By Ker Than It might be a treasured value in many human cultures, but monogamy is rare in the animal kingdom at large. Of the roughly 5,000 species of mammals, only 3 to 5 percent are known to form lifelong pair bonds. This select group includes beavers, otters, wolves, some bats and foxes and a few hoofed animals. And even the creatures that do pair and mate for life occasionally have flings on the side. Some, like the wolf, waste little time finding a new mate if their old one dies or can no longer sexually perform. Staying faithful can be a struggle for most animals. For one, males are hardwired to spread their genes and females try to seek the best dad for their young. Also, monogamy is costly because it requires an individual to place their entire reproductive investment on the fitness of their mate. Putting all their eggs in one basket means there’s a lot of pressure on each animal to pick the perfect mate, which, as humans knows, can be tricky. Because of recent revelations from animal studies, scientists now distinguish between three different types of monogamy: Sexual monogamy is the practice of having sex only with one mate at a time. Social monogamy is when animals form pairs to mate and raise offspring but still have flings — or "extra-pair copulations" in science lingo — on the side. Genetic monogamy is used when DNA tests can confirm that a female's offspring were sired by only one father. © 2006 MSNBC.com

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9656 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The bright coloration of some birds is a classic example of an animal advertising its high quality to potential mates. Carotenoids are the pigment in red, orange and yellow skin (and carrots), but they are also powerful antioxidants that boost the immune system. Only healthy male birds can afford to maintain a costly display of color by diverting resources away from the immune system, the theory goes. The male must therefore have good genes, and that's why a flashy male attracts mates. In the mating game testosterone plays a similar role to carotenoids. The hormone makes male birds strut and croon but weakens their immune systems, and researchers knew that variations in testosterone levels between birds and seasons tend to match up with variations in the brightness of colors. "There should be a connection between these two signaling systems," says ecologist Julio Blas of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. Blas and his colleagues in Spain and Canada reasoned that high testosterone should increase the amount of carotenoids in the blood. If a male is healthy, they hypothesized, he would not need the surplus pigment to bolster his immune system, so his skin and beak will become saturated with color instead. To test the idea the group implanted capsules of testosterone under the skin of 13 red-legged partridges. These doped birds had 20 percent more carotenoids in their blood after the treatment, apparently because they absorbed more of the compounds from their food, whereas untreated birds showed no change. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 9655 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Making memories seems like a difficult proposition given that our synapses are constantly in action. These connections between nerve cells in our brain, which are regularly passing chemical messages back and forth, also supposedly have our memories distributed across them. Yet, regardless of the perpetual exchange of molecules, our memories remain stable. According to a pair of researchers at the University of Utah, it is the presence of scaffolding proteins in the synapses that anchor our life lessons within the chaos of brain activity. Researchers have come to a consensus that on a timescale of hours to a few days synapses change chemically through one of two processes: long-term potentiation (LTP), the strengthening of a synapse; or long-term depression (LDP), the weakening of a synapse. There is debate, however, over what determines how this strength changes. One of the keys to the process appears to be the number of AMPA receptor proteins, which bind glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter that is believed to be involved in learning and memory. Researchers have observed AMPA traveling from the inside of a neuron to the downstream end of a synapse, but they remain uncertain as to whether the migration into and out of the synapse is the major component in determining synaptic strength. "There's a lot of data out there that actually measures over time how the strength of a synapse varies during LTP/LTD," says Paul Bressloff, a theoretical neuroscientist, who used a system of differential equations to model AMPA receptors' movements. "They know these things happen, and they make hypotheses about how things could fit together, but they don't do any quantitative study to see if it could really work. And that's what we've basically done." © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9654 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press — Woe to those who have a cold on Thursday. If you can't smell the roasting turkey, it just won't taste as good. And if you think the brussels sprouts are bitter, well, blame how many taste buds you were born with, not the chef. But never fear: Even after you're pleasantly stuffed from second helpings, there's a little spot deep in your brain that still gives a "Wow!" for pumpkin pie. How we taste is pretty complicated, an interaction of the tongue, the nose, psychological cues and exposure to different foods. But ultimately, we taste with our brains. "Why do we learn to like foods? When they're paired with something our brains are programmed to see as good," says Dr. Linda Bartoshuk of the University of Florida, a specialist in the genetics of human taste. Sorry, brains are programmed to want fat, probably an evolutionary hangover from times of scarcity. But what's necessary for survival isn't all the brain likes. University of Michigan researchers just uncovered that eating something tasty can spark brain cells that sense actual pleasure to start firing rapidly. More provocative, how intensely people sense different flavors seems to affect how healthy they are. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 9653 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin You might be forgiven for thinking that fish have no personality. But according to biologists in Britain, not only do different trout have different characters, but these change as the fish experience life's highs and lows. Winning or losing a fight, or even watching fellow fish negotiate the perils and pitfalls of encountering strange new objects, influenced the future behaviour of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) studied in the lab. Researchers led by Lynne Sneddon, of the University of Liverpool, identified different 'personalities' in their fish by observing the boldness or shyness of individuals. Like people, some fish are very confident in the face of novelty or confrontation, whereas others are reticent and fearful. Sneddon and her team selected particularly bold and shy fish, and tested whether they changed their outlook depending on what life threw at them. They did this by arranging fish fights and watching to see how both the participants and observers responded to victories and defeats. The idea of animal personalities — known to researchers as 'behavioural syndromes' — has been around for a while. The idea aims to explain why some animals' behaviour is not always ideally suited to their circumstances. A male with a naturally aggressive temperament, for example, might be great at fighting off rivals, but might never get to mate because his heavy-handed seduction tactics scare off the ladies. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Aggression; Stress
Link ID: 9652 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Hens with bigger fleshy crests on their heads get more sex and larger quantities of sperm from dominant male roosters, according to a new study. While many studies have shown that males with more visible ornamentation have a mating advantage, this is the first to show that large ornamental body parts can give female animals a mating advantage, the researchers claim. Charlie Cornwallis at the University of Oxford, UK, demonstrated that looks matter to male chickens by running a series of tests in which he presented each of them with pairs of hens. In the first part of the experiment, he and his colleagues covered the eye-catching red crests, known as “combs”, on the females’ heads with small hoods. This made it impossible for the male birds to size up the hens’ combs. As a result, in this part of the study, the males apparently picked their mate at random. Next, the researchers removed the hoods from the hens and repeated the tests. The team found that 80% of the time males went after the hen with a larger comb. The hens also wore a harness that held a plastic sack in place to collect the sperm males favoured them with. An analysis of collected samples revealed that large-combed hens received 50% more sperm from dominant males than their counterparts with relatively small combs per ejaculation. This is important because hens often compete for sex with dominant males, explains Cornwallis. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9651 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Daniel Engber Last week, the New York Times reported that neuroscientists had gotten a look, for the first time, at the brains of devout Christians engaged in speaking in tongues. The test subjects believe that God takes possession of their minds and babbles through their mouths. And now, says the Times, "they have some neuroscience to back them up." The scientists compared the brain activity of their subjects in two conditions—first while they sang gospel songs, and second as they engaged in trancelike glossolalia replete with ecstatic bodily experiences. According to the research report, they found diminished activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which normally lights up when you're doing something on purpose. "The amazing thing was how the images supported people's interpretations of what was happening," the study's lead author, Andrew Newberg, told the Times. If the test subjects said they were in a state of utter abandon, the pictures of their brains proved it. This certainly isn't the first time a new brain-imaging study has been touted as biological proof of a subjective experience. Recent Times articles have highlighted research into the neural structures associated with dread, hysteria, and even schadenfreude. Another study scanned subjects who had been hypnotized to show that their brain activity matched up with their altered perceptions. Last year, a British team fed subjects dessert while they were inside a functional MRI machine, and color-spattered slices of cortex revealed activation in the orbitofrontal pleasure centers. "Eating ice cream really does make you happy," began the article in The Guardian. 2006 Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Keyword: Brain imaging; Language
Link ID: 9650 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By HENRY FOUNTAIN A C. elegans Model of Nicotine-Dependent Behavior: Regulation by TRP-Family Channels (Cell)Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Life Sciences Institute have discovered that C. elegans can become dependent on nicotine. The tiny worm (above, magnified) is stimulated by the chemical, becomes tolerant of it with continued exposure and even gets withdrawal symptoms when it goes cold turkey. “Its behavioral responses parallel those observed in mammals,” said X. C. Shawn Xu, an assistant professor at the institute and an author of a paper in the journal Cell on the research. What’s more, Dr. Xu said, some of the same genes that mediate nicotine dependence in mammals are found in C. elegans, making it a genetic model as well as a behavioral one. So the tiny roundworm, already a laboratory workhorse that is central to studies of aging and other complex biological processes, may become a favored tool for nicotine research. “You can study mammals for nicotine dependence,” he said, “but it’s a lot easier to identify new functions of a gene in worms.” Previous research on C. elegans and nicotine had focused “on the muscle side,” Dr. Xu said, the biochemical pathways in muscle tissue that are activated by nicotine. Dr. Xu and his colleagues used very low concentrations of nicotine to examine the effect on the worm’s nervous system. (Low concentrations were important, he said, as too much nicotine “sort of O.D.’d the worm.”) Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9649 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In mammals, the production of new brain cells occurs primarily at the time the nervous system is developing, although certain brain areas generate neurons throughout adulthood. One such area is the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in the critical function of memory and spatial perception. Hippocampal cells, specifically dentate granule cells, are continuously produced in adults as well as in young animals. How these "adult-born" cells build their connections with the rest of the brain, and the extent to which they resemble "pup-born" cells, is of great interest to those who would like to coax other parts of adult brains to make new cells as a strategy for reversing the loss of function from trauma or degenerative disorders. To find out whether adult-born hippocampal neurons have different properties than mature neurons that arose when the brain was developing, Diego Laplagne, Alejandro Schinder, and colleagues compared how each type of neuron incorporated functionally into brain circuits. The researchers' first task was to figure out a way to distinguish between pup-born and adult-born neurons in brain tissue that contained both. To accomplish that task, they used retroviruses to introduce one kind of fluorescent protein into the developing neurons and a second protein into the adult mouse brain. As a result of this treatment, the pup-born cells fluoresced green and the adult-born cells fluoresced red, making them readily distinguishable in brain slices. Once they could tell the two types of cells apart, the researchers gained insight into the connections formed. They looked at glutamatergic (excitatory) nerves connecting the hippocampus with the entorhinal cortex, another brain area associated with memory. When they stimulated the excitatory inputs carrying information from the neocortex to the hippocampus, the researchers evoked similar responses in both pup-born and adult-born neurons.

Keyword: Neurogenesis
Link ID: 9648 - Posted: 11.21.2006

WASHINGTON -- Males experience more traumatic events on average than do females, yet females are more likely to meet diagnostic criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to a review of 25 years of research reported in the November issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association (APA). The authors reviewed 290 studies conducted between 1980 and 2005 to determine who is more at risk for potentially traumatic events (PTE) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – males or females? The results of the meta-analysis found that while males have a higher risk for traumatic events, women suffer from higher PTSD rates. PTSD is defined as an anxiety disorder precipitated by a traumatic event and characterized by symptoms of re-experiencing the trauma, avoidance and numbing and hyperarousal. From the review, researchers David F. Tolin, PhD of the Institute of Living and Edna B. Foa, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that female study participants were more likely than male study participants to have experienced sexual assault and child sexual abuse, but less likely to have experienced accidents, nonsexual assaults, witness death or injury, disaster or fire and combat or war. Sexual trauma, the authors conclude, may cause more emotional suffering and are more likely to contribute to a PTSD diagnosis than other types of trauma.

Keyword: Stress; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9647 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers studying chimpanzee mating preferences have found that although male chimpanzees prefer some females over others, they prefer older, not younger, females as mates. The findings uncover a stark contrast between chimpanzee behavior and that of humans, their primate cousins. The basis for this difference may lie in the fact that whereas chimpanzees participate in a relatively promiscuous mating system, humans form unusually long-term mating bonds, thereby making young females more valuable as mates with greater reproductive potential. The findings, reported by Martin Muller of Boston University and colleagues at Harvard University, appear in the November 21st issue of Current Biology. Theoretical explanations for the preference of human males for young females as mates include the facts that humans tend to form long-term mating partnerships, and that female fertility is limited by menopause and, therefore, age. The converse of such an explanation suggests that species that appear to lack long-term pair bonding and menopause (such as chimpanzees) should not exhibit such strong preferences by males for young females. In the new work, researchers examined this idea by studying male mate preferences within the Kanyawara chimpanzee community in Kibale National Park in Uganda. The researchers found that, in contrast to humans, male chimpanzees prefer older females to younger ones. They found that, compared to younger females, older females were more likely to be approached for copulation, were more often in association with males during estrous periods, copulated more frequently with high-ranking males, and gave rise to higher rates of male-on-male aggression in mating contests.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9646 - Posted: 11.21.2006

Roxanne Khamsi In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi was on the right track in his advice to the young Luke Skywalker. People are fooled by magic tricks, even if their eyes see past the illusion, a new study reveals. The tricks work by distorting our perception, even though they do not fool our eyes, the research shows. The study demonstrates that the brain pathways for eye movement and perception operate independently, the researchers say. Gustav Kuhn at the University of Durham, UK, who is a neuroscientist and also a magician, showed 38 students a video clip of the “vanishing ball” illusion. Watch a brief clip of the trick (mov format). In the trick, the magician throws a ball into the air twice and catches it. On the third, fake throw, the ball seems to disappear into the air even though it never leaves his hand. Most of the students watching the trick were fooled by the magician looking up on the third throw – 68% perceived the ball as leaving his hand. To understand how volunteers were fooled, Kuhn and colleagues filmed their eyes as they watched the trick and used special software to calculate where they had looked. Most people glanced quickly at the magician’s face before tracking the ball, the researchers found. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 9645 - Posted: 06.24.2010

(WebMD) A new study on marijuana and memory may show why using pot hampers memory. The study appears in Nature Neuroscience's advance online edition. Researchers included David Robbe, Ph.D., of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. The study was in rats, not people. The researchers gave rats shots of a synthetic cannabinoid drug that resembles marijuana's active ingredient, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). The drug doses were "comparable with recreational and palliative [pain relief] uses in humans," note Robbe and his colleagues. For comparison, other rats got saltwater shots without cannabinoids. Twenty minutes later, the scientists started monitoring the activity of certain nerve cells, or neurons, in the rats' brains. Those neurons normally send chemical signals to communicate with each other. The process occurs seamlessly, like musicians playing in sync with each other in an orchestra. ©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9644 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The tiniest wires that link neurons to one another probably serve a critical role in the brain's computational function. New data about how these wires, or dendritic spines, modulate their electrical properties and receive incoming signals is giving scientists a more complete view of their knack for acting as efficient mathematical calculators. Moreover, the findings also hint that these dendritic spines could make the human brain a far more efficient learning machine than that of other animals. Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Rafael Yuste and his colleagues at Columbia University published their findings about dendritic spines in a trio of papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). During development, as the brain is laying down its intricate neural circuits, individual neurons must also be able to adjust their sensitivity to incoming signals so that they can process information. The new research sheds significant light on a century-old mystery of how dendritic spines contribute to this process, the scientists said. Neurons are the wiring along which nerve signals are propagated throughout the brain and spinal cord. Chemical signals called neurotransmitters signal neighboring cells to initiate their own electrical impulses. These neurotransmitters are received along branching extensions of a nerve cell called dendrites. From each of the many dendrites on a nerve cell's surface sprouts a forest of mushroom-shaped spines. The head of each mushroom is covered with receptors that bind neurotransmitters that are launched in bursts across the synapse, the junction between nerve cells. Each spine has a filamentous neck that supports the head. These structures are ubiquitous: spines cover most neurons in the brain and are responsible for mediating close to 90 percent of all brain connections. © 2006 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9643 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Wasps have more than just a sting in their tail according to new research published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, they also carry the insect version of pepper spray in their heads, which they can release when fighting other wasps. The research not only gives us a fascinating insight into insect behaviour but could also help us to use wasps to kill crop destroying pests. For the first time scientists, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), have recorded 'chemical exchanges' undetectable by the human nose which take place between females of a species of bethylid wasp - Goniozus legneri, when they fight over larvae on which they lay their eggs. Not only have they discovered that chemical exchanges take place, but also that it is always the losing wasp that releases the potent gas. While the research was primarily aimed at improving the understanding of animal behaviour, lead researcher Dr Ian Hardy, from the University of Nottingham, explains that there is great potential for applied spin-offs: "Bethylid wasps kill the larvae of many insects that are pests of crops, such as almonds, coffee and coconut, ruining harvests and costing industry thousands of pounds. These wasps could be used as a cheap and effective biological control to kill the larvae, avoiding the use of expensive and polluting pesticides. But for successful biological control, we need a good knowledge of wasp behaviour, including how wasps from the same and different species interact. Understanding these patterns can inform us of the best combinations of species to release against a given crop pest."

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 9642 - Posted: 11.21.2006

Boston, MA -- Fighting like a girl or fighting like a boy is hardwired into fruit fly neurons, according to a study in the Nov. 19 Nature Neuroscience advance online publication by a research team from Harvard Medical School and the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna. The results confirm that a gene known as "fruitless" is a key factor underlying sexual differences in behavior. The findings mark a milestone in an unlikely new animal model for understanding the biology of aggression and how the nervous system gives rise to different behaviors. "Aggression is a very serious problem in society, and it's a problem with a biological and genetic component," said co-author Edward Kravitz, the George Packer Berry professor of neurobiology at HMS, who developed the fruit fly fighting model used. "We want to understand that. I can't think of a better system to study than fruit flies. And no one gets hurt." The fruitless gene is known for its role in male courtship. The large gene makes a set of male-specific proteins found exclusively in the nervous system of fruit flies, in about 2 percent of neurons. The proteins are necessary for normal courting. Males missing the proteins do not court females, and they sometimes court males, other research groups have shown. Females with a male version of the gene perform the male courting ritual with other females. The same gene directs another sex-specific behavior – fighting patterns, the new study shows. Female fighting, for example, largely involves head butts and some shoving. Males prefer lunges; they rear up on their back legs and snap their forelegs down hard – sometimes nailing an opponent that is slow to retreat.

Keyword: Aggression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9641 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new test may help researchers understand why a toxin builds up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Amyloid beta protein accumulates in the brain in Alzheimer's disease but whether the body produces too much or cannot break it down is unclear. But by labelling the protein with a carbon isotope, doctors can measure the rate of turnover, a report in Nature Medicine suggests. Experts said the test could help improve diagnosis and treatment. Doctors are already able to measure amounts of amyloid beta protein - or abeta - in the cerebrospinal fluid but that doesn't indicate why the build-up is occurring. By working out whether the body is producing too much or is unable to break it down, researchers develop drugs too accurately target the right process. Furthermore, the test may also prove useful in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's prior to the onset of clinical symptoms. The team at the Washington School of Medicine gave eight healthy volunteers an intravenous infusion which contained an amino acid - Leucine - that had carbon molecules with one extra neutron. They then took samples of cerebral spinal fluid - the fluid that surrounds the brain - over a period of 36 hours. The body uses amino acids to form proteins so the researchers were able to measure how the carbon isotope was taken up in the production of amyloid beta protein and then how long it took to break the labelled proteins down. They found the the production rate of the amyloid protein was 7.6% per hour and the clearance rate was 8.2% per hour - much faster than anyone had predicted. "Abeta has the second-fastest production rate of any protein whose production rate has been measured so far," said lead author Dr Randall Bateman, assistant professor of neurology at Washington University Medical School. "In a time span of about six or seven hours, you make half the amyloid beta found in your central nervous system." (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 9640 - Posted: 11.18.2006

By Steven Reinberg FRIDAY, (HealthDay News) -- Adding further weight to the theory that fish may be brain food, new research found that people with diets rich in fish have a significantly lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. The key appears to be docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid that appears to affect dementia risk and to be important for the proper functioning of the central nervous system. "If you have a high level of DHA, a fatty acid found in fish, it reduced your risk of dementia by about half," said study lead researcher Dr. Ernst J. Schaefer, senior scientist and director of the Lipid Metabolism Laboratory at the Jean Mayer U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. It's known that omega-3 fatty acids protect the heart and the circulatory system. "Just as fish is good for your heart, it's probably good for your brain as well," Schaefer said. Fatty fish like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon are high in DHA. The study findings are published in the November issue of theArchives of Neurology. © 2006 Scout News LLC.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 9639 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Call them laser-guided smart bombs for brain tumors. Researchers at the University of Michigan announced the testing of a drug delivery system that involves drug-toting nanoparticles and a guiding peptide to target cancerous cells in the brain. Their study finds that via this method more of the drug can be delivered to a tumor's general vicinity. They report their findings in the November 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. The researchers used a pharmaceutical called Photofrin, which is photodynamic, meaning it is activated by a laser after it has entered the bloodstream. As its primary side effect, the drug renders patients photosensitive, and they must remain out of bright sunlight and even unshaded lamps for up to 30 days after receiving treatment. Despite this major drawback, Photofrin is used in the treatment of esophageal, bladder and skin cancers. But their novel delivery system, which relies on the intravenous delivery of 40-nanometer-wide particles to carry the drug, may actually avoid much of the photosensitivity, because less Photofrin circulates in the bloodstream thanks to a peptide called F3. A sequence of 31 amino acids broken off of the protein HMGN2 (high mobility group protein 2), F3 has the ability to penetrate cell membranes. "This peptide acts as a "zip code" in that it enables the binding of the nanoparticles only to blood vessels within the tumor and not normal blood vessels," says Alnawaz Rehemtulla, a radiologist and environmental health scientist who co-authored the study. F3 can detect the expression of a protein called nucleolin, which is a marker on the surface of tumor cells. Another problem the researchers avoided was having to deliver their medicine in such a way that it could cross the blood-brain barrier, which keeps many substances from entering the brain from the bloodstream. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9638 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Andrew Lawler The Nobel Prize-winning director of a neuroscience center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is stepping down in the wake of a controversy over the abortive hiring of a young female biologist in June. In a 16 November letter to MIT Provost Rafael Reif and Science Dean Robert Sibley, Susumu Tonegawa, who leads the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, said he would resign as director on 31 December, "when my appointment expires, so I can devote all my energy and focus to research." Tonegawa's resignation comes 5 months after MIT's unsuccessful courtship of Alla Karpova, a postdoctoral fellow now at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Karpova ended up turning down a faculty position at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research. On 2 November a panel examining the incident, in which Tonegawa sent "inappropriate" e-mails to Karpova to discourage her from taking the job, issued a report that criticized the conduct of Tonegawa and other faculty members. The report also said the behavior illuminated a lack of clear mission for the school's many-faceted neuroscience effort and turf battles between its various institutes (ScienceNOW, 3 November). © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9637 - Posted: 06.24.2010