Pine forests are chock full of wild animals and plant life, but there's an invisible machine underground. Huge populations of fungi are churning away in the soil, decomposing organic matter and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Despite the vital role these fungi play in ecological systems, their identities have only now been revealed. A Stanford-led team of scientists has generated a genetic map of more than 10,000 species of fungi across North America. The work was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/04/17/stanford.biologists.hel...!+Science+News+-+Popular%29

Clean air: Fewer sources for self-cleaning
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/04/17/clean.air.fewer.sources...

New Memory Model Explains How Neurons Select Memories
Neuroscientists have discovered much about how long-term memories are stored in recent decades. For example, a number of proteins are quickly made in activated brain cells in order to create new memories for significant events, and some of those proteins remain at specific places on certain neurons for a few hours before breaking down.

It is this chain of biochemical occurrences that make it possible for people to remember key details about a particular event. However, one difficulty when it comes to modeling memory storage is trying to explain why only certain details and not everything that happened in that one or two hour window is retained.

Using data from previous research in the field as a starting point, Sejnowski and his colleagues developed a model that bridges the gap between molecular findings and memory systems observations in order to better explain how this 60 to 120 minute memory window works. Their findings, which could provide new insight in dealing with conditions such as Alzheimer’s and PTSD, appear in the latest edition of the journal Neuron.
- http://www.cell.com/neuron/home

New evidence of suicide epidemic among India's 'marginalized' farmers:
A new study has found that India's shocking rates of suicide are highest in areas with the most debt-ridden farmers who are clinging to tiny smallholdings -- less than one hectare -- and trying to grow 'cash crops', such as cotton and coffee, that are highly susceptible to global price fluctuations. The research supports a range of previous case studies that point to a crisis in key areas of India's agriculture sector following the 'liberalization' of the nation's economy during the 1990s. Researchers say that policy intervention to stabilize the price of cash crops and relieve indebted farmers may help stem the tide of suicide that has swept the Indian countryside.

Suicide rates vary sharply across the different Indian states. Building on the LSHTM study, researchers from Cambridge and UCL analysed suicide figures of 18 Indian states – as well as national crime and census statistics and surveying done by the Ministry of Agriculture – to create data models that investigated whether case studies of "farmer suicide" that concentrate on a few suicide hotspots could be generalised across India.

The team, from the Cambridge University's Department of Sociology and University College London's Department of Political Science, say they have found significant causal links showing that the huge variation in suicide rates between Indian states can largely be accounted for by suicides among farmers and agricultural workers.

Farmers at highest risk have three characteristics: those that grow cash crops such as coffee and cotton; those with 'marginal' farms of less than one hectare; and those with debts of 300 Rupees or more. Indian states in which these characteristics are most prevalent had the highest suicide rates. In fact, these characteristics account for almost 75% of the variability in state-level suicides.
Source: The lancet

First Earth-Size Planet That Could Support Life found
For the first time, scientists have discovered an Earth-size alien planet in the habitable zone of its host star, an "Earth cousin" that just might have liquid water and the right conditions for life.
The newfound planet, called Kepler-186f, was first spotted by NASA's Kepler space telescope and circles a dim red dwarf star about 490 light-years from Earth. While the host star is dimmer than Earth's sun and the planet is slightly bigger than Earth, the positioning of the alien world coupled with its size suggests that Kepler-186f could have water on its surface, scientists say. You can learn more about the amazing alien planet find in a video produced by Space.com.

"One of the things we've been looking for is maybe an Earth twin, which is an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a sunlike star," Tom Barclay, Kepler scientist and co-author of the new exoplanet research, told Space.com. "This [Kepler-186f] is an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a cooler star. So, while it's not an Earth twin, it is perhaps an Earth cousin. It has similar characteristics, but a different parent."

http://www.space.com/25530-earthsize-exoplanet-kepler-186f-habitabl...

Scientists have identified a long-sought fertility protein that allows sperm to dock to the surface of an egg. The finding, an important step in understanding the process that enables conception, could eventually spawn new forms of birth control and treatments for infertility.“It’s very important, because we now know two of the proteins that are responsible for the binding of sperm to the egg”.
- Nature.com

Refining The Language For Chromosomes
Researchers propose classification system revolutionizing communication of chromosomal abnormalities for research and clinical settings
'Describing Sequencing Results of Structural Chromosome Rearrangements with a Suggested Next-Generation Cytogenetic Nomenclature'
http://www.cell.com/ajhg/abstract/S0002-9297%2814%2900172-4

The cause of neuronal death in Parkinson's disease is still unknown, but a new study proposes that neurons may be mistaken for foreign invaders and killed by the person's own immune system, similar to the way autoimmune diseases like type I diabetes, celiac disease, and multiple sclerosis attack the body's cells. The study was published April 16, 2014, in Nature Communications. "This is a new, and likely controversial, idea in Parkinson's disease; but if true, it could lead to new ways to prevent neuronal death in Parkinson's that resemble treatments for autoimmune diseases," said the study's senior author, David Sulzer, PhD, professor of neurobiology in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and pharmacology at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.

The new hypothesis about Parkinson's emerges from other findings in the study that overturn a deep-seated assumption about neurons and the immune system.
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/

Differences Between Neanderthals And Modern Man Caused By Genetic Switches
With Neanderthals and modern humans sharing more than 99.8 percent of their genetic material, the differences in DNA between the two species are fairly minimal and a new study has found that the differences seen in phenotypes are mostly caused by certain genes being “switched on” or “switched off.”

According to the study published in the journal Science, genetic switches that affect the size and shape of limbs, as well as those that affect the development of the brain, are the most pronounced differences.

The study brings up the importance of researching the epigenome, or the genetic aspects that are responsible for switching on or off certain genes. Recent research has revealed how the epigenome can affect everything from cancer risk to the subtle differences between identical twins, each of whom have a copy of the same genetic material. The switching off of genes is typically achieved through a process called methylation – in which a methyl group, comprised of a carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms, is attached to a gene.

To uncover the epigenomic differences between Neanderthals and moderns humans, scientists took genetic material from limb bones of a living person, a Neanderthal and a Denisovan – an extinct Stone Age human that lived in Eurasia.

The study team was able to find approximately 2,200 regions that were triggered in today’s humans, but switched off in either or both extinct species, or the other way around. One of the main differences identified by the team was a group of five genes called HOXD, which impacts the appearance and size of limbs. It was mainly silenced in both ancient species, the scientists said. The HOXD differences could explain Neanderthals’ characteristic shorter limbs, bowleggedness and oversized hands and fingers.

Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, who was not directly involved in the study, told Reuters that the HOXD gene finding “may help to explain how these ancient humans were able to build stronger bodies, better adapted to the physical rigors of Stone Age life.”

The study team noted that the epigenome can be affected by lifestyle and environmental factors. This means that the differences observed could be unique to the individual sampled – rather than being representative on an entire species.

The researchers also found major epigenomic differences with respect to genes known to be related to neurological and psychiatric disorders such as autism and Alzheimer’s disease. These genes were silenced in the Neanderthal samples.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113124657/epigenome-neanderth...

A groundbreaking study published in PLOS ONE by Prof. Iris Berent of Northeastern University and researchers at Harvard Medical School shows the brains of individual speakers are sensitive to language universals. Syllables that are frequent across languages are recognized more readily than infrequent syllables. Simply put, this study shows that language universals are hardwired in the human brain.

LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS

Language universals have been the subject of intense research, but their basis remains elusive. Indeed, the similarities between human languages could result from a host of reasons that are tangential to the language system itself. Syllables like lbog, for instance, might be rare due to sheer historical forces, or because they are just harder to hear and articulate. A more interesting possibility, however, is that these facts could stem from the biology of the language system. Could the unpopularity of lbogs result from universal linguistic principles that are active in every human brain?
http://www.northeastern.edu/cos/2014/04/iris-berent/

Older women with gumption score high on compassion

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that older women, plucky individuals and those who have suffered a recent major loss are more likely to be compassionate toward strangers than other older adults.

The study is published in this month’s issue of the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-1166

Northwestern synthetic biology team has created a new technology for modifying human cells to create programmable therapeutics that could travel the body and selectively target cancer and other sites of disease.

Engineering cell-based, biological devices that monitor and modify human physiology is a promising frontier in clinical synthetic biology. However, no existing technology enabled bioengineers to build such devices that sense a patient’s physiological state and respond in a customized fashion.

“The project addressed a key gap in the synthetic biology toolbox,” says Joshua Leonard, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. “There was no way to engineer cells in a manner that allowed them to sense key pieces of information about their environment, which could indicate whether the engineered cell is in healthy tissue or sitting next to a tumor.”

http://pubs.acs.org/journal/asbcd6

Genetic Study Tackles Slow Plant Domestication Mystery
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113124568/slow-plant-domestic...

The extent to which biodiversity change in local assemblages contributes to global biodiversity loss is poorly understood. We analyzed 100 time series from biomes across Earth to ask how diversity within assemblages is changing through time. We quantified patterns of temporal α diversity, measured as change in local diversity, and temporal β diversity, measured as change in community composition. Contrary to our expectations, we did not detect systematic loss of α diversity. However, community composition changed systematically through time, in excess of predictions from null models. Heterogeneous rates of environmental change, species range shifts associated with climate change, and biotic homogenization may explain the different patterns of temporal α and β diversity. Monitoring and understanding change in species composition should be a conservation priority.
--
Biodiversity Survives Extinctions for Now
A meta-analysis of ecosystems finds that species losses in any given place do not yet translate to large changes in the number of different species in that place.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/biodiversity-surv...

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6181/296

What Is the Deep Web?
The internet is huge. I'm sure many of you know that, but it's almost unbelievable that when Googling the term "cat videos" that Google can serve up nearly a billion hits from all across the web. Now keep in mind there are 7 billion people on the planet. It's mind boggling.

But what if I were to tell you that Google and other search engines can only search a fraction of the web. This number varies from source to source, but the most generous term that I've heard is that Google can search about 10% of the world wide web. So what's in the other 90%?

Well I can assure you it's probably not another billion cat videos!

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/tech/web/what-is-the-deep-web

Biofuels from crop residue can reduce soil carbon and increase CO2 emissions
Biofuels made using corn waste could release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared to conventional gasoline. As a result, this type of cellulosic ethanol could be inelligible to meet quotas under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
According to a new study published yesterday in Nature Climate Change, this type of cellulosic biofuel could result in a 7% net increase in emissions. The government-funded research states that the main cause of this increase comes down to absolute changes in soil carbon content.

The carbon content of soil is broadly a function of new inputs (plant and animal material) and losses (predominately via erosion and respiration). Conventionally, corn crop residue is left on the field after harvest in order to reduce soil erosion and maintain the carbon stocks and soil fertility.

By removing corn waste from fields, models indicate that soil carbon content will decrease over time. In turn, corn-waste ethanol will effectively produce 7% more carbon dioxide equivalent than conventional gasoline in the short-term. While the results vary according to the amount of carn residue that is removed, any removal resulted in a net increase in emissions in the model.

In the longer-term, the study says that these types of biofuels will result in a net emissions decrease. However, the short term increase is enough to keep this type of biofuel from complying with regulations in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). This Act requires that biofuels produce 60% less pollution than conventional gasoline.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2...

Elections 2014: Politicians told to do more for science and technology
The scientific community demands that the next government at the centre set aside a bigger chunk of the budget for research and development, create infrastructure for "continuous innovations" and boost science movements among the electorate and dovetail this with the private sector's aid.
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/news/election-2014-politicians-told...

The connection between heart attack fight and birds
A new study into how the world's highest flying bird, bar-headed geese, is able to survive at extreme altitudes may have future implications for low-oxygen medical conditions in humans. An international team of scientists recently tracked bar-headed geese while they migrated across the Himalayas. They found that these birds are able to tolerate running at top speed while breathing only 7% oxygen.

Lucy Hawkes of the University of Exeter, along with colleagues Charles Bishop (Bangor University) and Pat Butler (University of Birmingham) tested how the geese were at coping with exercise in reduced oxygen environments by simulating the conditions of Mt Everest in a clear box and then getting the birds to run as fast as possible on a treadmill inside the box. The air on the highest mountains is made up of 7% oxygen compared with 21% at sea level.

Hawkes said, "It all seems to come down to how much oxygen bar-headed geese can supply to their heart muscles. The more they supply, the faster their heart beats and keeps the supply of oxygen to the rest of the body going." He added, "The wider implications of these findings are for low-oxygen medical conditions in humans, such as heart attack and stroke — suggesting what adaptations might help prevent problems in the first place and learning how animals have managed to cope with really extreme environments."
-TNN

Antibiotics: A new spanner in the works of bacterial transcription
A promising molecular target that is unlikely to develop antibiotic resistance has been identified in bacteria.
http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e02840

Cow poop promotes the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria

Manure from dairy cows has been defined as an increasing source of bacteria that can become resistant to antibiotics. These findings are the result of the work of Fabienne Wichmann and colleagues at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The research was published in the April 22, 2014, edition of the journal mBio®.

Bacteria that are antibiotic resistant reach the food chain of humans through the use of cow manure as fertilizer. The manure may or may not contain bacteria that are antibiotic resistant. If the manure does contain an antibiotic resistant strain of bacteria then there is a potential for transmission to humans that eat food that was fertilized with cow manure. The food plants can even become a source of antibiotic resistance due to the phenomenon of gene exchange between species.

A more prominent and more likely transfer of new antibiotic bacterial species to humans is through infection of cow farmers by new bacterial strains. The dairy cow farmers can transmit a new disease directly to other humans through physical contact or through airborne distribution during coughing or sneezing. The more humans that come into contact with a potentially antibiotic resistant type of bacteria increases the probability that the bacteria will become resistant to antibiotics due in part to the high level of use of antibiotics by humans.

The researchers found that only five samples of cow manure contained 80 unique and functional antibiotic resistance genes. The scientists created a laboratory cultured strain of Escherichia coli that was resistant to one of the four major types of antibiotics used to treat humans from the 80 genes. The scientists also found a never before known family of antibiotic resistant genes that conferred resistance to the same group of antibiotics.

A primary source of antibiotic resistant bacteria origination is the use of antibiotics to keep cattle healthy. The potential for transfer of antibiotic resistance to humans through food crops depends on whether the cow manure has antibiotic resistant bacteria or genes. It is possible that a new antibiotic resistant disease could be contracted by people simply by using cow manure as fertilizer for their house plants or home garden.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/cow-poop-promotes-the-spread-of-ant...

Citizen scientists pitch new uses for paper microscope
Ten thousand ‘print-and-fold’ paper microscopes initially designed as low-cost medical diagnostic tools are being given away to researchers and citizen scientists who come up with novel ways to use them to test their ideas.

The goal of the Ten Thousand Microscopes initiative, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, is to create a crowdsourced lab manual for Foldscope, the low-cost microscope launched earlier this year by a US bioengineering team that combines pragmatic, origami design with sophisticated micro-optics.

The idea is to make “microscopy for everyone”, says Manu Prakash, a bioengineering researcher at Stanford University, United States, who led the development of the frugal innovation to address the lack of cheap, easy-to-use diagnostic tools for diseases in remote and impoverished communities.
http://www.scidev.net/global/biotechnology/news/citizen-scientists-...

Mechanisms of charge transfer and redistribution in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 revealed by high-energy optical conductivity
Researchers from Singapore and Germany have found a new way to study the curious properties observed at the interface of materials.
An international team led by researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a technique to study the interface between materials, shedding light on the curious properties that arise when two materials are put together.

Studying material interfaces is part of a research area known as condensed matter physics. When matter is condensed, mutual interactions between particles alters physical behavior, giving rise to exotic properties. A better understanding of how materials interface allows scientists to tweak material properties to possibly develop better solar cells, superconductors and smaller hard drives.

“If you put two materials together, you can create completely new properties. For instance, two non-conducting, non-magnetic insulators can become conducting and in some cases ferromagnetic and superconducting at their interface,” explains NUS Assistant Professor Andrivo Rusydi, who led the research.

The team investigated the electrical conductivity of strontium titanate and lanthanum aluminate, two insulators that become conductors at their interface. They observed that conductivity was ten-fold less than what was predicted theoretically, meaning that 90 percent of the expected electrons were missing.

To find the missing electrons, the team used high-energy reflectivity and spectroscopic ellipsometry experiments which flooded the interface with a wide range of energy. This revealed electrons that were bound within the molecular lattice, which prevented them from moving and explained the observed low conductivity.

The team’s new approach and insights, which culminated in a recent publication with Nature Communications, will be used for further investigations on the basic interface characteristics among materials.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140414/ncomms4663/full/ncomms4663...

Research at the University of Adelaide has shed new light onto the possible causes of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), which could help to prevent future loss of children’s lives.

Researchers in the University’s School of Medical Sciences have found that telltale signs in the brains of babies that have died of SIDS are remarkably similar to those of children who died of accidental asphyxiation.
'β-Amyloid precursor protein staining of the brain in sudden infant and early childhood death'
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nan.12109/abstract;jsess...

Parts of Antarctica, one of the coldest places on Earth, were as warm as today's California coast about 40 million years ago with temperatures as high as 17 degrees Celsius, a new study has found.

Researchers also found that the polar regions of the southern Pacific Ocean once registered 21st-century Florida heat.

The findings underscore the potential for increased warmth at Earth's poles and the associated risk of melting polar ice and rising sea levels, the researchers said.

Led by scientists at Yale University, the study focused on Antarctica during the Eocene epoch, 40-50 million years ago, a period with high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and consequently a greenhouse climate.

Today, Antarctica is year-round one of the coldest places on Earth, and the continent's interior is the coldest place, with annual average land temperatures far below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

The new measurements can help improve climate models used for predicting future climate, according to co-author Hagit Affek, associate professor of geology & geophysics at Yale.
-PTI

Agenetic disease has been cured in living, adult animals for the first time using a revolutionary genome-editing technique that can make the smallest changes to the vast database of the DNA molecule with pinpoint accuracy.

Scientists have used the genome-editing technology to cure adult laboratory mice of an inherited liver disease by correcting a single "letter" of the genetic alphabet which had been mutated in a vital gene involved in liver metabolism. A similar mutation in the same gene causes the equivalent inherited liver disease in humans — and the successful repair of the genetic defect in laboratory mice raises hopes that the first clinical trials on patients could begin within a few years, scientists said.

The success is the latest achievement in the field of genome editing. This has been transformed by the discovery of Crispr, a technology that allows scientists to make almost any DNA changes at precisely defined points on the chromosomes of animals or plants.

Crispr — pronounced "crisper" — was initially discovered in 1987 as an immune defence used by bacteria against invading viruses. Its powerful genome-editing potential in higher animals, including humans, was only fully realised in 2012 and 2013 when scientists showed that it can be combined with a DNAsniping enzyme called Cas9 and used to edit the human genome . Since then there has been an explosion of interest in the technology because it is such a simple method of changing the individual letters of the human genome — the 3 billion "base pairs" of the DNA molecule — with an accuracy equivalent to correcting a single misspelt word in a 23-volume encyclopaedia.

In the latest study, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used Crispr to locate and correct the single mutated DNA base pair in a liver gene known as LAH, which can lead to a fatal build-up of the amino acid tyrosine in humans and has to be treated with drugs and a special diet. The researchers effectively cured mice suffering from the disease by altering the genetic make-up of about a third of their liver cells using the Crispr technique, which was delivered by high-pressure intravenous injections.

"We basically showed you could use the Crispr system in an animal to cure a genetic disease, and the one we picked was a disease in the liver which is very similar to one found in humans," said professor Daniel Anderson of MIT, who led the study.

"The disease is caused by a single point mutation and we showed that the Crispr system can be delivered in an adult animal and result in a cure. We think it's an important proof of principle that this technology can be applied to animals to cure disease," Anderson said. "The fundamental advantage is that you are repairing the defect , you are actually correcting the DNA itself," he said. "What is exciting about this approach is that we can actually correct a defective gene in a living adult animal."

Jennifer Doudna, of the University of California, Berkeley , who was one of the codiscoverers of the Crispr technique , said professor Anderson's study is a "fantastic advance" because it demonstrates that it is possible to cure adult animals living with a genetic disorder.

"Obviously there would be numerous hurdles before such an approach could be used in people, but the simplicity of the approach, and the fact that it worked, really are very exciting," professor Doudna said. "I think there will be a lot of progress made in the coming one to two years in using this approach for therapeutics and other real-world applications," she added.
''Scientists ‘edit’ DNA to correct adult genes and cure diseases ''
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/revealed-scientists-edit-...

Risk factors for food allergy.

The dual-allergen exposure hypothesis is the theory that exposure to food allergens through the skin can lead to allergy, while consumption of these foods at an early age may actually result in tolerance. Depending on the balance of these exposures, either tolerance or allergy will “win.” Children with eczema, for example, have a disrupted skin barrier that could allow exposure to food proteins in the environment – such as peanut oil in creams or peanut residue on tables. Under the hypothesis, if these children avoid peanuts but are still exposed to them in the environment, they might be more likely to develop peanut allergy.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/food-matters/2014/04/23/prevent...

Despite efforts to prevent food allergy (FA) in children, IgE-mediated FAs are increasing in westernized countries. Previous preventive strategies, such as prolonged exclusive breast-feeding and delayed weaning onto solid foods, have recently been called into question. The present review considers possible risk factors and theories for the development of FA. An alternative hypothesis is proposed, suggesting that early cutaneous exposure to food protein through a disrupted skin barrier leads to allergic sensitization and that early oral exposure to food allergen induces tolerance. Novel interventional strategies to prevent the development of FA are also discussed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22464642

Animal Kingdom Communication
UM researcher discovers the most effective animal signal strategies.
There are all sorts of signaling strategies in nature. Peacocks puff out their feathers and spread their colorful tails; satin bowbirds build specialized stick structures, called bowers, and decorate them with blue and shiny objects; and European bitterling males show off bright nuptial coloration during spawning season. Each species has evolved a unique method to communicate with others.
“Signaling can have profound fitness implications for individuals that are either signaling or receiving the signal,” says Gavin M. Leighton, author of a new study on the effectiveness of signaling systems.

“For instance, individuals may signal to attract mates, or they may signal to rivals in order to defend a territory. Additionally, many biological models of cooperative behavior require individuals to signal how cooperative they were in past interactions.”
Effective communication is not just about the signaler, according to the study, the receiver also needs to assess the signaler efficiently. For instance, one of the most effective strategies from the perspective of female birds is assessing groups of males called leks, where females can assess multiple males in a short period of time.
“When receivers had to assess individual signalers one at a time, the accuracy of their ranking of signalers decreased compared to when all the signalers could be observed simultaneously.”
The study also shows that individuals that used non-food items, like a twig, in their signaling display had the least effective strategy. Surprisingly, individuals that invest in ecological structures, such as building a nest, improved the ability of the females to rank signalers, but the effect was fairly weak.
“The most unexpected finding was that investing in some sort of temporally stable structure only weakly improved the ability for receivers to assess signalers,” Leighton, said. “I originally suspected that investing in a structure would allow individuals to quickly convey their signaling effort over time in a single, observable feature. While I did find that structures helped, the effect was not as strong as other the other variables.”
In order to investigate specific characteristics of systems and provide the ranking of signalers by receivers, Leighton designed a computer model that represents salient features of many signaling systems, across a variety of scenarios. The model is called an agent-based model. It allows the researcher to program individual entities with specified behaviors. Then, the software provides the ranking information to the researcher. Included in the analyses were different species of birds, fishes and insects.

“The study systematically models a series of behavioral and ecological conditions. To the best of my knowledge no one has performed a general analysis of these different types of signaling systems.”
The study assumes that in every scenario individuals had perfect memory. In other words, when a receiver saw a signaling individual, they were able to unambiguously assign this effort to a specific individual. In nature, individuals probably make errors in assigning signaling effort or forget the effort of individuals over time.
“By itself, this seems like an unwarranted assumption, however, it is not easy to compare across signaling systems where memory also varies with the species in question,” Leighton says.
In the future, the researcher would like to include variation in the memory of individual receivers in these models. “There may be effects of imperfect memory that influence signaling effectiveness and I think this would be a good next step.”
http://www.miami.edu/index.php/news/releases/animal_kingdom_communi...

Virus-Inspired Coating Protects DNA Nanostructures In The Body
Nanomedicine: A lipid coating could protect DNA drug carriers in the bloodstream
Nanomedicines made from self-assembling DNA structures could last longer inside the bloodstream with a lipid bilayer coating similar to the ones worn by some viruses (ACS Nano 2014, DOI: 10.1021/nn5011914). This protection strategy could make it possible to test new kinds of DNA nanotherapies in animals and bring them to the clinic, the developers say.

DNA is a versatile building block for making nanoparticles with precise shapes that can perform complex tasks. For example, in 2012, researchers used DNA to fashion a drug-carrying box with two locks made from DNA; the box opens to release the drug only if both locks are bound to certain proteins on a target cell (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1214081). But researchers struggle to test this and other DNA nanotechnology in animals. Any free-floating DNA in the bloodstream is rapidly destroyed by enzymes. Researchers haven’t yet figured out how to package these DNA machines so that they can survive long enough in the body to do their work.

To solve this problem, William M. Shih, a synthetic biologist at Harvard University, looked to nature for inspiration. Viruses, which are essentially groups of genes that use living cells to replicate, have already developed strategies to endure in the bloodstream. One is to coat themselves with a protective lipid bilayer.

Shih decided to mimic this strategy. He first designed a simple octahedron-shaped wireframe of DNA using software his group had previously developed. Given the dimensions of a structure, this software generates a recipe list of DNA strands that will self-assemble into the desired shape. A DNA synthesis company makes the strands, and the researchers mix them in the lab.

Each strut in the DNA octahedron is made up of six 28-nm-long double helices held together by shorter strands. The Harvard group created attachment points on the interior and exterior surfaces of the octahedron using single-stranded pieces of DNA. On the interior, these handles bind to complementary DNA strands that carry fluorescent dyes so that the scientists could track the particles in animals. The exterior handles bind to complementary strands carrying lipids.

This created a 50-nm-diameter DNA octahedron with “greasy plugs” on it, Shih says. “Then we take this hairball and mix it with a solution of giant liposomes in surfactant.” The lipids from the liposomes stick to the plugs, eventually creating a continuous coating on the DNA frame. The completed structure is about 70 to 80 nm in diameter.

http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/04/Virus-Inspired-Coating-P...

Inspired by the fist-like club of a mantis shrimp, a team of researchers led by University of California, Riverside, in collaboration with University of Southern California and Purdue University, have developed a design structure for composite materials that is more impact resistant and tougher than the standard used in airplanes.

Neuroscientists Discover Brain Circuits Involved in Emotion

Neuroscientists have discovered a brain pathway that underlies the emotional behaviours critical for survival.
New research by the University of Bristol, published in the Journal of Physiology today [23 April], has identified a chain of neural connections which links central survival circuits to the spinal cord, causing the body to freeze when experiencing fear.

Understanding how these central neural pathways work is a fundamental step towards developing effective treatments for emotional disorders such as anxiety, panic attacks and phobias.

An important brain region responsible for how humans and animals respond to danger is known as the PAG (periaqueductal grey), and it can trigger responses such as freezing, a high heart rate, increase in blood pressure and the desire for flight or fight.

This latest research has discovered a brain pathway leading from the PAG to a highly localised part of the cerebellum, called the pyramis. The research went on to show that the pyramis is involved in generating freezing behaviour when central survival networks are activated during innate and learnt threatening situations.

The pyramis may therefore serve as an important point of convergence for different survival networks in order to react to an emotionally challenging situation.
-Journal of Physiology

Royal Statistical Society looking for volunteer scientists
Date: 22 Apr 2014

The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is looking for volunteer scientists to take part in their programme of delivering science and statistics training to journalists.

Volunteers attend a ‘train the trainer’ workshop before signing up to deliver sessions at news outlets and journalism schools throughout the UK. Having successfully run the course for three years, the RSS is looking to widen their pool of volunteers.

Anyone interested in taking part should contact Vinet Campbell, National Coordinator for Science Journalism Training at V.Campbell@rss.org.uk. More information can also be found at their website.
http://www.statslife.org.uk/resources/for-journalists

Breakthrough harnesses light for controlled chemical reaction
When chemist Tehshik Yoon looks out his office window, he sees a source of energy to drive chemical reactions. Plants "learned" to synthesize chemicals with sunlight eons ago; Yoon came to the field a bit more recently. But this week, in the journal Science, he and three collaborators detail a way to use sunlight and two catalysts to create molecules that are difficult to make with conventional techniques.

In chemistry, heat and ultraviolet (UV) light are commonly used to drive reactions. Although light can power reactions that heat cannot, UV has disadvantages, says Yoon, a chemistry professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The UV often used in industry carries so much energy that "it's dangerous to use, unselective, and prone to making unwanted by-products."

Many chemicals exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, and Yoon is interested in reactions that make only one of those images.

"It's like your hands," Yoon says. "They are similar, but not identical; a left-hand glove does not fit the right hand. It's the same way with molecules in biology; many fail unless they have the correct 'handedness,' or 'chirality.'"

The pharmaceutical industry, in particular, is concerned about controlling chirality in drugs, but making those shapes is a hit-or-miss proposition with UV light, Yoon says.

He says the new technique answers a question posed by a French chemist in 1874, who suggested using light to make products with controlled chirality. "Chemists could never do that efficiently, and so the prejudice was that it was too difficult to do."
- University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ocean microbes display remarkable genetic diversity
Scientists in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) recently performed a cell-by-cell genomic analysis on a wild population of Prochlorococcus living in a milliliter -- less than a quarter teaspoon -- of ocean water, and found hundreds of distinct genetic subpopulations.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citizen scientists match research tool when counting sharks
Shark data collected by citizen scientists may be as reliable as data collected using automated tools, according to results published April 23, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Gabriel Vianna from The University of Western Australia and colleagues.
http://blogs.plos.org/citizensci/2012/12/31/top-citizen-science-pro...

Could the menstrual cycle have shaped the evolution of music?
Sexual selection theory posits fertility role in complex music
Menstrual cycle phase alters women's sexual preferences for composers of more complex music
Over 140 years ago Charles Darwin first argued that birdsong and human music, having no clear survival benefit, were obvious candidates for sexual selection. Whereas the first contention is now universally accepted, his theory that music is a product of sexual selection through mate choice has largely been neglected. Here, I provide the first, to my knowledge, empirical support for the sexual selection hypothesis of music evolution by showing that women have sexual preferences during peak conception times for men that are able to create more complex music. Two-alternative forced-choice experiments revealed that woman only preferred composers of more complex music as short-term sexual partners when conception risk was highest. No preferences were displayed when women chose which composer they would prefer as a long-term partner in a committed relationship, and control experiments failed to reveal an effect of conception risk on women's preferences for visual artists. These results suggest that women may acquire genetic benefits for offspring by selecting musicians able to create more complex music as sexual partners, and provide compelling support for Darwin's assertion ‘that musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex’.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1784/20140403

Gene therapy with electrical pulses spurs nerve growth
Electrical current from a cochlear implant has guided corrective genetic material into inner ear cells and stimulated nerve regeneration in deaf guinea pigs. The treatment improved the animals’ hearing sensitivity and range, researchers report April 24 in Science Translational Medicine. The gene therapy technique, which does not use viruses that could induce immune reactions, holds promise for improving the hearing of people with cochlear implants. It may also have applications in deep brain stimulation, the scientists say.
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/gene-therapy-electr...

Pain makes female mice less amorous, but males ignore burning injections in pursuit of females, a new study finds. The results, published in the April 23 Journal of Neuroscience, highlight stark differences between male and female sexual behavior in mice.
Pain Reduces Sexual Motivation in Female But Not Male Mice
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/17/5747

Channel Makeover Bioengineered To Switch Off Neurons
Scientists have bioengineered, in neurons cultured from rats, an enhancement to a cutting edge technology that provides instant control over brain circuit activity with a flash of light.
Deisseroth’s team had pioneered the use of light pulses to control brain circuitry in animals genetically engineered to be light-responsive — optogenetics. Genes that allow the sun to control light-sensitive primitive organisms like algae, melded with genes that make fluorescent marker proteins, are fused with a deactivated virus that delivers them to specific types of neurons which they become part of — allowing pulses of light to similarly commandeer brain cells.

When a neuron fires depends on the balance of ions flowing across the cell membrane, so being able to experimentally control this cellular machinery is critical for understanding how the brain works. But until now, the optogenetic tools for turning off neurons have been much less powerful than for turning them on — a weak inhibitory pump, moving only one ion per photon of light, versus an efficient excitatory channel.

Stanford bioengineers and their colleagues recently discovered the crystal structure of channelrhodopsin, the protein borrowed from algae to achieve optogenetic control of neurons. To transform this excitatory channel into an effective inhibitory channel, the team systematically introduced mutations into the channel’s gene, gradually reshaping its structure through molecular engineering into one with optimal inhibitory properties. To become an effective inhibitory channel, its central pore needed to be lined with positive instead of negatively charged amino acids to be converted from a cation (positive ion)-conducting into an anion (negative ion) -conducting channel.

It turns out that there are economies of scale afforded by the transformed channel — the more the inhibition, the less light required to achieve the desired biological effect. This raises possible future therapeutic applications, such as in the management of pain, said Deisseroth.
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/apr2014/nimh-24.htm

Skin Layer Grown From Human Stem Cells Could Replace Animals In Drug, Cosmetics Testing

Suspended for teaching science!
A Los Angeles high school science teacher is returning to the classroom two months after being suspended over concerns that two students had assembled "dangerous" science projects under his supervision.

Both projects overseen by teacher Greg Schiller were capable of launching small objects. A staff member at the downtown Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts had raised concerns about one of them. Both are common in science fairs.

"I am very excited to be back with my students and help them prepare for the Advanced Placement tests, which are a week away," Schiller said Thursday. "We have a lot of work ahead of ourselves.”

In a meeting with a senior district administrator, Schiller was told he could return to work Friday, L.A. Unified confirmed.

His classes include Advanced Placement Biology and Advanced Placement Psychology.

Parents and students had quickly rallied behind Schiller. Facebook pages were launched; petitions were circulated. Some students complained that they were being taught by unqualified substitutes. Supporters vowed to rally every Thursday and Friday until his return. A walkout and protest at L.A. Unified school district headquarters was planned for Monday.

Schiller, 43, had volunteered to help students with entries for science contests. He assisted them with ideas related to chemistry and physics, even though he didn't teach those subjects.

Schiller had yet to see either finished display when a school employee noticed one on exhibit in the cafeteria on Feb. 26. Pieces of the other project were in Schiller's classroom.

One of the projects, called a coil gun, was made by ninth-grader Asa Ferguson. It used a magnetic charge powered by an AA battery to launch a small object several feet. His parents, Rogan and Susan Ferguson, both are teachers in L.A. Unified.

The other project was designed to use air pressure for propulsion. A more powerful version was tried out by President Obama at a recent White House science fair.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-teacher-reinstated-2014...

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-teacher-reinstated-2014...

The strikingly beautiful snow leopards are in "real danger" and there was need to observe, study and develop ways to conserve this rare and endangered species as only 400-700 of the world's best mountain climbers remain in India, according to a leading conservation organisation.

Launching a campaign "Save Our Snow Leopards", WWF-India said that poaching is the major challenge for the protection of this so magnificent species found high altitude Himalayan region.

Snow leopards are poached for their pelts while their bones and other body parts are also in demand for use in traditional Asian medicines, it said.

Retaliatory killing of snow leopards is also a major threat faced by the species since they often attack livestock, causing economic loss to local communities, WWF-India said.

Snow leopards also face habitat and prey loss with the increase of human settlements and developmental activities in their territories.

The snow leopard is found across almost 1,29,000 sq kms in India, in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

"But with an estimated population of only 400-700 in India, there is a dire need to observe, study and develop ways to help conserve this rare and endangered species," it said.

The WWF-India said that the snow leopard is at the apex of the mountain eco-system and is also an indicator species for the high altitude mountain ecosystem.

"By protecting the snow leopard, we ensure the conservation of our fragile mountain landscapes that are one of the largest sources of freshwater for the Indian subcontinent," it said.

The WWF-India said that "Save Our Snow Leopards" is a call for each of us to come forward in support of the snow leopard.
-PTI