By Sam Roberts Diana Hanbury King, a master teacher who helped generations of students struggling to read fluently, write and spell — and being stigmatized for it — because of an often undiagnosed learning disability called dyslexia, died on June 15 at her home in Lakeville, Conn. She was 90. The cause was complications from several falls, her son, Christopher, said. Ms. King, whose uncle was dyslexic, taught, tutored, founded camps and trained teachers in education programs that were replicated around the world. “The time to diagnose dyslexia is before the child has a chance to fail at reading,” she said. She was instrumental in transforming the popular perception of people with dyslexia from being backward or unteachable to being often highly intelligent despite their learning difficulties. Often they were endowed with keen powers of observation and original thinking, innate charm, a sense of balance and high energy. “We continue to see the tragedy of a bright child coming home from school in the second or third grade in tears — ‘I’m the dumbest kid in all of the second grade’ — and getting stomach aches before they go to school, and all of this totally unnecessary and totally preventable, ” Ms. King said in a videotaped interview with the International Dyslexia Association in 2013. “It drives me crazy.” She said that dyslexia affects as many as one in five people and can be detected by age 4. (A child’s saying “washerdisher,” for example, or “flutteryby” can be symptomatic.) But through intensive tutoring, she maintained — learning a few letters at a time, and integrating spelling and handwriting into their curriculum — students can pass standardized tests or even surpass their peers by the fourth grade. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 25129 - Posted: 06.23.2018

By David Grimm The environment a laboratory animal lives in can have a dramatic impact on whether it’s a good model for human disease. A mouse that lives in a shoebox-size cage, for example, gets less exercise than its wild relatives, and thus may not be the best model for studying obesity. Enriched environments with bigger cages and more toys can help, says Garet Lahvis, but the best way to make animals good models is to take them out of the lab—and, in some cases, study them outside in the great wide world. This could be accomplished with cutting-edge electronics and remote sensors, says the behavioral neuroscientist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. He’s presenting his proposal today at the Behavior Genetics Association’s annual conference in Boston. Lahvis chatted with Science about what studying lab animals in the wild could look like, and why some researchers think it won’t happen. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Required fields are indicated by an asterisk (*) Q: Why did you become interested in this idea? A: Our lab studies social behavior in mice. We’ve shown that mice have the capacity for empathy when they hear other mice getting an electrical shock, and that mice are gregarious—they like to hang out with each other. But we were studying them in these small, relatively sterile cages—not anything like they’d encounter in the wild. About 6 or 7 years ago, I started thinking, “How could it be normal for you to spend your entire life with only three other individuals in a small room? Are the mice we’re looking at really normal?” Once that door opened, I started to think about everything else that could go wrong with lab animal research. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 25128 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By Emily Willingham Analysis of a Million-Plus Genomes Points to Blurring Lines Among Brain Disorders Brain scan of a 23-year-old schizophrenic man experiencing a hallucination. Credit: Getty Images Is lower academic achievement in early life tied to the same gene changes as an increased risk for Alzheimer’s in older age? That is one of dozens of possible deductions to be drawn from the largest genomic study of brain conditions ever conducted, research that obscures what often have been considered clear diagnostic borders. According to the findings, published June 22 in Science, conditions such as schizophrenia, major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder share a suite of overlapping genetic variants rather than having distinct genetic signatures. In addition to the genetic links between educational attainment and Alzheimer’s risk, the results link neuroticism to anorexia nervosa, anxiety disorders, MDD and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Neurological disorders like Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis, however, have few variants in common with each other or with psychiatric conditions. This mother lode of findings comes after a six-year delving into genomes representing more than a million people, a quest for unusual genetic signals that track with one or more of 42 disorders and traits. © 2018 Scientific American

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 25127 - Posted: 06.22.2018

Leah Rosenbaum Joel Dudley and his colleagues were searching through datasets for Alzheimer’s disease vulnerabilities to exploit in creating a treatment when they stumbled across a surprising correlation: Many of the brains they looked at had signs of herpesvirus infection. But those from people with Alzheimer’s disease had much higher levels of viral DNA than those from healthy people. In particular, the researchers found high levels of HHV-6 and HHV-7, two strains of herpesvirus associated with a common childhood illness called roseola, the team reports online June 21 in Neuron. “We had no intention of looking at viruses,” says Dudley, a biomedical informatics researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who gives a talk jokingly titled, “I went looking for drugs and all I found were these stupid viruses.” It is unclear whether the herpesviruses contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s, or if Alzheimer’s patients are just more susceptible to these viruses, which can remain latent in the body long after exposure. Genetic factors also influence a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s. The researchers did find that the viruses interacted with genes linked with Alzheimer’s disease, though the implications are still murky. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2018

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 25126 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By Catherine Offord An experimental gene therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy has showed better-than-expected results in a three-patient trial, according to preliminary data presented by Cambridge, Massachusetts–based biotech Sarepta Therapeutics on Tuesday (June 19). Company shares jumped 60 percent following the news that the treatment dramatically boosted levels of microdystrophin, a muscle-protecting protein designed by researchers, and reduced levels of an enzyme associated with the disease. “I have spent my life wanting to make a real change in this disease,” principal investigator Jerry Mendell of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus tells STAT News. “Finally, we may be there. I am very hopeful. This is an emotional time for people in the field.” Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a rare genetic disorder caused by loss-of-function mutations in the dystrophin gene. An X-linked condition, the disease mostly affects boys, and usually manifests itself in the form of muscle weakness in children between the ages of 3 and 5. There is no cure for DMD, and although steroids can slow the progression of symptoms, the disease eventually causes life-threatening damage to the heart muscles. Few patients live beyond their 30s. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first drug for DMD, Sarepta’s oligonucleotide therapeutic Exondys 51 (eteplirsen), in 2016. But the therapy was only effective in around 15 percent of DMD patients—those with a specific genetic mutation—and produced just marginal improvements in dystrophin levels. More-recent, preclinical approaches are experimenting with CRISPR to correct DMD-causing point mutations. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Muscles; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 25125 - Posted: 06.22.2018

by Lindsey Bever Koko, a beloved gorilla who learned to communicate with humans and then stole their hearts, has died. The Gorilla Foundation said the 46-year-old celebrity ape — a western lowland gorilla — died in her sleep earlier this week at the organization’s preserve in Northern California. The Gorilla Foundation, a nonprofit that works to study and protect great apes, said in a statement that Koko will be most remembered “as the primary ambassador for her endangered species.” “Koko touched the lives of millions as an ambassador for all gorillas and an icon for interspecies communication and empathy,” the statement said. “She was beloved and will be deeply missed.” The gorilla was born at the San Francisco Zoo on Independence Day in 1971, according to the Gorilla Foundation, and named Hanabi-ko, which means “fireworks child” in Japanese, though she was mainly known by her nickname, Koko. It was in San Francisco where the newborn gorilla met a budding psychologist, Francine “Penny” Patterson. By the next year, Patterson had started teaching the animal an adapted version of American Sign Language, which she dubbed “Gorilla Sign Language,” or GSL. Video footage from that time shows Patterson playing games with the young gorilla and trying to teach her a new way to communicate. © 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 25124 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By Frank Bures Even if there is no sonic weapon, or genitals are not truly shrinking, these conditions are all quite real to the sufferers, just as depression and anxiety are real. One afternoon in May of 2004, a third-grade boy at a local school in Fuhu reported feeling that his genitals were shrinking. He panicked, ran home, and his parents fetched the local healer — an 80-year-old woman who had seen this sort of thing before: In 1963, she said, around the time of the Great Leap Forward, an “evil wind” had blown through the village and many people were struck by this illness known as “suo-yang.” She treated the boy by traditional means and he recovered quickly. Two days later when the school principal learned of the incident, he gathered all 680 students in the school courtyard and, according to a report by Dr. Li Jie of the Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital, “explained to the students in detail what had happened, and warned them to be cautious, and to take emergency measures if they experienced similar symptoms.” Within two days, 64 other boys were struck with suo-yang, which in its epidemic form, is referred to in the scientific literature as a “mass psychogenic illness” or a “collective stress response.” The Fuhu case was a textbook example of how such an illness can spread through a group of people, and the headmaster did the worst possible thing by explaining the symptoms in detail and assuring students they were in danger. He all but caused epidemic. Copyright 2018 Undark

Keyword: Attention; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 25123 - Posted: 06.22.2018

Leslie Henderson Anti-immigrant policies, race-related demonstrations, Title IX disputes, affirmative action court cases, same-sex marriage litigation. These issues are continually in the headlines. But even thoughtful articles on these subjects seem always to devolve to pitting warring factions against each other: black versus white, women versus men, gay versus straight. At the most fundamental level of biology, people recognize the innate advantage of defining differences in species. But even within species, is there something in our neural circuits that leads us to find comfort in those like us and unease with those who may differ? As in all animals, human brains balance two primordial systems. One includes a brain region called the amygdala that can generate fear and distrust of things that pose a danger – think predators or or being lost somewhere unknown. The other, a group of connected structures called the mesolimbic system, can give rise to pleasure and feelings of reward in response to things that make it more likely we’ll flourish and survive – think not only food, but also social pleasure, like trust. But how do these systems interact to influence how we form our concepts of community? Implicit association tests can uncover the strength of unconscious associations. Scientists have shown that many people harbor an implicit preference for their in-group – those like themselves – even when they show no outward or obvious signs of bias. For example, in studies whites perceive blacks as more violent and more apt to do harm, solely because they are black, and this unconscious bias is evident even toward black boys as young as five years old. © 2010–2018, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 25122 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By JoAnna Klein Every spring in Australia, billions of bogong moths migrate from the arid plains of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria to the meadows of the Australian Alps to escape the impending heat. There, they congregate in caves like living shingles, and go dormant over the summer. Autumn arrives, and they return to their birthplaces to mate, lay eggs and die. The eggs hatch into caterpillars that develop underground through winter. The cycle continues. How these animals complete this epic journey to a place they’ve never been and back, traveling hundreds of miles at night, for days to weeks each way, has long been a mystery. But scientists have now discovered that bogong moths have a magnetic sense to help them. In a paper published Thursday in Current Biology, they tested how the moths reacted to moving visual cues and magnetic fields in an outdoor flight simulator and found that the winged insects use magnetic fields like a compass. While other animals like nocturnal songbirds and sea turtles are known to migrate by Earth’s magnetic fields, the researchers say this is the first reliable evidence that insects can, too. Australia’s small, brown, ordinary-looking bogong moths are the only known insect besides the monarch butterfly to manage such a long, directed and specific migration. “They have this sort of amazing ability that belies their appearance,” said Eric Warrant, a biologist at the University of Lund in Sweden and the principal investigator of the study. “It’s as if the bogong moth is the dreary-colored, nocturnal cousin of the monarch butterfly.” But unlike the monarch, which flies during the day by a reliably rising and setting sun, the moth flies at night beneath dim constellations and a darting, shape-shifting moon. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 25121 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education and family correspondent The colour cyan - between green and blue - is a hidden factor in encouraging or preventing sleep, according to biologists. University of Manchester researchers say higher levels of cyan keep people awake, while reducing cyan is associated with helping sleep. The impact was felt even if colour changes were not visible to the eye. The researchers want to produce devices for computer screens and phones that could increase or decrease cyan levels. Sleep researchers have already established links between colours and sleep - with blue light having been identified as more likely to delay sleep. There have been "night mode" settings for phones and laptops which have reduced blue light in an attempt to lessen the damage to sleep. But the research by biologists at the University of Manchester and in Basel in Switzerland, published in the journal Sleep, has shown the particular impact of the colour cyan. When people were exposed to more or less cyan, researchers were able to measure different levels of the sleep hormone melatonin in people's saliva. Prof Rob Lucas said that it was not necessary for someone to be able to see the difference in colours, as the body reacted to the change even if it was not visible to the naked eye. He said this could also affect other colours which were made using cyan. For instance, there are shades of green that can include cyan - which also can be achieved using other colour combinations. The researchers suggest that versions of the colour using cyan could be used on computer screens if the aim was to keep people awake - such as people working and required to stay alert at night. © 2018 BBC.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Sleep
Link ID: 25120 - Posted: 06.22.2018

Video by Emma Allen Depression is a multifaceted and insidious disorder, nearly as complex as the brain itself. As research continues to suggest, the onset of depression can be attributed to an interplay of the many elements that make us human—namely, our genetics, the structure and chemistry of our brains, and our lived experience. Second only, perhaps, to the confounding mechanics of anesthesia, depression is the ultimate mind-body problem; understanding how it works could unlock the mysteries of human consciousness. Emma Allen, a visual artist, and Dr. Daisy Thompson-Lake, a clinical neuroscientist, are fascinated by the physical processes that underlie mental health conditions. Together, they created Adam, a stop-motion animation composed of nearly 1,500 photographs. The short film illuminates the neuroscience of depression while also conveying its emotive experience. “It was challenging translating the complicated science into an emotional visual story with scenes that would flow smoothly into each other,” Allen told The Atlantic. “One of the most complex issues we had to deal with,” added Thompson-Lake, “is that there no single neuroscientific explanation for depression…While scientists agree that there are biological and chemical changes within the brain, the actual brain chemistry is very unique to the individual—although, of course, we can see patterns when studying large numbers of patients.” As a result, Allen and Thompson-Lake attempted a visual interpretation of depression that does not rely too heavily on any one explanation.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 25119 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By Nicholas Bakalar Obesity is more common in rural areas than in cities in the United States, two new studies have found. The two analyses, one of adults and the other of children, used data on weight, height and where people lived that was gathered in a series of nationally representative surveys from 2001 to 2016. They were published online together in JAMA. The adult study included 10,792 men and women 20 and older. In the 2013-16 survey period, 39 percent were obese — defined as having a body mass index of 30 or above — including 8 percent who were severely obese, with a B.M.I. of 40 or more. Prevalence of obesity was 36.5 percent among men and 40.8 percent among women, including severe obesity of 5.5 percent for men and 9.8 percent for women. In the study of 6,863 children 2 to 19 years old, 17.8 percent were obese, including 5.8 percent who were severely obese. “I want to emphasize that this survey — the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey — is the gold standard” in accuracy for obesity rates, said Cynthia L. Ogden, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an author on both studies. “When people report their own measurements, they exaggerate their height and minimize their weight,” she said. “This survey has measured heights and weights.” About 38 percent of women living in urban areas with a population greater than a million were obese, as were 42.5 percent of those living in urban areas smaller than a million. But in rural areas, the obesity rate for women was 47.2 percent. Rates for men showed a similar, although not identical, pattern — 31.8 percent in large urban areas, 42.4 percent in small metropolitan areas, and 38.9 percent in rural regions. These differences could not be explained by age, education level, race, ethnicity or smoking status. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 25118 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By Sukanya Charuchandra Researchers in China have taken cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease one step further. In research published in Stem Cell Reports on June 14, scientists report improvements in the motor abilities of monkeys with Parkinsonian symptoms after grafting dopamine neurons derived from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into their brains. The findings will serve as preclinical data for China’s first ESC-based clinical study for the neurological disease. “Since there are a number of therapies being developed, there is no overwhelming theoretical support for a particular cell type, and actually studying them in advanced animal models and then even in patients makes sense to determine what works best,” D. Eugene Redmond Jr., a psychiatrist and neurosurgeon at Yale Stem Cell Center who was not involved in the study, writes in an email to The Scientist. See “Parkinson’s Disease Cell Therapy Relieves Symptoms in Monkeys” Parkinson’s disease is a neurological condition that originates from the death of dopamine-producing cells in the brain. Since the early 1990s, groups around the world have been developing cell-replacement therapies to counteract this depletion, with recent efforts focusing on stem cells. Scientists have conducted rodent and primate research using dopamine-producing neurons derived from adult stem cells, ESCs, and induced pluripotent stem cells to treat Parkinson’s disease. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Parkinsons; Stem Cells
Link ID: 25117 - Posted: 06.22.2018

By Jon Cohen Until now, researchers wanting to understand the Neanderthal brain and how it differed from our own had to study a void. The best insights into the neurology of our mysterious, extinct relatives came from analyzing the shape and volume of the spaces inside their fossilized skulls. But a recent marriage of three hot fields—ancient DNA, the genome editor CRISPR, and "organoids" built from stem cells—offers a provocative, if very preliminary, new option. At least two research teams are engineering stem cells to include Neanderthal genes and growing them into "minibrains" that reflect the influence of that ancient DNA. None of this work has been published, but Alysson Muotri, a geneticist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, described his group's Neanderthal organoids for the first time this month at a UCSD conference called Imagination and Human Evolution. His team has coaxed stem cells endowed with Neanderthal DNA into pea-size masses that mimic the cortex, the outer layer of real brains. Compared with cortical minibrains made with typical human cells, the Neanderthal organoids have a different shape and differences in their neuronal networks, including some that may have influenced the species's ability to socialize. "We're trying to recreate Neanderthal minds," Muotri says. Muotri focused on one of approximately 200 protein-coding genes that differ between Neanderthals and modern humans. Known as NOVA1, it plays a role in early brain development in modern humans and also is linked to autism and schizophrenia. Because it controls splicing of RNA from other genes, it likely helped produce more than 100 novel brain proteins in Neanderthals. Conveniently, just one DNA base pair differs between the Neanderthal gene and the modern human one. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Evolution
Link ID: 25116 - Posted: 06.21.2018

By Sara Goudarzi The presidents of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a statement Wednesday advocating for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stop separating migrant families. The statement cites research that indicates endangerment of those involved. Last week the American Psychological Association released a letter opposing the Trump administration’s policy of taking immigrant children from their parents at the border. Under the zero-tolerance immigration policy, since May more than 2,300 immigrant children—some of them babies—have been forcibly separated from their parents attempting to enter the U.S. from Mexico. Also Wednesday, as the backlash and public outcry continue to grow, Pres. Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order to stop separating families at the order. It was unclear when children already separated might be reunited with their families. But even if reunited soon, medical experts say the effects of separation can potentially last a lifetime. Scientific American spoke with Alan Shapiro, assistant clinical professor in pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, about the effects of separation trauma and other health and mental consequences of breaking up families. Shapiro is also senior medical director for Community Pediatric Programs (CPP), a collaboration between the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York City and the Children’s Health Fund, and medical director and co-founder of Terra Firma, a partnership that provides medical and legal services to immigrant children. © 2018 Scientific American

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 25115 - Posted: 06.21.2018

By Meredith Wadman Breaking with a history of reticence, nearly 600 scientists, students, and lab animal workers published a letter in USA Today this morning that calls on U.S. research institutions to “embrace openness” about their animal research. “We should proudly explain how animals are used for the advancement of science and medicine, in the interest of the well-being of humans and animals,” the 592 signatories write in the letter. “From the development of insulin and transplant surgery to modern day advances, including gene therapies and cancer treatments; animals … continue to play a crucial role in both basic and applied research.” The letter was organized by the pro–animal research advocacy group Speaking of Research, which has offices in the both the United States and the United Kingdom. The group notes that four Nobel Prize–winning biologists are among the signatories: William Campbell, Mario Capecchi, Carol Greider, and Torsten Wiesel. It was also signed by students, lab technicians, veterinarians, physicians, and a few public policy experts. “I read the letter and decided within minutes that I would sign it,” says Greider, a biologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for her discovery of the enzyme telomerase. “Animal research is very important to understanding fundamental biological mechanisms.” © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 25114 - Posted: 06.21.2018

By Nicholas Bakalar Night owls may be at greater risk for depression than early birds. Previous studies have found a link between a person’s unique circadian rhythm, or chronotype, and depression, but none were able to tell whether sleep habits were a cause or an effect of the disease. This new prospective study, in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, is a step closer to establishing causality. Researchers gathered health and behavioral data on 32,740 women whose average age was 55. Each categorized herself as a definite evening or morning type, a somewhat morning or evening type, or neither. All were free of depression at the start of the study, and over the following four years 2,581 of them developed depression, defined by antidepressant use or a clinical diagnosis. After adjusting for marital status, living alone, being retired, alcohol consumption and other variables, the researchers found that compared to the intermediate types, morning people were 12 percent less likely to develop depression, and night owls 6 percent more likely to develop it. The relationship was linear: the more a woman tended toward the night-owl type, the more likely she was to develop depression. “The effect is modest, a modest association for chronotype and incident depression,” said the lead author, Céline Vetter, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado. “But the overall pattern remains constant. We need to get much deeper into what the genetic and environmental contributions are between mood and chronotype.” © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Depression
Link ID: 25113 - Posted: 06.21.2018

By Victoria Davis Some people can trace their traditions back decades; the swamp sparrow has passed its songs down for more than 1500 years. The findings, published today in Nature Communications, suggest humans are not alone in keeping practices alive for long periods of time. To conduct the study, researchers recorded a collection of songs from 615 adult male swamp sparrows from six densely populated areas across the northeastern United States. They dissected each bird’s song repertoire, identifying only 160 different syllable types within all the recorded sample. Most swamp swallows sang the same tunes, using the same common syllables, but there were a few rare types in each population, just as there are variations in human oral histories over time. Using a statistical method of calculation called approximate Bayesian computation and models that measure the diversity of syllable types present in each population, the scientists were able to calculate how the songs of each male would have changed over time. They also found that all but two of the most common syllables used during their sampling in 2009 were also the most common during an earlier study of the species when recordings were made in the 1970s. Overall, the analysis indicated that the average age of the oldest tune dated back about 1537 years. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 25112 - Posted: 06.21.2018

Maria Temming Getting robots to do what we want would be a lot easier if they could read our minds. That sci-fi dream might not be so far off. With a new robot control system, a human can stop a bot from making a mistake and get the machine back on track using brain waves and simple hand gestures. People who oversee robots in factories, homes or hospitals could use this setup, to be presented at the Robotics: Science and Systems conference on June 28, to ensure bots operate safely and efficiently. Electrodes worn on the head and forearm allow a person to control the robot. The head-worn electrodes detect electrical signals called error-related potentials — which people’s brains unconsciously generate when they see someone goof up — and send an alert to the robot. When the robot receives an error signal, it stops what it is doing. The person can then make hand gestures — detected by arm-worn electrodes that monitor electrical muscle signals — to show the bot what it should do instead. MIT roboticist Daniela Rus and colleagues tested the system with seven volunteers. Each user supervised a robot that moved a drill toward one of three possible targets, each marked by an LED bulb, on a mock airplane fuselage. Whenever the robot zeroed in on the wrong target, the user’s mental error-alert halted the bot. And when the user flicked his or her wrist left or right to redirect the robot, the machine moved toward the proper target. In more than 1,000 trials, the robot initially aimed for the correct target about 70 percent of the time, and with human intervention chose the right target more than 97 percent of the time. The team plans to build a system version that recognizes a wider variety of user movements. That way, “you can gesture how the robot should move, and your motion can be more fluidly interpreted,” says study coauthor Joseph DelPreto, also a roboticist at MIT. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2018

Keyword: Brain imaging; Robotics
Link ID: 25111 - Posted: 06.20.2018

By Virginia Morell When an adult striped dolphin emerged from the Mediterranean Sea in 2016 pushing, nudging, and circling the carcass of its dead female companion for more than an hour, a nearby boat of scientists fell silent. Afterward, the students aboard said they were certain the dolphin was grieving. But was this grief or some other response? In a new study, researchers are attempting to get to the bottom of a mystery that has plagued behavioral biologists for 50 years. Grief, in humans at least, is a reaction to the permanent severing of a strong social or family bond. Although chimpanzees, baboons, and elephants are thought to experience the complex emotion, scientists don’t yet know enough about it in other animals. There are dozens of photos and YouTube videos of grieflike behavior in dolphins: Some mothers have been seen carrying their dead infants in their mouths or on their backs for a week or longer, even as the body decomposes; a couple adult males have also been seen holding dead calves in their mouths. In the new study, cetacean biologist Giovanni Bearzi of Dolphin Biology and Conservation in Pordenone, Italy, and his colleagues at other institutions analyzed 78 scientific reports from 1970 to 2016 of these kinds of displays—which they labeled “postmortem-attentive behavior.” They found that just 20 of 88 cetacean (dolphin and whale) species engage in them. Of those, most were dolphins from the Sousa and Tursiops genera. Just one was a baleen whale—a humpback. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 25110 - Posted: 06.20.2018