparte who apparently compensated being small with an aggressive personality.

Image: P. Andreas Svensson

In the deserts of central Australia lives a tough little fish known as the desert goby, and a new study is shedding light on the aggressive mating behaviour of smaller nest-holding males.

Published in the PLoS ONE journal, a study led by Dr Andreas Svensson of Linnaeus University in Sweden in collaboration with Monash University and the University of Turku, Finland, investigated what determined such aggression observed in smaller nest-holding males.
The overly aggressive males were dubbed ‘the Napoleon complex’ after the French general Napoleon Bonaparte who was thought to compensate his allegedly short stature with an aggressive personality.
In this species, the eggs are cared for by their father who will aggressively defend his nest against intruders. Once he attracts a female back to his nest to lay her eggs, he fans the eggs with his pectoral fins keeping them oxygenated. The researchers were surprised to find that small nesting males were more aggressive toward intruders than larger males.

Study co-author Dr Bob Wong, a Senior Lecturer at Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences and an expert in behavioural and evolutionary ecology, said to attack early may be a beneficial strategy for small males, because they avoid revealing their inferiority to the intruder.

“In the animal world, competing males are expected to partake in a drawn out escalation of aggression, to avoid the risks of being injured by a superior opponent,” Dr Wong said.

“We found the aggression of males was not affected by the presence of females and perceived mating opportunities or larger male intruders. Instead their aggression was related to their size.

“In particular, smaller males attacked sooner and with greater intensity compared to larger males, suggesting that nesting desert goby males used routine, rather than conditional, strategies for initiating aggression.”

Dr Svensson said if intruders were more likely to flee than retaliate, small males could benefit from attacking intruders before they had an opportunity to assess them.

“The only hope for a small male may be that an intruder would then leave, without a fight,” Dr Svensson said.

The hardy desert goby can tolerate extreme conditions and can be found in water twice as salty as the ocean and survive huge fluctuations in temperature – all important survival skills for a fish living in the desert.

The research was presented at the International Behavioural Ecology Congress in Sweden in August 2012.

57-million-year-old digging mammal

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The pangolin, or 'scaly anteater', is the only mammal to have large keratin scales covering its skin. It belongs to the order Pholidota, along with a number of extinct species. Credit: Sandip kumar; Wikimedia

Palaeontologists have taken a closer look at the fossilised remains of a rare, 57-million-year-old mammal to discover that this dogged digger was more closely related to the modern-day pangolin, or ‘scaly anteater’, than we thought.
The creature is Ernanodon antelios, an extinct placental species of mammal from Asia that grew to around the size of a badger, with powerful limbs and large, specialised claws for scratch-digging its meals and shelter out of the dry earth. It lived during the Paleocene epoch, a geological era that spanned 65.5 to 56 million years ago, just after the mass extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous. As first epoch of the Cenozoic era, often called the ‘age of the mammals’, the Paleocene saw the first appearance of many modern orders of mammals such as horses and rhinos.
Very little is known about E. antelios, because all researchers have had to work with for the past 30 years has been an ambiguous, warped set of fossilised bones discovered in Guangdong Province of China in 1973, while, until recently, a better preserved specimen has been sitting in storage since it was unearthed in 1979.

Original Chinese field record on the discovery of the first skeleton of Ernanodon antelios in 1973. Credit: Suyin Ting

The latter specimen, a near-complete skeleton discovered by researchers from the Paleontological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in a layer of Mongolian rocks, preserves most of the arms, legs and backbone of the animal, including an array of bones that were not preserved in the 1973 specimen. This week, palaeontologists Alexander Agadjanian and Peter Kondrashov from the Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences published a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, describing for the first time this specimen in detail, and putting to rest a debate that has raged for over three decades regarding E. antelios’ evolutionary relationships with modern mammals.
Following a series of papers questioning the authenticity of the holotype, including a 2003 study that claimed it represented two completely different taxa and elements that might have originated from different localities, it was concluded that, fortunately, the specimen was just extremely deformed. Which didn’t make the classification of the animal it once belonged to any easier, so for years, there was disagreement on whether E. antelios was more closely related to the order called Xenarthra, which includes anteaters, tree sloths and armadillos, or the Pholidota, an Old World order to which only seven living species of pangolin now belong, or the Palaeanodonta, an entirely extinct order of mammals. The telltale signs for Kondrashov and Agadjanian, were the animal’s legs, teeth and claws. “Every detail of the structure of the humerus of Ernanodon corresponds well to that of a digging mammal,” the researchers reported, adding that its hind limb muscular was well developed to support the body as it dug, and the teeth were minimal, suggesting a diet of small insects. The claws would have been impressive, the authors describing the ungual phalanges, or claws, on the hands as “extremely large” and robust, about 3.5cm long.

Skeletons of Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) (top) and Ernanodon antelios (bottom) from China. Specimens are not to scale. Credit: Peter Kondrashov

A detailed comparison of the animal’s morphology made it clear that rather than being a close relative to armadillos and anteaters, E. antelios shared more in common with the mysterious Palaeanodonts, with the Pholidota – the pangolins – sitting alongside as a sister group. So this strange Asian Paleocene mammal turns out to be a very early side branch of the pangolin family tree. “Few other fossil mammals presented as many controversies in the scientific world as Ernanodon did,” Kondrashov said, “and we are glad the new skeleton helped us resolve them.”