Chimpanzees under attack exaggerate their screams to get help from higher ranking group members, researchers from Fife have discovered. The study found primates produce high-pitched and prolonged screams when they were the victims of severe aggression such as beating. Their cries were exaggerated if there was another higher-ranking chimp in the area who could challenge the aggressor. St Andrews University experts spent nine months in Budongo Forest, Uganda. They recorded the apes' screams during attacks by chimps and carried out a computerised analysis of the acoustics. Dr Katie Slocombe from the university's School of Psychology, who led the study, said: "We conclude victims use screams flexibly to recruit help from others and have a complex understanding of third party relations. "They know exactly who can challenge who, and this knowledge of social relationships influences their vocal production. If no-one is there to help them then the screams are normal but if someone is about then they make it sound even worse than it is. This shows there is more flexibility in their vocal communication than previously thought." Dr Slocombe said they were still researching the underlying reasons for the exaggerated screams. "It could be that they are wanting to falsely deceive the higher ranking chimpanzee into thinking it is really bad," she said. (C)BBC

Keyword: Language; Emotions
Link ID: 10855 - Posted: 10.16.2007

CHICAGO - Julio and Mauricio Cabrera are gay brothers who are convinced their sexual orientation is as deeply rooted as their Mexican ancestry. They are among 1,000 pairs of gay brothers taking part in the largest study to date seeking genes that may influence whether people are gay. The Cabreras hope the findings will help silence critics who say homosexuality is an immoral choice. If fresh evidence is found suggesting genes are involved, perhaps homosexuality will be viewed as no different than other genetic traits like height and hair color, said Julio, a student at DePaul University in Chicago. Adds his brother, “I think it would help a lot of folks understand us better.” The federally funded study, led by Chicago area researchers, will rely on blood or saliva samples to help scientists search for genetic clues to the origins of homosexuality. Parents and straight brothers also are being recruited. While initial results aren’t expected until next year — and won’t provide a final answer — skeptics are already attacking the methods and disputing the presumed results. Previous studies have shown that sexual orientation tends to cluster in families, though that doesn’t prove genetics is involved. Extended families may share similar child-rearing practices, religion and other beliefs that could also influence sexual orientation. © 2007 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10854 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer PDT Stanford - -- Researchers at Stanford University have developed a potentially pathbreaking blood test that, according to preliminary studies, is able to identify patients with Alzheimer's disease - an ailment that has been notoriously difficult to diagnose. The test has also shown promise in predicting which patients with mild memory loss are at high risk of developing the dreaded syndrome, which kills 66,000 Americans each year and inflicts incalculable heartache on the families of its victims. Scientists have been working for years without success to develop a simple way to diagnose Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative brain disease that saps memory, sows confusion and will eventually kill patients who may have lost the ability to speak, walk or swallow. In a paper published Sunday in the online edition of the British journal Nature Medicine, a team of scientists led by Stanford neurology Professor Tony Wyss-Coray describe a unique method that can spot Alzheimer's patients by screening for a set of 18 chemical signals that consistently turn up in the blood of people suffering from the disease. The 18 different molecules are drawn from a phrase book of chemical chatter that occurs among cells in the body. Together, they present a pattern that with surprising consistency appears in the blood of Alzheimer's patients. © 2007 Hearst Communications Inc

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 10853 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By AMANDA SCHAFFER An explosion of new research is vastly changing scientists’ understanding of diabetes and giving new clues about how to attack it. The fifth leading killer of Americans, with 73,000 deaths a year, diabetes is a disease in which the body’s failure to regulate glucose, or blood sugar, can lead to serious and even fatal complications. Until very recently, the regulation of glucose — how much sugar is present in a person’s blood, how much is taken up by cells for fuel, and how much is released from energy stores — was regarded as a conversation between a few key players: the pancreas, the liver, muscle and fat. Now, however, the party is proving to be much louder and more complex than anyone had shown before. New research suggests that a hormone from the skeleton, of all places, may influence how the body handles sugar. Mounting evidence also demonstrates that signals from the immune system, the brain and the gut play critical roles in controlling glucose and lipid metabolism. (The findings are mainly relevant to Type 2 diabetes, the more common kind, which comes on in adulthood.) Focusing on the cross-talk between more different organs, cells and molecules represents a “very important change in our paradigm” for understanding how the body handles glucose, said Dr. C. Ronald Kahn, a diabetes researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10852 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ERIC NAGOURNEY A machine that can quickly assess the state of nerve fibers in the retina may offer a better way to measure the progression of multiple sclerosis than the M.R.I. examinations now used, researchers said yesterday. Writing in Neurology, the researchers said the machine used a method known as optical coherence tomography to measure the thickness of the nerve fibers, which shrink as multiple sclerosis progresses. The lead author of the study, Dr. Peter Calabresi of Johns Hopkins, said the problem with M.R.I. scans for multiple sclerosis patients was that they measured brain shrinkage, a symptom that tends to occur in the later stages of the disease. A test that shows changes in the retinal nerve fibers would allow doctors to begin treatment earlier, although the changes can signal other problems besides multiple sclerosis. It may also allow researchers developing new drugs against the disease to see how well they work. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Brain imaging
Link ID: 10851 - Posted: 10.16.2007

Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press — When aging hampers memory, some people's brains compensate to stay sharp. Now scientists want to know how those brains make do — in hopes of developing treatments to help everyone else keep up. This is not Alzheimer's disease, but the wear-and-tear of so-called normal aging. New research is making clear that memory and other brain functions decline to varying degrees even in otherwise healthy people as they age, as anyone who habitually loses car keys probably suspected. The question is how to gird our brains against time's ravages, a question becoming critical as the population grays. If you're 65 today, odds are you'll live to 83. But improving health care means people in their 50s today may live another 40 years. "I don't think we've recognized, as scientists or a society, (that) this is the front-and-center public health issue we face as a nation," Dr. Denise Park, director of the University of Illinois' Center for Healthy Minds, told fellow brain specialists assembled by the government last week. "We need to understand how to defer normal cognitive aging ... the way we've invested in fighting heart disease and cancer." There are intriguing clues, gleaned from discoveries that some seniors' brains literally work around aging's damage, forging new pathways when old ones disintegrate. © 2007 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 10850 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor A "beauty spot", wonky nose or a lopsided grin are a turnoff, according to a study published today that shows that symmetry is sexy. Research to find whether symmetrical faces are more or less attractive in the UK and the Hadza of Tanzania, one of the last hunter gatherer cultures, has found that a symmetrical face is indeed a turn on, whatever your culture. advertisementThe find, resulting from presenting a series of faces for inspection by 80 Britons and 40 Hadza challenges feminist ideas, epitomised by the American writer Naomi Wolf, who argued that there is no such thing as a quality called beauty that "objectively and universally exists". Even the father of evolution, Charles Darwin was struck by cultural differences in attractiveness. He wrote: "It is certainly not true that there is in the mind of man any universal standards of beauty with respect to the human body." Today, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, research by Dr Anthony Little of the University of Stirling, working with colleagues Coren Apicella at Harvard University and Frank Marlowe Florida State University, shows that symmetry transcends racial and national boundaries: a lopsided face is less attractive to both Hadza and Britons, so that the age-old idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder is a romantic myth. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 10849 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A look of horror will grab the attention of those around you faster than a smile, US research shows. Individuals react more quickly to a fearful expression than to faces showing other emotions such as joy, a study in the journal Emotion found. Researchers from Vanderbilt University found the same speedy reaction to fear when only the eyes were visible. The brain responds very quickly to all facial expressions - at a speed of less than 40 milliseconds. So to assess if certain emotions prompt a faster reaction, the researchers had to slow down the speed at which volunteers became aware of facial expressions. Volunteers looked through a viewer which flashed a black and white, quick-changing pattern to one eye and a static image of a face to the other eye. The flashing image had the effect of slowing down the speed at which the individual noticed the face. Participants became aware of a fearful expression far faster than a neutral or happy face. Reaction to happy faces was consistently slower than for the other expressions looked at. The fast reaction to fear was the same if the whole face was visible or just the eyes. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 10848 - Posted: 10.15.2007

UK-based scientists say they have identified the brain circuits that control how much we eat. The Nature study, by University College London and King's College London, could aid development of new obesity drugs. Using brain scans, the teams showed the appetite-regulating hormone peptide YY (PYY) produces a more complex pattern of activity in the brain than thought. It targets not only the primitive areas controlling basic hunger urges, but also the pleasure and reward centres. PYY is released from the gut into the bloodstream after eating and signals to the brain that food has been eaten. A nasal spray containing the hormone is currently being trialled to see if it can be used to tackle obesity. Studies on animals suggest it regulates appetite by acting in primitive parts of the brain such as the hypothalamus and brainstem. The latest study showed that the same was true in humans. But the hormone was also found to act in the cortico-limbic regions that determine the pleasure sensations associated with eating food. The biggest effect of all was found in an area called the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) - a region thought to make overall sense of the pleasure sensation. The researchers found that the greater the change in activity in that area, the less the volunteers ate. Eight normal-weight men took part in the study. After 14 hours without food, they were given a drip of either PYY or a placebo for 100 minutes while their brains were scanned using an MRI machine. Thirty minutes later they were offered an unlimited meal. Each volunteer was tested twice, a week apart, once with PYY and once with the placebo. (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 10847 - Posted: 10.15.2007

By LISA SANDERS, M.D. The indifferent voice crackled through the hospital intercom. “Please, I am so, so thirsty,” answered the young woman in the bed. “I feel awful, but I know I’d feel better if I could just have a drink of water.” Her mouth was so dry it hurt, and her head pounded painfully. She felt dizzy and sweaty. “I’ll let your nurse know,” replied the voice. It seemed to the woman that her life had always revolved around water. She was always thirsty, always drinking. When she went out, she carried two or three water bottles with her. When she went to sleep, she needed two glasses of water at her bedside. That morning she had come to the hospital for a C-section to deliver a baby too big to get out any other way. Now the beautiful baby was sleeping, and the mother was desperately thirsty. When the nurse appeared with a pitcher of water, the woman almost wept with relief. The next morning, Dr. Heidi Chen, the OB-GYN intern, woke the patient early. The young doctor was worried, and it showed on her face. The patient had drunk an enormous amount of water in the hours following her C-section — well over three gallons. Her urine output had been just as remarkable. The doctor needed to figure out what was going on. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10846 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHICAGO -- What's so unusual about a baby fascinated with spinning a cup, or a toddler flapping his hands, or a preschooler walking on her toes? Parents and even doctors sometimes miss these red flags for autism, but a new online video "glossary" makes them startlingly clear. Dozens of video clips contrast the behavior of autistic kids with that of unaffected children. Some of the side-by-side differences can make you gasp. Others are more subtle. The free Web site, debuting today, also defines and depicts "stimming," echolalia and other confusing-sounding terms that describe autistic behavior. Stimming refers to repetitive, self-stimulating or soothing behavior, including hand-flapping and rocking, that autistic children sometimes do in reaction to light, sounds or excitement. Echolalia is echoing or repeating someone else's words or phrases, sometimes out of context. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 10845 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— Japanese researchers say they have found a way to let people stroll through the virtual world of Second Life using their own imagination, in a development that could help paralysis patients. Previous studies have shown people can move computer cursors through brain waves, but the Japanese team says it is the first to apply the technology to an Internet virtual world. The technology "would enable people suffering paralysis to communicate with others or do business through chatting and shopping in a virtual world," said Junichi Ushiba, associate professor at Keio University's rehabilitation centre. Second Life is an increasingly popular virtual world in which people — and animals — are represented by animated avatars and can do everything from social activities to shopping. Ushiba said Second Life could motivate patients with severe paralysis, who are often too depressed to undergo rehabilitation. "If they can see with their own eyes their characters moving around, it could reinvigorate their brain activity and restore some functions," he said. Under the technology, a person wearing head gear embedded with electrodes, which analyse brain waves in the cerebral motor cortex, would be able to move a Second Life character forward by thinking he or she is walking. © 2007 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 10844 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Erika Check Hayden A survey of Alzheimer’s patients has identified some distinctive proteins in the blood that could be used to diagnose the disease more effectively. Earlier and more definitive diagnoses are wanted to help target treatments — both existing and experimental. More than 5 million North Americans currently have Alzheimer’s disease. It is estimated that about quarter of a million developing cases go undiagnosed every year. Doctors can diagnose Alzheimer’s only by eliminating other possible causes of mental decline. There is no definitive test for the disease until a person dies, when surgeons can examine his or her brain tissue to look for the protein plaques and tangles that are the hallmark of the disease. Researchers are trying to change that situation by finding biomarkers — definitive biological signatures of the disease. Today, a team led by neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray of Stanford University School of Medicine in California reports in Nature Medicine 1 the discovery of 18 proteins that together seem fairly diagnostic for the condition. If the biomarkers are confirmed by more rigorous testing, they could result in a simple blood test by which doctors could diagnose the disease. Sufferers could then take medications to delay the effects of Alzheimer’s, plan to change their finances or living situation, or enroll in clinical trials to test potential new drugs. © 2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 10843 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The Dutch government is banning the sale of all magic mushrooms after a series of high-profile incidents involving tourists who had taken them. The decision will take effect within several months, said a spokesman for the Dutch justice ministry. A major Dutch producer of the psychedelic mushrooms said he stood to lose millions of euros as a result. The Netherlands is famed for its liberal drugs policy, with marijuana openly sold in licensed cafes. Magic mushrooms, more properly known as psilocybe, contain the psychedelic chemicals psilocybin and psilocin. "We intend to forbid the sale of magic mushrooms," said justice ministry spokesman Wim van der Weegen. That means shops caught doing so will be closed." Currently in the Netherlands the sale of dried magic mushrooms - in which the psychoactive chemicals psilocybin and psilocin are stronger - is banned but fresh mushrooms are allowed. This is because it is more difficult to ascertain how much of the chemicals fresh mushrooms contain. But Mr Van der Weegen said this was exactly the issue. "The problem with mushrooms is that their effect is unpredictable. It's impossible to estimate what amount will have what effect." Calls for a re-evaluation of the drug grew after a 17-year-old French girl jumped from a building after eating magic mushrooms during a school trip to Amsterdam in March. Other incidents involving the drug have included an Icelandic tourist jumping from a balcony and breaking both legs and a Danish tourist driving his car wildly through a camping ground, narrowly missing sleeping campers. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10842 - Posted: 10.13.2007

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press — If that craving for chocolate sometimes feels like it is coming from deep in your gut, that's because maybe it is. A small study links the type of bacteria living in people's digestive system to a desire for chocolate. Everyone has a vast community of microbes in their guts. But people who crave daily chocolate show signs of having different colonies of bacteria than people who are immune to chocolate's allure. That may be the case for other foods, too. The idea could eventually lead to treating some types of obesity by changing the composition of the trillions of bacteria occupying the intestines and stomach, said Sunil Kochhar, co-author of the study. It appears Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Proteome Research. Kochhar is in charge of metabolism research at the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. The food conglomerate Nestle SA paid for the study. But this isn't part of an effort to convert a few to the dark side (or even milk) side of cocoa, Kocchar said. In fact, the study was delayed because it took a year for the researchers to find 11 men who don't eat chocolate. Kochhar compared the blood and urine of those 11 men, who he jokingly called "weird" for their indifference to chocolate, to 11 similar men who ate chocolate daily. They were all healthy, not obese, and were fed the same food for five days. © 2007 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 10841 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bruce Bower Here's an evolutionary talking point: Two new studies quantify parts of the mechanism by which frequently used words change slowly over many millennia whereas rarely used words more rapidly take on new forms. In fact, frequency of word usage exerts a "lawlike" influence on the rapidity of language evolution, the research teams conclude in the Oct. 11 Nature. This discovery offers a new tool for retracing the history of major language families, reconstructing ancient tongues, and predicting which words will undergo future alterations. "We expect all languages to diverge initially in the least frequently used parts of their vocabulary," says evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel of the University of Reading in England. Pagel's group focused on Indo-European languages. Some words for the same meanings differ strikingly across the more than 100 languages and dialects of that family, while others take similar forms. The researchers first determined 200 basic vocabulary meanings in 87 Indo-European languages spoken during the past 6,000 to 10,000 years. They then applied a statistical technique to modern-language data in order to estimate the spoken frequencies of the corresponding words in English, Spanish, Russian, and Greek. ©2007 Science Service

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 10840 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The mystery of how an animal has survived for 80 million years without sex has been solved by UK scientists. A Cambridge team says the single-celled creature owes its existence to a genetic quirk that offers some recompense for prolonged celibacy. Many asexual organisms have died out because they cannot adapt to changes in the natural world. But an evolutionary trick allows this pond-dweller to survive when conditions change, researchers report in Science. The animal is a single-celled invertebrate known as a bdelloid rotifer. It lives in freshwater pools. If deprived of water, it survives in a desiccated state until water becomes available again. The secret to this novel survival mechanism lies in a twist of asexual reproduction, whereby the animal is able to make two separate proteins from two different copies of a key gene. Dr Alan Tunnacliffe, from the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, who led the research, said his team had been able to show for the first time that gene copies in asexual animals can have different functions. "It's particularly exciting that we've found different, but complementary, functions in genes which help bdelloid rotifers survive desiccation," he explained. "Evolution of gene function in this way can't happen in sexual organisms, which means there could be some benefit to millions of years without sex after all." The researchers discovered that two copies of a particular gene, known as LEA, in the asexual pond-dweller are different - giving rise to proteins with separate functions that protect the animal during dehydration. One copy stops other essential protein molecules from clumping together as the animal dries out, while the second copy helps to maintain the fragile membranes that surround the creature's cells. (C)BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 10839 - Posted: 10.13.2007

By Sacha Pfeiffer ANYONE WHO HAS browsed a supermarket in the last few years can't help but notice the shelves are practically bursting into flames. Spicy Guacamole Pringles. Tyson Hot 'n' Spicy Buffalo Style Chicken Chunks. Mo Hotta Mo Betta Cayenne Garlic Hot Sauce. Restaurants are no different. McDonald's has its Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap; Friday's has its Wicked Wings. The spice-driven cooking of India, Thailand, and Sichuan China is responsible for a growing percentage of American takeout dollars every year. It's clear that Americans have developed an addiction to food with sinus-clearing pizzazz. Why is hot so hot? The conventional explanation is that the nation has an increasingly adventurous palate. Immigration and prosperity have made Americans more sophisticated eaters, pushing wasabi peas into the mainstream, along with chili-Thai lime cashews, cayenne chocolate bars, and other high-octane combinations. But some food scientists and market researchers think there is a more surprising reason for the broad nationwide shift toward bolder flavors: The baby boomers, that huge, youth-chasing, all-important demographic, are getting old. As they age, they are losing their ability to taste - and turning to spicier, higher-flavor foods to overcome their dulled senses. Chiefly because of degenerating olfactory nerves, most aging people experience a diminished sense of taste, whether they realize it or not. But unlike previous generations, the nation's 80 million boomers have broad appetites, a full set of teeth, and the spending power to shape the entire food market. © 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Development of the Brain
Link ID: 10838 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Nerissa Hannink Question: Why has the debate over nature vs nurture existed for so long? Answer: People are interested in the debate as they are curious about themselves, about their children, and unlike nuclear physics, it's something they can grapple with as an amateur. The debate has also persisted as it's so difficult to resolve. We know that we come with innate characteristics and that our environment influences us, but actual explanations are hard to come by. I find it hard to believe that anyone who's had two children does not believe in the influence of genes. The second child comes into the same environment as the first, but has an entirely different approach to the world. And yet there are obvious similarities too, because they have shared genes. We actually ought to be more similar, but because our genes are scrambled in sexual reproduction we get a unique deal of the cards. Question: Do you think the term 'Nature via nurture' has resolved much of the debate? Answer: I'm hoping that the term will be a helpful slogan under which to recognise that there is a new way of understanding the issue through figuring out how genes work. Because, nature is not the opposite of nurture, and genes are at the mercy of our experiences. ©2007 Luna Media Pty Ltd

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 10837 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Anna Gosline A drug used to treat seizures and migraines may help alcoholics quit the bottle, according to a study in the US. And unlike other medications for alcohol addiction, sufferers can get help without having to completely dry out first. "You can be treated immediately for the disorder when you are in maximum crisis," says the lead author Bankole Johnson at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, US. Johnson and colleagues followed the progress of 317 individuals with alcohol dependence for 14 weeks. Half received treatment with the drug topiramate, an anti-convulsant sold under the brand name Topamax, while the other half received a placebo. At the start of the study, participants were averaging about 11 drinks per day, and drinking heavily on more than 80% of their days. They totally abstained on approximately three days a month. By the end of the study, those receiving the drug reported drinking heavily on just 20% of days. They also averaged only 3.5 drinks per day, and managed to stay completely sober more than half the time. The control group also improved, but significantly less. They drank heavily on more than 40% of days, consumed six drinks per day, and abstained from drinking about a third of the time. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Epilepsy
Link ID: 10836 - Posted: 06.24.2010