Analysis of genetic data from more than 94,000 individuals has revealed five new risk genes for Alzheimer’s disease, and confirmed 20 known others. An international team of researchers also reports for the first time that mutations in genes specific to tau, a hallmark protein of Alzheimer’s disease, may play an earlier role in the development of the disease than originally thought. These new findings support developing evidence that groups of genes associated with specific biological processes, such as cell trafficking, lipid transport, inflammation and the immune response, are “genetic hubs” that are an important part of the disease process. The study, which was funded in part by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and other components of the National Institutes of Health, follows results from 2013. It will be published online February 28, 2019 in the journal Nature Genetics . “This continuing collaborative research into the genetic underpinnings of Alzheimer’s is allowing us to dig deeper into the complexities of this devastating disease,” said Richard J. Hodes, M.D., director of the NIA. “The size of this study provides additional clarity on the genes to prioritize as we continue to better understand and target ways to treat and prevent Alzheimer’s.” The researchers, members of the International Genomic Alzheimer’s Project (IGAP), analyzed both rare and common gene variants in 94,437 individuals with late onset Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia in older adults. IGAP is made up of four consortia in the United States and Europe that have been working together since 2011 on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) involving thousands of DNA samples and shared datasets. GWAS are aimed at detecting variations in the genome that are associated with Alzheimer’s. Understanding genetic variants is helping researchers define the molecular mechanisms that influence disease onset and progression.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 26001 - Posted: 03.02.2019

Laura Sanders People often fret about television time for children. A new study examines the habit at the other end of life. The more television older people watched, the worse they recalled a list of words, researchers report online February 28 in Scientific Reports. But the study describes only a correlation; it can’t say that lots of TV time actually causes the memory slips. Researchers examined data on 3,590 people collected as part of the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, a long-running study of English people aged 50 and older. In 2008 and 2009, participants reported how many hours a day, on average, they spent watching television. In addition to the surveys, participants listened to a recording of 10 common words, one word every two seconds. Then, people tried to remember as many words as they could, both immediately after hearing the words and after a short delay. Six years later, people took the same tests. People who watched more than 3.5 hours of TV daily back in 2008 or 2009 were more likely to have worse verbal memory scores six years later, the researchers found. Television “dose” seemed to matter: Beyond that 3.5-hour threshold, the more TV people watched, the bigger their later verbal memory scores declined. It’s not known whether television time actually causes verbal memory problems. The reverse could be true: People who have worse memories might be more likely to watch more television. Still, the researchers suggest that TV might cause a certain kind of mental stress that might contribute to memory trouble. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 26000 - Posted: 03.02.2019

Matthew Warren Cue the super-mouse. Scientists have engineered mice that can see infrared light normally invisible to mammals — including humans. To do so, they injected into the rodents’ eyes nanoparticles that convert infrared light into visible wavelengths1. Humans and mice, like other mammals, cannot see infrared light, which has wavelengths slightly longer than red light — between 700 nanometres and 1 millimetre. But Tian Xue, a neuroscientist at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, and his colleagues developed nanoparticles that convert infrared wavelengths into visible light. The nanoparticles absorb photons at wavelengths of around 980 nanometres and emit them at shorter wavelengths, around 535 nanometres, corresponding to green light. Xue’s team attached the nanoparticles to proteins that bind to photoreceptors — the cells in the eye that convert light into electrical impulses — and then injected them into mice. The researchers showed that the nanoparticles successfully attached to the photoreceptors, which in turn responded to infrared light by producing electrical signals and activating the visual-processing areas of the brain. The team conducted experiments to show that the mice did actually detect and respond to infrared light.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 25999 - Posted: 03.01.2019

Laura Sanders In the understory of Central American cloud forests, musical mice trill songs to one another. Now a study of the charismatic creatures reveals how their brains orchestrate these rapid-fire duets. The results, published in the March 1 Science, show that the brains of singing mice split up the musical work. One brain system directs the patterns of notes that make up songs, while another coordinates duets with another mouse, which are carried out with split-second precision. The study suggests that “a quirky animal from the cloud forest of Costa Rica could give us a brand new insight,” into the rapid give-and-take in people’s conversations, says study coauthor Michael Long, a neuroscientist at New York University’s School of Medicine. Quirks abound in these mice, known as Alston’s singing mice (Scotinomys teguina). Like famous singers with extreme green room demands, these mice are “kind of divas,” Long says, requiring larger terrariums, exercise equipment and a very special diet. In the lab, standard mouse chow doesn’t cut it; instead, singing mice feast on fresh meal worm, dry cat food and fresh fruits and berries, says Bret Pasch. The biologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff has studied these singing mice for years but wasn’t involved in this study. The mice are also, of course, loud. “They’re very vocal,” particularly in the confines of a lab, Pasch says. “Once an animal calls, it’s like a symphony that goes off,” with repeating calls. In the wild, these duets are thought to attract mates and stake out territory. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019.

Keyword: Animal Communication; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 25998 - Posted: 03.01.2019

Nicola Davis A pair of twins have stunned researchers after it emerged that they are neither identical nor fraternal – but something in between. The team say the boy and girl, now four years old, are the second case of semi-identical twins ever recorded, and the first to be spotted while the mother was pregnant. The situation was a surprise to the researchers. An ultrasound of the 28-year old mother at six weeks suggested the twins were identical – with signs including a shared placenta. But it soon became clear all was not as it seemed. “What happened was the mother came back for her routine ultrasound some months later, and we saw one [twin] to be a boy and one to be a girl,” said Dr Michael Gabbett, first author of the report from Queensland University of Technology in Australia. “At that point we started the genetic studies and worked it out from there.” Twins are normally either identical or fraternal. In the case of identical, one egg is fertilised by one sperm, but the resulting ball of cells splits in two, giving rise to two offspring with identical genetic material. In the case of fraternal, or non-identical, twins, two eggs are fertilised, each by a different sperm. The resulting siblings arise from the same pregnancy, but are no more genetically similar than siblings from the same parents born at a different time. Faced with a puzzling scenario, Gabbett and colleagues report in the New England Journal of Medicine that they took samples from the two amniotic sacs, allowing them to investigate the genomes of the twins during the pregnancy. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 25997 - Posted: 03.01.2019

By Daisy Yuhas, Spectrum Steve Slavin was 48 years old when a visit to a psychologist’s office sent him down an unexpected path. At the time, he was a father of two with a career in the music industry, composing scores for advertisements and chart toppers. But he was having a difficult year. He had fewer clients than usual, his mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and he was battling anxiety and depression, leading him to shutter his recording studio. Slavin’s anxiety—which often manifested as negative thoughts and routines characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)—was nothing new. As a child, he had often felt compelled to swallow an even number of times before entering a room, or to swallow and count—one foot in the air—to four, six or eight before stepping on a paving stone. As an adult, he frequently became distressed in crowds, and he washed his hands over and over to avoid being contaminated by other people’s germs or personalities. His depression, too, was familiar—and had caused him to withdraw from friends and colleagues. This time, as Slavin’s depression and anxiety worsened, his doctor referred him to a psychologist. “I had had an appointment booked for weeks and weeks and months,” he recalls. But about 10 minutes into his first session, the psychologist suddenly changed course: Instead of continuing to ask him about his childhood or existing mental-health issues, she wanted to know whether anyone had ever talked to him about autism.

Keyword: Autism; OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 25996 - Posted: 03.01.2019

By Carolyn Y. Johnson The negative health effects of skimping on sleep during the week can’t be reversed by marathon weekend sleep sessions, according to a sobering new study. Researchers have long known that routine sleep deprivation can cause weight gain and increase other health risks, including diabetes. But for those who force themselves out of bed bleary-eyed every weekday after too few hours of shut-eye, hope springs eternal that shutting off the alarm on Saturday and Sunday will repay the weekly sleep debt and reverse any ill effects. The research, published in Current Biology, crushes those hopes. Despite complete freedom to sleep in and nap during a weekend recovery period, participants in a sleep laboratory who were limited to five hours of sleep on weekdays gained nearly three pounds over two weeks and experienced metabolic disruption that would increase their risk for diabetes over the long term. While weekend recovery sleep had some benefits after a single week of insufficient sleep, those gains were wiped out when people plunged right back into their same sleep-deprived schedule the next Monday. “If there are benefits of catch-up sleep, they’re gone when you go back to your routine. It’s very short-lived,” said Kenneth Wright, director of the sleep and chronobiology laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who oversaw the work. “These health effects are long-term. It’s kind of like smoking once was — people would smoke and wouldn’t see an immediate effect on their health, but people will say now that smoking is not a healthy lifestyle choice. I think sleep is in the early phase of where smoking used to be.” Clifford Saper, head of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, called the study “convincing and fascinating.” © 1996-2019 The Washington Post

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 25995 - Posted: 03.01.2019

By Gretchen Reynolds A few minutes of brief, intense exercise may be as effective as much lengthier walks or other moderate workouts for incinerating body fat, according to a helpful new review of the effects of exercise on fat loss. The review finds that super-short intervals could even, in some cases, burn more fat than a long walk or jog, but the effort involved needs to be arduous. I have written many times about the health, fitness and brevity benefits of high-intensity interval training, which typically involves a few minutes — or even seconds — of strenuous exertion followed by a period of rest, with the sequence repeated multiple times. Most H.I.I.T. workouts require less than half an hour, from beginning to end (including a warm-up and cool-down), and the strenuous portions of the workout are even briefer. But despite this concision, studies show that interval workouts can improve aerobic fitness, blood sugar control, blood pressure and other measures of health and fitness to the same or a greater extent than standard endurance training, such as brisk walking or jogging, even if it lasts two or three times as long. People being people, though, the most common question I hear about quickie intervals and have asked, on my own behalf, is whether they also will aid in weight control and fat loss. Only a few past studies have directly compared the fat-burning effects of endurance training to those of short interval workouts, however, and their results have been inconsistent. Some indicate that intervals prompt significant fat loss and others that any losses are negligible when compared to the effects of endurance training.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 25994 - Posted: 02.28.2019

Tina Hesman Saey BALTIMORE — Some police dogs may smell fear, and that could be bad news for finding missing people whose genetic makeup leaves them more prone to stress. Trained police dogs couldn’t recognize stressed-out people with a particular version of a gene that’s involved in stress management, geneticist Francesco Sessa reported February 22 at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. The dogs had no trouble identifying the men and women volunteers when the people weren’t under stress. The study may help explain why dogs can perform flawlessly in training, but have difficulty tracking people in real-world situations. Sessa, of the University of Foggia in Italy, and colleagues wondered whether fear could change a person’s normal scent and throw off dogs’ ability to find missing people. The researchers also investigated whether people’s genes might make some individuals easier or harder for dogs to pick out of a lineup. Previous studies already had linked different versions of the serotonin transporter gene SLC6A4 to stress management. People with the long version of the gene tend to handle stress better than people with the short version, Sessa said. He and colleagues recruited four volunteers — a man and a woman who each have the long version of the gene and a man and a woman with the short version. Each of the participants wore a scarf for a couple of hours a day to imprint their scent on the garment. Then the researchers brought the volunteers into the lab. In the first session, the volunteers wore a T-shirt and weren’t subjected to any stressors. The team then created two lineups of T-shirts, one with those of the men and another for the women. After sniffing the scarves, two trained police dogs had no trouble identifying any of the volunteers in a lineup of 10 T-shirts. The canine units identified each of the volunteers in three out of three attempts. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 25993 - Posted: 02.28.2019

Sarah DeWeerdt An analysis of four mouse models negates certain assumptions underlying the “signaling imbalance theory,” a popular hypothesis about autism’s origins in the brain. The findings suggest that the imbalance is a compensatory response to other problems in the brain, rather than the underlying cause of autism. The signaling imbalance theory holds that the brains of autistic people have too much excitatory brain activity and not enough inhibitory signals to counteract it. This imbalance then causes neurons to fire too often, the theory goes, and contributes to motor problems, sensory hypersensitivity and other autism traits. This hypothesis, first suggested in 2003, is so popular that it is often cited as fact. The new study questions its underlying assumptions, however. The researchers did find a skewed signaling balance but not the unusually high rate of neuronal firing, or “spikes.” “It’s not as straightforward as the classic hypothesis is worded,” says study leader Dan Feldman, professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley. “The [signals] are changing in a way that stabilizes brain function rather than creates excess spikes.” Feldman’s team found this pattern in four popular models of autism: mice lacking the genes CNTNAP2 or FMR1, or missing one copy of TSC2 or a region of chromosome 16 called 16p11.2. © 1986 - 2019 The Scientist

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 25992 - Posted: 02.28.2019

Susan Milius Cheating pays, sort of. But for a glossy blue-black bird with a bright yellow eye, cheating doesn’t outdo regular honest parenting. The greater ani, a type of cuckoo found from Panama to the Amazon Basin, usually starts out as a dutiful parent. Two or three male-female pairs typically build and fill a communal nest “like a big basket of eggs,” says behavioral ecologist Christina Riehl of Princeton University. But if a snake or some other disaster kills the young, a bereft female sometimes gets sneaky. She slips into neighboring ani nests and leaves an egg here and there that she won’t care for, but the rightful nest owners might. Not all females from trashed nests do that. Some just wait for the next breeding season, when all the birds get a fresh start building another nest. Greater anis’ sporadic cheating offers a rare chance to compare the success of egg-sneaks with honest mothers in the same species. Over 11 breeding seasons, Riehl and colleagues determined the parentage of more than 1,700 eggs and found 65 eggs in foster nests. Mothers that parasitize other nests in this way seem to lay more eggs a year, on average, Riehl says. “It’s actually kind of hard to be a parasite,” she says. But the average number of chicks that survived to flutter out of the nest on their own frantic wing power was about the same for all females, Riehl and Princeton colleague Meghan Strong report online February 27 in Nature. The mothers that always cooperated averaged about one fledgling a year, and so did the females that laid stealth eggs. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 25991 - Posted: 02.28.2019

By Karen Weintraub All serious butterfly collectors remember their first gynandromorph: a butterfly with a color and pattern that are distinctly male on one wing and female on the other. Seeing one sparks wonder and curiosity. For the biologist Nipam H. Patel, the sighting offered a possible answer to a question he had been pondering for years: During embryonic and larval development, how do cells know where to stop and where to go? He was sure that the delicate black outlines between male and female regions appearing on one wing — but not the other — identified a key facet of animal development. “It immediately struck me that this was telling me something interesting about how the wing was being made,” said Dr. Patel, a biologist who now heads the Marine Biological Laboratory, a research institute in Woods Hole, Mass., affiliated with the University of Chicago. The patterning on the gynandromorph’s wing shows that the body uses signaling centers to control where cells go during development and what tissues they become in creatures as diverse as butterflies and people, Dr. Patel said. Gynandromorph butterflies and other half-male, half-female creatures, particularly birds, have fascinated both scientists and amateurs for centuries. The latest sensation was a half-red, half-taupe cardinal that became a regular visitor in the backyard of Shirley and Jeffrey Caldwell in Erie, Pa. Although the bird would have to be tested to confirm that it is a gynandromorph, its color division strongly suggests that it is, scientists say. Split-sex creatures are not as unusual as they may seem when one discovery goes viral, as the cardinal’s did. It extends beyond birds and butterflies to other insects and crustaceans, like lobsters and crabs. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 25990 - Posted: 02.27.2019

By Alex Therrien Health reporter, BBC News A radical Parkinson's treatment that delivers a drug directly to the brain has been tested in people. Patients in the trial were either given the drug, which is administered via a "port" in the side of the head, or a dummy treatment (placebo). Both groups showed improved symptoms, meaning it was not clear if the drug was responsible for the benefits. However, scans did find visual evidence of improvements to affected areas of the brain in those given the drug. The study's authors say it hints at the possibility of "reawakening" brain cells damaged by the condition. Other experts, though, say it is too early to know whether this finding might result in improvements in Parkinson's symptoms. Researchers believe the port implant could also be used to administer chemotherapy to those with brain tumours or to test new drugs for Alzheimer's and stroke patients. Parkinson's causes parts of the brain to become progressively damaged, resulting in a range of symptoms, such as involuntary shaking and stiff, inflexible muscles. About 145,000 people a year in the UK are diagnosed with the degenerative condition, which cannot be slowed down or reversed. For this new study, scientists gave patients an experimental treatment called glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), in the hope it could regenerate dying brain cells and even reverse the condition. © 2019 BBC.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 25989 - Posted: 02.27.2019

By Roni Caryn Rabin Cannabidiol, or CBD, a nonintoxicating component of the marijuana plant, is touted as a magic bullet that eases pain, anxiety, insomnia and depression. Salves, sprays, tinctures and oils containing CBD are marketed as aphrodisiacs that boost desire; as balms for eczema, pimples and hot flashes; and even as treatments for serious diseases like diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Unlike THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the “psychoactive” component of the cannabis plant, CBD won’t get you “high.” But scientists know little about what it can do: Most of the information about CBD’s effects in humans is anecdotal or extrapolated from animal studies, and few rigorous trials have been conducted. “It is a kind of a new snake oil in the sense that there are a lot of claims and not so much evidence,” said Dustin Lee, an assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University who is planning a human trial of CBD for use in quitting smoking. The Food and Drug Administration has approved some drugs made from synthetic substances similar to THC to treat poor appetite and nausea in people with A.I.D.S. or cancer. But so far, the F.D.A. has approved only one drug containing CBD, Epidiolex, after clinical trials found it reduced seizures in children with two rare, severe forms of epilepsy. “There’s a lot of hype about everything about CBD,” said Dr. Orrin Devinsky, the director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, who led the Epidiolex studies and went out of his way to say the drug’s effect was “not miraculous.” “There is certainly data that it has a variety of anti-inflammatory effects, but whether that translates into improving human health is unknown. Does it help people with eczema, rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis? We don’t know. There is a good theoretical basis, but the studies have not been done.” © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Sleep
Link ID: 25988 - Posted: 02.27.2019

By Achim Peters Although our brain accounts for just 2 percent of our body weight, the organ consumes half of our daily carbohydrate requirements—and glucose is its most important fuel. Under acute stress the brain requires some 12 percent more energy, leading many to reach for sugary snacks. Carbohydrates provide the body with the quickest source of energy. In fact, in cognitive tests subjects who were stressed performed poorly prior to eating. Their performance, however, went back to normal after consuming food. When we are hungry, a whole network of brain regions activates. At the center are the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) and the lateral hypothalamus. These two regions in the upper brain stem are involved in regulating metabolism, feeding behavior and digestive functions. There is, however, an upstream gatekeeper, the nucleus arcuatus (ARH) in the hypothalamus. If it registers that the brain itself lacks glucose, this gatekeeper blocks information from the rest of the body. That’s why we resort to carbohydrates as soon as the brain indicates a need for energy, even if the rest of the body is well supplied. To further understand the relationship between the brain and carbohydrates, we examined 40 subjects over two sessions. In one, we asked study participants to give a 10-minute speech in front of strangers. In the other session they were not required to give a speech. At the end of each session, we measured the concentrations of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline in participants’ blood. We also provided them with a food buffet for an hour. When the participants gave a speech before the buffet, they were more stressed, and on average consumed an additional 34 grams of carbohydrates, than when they did not give a speech. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Stress; Obesity
Link ID: 25987 - Posted: 02.27.2019

By Michael Price Insomnia, often blamed on stress or bad sleep habits, may instead be closely linked to depression, heart disease, and other physiological disorders, a pair of deep dives into the human genome now reveals. “Both studies are very well done,” says psychologist Philip Gehrman of the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, who researches sleep behavior. Still, he stresses, much more work remains before the genetic connections to insomnia can be translated to new therapies for patients. Insomnia costs the U.S. workforce more than $63 billion each year in lost productivity, according to some estimates. It’s also incredibly common: As much as a third of the worldwide population suffers from insomnia-related symptoms at any given time. Yet the disorder remains poorly understood. In one new paper reported today in Nature Genetics, researchers led by geneticist Danielle Posthuma of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS), which looks for links between shared sequences of DNA and particular behaviors or clinical symptoms. The group analyzed the genomes of more than 1 million people, which the authors say is the largest GWAS to date. The data came from UK Biobank, a long-running, enormous U.K. genetics study, and the private genetics firm 23andMe. The prevalence of insomnia in the people covered by both databases was about 30%, which is in line with estimates for the general population. © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Sleep; Depression
Link ID: 25986 - Posted: 02.26.2019

By Tom Avril Smoking cigarettes has long been known for its ability to damage eyesight, on top of the harm it causes to the lungs, heart and other organs. But a new study suggests that smoking can impair vision far earlier than is commonly thought. Heavy smokers with an average age of 35 were markedly worse than nonsmokers at distinguishing colors as well as the contrast between different shades of gray, the study authors said. Previous research has linked smoking with macular degeneration and cataracts, which tend to occur decades later. The new results, published in Psychiatry Research, do not indicate how smoking damages perception of color and contrast. But the broad nature of the impairment suggests that it is not the result of damage to specific kinds of light-sensitive cells, such as rods or cones, said co-author Steven Silverstein, a professor of psychiatry and ophthalmology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Instead, cigarette use probably harms a more general aspect of vision biology, such as blood vessels or nerve cells. “There is probably some more widespread problem like overall blood flow in the eye that is compromised due to all the toxic chemicals in cigarettes,” said Silverstein, who collaborated with authors from the Perception, Neuroscience and Behavior Laboratory in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. © 1996-2019 The Washington Post

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Vision
Link ID: 25985 - Posted: 02.26.2019

Jonathan Lambert The experience of natural spaces, brimming with greenish light, the smells of soil and the quiet fluttering of leaves in the breeze can calm our frenetic modern lives. It's as though our very cells can exhale when surrounded by nature, relaxing our bodies and minds. Some people seek to maximize the purported therapeutic effects of contact with the unbuilt environment by embarking on sessions of forest bathing, slowing down and becoming mindfully immersed in nature. But in a rapidly urbanizing world, green spaces are shrinking as our cities grow out and up. Scientists are working to understand how green spaces, or lack of them, can affect our mental health. A study published Monday in the journal PNAS details what the scientists say is the largest investigation of the association between green spaces and mental health. Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark found that growing up near vegetation is associated with an up to 55 percent lower risk of mental health disorders in adulthood. Kristine Engemann, the biologist who led the study, combined decades of satellite imagery with extensive health and demographic data of the Danish population to investigate the mental health effects of growing up near greenery. "The scale of this study is quite something," says Kelly Lambert, a neuroscientist at the University of Richmond who studies the psychological effects of natural spaces. Smaller studies have hinted that lack of green space increases the risk of mood disorders and schizophrenia and can even affect cognitive development. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 25984 - Posted: 02.26.2019

Genevieve Fox You receive an invitation, emblazoned with a question: “A bouncing little ‘he’ or a pretty little ‘she’?” The question is your teaser for the “gender reveal party” to which you are being invited by an expectant mother who, at more than 20 weeks into her pregnancy, knows what you don’t: the sex of her child. After you arrive, explains cognitive neuroscientist Gina Rippon in her riveting new book, The Gendered Brain, the big reveal will be hidden within some novelty item, such as a white iced cake, and will be colour-coded. Cut the cake and you’ll see either blue or pink filling. If it is blue, it is a… Yes, you’ve guessed it. Whatever its sex, this baby’s future is predetermined by the entrenched belief that males and females do all kinds of things differently, better or worse, because they have different brains. A neuroscientist explains: the need for ‘empathetic citizens’ - podcast “Hang on a minute!” chuckles Rippon, who has been interested in the human brain since childhood, “the science has moved on. We’re in the 21st century now!” Her measured delivery is at odds with the image created by her detractors, who decry her as a “neuronazi” and a “grumpy old harridan” with an “equality fetish”. For my part, I was braced for an encounter with an egghead, who would talk at me and over me. Rippon is patient, though there is an urgency in her voice as she explains how vital it is, how life-changing, that we finally unpack – and discard – the sexist stereotypes and binary coding that limit and harm us. For Rippon, a twin, the effects of stereotyping kicked in early. Her “under-achieving” brother was sent to a boys’ academic Catholic boarding school, aged 11. “It’s difficult to say this. I was clearly academically bright. I was top in the country for the 11+.” This gave her a scholarship to a grammar school. Her parents sent her to a girls’ non-academic Catholic convent instead. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 25983 - Posted: 02.26.2019

Erin Wayman During the last few weeks of her life, Mama, an elderly chimpanzee at a zoo in the Netherlands, received a special visitor. As Mama lay curled up on a mound of straw, biologist Jan van Hooff entered her enclosure. Van Hooff, who had known Mama for more than 40 years, knelt down and stroked the arm of the listless chimp. When Mama looked up, her vacant face erupted into a smile. She reached out to van Hooff, calling out as she patted his face and neck. For primatologist Frans de Waal, this touching scene isn’t difficult to interpret: Mama was happy to see her old friend. But such an interpretation has been taboo among many behavioral scientists, who have claimed nonhuman animals are like unthinking, emotionless machines that react to situations with preprogrammed instincts. In the thought-provoking Mama’s Last Hug, de Waal dismantles that view. He presents piles of evidence that animals are emotional beings. The book is a companion to Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, in which he explored animal intelligence (SN: 12/24/16 & 1/7/17, p. 40). Emotions, de Waal writes, “are bodily and mental states — from anger and fear to sexual desire and affection and seeking the upper hand — that drive behavior.” On page after page, he tells of depressed fish, empathetic rats, envious monkeys and other emotional creatures. More than a collection of fascinating anecdotes, Mama’s Last Hug weaves together formal observations of animals in the wild and in captivity, behavioral experiments and neuroscience research. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019.

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 25982 - Posted: 02.26.2019