Divorce is written in the DNA Hazel Muir A new study of twins suggests that genetic make-up has a strong influence on whether or not your marriage will last - though not whether you'll get married in the first place. Beth Jerskey, Michael Lyons and their colleagues at Boston University in Massachusetts compared marriage and divorce rates in identical and non-identical male twins. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 328 - Posted: 10.20.2001

PHILIP BALL
When we think, our brain lights up - or so we have been led to believe by the now-familiar pictures of the brain in action, which depict a glow around the active area. Now neuroscientists in Germany have finally worked out what these pictures are telling us. Scans obtained using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) show brain cells (neurons) receiving and processing electrical signals, say Nikos Logothetis and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen1. 1.Logothetis, N. K., Pauls, J., Augath, M., Trinath, T. & Oeltermann, A.Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal. Nature, 412, 150 - 157, (2001). © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 327 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Mating Dances Go On and On By NATALIE ANGIER Fairy tales never reveal exactly what happens once the prince and princess have shaken the rice from their hair, but here's a sample of how other coupled creatures interpret the phrase, "And they lived happily ever after": ¶Any time a pair of great-crested grebes reunites after a separation, the white-cheeked, pointy-beaked water birds celebrate with an aquatic version of the tango. As one bird dives and swims toward the other, its partner arches its back and fluffs itself up, cat-style, until the diver bursts through the water right next to it in the "ghost display," wings extended, body erect. The two part, plunge back under and re- emerge with weeds clutched like roses in their beaks. Pressing their breasts together, they rise up and begin trampling their feet on the water, heads turning back and forth. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 324 - Posted: 10.20.2001

In both rats and humans, chronic stress early in life can hobble memory during adulthood. Now researchers have identified a substance that might be to blame. Immature rats injected with high levels of a hormone that is produced in response to stress suffer later memory deficits, and parts of their brains are shrunken. Adult rat survivors of stressful puphoods typically are missing neurons in a part of the brain called the hippocampus that's necessary for recording memories. But researchers haven't been sure what depletes these neurons. Stress hormones called glucocorticoids are an obvious possibility, except for the fact that they don't normally interact with the hippocampus. So in the new study, neuroscientists tested another stress-related suspect, called corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). --BEN HARDER Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 323 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Memories in the Mind's Eye When a monkey has to remember something, it holds that thought in its mind's eye, a new study suggests. A low-level part of the visual system just one step removed from the retina buzzes while a monkey maintains a visual memory--a power once ascribed only to more sophisticated parts of the brain. Earlier memory research showed that neurons in higher order brain regions--such as the frontal lobes--fire madly when monkeys (or people) remember something briefly. In contrast, the primary visual cortex was once thought to simply sort incoming lights and shadows before passing basic information on to higher brain centers for interpretation. --LAURA HELMUTH Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 322 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Faces of Perception It's tough to explain how people so easily tell one face from another Bruce Bower Newborn babies are wrinkled, wide-eyed strangers in a strange land of light, shadow, and color. Nonetheless, these little bundles of visual innocence take an immediate shine to faces. Just a few hours after birth, infants begin to imitate adults' smiles, frowns, and other expressions. Given a choice, the same babies gaze longer at a picture of their mother's face than at an image of the face of a female stranger. They also boast a budding aptitude for telling strangers' faces apart and give particular notice to faces rated as attractive by adults. From Science News, Vol. 160, No. 1, July 7, 2001, p. 10. Copyright ©2001 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 321 - Posted: 10.20.2001

ERICA KLARREICH
Seals' whiskers are certainly cute. But new research suggests they may also be a crucial hunting tool. Seals' whiskers enable them to home in on the wake of prey as much as 180 metres away, new research suggests. Dolphins' sonar can locate fish only up to about 110 metres away. 1.Dehnhardt, G. et al. Hydrodynamic trail-following in harbor seals (Phoca vitulina). Science, 293, 102 - 104, (2001). © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 319 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Molecular intricacies of animal model clocks provide insight to humans By Karen Young Kreeger Researchers have pondered, and investigated, for decades why one person is alert and productive at 6 a.m. while another can't even focus before noon.1 But now, their persistence is paying off: chronobiologists, those who investigate circadian rhythms, or daily clocks, are finally making concrete links between sleep patterns in humans and a menagerie of well-studied animal models. As with many behavioral studies, it's the extreme or unusual cases that eventually inform scientists about normal processes. A few years ago, a woman complained to investigators at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City that she felt an overwhelming desire to fall asleep around 7:30 p.m., and wake up before dawn, around 4:30 a.m. And she was not the only one--other members in her family had the same problem. This started Utah investigators on a research project that culminated in the first study to link a human genetic syndrome to what others had been discovering in animal clock-gene investigations. These family members, eventually recruited into the study, suffer from familial advanced sleep phase syndrome (FASPS). The Scientist 15[14]:16, Jul. 9, 2001 © Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 318 - Posted: 11.06.2001

Sometimes neurons get so excited that they sing in harmony. Researchers aren't sure just how these brain cells synchronize their firing, but a new study shows that one type of neuron might have the abilities necessary for orchestrating the performance. Synchronized neural firing has long excited neuroscientists, but they aren't sure what it means. Some have suggested that it allows the brain to perform sophisticated computations over disparate regions of the brain. For instance, watching a red caboose rattle down a railroad track activates color-, shape-, and motion-sensitive parts of the brain; perhaps synchronous firing across these regions tells the brain to unite these features into one image. But the theory still has a lot of holes in it. For starters: How do neurons determine that two or more signals have arrived at the same time? --LAURA HELMUTH Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 317 - Posted: 10.20.2001

In space, the brain is caught out by gravity 25 June 2001 HELEN PEARSON A gravity-free ball. Nothing could be easier to catch, right? Not so, shows research carried out on the space shuttle's neuroscience mission, Neurolab1. Our brain's implicit physics is so overpowering it makes butterfingers of astronauts. Two competing theories explain how we ready ourselves for a catch. One says we rely only on immediate information from our senses - the ball's position and the speed we see it coming tells our hands roughly when to grab. 1.McIntyre, J., Zago, M., Berthoz, A. & Lacquaniti, F.Does the brain model Newton's laws?. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 693 - 694, (2001). © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 316 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Janet Raloff
Lead, a toxic heavy metal, can show up in the most unexpected places. For instance, several recent studies documented a worrisome tainting of calcium supplements. Just last month, some Mexican lollipops were recalled from U.S. stores upon a finding that their wrappers had leached lead into the candy. And recently, this column recounted the perils of a man poisoned by his bathtub winemaking operations. Of course, people can be exposed to lead through more obvious means-by breathing fumes in metalworking plants, eating foods tainted by emissions from cars burning leaded gasoline, exposure to peeling lead-based paint, or drinking water that enters homes through lead-soldered pipes. Copyright ©2001 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 315 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Gene Therapy Restores Feeding Behavior to Starving Mice June 22, 2001- Researchers have used gene therapy to rejuvenate feeding behavior in starving mice. The genetically engineered mice avoided eating because their brains contained a low level of dopamine. The scientists' experiments, which were reported in the June 2001 issue of the journal Neuron, provide new information about a region of the brain that helps integrate internal hunger signals and external sensory information about food to trigger feeding behavior. ©2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 314 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Tundra Birds Get Down and Dirty Birds are meticulous about keeping their feathers clean, but males of one species intentionally dirty their own plumage, researchers have found. The rock ptarmigan's odd behavior helps the bird camouflage itself when its priorities shift from pursuing sex to staying alive. In their immaculate white winter plumage, these arctic birds blend in with the snow, and in their mottled brown summer plumage, they melt away into tundra backgrounds of gravel, lichen, and soil. Females molt from white to brown just as the snow melts, maximizing their camouflage at all times. But males retain their snowy white plumage for several weeks, which makes them visible to sharp-eyed predators like gyrfalcons. Researchers hypothesized that by delaying their molt, males showed off an ability to overcome such risks and advertised their quality to females or rival males. --JAY WITHGOTT Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 312 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Alzheimer's Protein Dements Flies In Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, neurons die stuffed with cellular debris, consisting mainly of a protein called tau. Now a new fruit fly burdened with tau loses brain cells when it gets old. The model could help uncover new clues about how tau might torpedo neurons. Tau normally stabilizes neuron microtubules, a kind of rail system that runs through neurons and helps transport molecules to nerve endings. In Alzheimer's and other diseases, tau proteins clump together into tangles. Some researchers speculate that neurons are killed by tangles that gum up their internal works, although others suggest that free-floating tau does the damage, perhaps by causing oxidative damage or urging cells to kill themselves. --DAN FERBER Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 309 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Huntington's disease: Italian discovery may suggest a new approach for developing therapies Like a good parent, a protein called huntingtin helps to safeguard key nerve cells in the brain. When the huntingtin protein is defective, however, certain neurons can become damaged, resulting in Huntington's Disease, a debilitating and fatal form of brain degeneration characterized by physical, mental and emotional disturbances. The discovery of one of normal huntingtin's exact functions within the brain--to be published online by the journal, Science, as part of the Science Express web site on 14 June--suggests novel therapeutic strategies to fight the disorder.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 308 - Posted: 10.20.2001

A brain in doubt leaves it out JOHN WHITFIELD We are the prisoners of our brains. We see only what they decide to let us see. Researchers now illustrate this with an illusion in which the brain erases some aspects of the visual field. Yoram Bonneh, of the Smith–Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco, and colleagues have been showing people a swirling pattern of blue dots superimposed on some stationary yellow dots1. 1.Bonneh, Y. S., Cooperman, A. & Sagi, D. Motion-induced blindness in normal observers. Nature 411, 798–801 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE. Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 307 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Telling Brain Cells to Grow Up Children mature at different rates, and so do brain cells. But the proteins and signals that allow a cell to stay immature or commit to a specific fate are still unknown. Now, scientists report that a pair of proteins that helps to translate signals from the outside of the cell to the nucleus also may play a role in a cell's maturation. A sobering fact behind all the excitement over stem cells and their possible use in new therapies is that researchers don't yet know what molecular signals control a cell's fate--information they need if they want to coax the cells to become, say, replacement neurons in Parkinson's patients. --GRETCHEN VOGEL Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 305 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Expressions of individuality JOHN WHITFIELD You catch a glimpse of someone you think you know, but who you haven't seen for years. You're not sure it's them, then something - a raise of the eyebrow, a toss of the head - gives them away. Without any other information, we can recognize and sex individuals from how they move their heads and faces, researchers now report1. The finding could improve face-recognition security and help to humanize animated 'synthespians'. 1.Hill, H. & Johnston, A. Categorizing sex and identity from the biological motion of faces. Current Biology 11, 880–885 (2001). Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 304 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Boing! It's a Minke Whale Unusually close encounters with dwarf minke whales have allowed marine biologists for the first time to record sounds produced by this elusive animal--including one noise unlike that made by any other whale. The eavesdropping is already helping researchers study the animals' movements and behavior. Biologists have recently learned that orcas jabber in local dialects, and humpbacks sing long complex songs that change through time (ScienceNOW, 29 November 2000). But the vocalizations of the less known minke whales have remained enigmatic. Only one type of sound had ever been definitely attributed to a minke, and the dwarf minke of Australia's Great Barrier Reef was virtually unknown. ... --JAY WITHGOTT Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Animal Communication
Link ID: 303 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Mounting evidence prompts NIH to embrace a once-marginal field
By Steve Bunk
For years, mind-body research has been conducted at the perimeters of the scientific mainstream, but that marginalization appears to have ended, as the National Institutes of Health funnels money and personnel into interdisciplinary investigations of the relationship between mental states and physical health. Oddly, the way mind-body medicine has achieved this acceptance is by establishing the very molecular and cellular evidence of the role that the mind plays in bodily health that it once eschewed. During the 1920s in Germany and Austria, a movement arose to counteract laboratory-based medicine by emphasizing mental and behavioral aspects of disease treatment.1 That movement, dubbed psychosomatics and today often called mind-body medicine, experienced ebbs and flows of favor over succeeding decades. But under a $50 million initiative, NIH has established 10 centers around the country for mind-body research since 1999. Esther M. Sternberg, director of the National Institute of Mental Health's integrative neural immune program, which has spearheaded recent mind-body research collaborations throughout NIH, declares that "rigorous scientific evidence" has allowed the mainstream medical world "to welcome us with open arms." The Scientist 15[12]:8, Jun. 11, 2001 © Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 302 - Posted: 10.20.2001