The human brain is estimated to contain 100 billion neurons (the number 1 followed by eleven zeros). Because a typical neuron forms ~1,000 synaptic connections to other neurons, the total number of synapses in the brain is estimated to be 100 trillion (the number 1 followed by 14 zeros). The thin projections from neurons that form connections with each other (axons and dendrites) can be thought of as the biological "wiring" of the brain. Neuroscientists already know that brain neurons can and do form specific rather than random connections with each other to generate the observed wiring diagram of the brain. However, the precise patterns of such non-random connections, how the patterns are formed, and how these patterns underlie the brain's extraordinary information processing capacity are important questions that Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory theoretical neuroscientist Dmitri Chklovskii is exploring. An article published in this week's issue of PLoS Biology (March 1, 2005) describes Chklovskii's discovery of strongly preferred patterns of connectivity or scaffolds within the wiring diagram of the rat brain. The patterns are likely to correspond to modules that play an important role in brain function not only in rats, but also in humans. Chklovskii and his colleagues use statistical analysis and mathematical modeling--coupled with in vivo, experimental observations--to search for recurrent, non-random patterns of local connectivity within the vast thickets of brain wiring diagrams.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6943 - Posted: 03.01.2005

REVIEWED BY JOHN CORNWELL In a California courthouse in 1978 the jury in a murder case was presented with a bizarre item of evidence. Dan White, a former police officer, had walked into City Hall, San Francisco, and shot dead mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. But White was found guilty of nothing more than involuntary manslaughter after the jury accepted a plea that he had eaten on the morning of the incident a large number of “sugar-ice” Twinkie cakes. The sugar overload affected his brain chemistry, argued the defence, making an automoton of their client. It became known as the Twinkie Defence and the relationship between brain chemistry and responsibility would never be the same again. In the 1970s, neuroscience and descriptions of the relationship between the brain and its chemistry were still, relatively speaking, in their infancy. The imminent and rapid expansion of new brain science was to have far-reaching cultural and social consequences. How the final decade of the 20th century came to be associated with a drive to understand the mind/brain relationship forms a fascinating chapter in the history of western science. Brain research gathered momentum in the 1980s, propelled by remarkable breakthroughs in genetics, cell biology, computer-modelling and non-invasive scanning techniques. At last it was possible for researchers to explore the brain and central nervous system without destroying what they probed. As the cold war ended, neuroscience began to enjoy ever-higher priority as a recipient of state and corporate support. A crucial impulse came from the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, whose strategists were hailing a new age of rationally designed brain drugs, their profits boosted by cure-alls for everything from pain to Alzheimer’s. But there were other, wildly hubristic motives. On January 1, 1990, the House and Senate of the US government designated the 1990s the “Decade of the Brain”, claiming that some $350 billion were lost to the American economy each year as a result of mind/brain-related ills: from sick leave for depression to gangland shootings. If only scientists could make a pill to make mad people sane, and a pill to make violent people serene. Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 6942 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Children who "miss" things on their left field of vision may have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Medical Research Council scientists say. The phenomenon means children may miss the first letters of a written word, leading doctors to diagnose dyslexia. However, it can also mean children only write or draw on the right-hand side of a page, or that they knock things on their left-hand side over more often. The condition is seen in adults who have had stroke. "Left neglect" is seen where the right side of the brain is affected. It means things on someone's left-hand side are simply not noticed, especially if they are doing something they find boring or unstimulating. Children who do not have ADHD may also show symptoms of the condition, the researchers say. The research is published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and in Brain and Cognition. Left neglect is a well-known condition in adults who have suffered right-sided brain injury. It means they may act as if half the world has simply disappeared. Researchers from the MRC's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, in Cambridge, found some children with ADHD, who had no brain damage and perfectly normal intelligence, showed left neglect as severe as that seen in some adults with substantial damage to the right side of the brain. This latest study asked parents and teachers of healthy Nottingham children to assess how much they ran around or fidgeted - potential indications of ADHD. (C)BBC

Keyword: ADHD; Laterality
Link ID: 6941 - Posted: 03.01.2005

A new study finds men treated with hormone therapy for prostate cancer may experience temporary cognitive changes that can affect verbal fluency, visual recognition and visual memory. The study, published in the April 1, 2005 issue of CANCER (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, finds the degree of cognitive dysfunction appeared to be related to a decline in serum estradiol brought on by hormonal treatment. Androgen-deprivation therapy (AD) is an effective adjuvant therapy in the treatment of prostate cancer. It effectively reduces levels of testosterone, which acts as a tumor stimulant, and estradiol, a form of estrogen in men. Testosterone and estradiol are known to be important in neurological development and play a particularly important role in the cognitive areas of learning and memory. Previous studies in women have shown declining estradiol levels to effect cognition but until now little data existed in men. Eeva Salminen, M.D. and colleagues at Turku University Hospital in Turku, Finland investigated the relationship between serum estradiol and cognitive functioning in men with prostate cancer treated with androgen-deprivation therapy. They found cognitive performance in several specific areas were associated with declines in estradiol brought on by the therapy. Six months into treatment, men were found to have temporary, marginal but significant declines in visual memory of figures and recognition speed of numbers. Tests at twelve months showed marginal improvement in verbal fluency associated with estradiol declines. No other cognitive areas were affected. The degree of cognitive change was related to the magnitude of estradiol declines.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 6940 - Posted: 03.01.2005

Electrical deep brain stimulation can dramatically alleviate depression that is resistant to other treatments, researchers have found in an initial study on six patients. The finding is important, they said, because up to 20 percent of patients with depression fail to respond to standard treatments--requiring combinations of antidepressant drugs, psychotherapy, and electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) that still may fail. The number of resistant depression patients can be large, since depression is the leading source of disability in adults under age 50 in North America. The 6 month study led by Helen Mayberg of Emory University School of Medicine and colleagues showed that the patients reported immediate improvements in mood when the electrical stimulation of a few volts was applied to the implanted electrodes. These effects persisted in four of the patients for the full 6 months, with three patients achieving remission or near remission of the depression. No psychological side effects were reported, and other adverse effects were limited to minor infections around the implant site, which were treatable with antibiotics, wrote the researchers. The researchers concluded that, although the study was limited in scope and length, deep brain stimulation "may represent an effective, novel intervention for severely disabled patients with treatment-resistant depression."

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 6939 - Posted: 03.01.2005

By E.J. Mundell -- Are men better than women when it comes to certain intellectual tasks, such as remembering the location of objects? While debate rages, 112 monkeys (and a few scientists) have been hard at work puzzling it out. Researchers report that, when challenged by a kind of food-baited shell game, young male monkeys outperformed females at correctly remembering the location of the prize. But with just a minimum of training, that intellectual gender gap closed completely. That suggests that any gender-based differences in intellect -- whether simian or human -- "are plastic, they aren't rigid. You can develop these skills," said lead researcher Agnes Lacreuse, a professor of neuroscience at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta. According to Lacreuse, the study results echo similar findings in humans when it comes to gender-based differences in what neuroscientists call "spatial cognition" -- the ability to visualize, remember and manipulate objects in three-dimensional space. © 2005 Forbes.com Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 6938 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Philadelphia, PA – In the first study to examine living nerve cells from patients with psychiatric disease, scientists from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, the University of Pennsylvania, and collaborating institutions report altered nerve cell function in olfactory receptor neurons from patients with bipolar disorder. Like other psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, bipolar disorder affects nerve cells in the brain, making it difficult to study underlying neurobiological causes of the disease during its actual course. According to senior author Nancy Rawson, PhD, a Monell cellular biologist, "Previous studies have used non-nerve cells, such as fibroblasts or red blood cells, to examine how cells function in patients with bipolar disorder. But since this is a psychiatric disorder, we need to understand what's going on in nerve cells." Olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs), located in a small patch of epithelium inside the nose, are nerve cells that contain receptors for the thousands of odorant molecules detected by humans. Easily obtained using a simple 5-minute biopsy procedure, ORNs share many characteristics with nerve cells in the brain. These features make ORNs a useful model to study the neural effects of psychiatric disease.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 6937 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Early Alzheimer's disease may be precipitated by a “traffic jam” within neurons that causes swelling and prevents proper transport of proteins and structures in the cells, according to new studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers. In mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and in human brain samples from people with the disease, researchers observed a characteristic breakdown in neurons that appears to prevent the normal movement of critical proteins to the communications centers of the nerve cells. In a vicious cycle, the traffic jam also could increase production of an abnormal protein that clogs neurons, leading to their failure and eventual death. The researchers said their findings could provide information that might be used to develop drugs to preserve the molecular transport system and thus the viability of brain cells otherwise lost in Alzheimer's. The findings also could ultimately lead to distinctive markers of early Alzheimer's disease that could be used in early diagnostic tests for the disorder, they said. The research team led by Lawrence S. B. Goldstein, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), reported their findings in the February 25, 2005, issue of the journal Science. Goldstein and his colleagues at UCSD collaborated on the studies with a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. © 2005 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 6936 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE GROSS Sixth grade was a trying time for Karen Singer's autistic son, who spent recess wandering the periphery of the playground by himself and sometimes hid in the school bathroom when he needed a safe place to cry. He knew he was doing something wrong as he reached the social crucible of middle school, but he did not know how to fix it. At home he begged his mother to explain: "Why am I like this? What's wrong with me?" Intensive behavioral treatment, popularized over the last 10 years, prepared him academically and helped him get by in regular classes for years. But social skills are more elusive for autistic children, and the gap widens with each passing year. Classmates who once tolerated his peculiarities now shunned him. Their interests had changed to hanging out and being cool, while he remained preoccupied with saltwater fish and Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards. During group projects the boy rigidly held his ground on small matters, like what color ink to use. When challenged, he blurted out, "You're stupid!" or other inappropriate retorts. "It was shocking how it all of a sudden fell apart," said Ms. Singer, who asked that her son, now 13, not be identified by name or hometown and thus be further stigmatized. "He'd never say, 'I don't want to go to school.' He'd make it through the day, then come home and melt down." Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 6935 - Posted: 02.26.2005

Jonathan Rée I always enjoy being part of an audience waiting for the curtain to go up on an evening's entertainment. But here at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, it is rather different. The show is already a few minutes late, but people are still standing around in the aisles, hailing long-lost friends from one side of the theatre to the other and rattling off their news. And yet it is also curiously peaceful. Apart from a couple of lusty babies cooing and chuckling to each other, and occasional bursts of laughter, the theatre is quite silent. With the exception of those two babies and me, nearly everyone here is deaf, and they are chattering away in a silent language—the language of signs. They have come from all over the country to attend a special congress of the British Deaf Association (BDA). And as I can see all around me, they are relishing the chance to take over a large space and, for once, to watch their own form of communication prevail. Most people recognise nowadays that sign languages are linguistically much the same as any other language. They are autonomous linguistic systems, independent of spoken languages on the one hand and mimicry and pantomime on the other. Linguists have identified more than 100 separate sign languages, from Adamorobe and Algerian to Croatian and Venezuelan, all of them different from each other, and all displaying the same kinds of characteristics that define mainstream languages. Just like their spoken counterparts, sign languages are essentially collections of arbitrary symbols that little children can learn to reiterate and recombine without limit, even if the finest grammarians may have difficulty sorting out their syntax. And as I marvel at the quiet hurly-burly that surrounds me, with dozens of conversations flashing round the theatre but no one being interrupted or distracted by anyone else, I can see the practical and aesthetic advantages of signing compared with the loud, rude intrusiveness of speech. © Copyright 2004 - Prospect Magazine

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 6934 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Grimace all you want gourmands but it won't stop most Americans from surrendering to the appeal of quick-to-cook prepared foods that lure the stomach with succulent looking snapshots and highly tailored branding. In part, purveyors of fine taste have cause to wrinkle their nose about one thing: As easy cooking as prepared meals are they're often not so easy on your health. Consider canning. High temperatures involved in processing food prompts sugar and amino acids to produce a bitter taste that's usually masked with high amounts of table salt, associated with high blood pressure and heart disease. But very soon food manufacturers could have a healthier alternative. "With the sequencing of the human genome all the machinery of taste began to be understood…so that allowed us to think of ways of applying drug discovery technology to make new molecules that would modify your sense of taste, " explains chemist Ray Salemme. Salemme, CEO of Linguagen Corporation, a New Jersey company featured in the March issue of Discover Magazine, is working to block bitter signals to the brain. Interrupting those signals could reduce the salt some manufacturers use to make bitter foods taste good. The process involves manipulating about 10,000 taste buds that regenerate every two weeks. Each taste bud has 50 to 100 cells informed by genes that tell the surface cells which proteins---or receptors---to make. As you eat, food molecules like salt, or sodium chloride, attach to a receptor that binds to that molecule. Then, nerve fibers connected to the taste cell shoot signals to the brain, where five universal flavors---salty, bitter, sweet, sour and a savory flavor called umami---register. "We can put so called screening tools in place to measure compounds on the specific receptors and we can use that as a strategy to find molecules that in some cases will turn them off," Salemme says. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2005.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 6933 - Posted: 06.24.2010

When Karen Zipern graduated from college she took a job in media relations in New York City. At the end of each day, she returned to her apartment, locked the door to the outside world, and began to cry. The transition from the familiarity of college, to a wide-open future overwhelmed Karen. “I couldn’t stop crying,” she remembers. She could only find comfort when she was cocooned in her apartment with her dog and a stack of books. This was the first of several episodes of major depression Karen faced through her adult life. Though she tried antidepressants and other psychiatric therapies, she says depression “was always just around the corner.” Karen, who is now 48 and an administrative director at Columbia University Medical Center, suspected her mother also suffered from depression, but the two rarely shared their feelings. In the Zipern family the standard was to grit your teeth and work through your “blue days.” Over the last few years however, Karen’s experience with depression helped her mother Sydell, 73, her sister Jill, 52, and her niece Carly, 22, to acknowledge they had a heightened susceptibility to depression and that major life changes could trigger the illness in each of them. Two years ago, almost simultaneously, when Sydell sold her home of 50 years, Jill began menopause, and Carly got caught in slump at college, all three women were diagnosed with major depressive disorder. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2005.

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 6932 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Gay men employ the same strategies for navigating as women - using landmarks to find their way around - a new study suggests. But they also use the strategies typically used by straight men, such as using compass directions and distances. In contrast, gay women read maps just like straight women, reveals the study of 80 heterosexual and homosexual men and women. "Gay men adopt male and female strategies. Therefore their brains are a sexual mosaic," explains Qazi Rahman, a psychobiologist who led the study at the University of East London, UK. "It's not simply that lesbians have men's brains and gay men have women's brains." The stereotype that women are relatively poor map readers is borne out by a reasonable bulk of scientific literature, notes Rahman. "Men, particularly, excel at spatial navigation." The new study might help researchers understand how cognitive differences and sexual orientation develop in the womb, he says. Previous tests challenging men and women to make their way through virtual-reality mazes, or real-life scenarios, have shown that men tend to be speedier and use different strategies to women. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 6931 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A cellular enzyme appears to play a crucial role in the manufacture of a protein needed for long-term memory, according to a team of researchers led by scientists at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. The protein is known as mBDNF, which stands for mature brain-derived neurotrophic factor. In an earlier study, another team of NICHD researchers had shown that mBDNF is essential for the formation of long-term memory, the ability to remember things for longer than a day. “Understanding how BDNF is made may help us to better understand the learning process, perhaps leading to better treatments for disorders of learning and memory,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The research team was led by Y.Peng Loh Ph.D, of NICHD’s Section on Cellular Neurobiology. The researchers published their work in the January 20 issue of Neuron. Specifically, the researchers discovered that the enzyme carboxypeptidase E, (CPE) is needed to deliver the early, or inactive, form of BDNF — proBDNF — to a special compartment in the neuron (nerve cell.) Once in the compartment, proBDNF is chemically converted into active mBDNF. After mBDNF is formed, it is released to the outside of the neuron, where it binds to receptors on other neurons and stimulates them to form long-term memory.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 6930 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Damaged optic nerves - which run from the eye to the brain - have been regrown for the first time by scientists working with mice. The researchers believe the technique might one day restore sight to people whose optic nerves have been damaged by injury or glaucoma. It could even help regenerate other nerves in the body, they say. A team led by Dong Feng Chen, at the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston, US, combined two genetic modifications to regrow the optic nerve after it was damaged. First they turned on a gene called BCL-2, which promotes growth and regeneration of the optic nerve in young mice. This gene is normally turned off shortly before birth. They then bred those animals with other mice carrying genetic mutations that reduce scar tissue in injured nerves. The researchers crushed the optic nerves shortly after birth, and found that in young mice - less than 14 days old - between 40% and 70% of the injured optic nerve fibres regrew to reach their target destinations in the brain. No regrowth was seen in injured mice without the genetic modifications. That suggests the mice may have regained some vision, Chen told New Scientist, although the study cannot prove it did. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Regeneration; Glia
Link ID: 6929 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Nathan Seppa There's no effective emergency treatment for a cerebral hemorrhage. Roughly 60 percent of people who experience this so-called bleeding stroke die within a year. A new international study, however, indicates that a drug that speeds blood clotting can reduce death and disability after a bleeding stroke, provided that the person is treated promptly. The drug limits the amount of brain tissue damaged by blood leakage, a predictor of how damaging the stroke will be. A cerebral hemorrhage kills neurons and other brain cells at the site of the bleeding and threatens cells on the hemorrhage's periphery. If a doctor could limit the bleeding, a patient would have a better chance of recovery, says study coauthor Stephan A. Mayer, a neurologist at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Mayer and a team of physicians in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia treated 303 bleeding-stroke patients with an intravenous drug called recombinant activated factor VII (rFVIIa), which certain hemophilia patients receive under the brand name NovoSeven. The researchers gave a placebo infusion to 96 other patients with bleeding strokes. Upon admission to a hospital and 24 hours later, each participant underwent computed tomography brain scans to detect bleeding. Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 6928 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A rigorous study in Italy has confirmed claims that professional soccer players have a higher than normal risk of developing a type of motor neuron disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The reason remains a mystery. ALS involves the death of motor neurons, the nerve cells responsible for voluntary movement, and eventually leads to paralysis and death. Adriano Chiò's team at the University of Turin surveyed the medical records of 7000 professional footballers who played in Italy's first or second division between 1970 and 2001. Based on the normal incidence of the disease and the players' ages, the researchers calculated that there should have been 0.8 cases of ALS in this group. Instead, there were five. The study was prompted by what the Italian press dubbed "the motor neuron mystery" - the discovery a few years ago of 33 cases of ALS during an investigation of illicit drug use among 24,000 pro and semi-pro players in Italy. Dubious about the methodology of that initial investigation, Chiò's group applied stricter diagnostic criteria to their data, such as only including players born in Italy. "I think the researchers have been conservative," says Ammar Al-Chalabi of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, who has written a commentary on the study in Brain. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 6927 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The active ingredient in marijuana may stall decline from Alzheimer's disease, research suggests. Scientists showed a synthetic version of the compound may reduce inflammation associated with Alzheimer's and thus help to prevent mental decline. They hope the cannabinoid may be used to developed new drug therapies. The research, by Madrid's Complutense University and the Cajal Institute, is published in the Journal of Neuroscience. The scientists first compared the brain tissue of patients who died from Alzheimer's disease with that of healthy people who had died at a similar age. They looked closely at brain cell receptors to which cannabinoids bind, allowing their effects to be felt. They also studied structures called microglia, which activate the brain's immune response. Microglia collect near the plaque deposits associated with Alzheimer's disease and, when active, cause inflammation. The researchers found a dramatically reduced functioning of cannabinoid receptors in diseased brain tissue. This was an indication that patients had lost the capacity to experience cannabinoids' protective effects. The next step was to test the effect of cannabinoids on rats injected with the amyloid protein that forms Alzheimer's plaques. Those animals who were also given a dose of a cannabinoid performed much better in tests of their mental functioning. The researchers found that the presence of amyloid protein in the rats' brains activated immune cells. However, rats that also received the cannabinoid showed no sign of microglia activation. Using cell cultures, the researchers confirmed that cannabinoids counteracted the activation of microglia and thus reduced inflammation. (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6926 - Posted: 02.23.2005

By Paul Rincon Pets should be matched with their owners on the basis of similar personalities Dogs show huge differences in personality, according to a US scientist who has developed a test to assess canine character. Dr Sam Gosling, of the University of Texas, rates the dogs on four key traits with positive and negative extremes. He adds that his work suggests pets should be matched with owners who have similar personalities. The work was presented at a major science conference in Washington DC. "We used approaches used to assess human personality and applied them to dogs," said Dr Gosling. "You do find personality differences between breeds. Indeed, many have been bred on that basis. But you also find enormous [personality] differences within the breeds themselves." Dr Gosling first asked pet owners to rate their pet on the four personality traits and then asked strangers to rate the animals on the same characteristics. The four dog personality factors were energy levels, affection-aggression, anxiety-calmness and intelligence-stupidity. Anxiety-calmness was assessed by studying a dog's reaction as its owner walked away with another dog. The ability to retrieve a biscuit from beneath a cup was used as a measure of intelligence. These traits were adapted from the five-factor model; used to assess human personality. And the University of Texas psychologist is a firm believer that pets should be matched with their owners on the basis of similar personalities. "If you can make a breed-based judgment that's fine. But you can also do behavioural tests. And one of the places that are very interested in this are dog homes. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 6925 - Posted: 02.23.2005

By Paul Rincon Crows and jays are the brain boxes of the bird world, according to a Canadian scientist who has invented a method of measuring avian IQ. The IQ scale is based on the number of novel feeding behaviours shown by birds in the wild. The test's creator Dr Louis Lefebvre was surprised that parrots were not high in the pecking order - despite their relatively large brains. The research was presented at a major science conference in Washington DC. The avian intelligence index is based on 2,000 reports of feeding "innovations" observed in the wild and published in ornithology journals over a period of 75 years. "We gathered as many examples as we could from the short notes of ornithology journals about the feeding behaviours that people had never seen or were unusual," said Dr Lefebvre, of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. "From that we established different numbers for different birds. There are differences. There are some kinds of birds that score higher than others. "The crows, the jays, that kind of bird - the corvidae - are the tops; then the falcons are second, the hawks the herons and the woodpecker rank quite high." Dr Lefebvre said that many of the novel feeding behaviours he included in the work were mundane, but every once in a while, birds could be spectacularly inventive about obtaining their food. During the war of liberation in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, a soldier and avid bird watcher observed vultures sitting on barbwire fences next to mine fields waiting for gazelles and other herbivores to wander in and get blown to smithereens. "It gave them a meal that was already ground up," said Dr Lefebvre. "The observer mentioned that once in a while a vulture was caught at its own game and got blown up on a mine." (C)BBC

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 6924 - Posted: 02.23.2005