By NICHOLAS WADE Linguists have devised a new way of linking languages, which they say has allowed them to reconstruct a network of the languages spoken in islands near New Guinea. The new method is designed for languages so old that little trace of their common vocabulary remains. It forges connections between languages through grammatical features, which change less quickly than words. With the new tool, historians may be able to peer considerably further back in time than the 5,000 to 7,000 years or so that many linguists see as the limit beyond which no sure connections can be made between languages. The authors of the new method say the relationships they can construct may be 10,000 years or older. The researchers, who were led by Michael Dunn, of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Holland, have published their work in the current issue of Science. They say that on the basis of grammatical similarities they have constructed a network of the Papuan languages spoken in the island groups east of Papua New Guinea. Traveling eastward, these are the Bismarck Islands, Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 7963 - Posted: 09.28.2005

By Steven Ashley Shortly after terrorist bombs ripped through central London's transit system on July 7, Scotland Yard dispatched trained sniffer dog teams to search for explosives and to scent out clues at the blast sites. Meanwhile, less than an hour up the M11 highway in Cambridge, engineers Billy Boyle, Andrew Koehl and David Ruiz-Alonso were lamenting the fact that the antiterrorist technology they had worked on since just after 9/11--a sensitive but inexpensive electronic nose--had not been ready to help avert this tragedy. The Ph.D. engineers have developed a button-size chemical sensor prototype that is designed, among other things, to detect trace amounts of explosives before they detonate. The prospect of a modern-day coal-mine canary for trains and buildings still lies in the future for the entrepreneurial brain trust of Owlstone Ltd., the University of Cambridge spin-off company the trio established two years ago. But backed by $2 million in venture-capital funding, the device should be ready for field tests this fall. The three are confident that the low-power device can quickly identify tiny concentrations of substances in parts per billion. "Our idea is to put one on the lapel of every soldier and in every Tube carriage," Boyle states. The R&D effort started in late 2001, when Koehl, an electrical engineer, arrived at Cambridge from the California Institute of Technology. "From the beginning, I had the idea to create a small, cheap chemical detection system for the military and Homeland Security and then, later, for commercial markets," Koehl says. © 1996-2005 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 7962 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — All brains originated from a single common ancestral brain that emerged at least 700 million years ago, according to a recent analysis of brain studies from the past decade. The finding suggests this mother brain for all creatures with a central nervous system — such as insects, birds, animals and humans — evolved only once before each species underwent its own evolutionary course. "What we see today in humans, insects and all other multicellular animals with a central nervous system are probably just variations of one ancient scheme," said Rudi Loesel, who conducted the analysis. Loesel, a scientist in the Department of Developmental Biology and Morphology of Animals at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, added, "What this ancestral brain looked like, we do not know. Its architecture might have been very simple, but the basic genetic mechanisms and the principal chemical setup was already there (before 700 million years ago)." The researchers don't know what the creature that contained the mother of all brains looked like. Some scientists speculate that it could have been a segmented flatworm, while others think it was a more complex creature. © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 7961 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin Computer scientists have created a hat that can read your thoughts. It allows you to stroll down a virtual street. All you have to do is think about walking. Called a brain-computer interface, the device detects activity in certain brain areas linked to movement, and uses the signals to mimic that movement in a virtual world. The technology could one day help paralysed patients to move robotic arms, or help sufferers of motor neuron disease to type out words on a virtual keyboard. "Just thinking about movement activates the same neurons as actually moving," explains Gert Pfurtscheller of Graz University of Technology in Austria, who has been working on the device for around four years. By picking up on these bursts of nerve activity, the computer can decide whether you are thinking about moving your hands or feet, and react accordingly. The technology detects brain waves by using electrodes placed at strategic points on the scalp; they are positioned over brain areas known to be involved in moving specific body parts. The computer can then distinguish between signals corresponding to different types of movement. Previously, accurate detection of local brain activity has required electrodes to be implanted in the brain. This technique has allowed recipients to control robots and even send e-mails (see "Paralysed man sends e-mail by thought ") . The new device, presented at the Presence 2005 technology meeting in London last week1, achieves a similar feat using non-invasive methods. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 7960 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gill Higgins Justin Richardson was an American student passionate about sport. But one night, a reckless dive into a shallow pool broke his neck. He was paralysed from the chest down and faced a life with no sensation at all in his lower limbs. But an experimental treatment appears to have made a difference. Justin says: "I can now feel most every single spot of my body. And I have my bladder control back now. I know when I need to use the rest room, which has improved my independence." Spontaneous recovery can occur. But Justin believes it is the treatment which has helped him. His medical team have been impressed. Therapist Rebecca Czarnecki, Spinal Cord Fitness Coordinator at the WakeMed Rehab Centre in North Carolina says: "Justin compared to other patients with a similar injury is above and beyond their ability." The treatment, called Procord, uses a type of white blood cell, called a macrophage, which is taken from the patient themselves. When an injury occurs in most parts of the body, such as a wound to the hand, the immune system activates a healing processes, in which macrophages play a part. This does not happen in the central nervous system, including the spinal cord, which is protected by the blood-brain barrier, a defence system blocking foreign substances in the body from reaching the nervous tissue. (C)BBC

Keyword: Regeneration; Glia
Link ID: 7959 - Posted: 09.27.2005

Temperature triggers significant changes in the expression of specific clock genes. The biological clock controls the circadian rhythms of a wide range of physiological and behavioral processes, from fluctuating hormone levels to sleep–wake cycles and feeding patterns. While it's well known that circadian clock elements sense and respond to light cycles, much less is known about how daily temperature cycles affect the clock's timing mechanism in vertebrates. In the open-access journal PLoS Biology, Kajori Lahiri, Nicholas Foulkes, and their colleagues study temperature related responses at the genetic and molecular level in zebrafish. This genetically tractable model organism is especially suited to this task because adults, larvae, and even embryos can tolerate a wide range of core body temperatures (being cold-blooded animals) that can be manipulated simply by changing the water temperature. Temperature variations of as little as 2 ºC (35.6 ºF) can reset the zebrafish clock, Lahiri et al. show, and precise shifts in temperature trigger significant changes in the expression of specific clock genes. More explicitly, clock genes per4, cry2a, cry3, and clock1 showed rhythmic expression under temperature cycles when animals were raised in the dark, and the expression profiles during the high temperature phase matched those seen during a light phase when animals experienced light-dark cycles.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 7958 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer New evidence from mouse studies suggests that stem cells may help cure paralysis in cases of spinal cord injury. So that raises an obvious question: When can they be tried in humans? The answer: No time soon. That may be disappointing to paralyzed individuals with untreatable spinal cord damage, as well as champions of California's Proposition 71 stem cell research program, all anxious to see real treatments develop from the hype of regenerative medicine. But experts warn it would be a big mistake to rush into clinical trials before settling the many scientific and ethical issues clouding the future of stem cell biology. "I fully understand the impatience of patients, spinal cord injury patients in particular, who are desperate for some form of treatment. But there is risk proceeding too quickly here," said Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, a neurologist who serves as director of a stem cell and tissue biology program at UCSF. "The whole field could be damaged by the outcome of one failed early trial," he said. "I am not saying (a human trial) shouldn't be done, but we should really be cautious about it." ©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Regeneration; Stem Cells
Link ID: 7957 - Posted: 06.24.2010

SEATTLE – One teenager likes to snowboard off a cliff. Another prefers to read a book and wouldn't think of trading places. Why these differences exist is a mystery, but for the first time researchers have identified a possible genetic explanation behind risk-seeking behavior. Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have found that a specific neurodevelopmental gene, called neuroD2, is related to the development of an almond-shaped area of the brain called the amygdala, the brain's emotional seat. This gene also controls emotional-memory formation and development of the fear response, according to research led by James Olson, M.D., Ph.D., associate member of the Clinical Research Division at the Hutchinson Center. The findings will be published in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Sept. 26. Olson and colleagues studied mice with a single copy of the neuroD2 gene and found they had an impaired ability to form emotional memories and conditioned fear. "Most of us are familiar with the fact that we can remember things better if those memories are formed at a time when there is a strong emotional impact – times when we are frightened, angry or falling in love," he said. "That's called emotional-memory formation. The amygdala is the part of the brain that is responsible for formation of emotional memory."

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Emotions
Link ID: 7956 - Posted: 06.24.2010

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have learned how a genetic variation long suspected in making some people susceptible to alcoholism and narcotic drug addiction actually does so. In laboratory studies, this variation greatly reduced the amount of protein that the DNA in a cell produced. It's the difference in protein expression that may make receptors on certain brain cells much more vulnerable to the effects of addictive drugs, said Wolfgang Sadee, the study's lead author, professor and chair of pharmacology and director of the pharmacogenomics program at Ohio State University. These particular receptors, called mu opioid receptors, serve as a molecular docking station for narcotic drugs and alcohol. Until now it wasn't clear exactly what about this genetic variation, called A118G, would increase a person's chances of developing a drug addiction. (A118G is a variation in what researchers call the mu opioid receptor gene.) While Sadee and his team didn't look at the interaction between narcotics and the mu opioid receptor, they suspect that differences in protein production may leave brain cells with these receptors more open to the effects of drugs. “The real significance of this work is that one day, we may be able to tailor treatments for addiction based on how a person's genes behave,” said Sadee, who is also chair of pharmacology at Ohio State. The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7955 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For decades paleontologists have assumed that early primates rested by day and fed by night. But a new study of light-sensing proteins suggests that the first primates' eyes were better suited for daytime and that only later did some shift their activities to the night. If that's the case, then primates have always been adapted to looking for food and shelter during the day and didn't have to develop this capability as they diversified. Modern primates can be either diurnal or nocturnal, but the most primitive ones--such as bushbabies--are night owls. They have a special lining behind their retina for concentrating light, which is useful for night foraging. Some species that are active in the day also have this lining, suggesting that ancestral primates were night-dwellers, with some primates later evolving daytime routines. Wen-Hsuing Li, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, and colleagues examined the molecular evidence for this scenario. They compared the DNA sequence of genes for light-sensitive proteins--called opsins--from species widely distributed on the primate tree. For one analysis, they looked at DNA from 25 species, concentrating on the genes for pigments sensitive to green or red wavelengths, which are not useful at night. If ancestral primates were nocturnal, then these genes should vary among living species, because mutations wouldn't have compromised survival. They found the opposite: The red and green pigment genes were quite similar across species. © 2005 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution; Vision
Link ID: 7954 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Loss of body mass over time appears to be strongly linked to older adults’ risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and the greater the loss the greater the chance of a person developing the disease, new research has found. The findings are the first to associate decline in body mass index (BMI) with the eventual onset of AD. The researchers suggest that the loss of body mass reflects disease processes and that change in BMI might be a clinical predictor of the development of AD. The research, reported in the September 27, 2005, issue of Neurology, was conducted by Aron S. Buchman, M.D., David A. Bennett, M.D., and colleagues at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL, as part of the Religious Orders Study. The Religious Orders Study is a comprehensive, long-term look at aging and AD among Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers nationwide that has been funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, since 1993. Rush University Medical Center is one of more than 30 Alzheimer’s Disease Centers supported by the NIA. “People with Alzheimer’s disease are known to lose weight and body mass after they have the disease,” says Dallas W. Anderson, Ph.D., program director for population studies in the Dementias of Aging Branch of NIA’s Neuroscience and Neuropsychology of Aging Program. “This study is significant in that it looks at body mass changes in the years preceding dementia and cognitive decline. Other studies have looked at BMI at only one point in time or studied body mass loss in people who already have AD.”

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 7953 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Zoo animals often seem to ignore the presence of human visitors, but new research suggests that is not always the case for captive gorillas, which repeatedly become agitated and anxious when large numbers of people approach their exhibit. The research, published in the current journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, is the first analysis on the influence of visitors on the behavior and welfare of zoo-housed gorillas. "We noticed more behaviors suggestive of relaxation, such as increased resting, during low visitor density, and more behaviors suggestive of agitation, such as repetitive rocking, group-directed aggression and self-grooming during high visitor density," said the study's author, Deborah L. Wells. Wells, a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at Queen's University Belfast, Ireland, explained to Discovery News that she studied six western lowland gorillas housed together at Belfast Zoological Gardens in Northern Ireland. The gorilla group includes both wild-born and captive-born males and females of different ages. The gorillas were observed for four hours a day on 20 busy days, when the average number of visitors was around 1,288. The gorillas also were observed on 20 quiet days, usually on weekdays when an average of six people visited the zoo. © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Stress; Animal Rights
Link ID: 7952 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In a significant advance toward understanding a perplexing and painful neurological disorder, an international team of researchers has discovered gene mutations associated with an inherited chronic pain and weakness syndrome known as hereditary neuralgic amyotrophy (also called HNA). No treatment is known for this disabling condition, which short-circuits a peripheral nerve center called the brachial plexus, a network of over 100,000 nerves, that branches from the spinal cord to supply muscular function and sensation to the shoulders, arms, and hands. HNA may first appear in the childhood or teen years, and lead to recurring episodes of severe, sudden onset pain in the arms and shoulders as well as weakness, loss of sensation, and muscle wasting. Episodes are often triggered by an infection, an immunization, childbirth, or overworking the arms and shoulders. Nerve inflammation and changes in the blood suggest that problems with the person's immune response are contributing to the episode. The on again/off again course of the condition, and the environmental triggers, are unusual among inherited nerve disorders. An associated aspect of the disorder in some individuals is facial features -- a long, slender face and narrow, close-set eyes slanting upward -- reminiscent of portraits by the early 20th-century Italian painter Modigliani, according to Phillip F. Chance, MD, professor of pediatrics and neurology at the University of Washington in Seattle, whose laboratory first located the gene for this disorder to chromosome 17 in 1996.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7951 - Posted: 09.27.2005

By HENRY FOUNTAIN YESTERDAY, as on other fall Saturdays, student musicians around the country performed in their school marching bands, revving up football fans with classics like "When the Saints Go Marching In" and the theme from "Hawaii Five-O." Yet from the standpoint of their hearing, they were only slightly better off than if they had been jackhammering the parking lot. A study at Duke University has confirmed what musicians and band directors have known anecdotally for years: playing in a marching band can be hazardous to your health. Joseph Keefe, a Duke graduate who works with an acoustical consulting firm in New Jersey, measured sound pressure levels experienced by band members at Duke and at a local high school in Durham, N.C. At indoor and outdoor rehearsals and during games, he often found levels above 100 decibels for drummers and other percussionists, and for anyone unfortunate enough to march near brass instruments. While that might not be as noisy as a construction site, which can produce levels of about 110 decibels, band performances can be noisy enough to threaten at least temporary hearing loss. "Plenty loud is a good way to put it," Mr. Keefe said. A marching band is loud enough that, over the course of a rehearsal or game, it can exceed workplace recommendations by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which are based on both noise level and time of exposure. At a typical football game, between warming up, and playing in the stands and the halftime show, band members can be exposed to loud music for several hours, said Mr. Keefe, who played the drums in the Duke band. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 7950 - Posted: 09.26.2005

By Rob Stein Are left-handed women at increased risk for breast cancer? A new study suggests that might be the case. Cuno Uiterwaal of the University Medical Center in the Netherlands and colleagues examined the relationship between handedness and breast cancer in 12,178 healthy, middle-age women from Utrecht participating in a breast cancer screening study. Between 1982 and 2000, the left-handed women in the study were more than twice as likely as right-handed women to develop breast cancer before going through menopause, the researchers found. The association held up even after the researchers took into account other factors, such as social and economic status, smoking habits, family history of breast cancer, and reproductive history. Much more research is needed to explore whether the relationship is real and what may explain it. But the researchers speculated that left-handed women may be at risk for breast cancer because they were exposed to higher levels of certain hormones in the womb. © Copyright 1996-2005 The Washington

Keyword: Laterality; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 7949 - Posted: 06.24.2010

John Roach for National Geographic News By the time babies celebrate their first birthday, their ears are already tuned to the rhythms and sounds of their culture, researchers say. The finding suggests that one-year-olds in North America, for example, notice subtle changes in waltz-like rhythms but not in the complex dance rhythms unique to other continents. The study builds on research reported earlier this year that shows six-month-old babies are more adept at recognizing complex musical rhythms than adults. Scientist described the latest findings last month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "In the most recent study, by 12 months of age babies are showing signs of tuning to the music of their culture," said Sandra Trehub, a psychologist at the University of Toronto at Mississauga who co-authored both studies. Trehub and colleagues added 12-month-old infants to their mix of test subjects as part of an ongoing effort to chart how human brains develop over time. While the study found that year-old babies tune into the rhythms of their own musical heritage, the infants still have a better ear than adults for the complex rhythms unique to foreign music. © 1996-2005 National Geographic Society.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Hearing
Link ID: 7948 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Antwerp, Belgium – Neuralgic Amyotrophy is a painful disorder of the peripheral nervous system. This heritable disease causes prolonged acute attacks of pain in the shoulder or arm, followed by temporary paralysis. Researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to the University of Antwerp, have uncovered a small piece of the molecular puzzle of this disease by identifying the defects in the gene responsible for this disorder. Hereditary Neuralgic Amyotrophy (HNA) is characterized by repeated attacks of pain in a shoulder, arm, and/or hand, followed by total or partial paralysis of the affected area. The pain and the loss of movement usually disappear within a couple of weeks, but sometimes recovery can take months or even several years. Many HNA patients also have particular facial features, such as eyes that are somewhat closer together, a fold in the upper eyelid that covers the inside corner of the eye, and sometimes a cleft palate. HNA is a relatively rare disorder: the disease appears in some 200 families worldwide. There is also a non-hereditary form of HNA, called the Parsonage-Turner Syndrome. The clinical picture of this more frequently occurring form - 2 to 4 cases per 100,000 persons - is not distinguishable from that of the heritable form. The attacks of pain are usually provoked by external factors such as vaccination, infection, operation, and even pregnancy or childbirth. By virtue of their genetic predisposition, carriers of the hereditary form of HNA run greater risk of having an attack.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 7947 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WASHINGTON -- Two recent studies may help clinicians and researchers better predict and understand dementia of the Alzheimer's type early in its history. Both studies appear in the September issue of Neuropsychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). Psychologists focus on early detection in part because current medications are useful only when given very early in the course of the disease. In the first study, psychologists Pauline Spaan, PhD, and Jeroen Raaijmakers, PhD, from the University of Amsterdam in collaboration with neurologist Cees Jonker, MD, PhD, from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam analyzed the data on 119 participants in the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, a large, population-based study of older people. The researchers visited older people in their homes and gave them memory tests loaded on laptop computers. Two years later, they compared the test scores of people who went on to develop Alzheimer's with the scores of those who stayed healthy. The researchers analyzed memory components that included episodic (what happened; what did you hear or read); semantic (vocabulary, facts); and implicit (learning without awareness of learning, "priming"). Three tests were very good at predicting who would develop Alzheimer's by two years later. Participants for whom "priming" information didn't aid memory or whose learning wasn't aided by semantic knowledge -- were significantly more likely to develop Alzheimer's.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 7946 - Posted: 09.26.2005

Susan Milius Honeybees that defend their colonies by killing wasps with body heat come within 5°C of cooking themselves in the process, according to a study in China. At least two species of honeybees there, the native Apis cerana and the introduced European honeybee, Apis mellifera, engulf a wasp in a living ball of defenders and heat the predator to death. A new study of heat balling has described a margin of safety for the defending bees, says Tan Ken of Yunnan Agricultural University in Kunming, China. He and his team also report in an upcoming issue of Naturwissenschaften that the native bees have heat-balling tricks that the European bees don't. That makes sense, the researchers say, since the Asian bees have long shared their range with the attacker wasp Vespa velutina, but the European bees became widespread in Asia only some 50 years ago and so have had much less time to adapt to the wasp. The attacker wasps are "gigantic," says Thomas Seeley of Cornell University, who studies bee behavior. Of all social insects, the species has the largest workers, with wingspans that can stretch 5 centimeters. The wasps build large versions of the papery nests of hornets found in North America, and they specialize in breaking into other social-insect nests and carrying off larvae as food for young wasps. ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Miscellaneous; Evolution
Link ID: 7945 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHAPEL HILL -- New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine points to the possible molecular origin of at least nine human diseases of nervous system degeneration. The findings are currently in PLoS Computational Biology, an open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science (PloS) in partnership with the International Society for Computational Biology. These neurodegenerative diseases, including Huntington's disease, share an abnormal deposit of proteins inside nerve cells. This deposition of protein results from a kind of genetic stutter within the cell's nucleus asking for multiple copies of the amino acid glutamine, a building block of protein structure. These disorders are collectively known as polyglutamine diseases. Along with Huntington's, these diseases include spinobulbar muscular atrophy; spinocerebellar ataxia types 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 17; and dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, or Haw River Syndrome. Haw River Syndrome is a genetic brain disorder first identified in 1998 in five generations of a family having ancestors born in Haw River, N.C. The disorder begins in adolescence (between ages 15 and 30 years) and is characterized by progressive and widespread damage to brain function, leading to loss of coordination, seizures, paranoid delusions, dementia and death within 15 to 20 years.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 7944 - Posted: 09.24.2005