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Children with autism show increased positive social behaviors when animals are present - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...positive-social-behaviors.html

scibyte84

shared by Mars Base on 28 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • authors compared how 5-13 year old children with ASD interacted with adults and typically-developing peers in the presence of two guinea pigs compared to toys
  • The presence of an animal can significantly increase positive social behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)
  • in the presence of animals, children with ASD demonstrated more social behaviors like talking, looking at faces and making physical contact
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • also more receptive to social advances from their peers in the presence of the animals than they were when playing with toys
  • also increased instances of smiling and laughing, and reduced frowning, whining and crying behaviors in children with ASD more than having toys did.
  • Previous studies have shown that people are more likely to receive overtures of friendship from strangers when walking a dog than when walking alone
  • similar effects have been observed for people holding smaller animals like rabbits or turtles
  • authors suggest that this 'social lubricant' effect of animals on human social interactions can be particularly important for individuals with socio-emotional disabilities
  • the ability of an animal to help children with ASD connect to adults may help foster interactions with therapists, teachers or other adult figures
  • animal-assisted interventions may have applications in the classroom as well,
  • For children with ASD, the school classroom can be a stressful and overwhelming environment
  • If an animal can reduce this stress or artificially change children's perception
  • then a child with ASD may feel more at ease and open to social approach behaviors
Mars Base

Rats induced into hibernation-like state | Life | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...ed_into_hibernation-like_state

scibyte101 hibernate

shared by Mars Base on 05 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Rats spent hours in a state of chilly suspended animation after researchers injected a compound into the animals in a cold room
  • animals’ heart rates slowed, brain activity became sluggish and body temperature plummeted.
  • Lowering the body temperature of a nonhibernating mammal is really hard
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • As temperatures inside the body fall, several failsafe systems spring into action
  • Blood vessels near the skin squeeze tight to hold warmth in, the body starts to shiver and brown fat, a tissue that’s especially plentiful in newborns, starts to produce heat
  • colleagues bypassed the rats’ defenses against the cold with a compound that’s similar to adenosine, a molecule in the body that signals sleepiness
  • After about an hour in a room chilled to 15° Celsius, the rats grew lethargic
  • brain waves slowed, their blood pressure dropped and their heart grew sluggish, occasionally skipping beats
  • The rats’ core temperature dropped from about 38°  to about 30° C, or 80° Fahrenheit
  • measured even lower temperatures in further experiments — rats’ core body temperature reached 15° C or about 57° F.
  • The rats weren’t in a coma, nor were they asleep or truly hibernating
  • Hibernating animals’ metabolisms plummet and their temperatures sink much lower
  • an Arctic ground squirrel, for instance, cools to about —3° C when it hibernates
  • It’s a new state
  • don’t really know what it is
  • In the experiment, loud noises and tail pinches failed to arouse the rats.
  • They didn’t eat or drink. Occasionally, one would slither into a corner, but for the most part, the animals stayed still for up to 6 hours
  • In unpublished experiments, Tupone has kept the animals in the unresponsive state for 24 hours, he says.
  • Warming the room coaxed the rats out of their torpor
  • The recovery process takes about 12 hours, during which the animals ate and drank voraciously
  • After recovering, the animals were alert, moved around their cages normally and slept when tired
  • When people have heart attacks or strokes, clinicians can use ice packs or frigid water to chill people and prevent further tissue damage
  • those methods of cooling take time and can have dangerous side effects
Mars Base

Researchers discover link between fear, sound perception - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...2013-06-link-perception.html

scibyte100

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • our emotions can actually affect how we hear and process sound
  • When certain types of sounds become associated in our brains with strong emotions, hearing similar sounds can evoke those same feelings
  • a phenomenon commonly seen in combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • a pair of researchers
  • has discovered how fear can actually increase or decrease the ability to discriminate among sounds depending on context
  • study
  • emotional conditioning in mice to investigate how hearing acuity (the ability to distinguish between tones of different frequencies) can change following a traumatic event, known as emotional learning
  • In these experiments
  • animals learn to distinguish between potentially dangerous and safe sounds—called "emotional discrimination learning."
  • This type of conditioning tends to result in relatively poor learning, but
  • designed a series of learning tasks intended to create progressively greater emotional discrimination in the mice, varying the difficulty of the
  • The researchers found that, as expected, fine emotional learning tasks produced greater learning specificity than tests in which the tones were farther apart in frequency
  • animals presented with sounds that were very far apart generalize the fear that they developed to the danger tone over a whole range of frequencies
  • animals presented with the two sounds that were very similar exhibited specialization of their emotional response
  • pitch discrimination abilities were measured in the animals, the mice with more specific responses displayed much finer auditory acuity than the mice who were frightened by a broader range of frequencies
  • Another interesting finding of this study is that the effects of emotional learning on hearing perception were mediated by a specific brain region, the auditory cortex
  • The auditory cortex has been known as an important area responsible for auditory plasticity
  • Surprisingly
  • found that the auditory cortex did not play a role in emotional learning
  • the specificity of emotional learning is controlled by the amygdala and sub-cortical auditory areas
  • hypothesis is that the amygdala and cortex are modifying subcortical auditory processing areas. The sensory cortex is responsible for the changes in frequency discrimination, but it's not necessary for developing specialized or generalized emotional responses
Mars Base

Scientists find possible cause of movement defects in spinal muscular atrophy - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...t-defects-spinal-muscular.html

scibyte42 medical SpinalMuscularAtrophy

shared by Mars Base on 11 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • abnormally low level of a protein in certain nerve cells is linked to movement problems that characterize the deadly childhood disorder spinal muscular atrophy, new research in animals suggests
  • previous research has established the disease’s genetic link to SMN in motor neurons, scientists haven’t yet uncovered how this lack of SMN does so much damage
  • showed in zebrafish that when SMN is missing – in cells throughout the body as well as in motor neurons specifically – levels of a protein called plastin 3 also decrease
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • When the researchers added plastin 3 back to motor neurons in zebrafish that were genetically altered so they couldn’t produce SMN, the zebrafish regained most of their swimming abilities movement that had been severely limited by their reduced SMN. These findings tied the presence of plastin 3 – alone, without SMN – to the recovery of lost movement
  • without SMN in their cells still eventually died, so the addition of plastin 3 alone is not a therapeutic option
  • using animal studies to pinpoint the role of plastin 3 in this disease
  • In zebrafish genetically altered so they don’t produce SMN, plastin 3 levels remained low, as well.
  • lowering plastin 3 first in the fish – SMN was unaffected. This showed that the plastin 3 decrease occurred only when SMN was lowered first
  • SMN production was stimulated in zebrafish initially lacking the protein, plastin 3 levels were restored as well
  • researchers determined that decreased SMN influences plastin 3 production at a late point in the process called translation, when amino acids are strung together to form the protein’s initial shape
  • lack of SMN creates conditions in which too little plastin 3 is made to complete the protein’s normal functions – in these animals, the reduction was about four-fold
  • maybe SMN is affecting translation of other proteins that could be contributing to spinal muscular atrophy
  • That hasn’t been shown before
  • examination of zebrafish motor neurons suggested that decreased plastin 3 affects these cells in at least two ways
  • damaging axons, branch-like extensions that allow for communication among nerve cells
  • destabilizing synapses, structures through which those signals pass
  • result of the added plastin 3, the fish recovered their ability to turn and swim, movements they were previously unable to make.
  • rescued axons, synaptic proteins and behavior all by putting plastin 3 back in motor neurons,” she said. “That’s very encouraging.”
Mars Base

T. Rex Has Another Fine, Feathered Cousin - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...other_fine%2C_feathered_cousin

scibyte41 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 05 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • From 125-million-year-old rocks, scientists have unearthed the remains of a new species of extensively feathered dinosaurs that weighed up to about 1,400 kilograms and stretched 9 meters from nose to tail.
  • fossils, from one adult and two younger dinos, were unearthed in northeast China
  • region known for keeping soft tissues of ancient animals well-preserved
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Based on the shapes of the jaw and skull bones found in the fossils, the team concluded that the three animals belonged to the same species and were tyrannosaurs
  • broader classification of two-legged meat-eaters called theropods
  • biggest of the newly described creatures — the largest extensively feathered dino known to date — was about one-quarter the weight of its relative, Tyrannosaurus rex
  • smaller dinosaur is named Yutyrannus hauli, which translates to “beautiful feathered tyrant
  • new species had feathers that were at least 15 centimeters long and look as if they covered the dinosaur’s skin
  • might have given the dinosaur a shaggy appearance
  • the full extent of this covering is difficult to confirm because the specimens aren’t complete.
  • For the vast majority of dinosaurs we only have bone. We don’t have feathers or featherless skin
  • Full-feathered dinosaurs that have been discovered so far have been much smaller
  • much more likely to lose body heat because of their size
  • scientists thought these petite creatures used a fluffy layer to stay warm
  • study authors think that the newfound dinos might have also needed some insulation
  • But Norell is not convinced
  • Many large animals that live in warm climates, such as modern giraffes and wildebeests, have external covering but don’t need it for insulation, he says.
  • feathers might also have helped the dinosaurs show off and attract mates.
  • Other traits the new dinos had include a high, bumpy nose plate, known as a midline crest
  • unclear what type of posture the animals maintained, Sullivan estimates that the full-grown dino stood about 2.5 meters tall.
Mars Base

Ancient sea reptile with gammy jaw suggests dinosaurs got arthritis too - 0 views

phys.org/...ent-sea-reptile-gammy-jaw.html

scibyte47 dinosaur arthritis

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 12 - No Cached
  • scientists at the University of Bristol has found signs of a degenerative condition similar to human arthritis in the jaw of a pliosaur, an ancient sea reptile that lived 150 million years ago
  • Such a disease has never been described before in fossilized Jurassic reptiles.
  • has been kept since its discovery in the collections of the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • 8 metre long pliosaur was a
  • crocodile-like head, a short neck, whale-like body and four powerful flippers to propel it through water in pursuit of prey.
  • huge jaws and 20 cm long teeth
  • this particular individual was the unfortunate victim of an arthritis-like disease.
  • eroded its left jaw joint, displacing the lower jaw to one side
  • evidently lived with a crooked jaw for many years, because there are marks on the bone of the lower jaw where the teeth from the upper jaw impacted on the bone during feeding
  • the animal was still able to hunt in spite of its unfortunate condition.
  • signs on the skeleton to suggest that the animal could have been an old female who had developed the condition as part of the aging process
  • large size, and the fused skull bones
  • possibly female because its skull crest is quite low – presumed males had a higher crest.
  • In the same way that aging humans develop arthritic hips, this old lady developed an arthritic jaw, and survived with her disability for some time
  • unhealed fracture on the jaw indicates that at some time the jaw weakened and eventually broke
  • With a broken jaw, the pliosaur would not have been able to feed
  • They were at the top of their food chains, so there would not have been any predators to take advantage of an aging, disabled pliosaur – except for another pliosaur.
  • You can see these kinds of deformities in living animals, such as crocodiles or sperm whales and these animals can survive for years as long as they are still able to feed
Mars Base

'Mother Lode' of Fossils Discovered in Canada - Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...f-fossils-discovered-in-canada

scibyte120 fossils

shared by Mars Base on 12 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • A treasure trove of fossils chiseled out of a canyon in Canada's Kootenay National Park rivals the famous Burgess Shale, the best record of early life on Earth, scientists say.
  • The Burgess Shale refers to both a fossil find and a 505-million-year-old rock formation made of mud and clay
  • Burgess Shale fossil quarry, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Yoho National Park, is in a glacier-carved cliff in the Canadian Rockies.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • The fossils were discovered in 1909. Since then, several other fossil sites have been found in the Burgess Shale, but none as rich as the original.
  • The fossils are extraordinary because they preserve soft parts of ancient animals in exceptional detail
  • soft parts are less likely to be imprinted in stone than harder parts, like bones
  • More than 200 animal species have been identified at the 1909 fossil site
  • The new site is also in the Burgess Shale formation, and seems to rival the 1909 original in fossil diversity and preservation
  • In just two weeks, the research team collected more than 3,000 fossils representing 55 species. Fifteen of these species are new to science.
  • there is a high possibility that we'll eventually find more species here than at the original Yoho National Park site, and potentially more than from anywhere else in the world
  • The new fossils were spotted in a mountain cliff, in Marble Canyon, about 26 miles (42 kilometers) southeast of the original Burgess Shale site
  • The newly discovered rocks are probably about 100,000 years younger than those at the first Burgess Shale site
  • Many of the fossils at the new site are better preserved than their quarry counterparts
  • The new fossils reveal the internal organs of several different arthropods, the most common type of animal in both the new and old Burgess Shale locations.
  • Retinas, corneas, neural tissue, guts and even a possible heart and liver were found.
  • the first time we're seeing these details
  • About half of the 55 species discovered at Marble Canyon so far are also found at the original Burgess Shale site
  • Some of the original site's rare species are more abundant in the canyon
  • Some species at Marble Canyon are also found in China's Chengjiang fossil beds, which are 10 million years older than the Burgess Shale
  • Until now, researchers thought these Cambrian animals went extinct by the time the Burgess Shale formed.
  • Their discovery in Canada means that many Cambrian life forms were more widespread and longer-lived than previously thought
Mars Base

Scarred Duckbill Dinosaur Escaped T. Rex Attack - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...us-dinosaur-wound-scar-science

scibyte85 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 01 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • A scar on the face of a duckbill dinosaur received after a close encounter with a Tyrannosaurus rex is the first clear case of a healed dinosaur wound, scientists say.
  • A teardrop-shaped patch of fossilized skin about 5 by 5 inches (12 by 14 centimeters) that was discovered with the creature's bones and is thought to have come from above its right eye
  • The lucky dinosaur was an adult Edmontosaurus annectens, a species of duckbill dinosaur that lived
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • about 65 to 67 million years ago
  • The skull
  • also showed signs of trauma
  • from the size and shape of the marks on the bone
  • paleontologist at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History
  • speculate the creature was attacked by a T. rex
  • , though still unproven, that both the skin wound and the skull injury were sustained during the same attack,
  • . The wound "was large enough to have been a claw or a tooth,"
  • also compared the dinosaur wound to healed wounds on modern reptiles, including iguanas, and found the scar patterns to be nearly identical.
  • Phil Bell, a paleontologist with the Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Initiative in Canada
  • not convinced, however, that it was caused by a predator attack
  • The size of the scar is relatively small
  • , and would also be consistent with the skin being pierced in some other accident such as a fall.
  • certainly the marks that you see on the skull, those are [more consistent] with Tyrannosaur-bitten bones,"
  • Prior to the discovery, scientists knew of one other case of a dinosaur wound.
  • But in that instance, it was an unhealed wound that scientists think was inflicted by scavengers after the creature was already dead
  • It's very likely that this particular
  • wasn't the only dinosaur to sport scars, whether from battle wounds or accidents
  • Just how Edmontosaurus survived a T. rex attack is still unclear
  • . "Escape from a T. rex is something that we wouldn't think would happen,"
  • Duckbill dinosaurs
  • were not without defenses.
  • , for example, grew up to 30 feet (9 meters) in length, and could swipe its hefty tail or kick its legs to fell predators.
  • Furthermore, they were fast
  • had very powerful [running] muscles, which would have made them difficult to catch once they'd taken flight,"
  • Duckbills were also herd animals, so maybe this one escaped with help from neighbors
  • Figuring out the details of the story is part of what makes paleontology exciting
Mars Base

Crow-Size Pterosaur Named After 9-Year-Old Fossil Hunter -- National Geographic - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...aurs-dinosaurs-science-animals

scibyte87 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • A new species of crow-size pterosaur has been named in honor of the nine-year-old fossil hunter who discovered it
  • While exploring the U.K.'s Isle of Wight (map) in 2008, the then-five-year-old Morris came across blackened "bones sticking out of the sand
  • The Morris family brought the fossil to paleontologist Martin Simpson at the University of Southampton, who, with the help of colleagues, identified it as a new species
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • In pterosaurs, certain parts of the skeleton, especially the skull and the pelvis, are really distinct between different [species
  • The newfound creature also belonged to a group of pterosaurs called the azhdarchoids
  • All are from the Cretaceous, all are toothless, and many—perhaps all—were especially well adapted for life in terrestrial environments like woodlands, tropical forests, and floodplains
  • From the size of the pelvis
  • estimate
  • had a wingspan of about 2.5 feet (75 centimeters) and was just over a foot (35 centimeters) from snout to tail, making it about the size of a gull or large crow.
  • also inspired study co-author Simpson to write a children's book entitled Daisy and the Isle of Wight Dragon.
  • V. daisymorrisae lived in 145 to 65 million years ago
  • it probably had a head crest, was a reasonably good walker and runner on the ground, and could expertly fly through dense forests.
Mars Base

Confirmed: Dogs Sneak Food When People Aren't Looking - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...ogs-animals-science-mind-smart

scibyte83 dog

shared by Mars Base on 19 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The research shows that domestic dogs, when told not to snatch a piece of food, are more likely to disobey the command in a dark room than in a lit room
  • The one thing we can say is that dogs really have specialized skills in reading human communication
  • This is special in dogs
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • recruited 84 dogs, all of which were more than a year old, motivated by food, and comfortable with both strangers and dark rooms
  • The team then set up experiments in which a person commanded a dog not to take a piece of food on the floor
  • repeated the commands in a room with different lighting scenarios ranging from fully lit to fully dark
  • They found that the dogs were four times as likely to steal the food—and steal it more quickly—when the room was dark
  • the dog's behavior depended on whether the food was in the light or not, suggesting that the dog made its decision based on whether the human could see them approaching the food
  • were thinking what affected the dog was whether they saw the human, but seeing the human or not didn't affect the behavior
  • The study of dog cognition suddenly began about 15 years ago
  • Many of the new dog studies are variations on research done with chimpanzees, bonobos, and even young children
  • Selectively bred as companions for thousands of years, dogs are especially attuned to human emotions
  • are better at reading human cues than even our closest mammalian relatives
  • research reveals more and more insight into the minds
  • We still don't know just how smart they are
  • researchers are interested in whether the dog has a theory of mind
  • theory of mind is "an understanding that others have different perspective, knowledge, feelings than we do
  • Now, a new study suggests dogs might understand people even better than we thought
Mars Base

Dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded: study - 0 views

phys.org/...06-dinosaurs-warm-blooded.html

scibyte53 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 28 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • found evidence that dinosaurs probably had a high metabolic rate to allow fast growth -- another indicator of warm-bloodedness
  • cold-blooded, meaning they cannot control their body temperatures through their own metabolic system
  • bones of warm-blooded animals such as birds and mammals had never been properly assessed
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • found the rings in all 41 warm-blooded animal species they studied
Mars Base

Biggest Burmese Python Found in Florida-17.7 Feet, 87 Eggs - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...e-florida-eggs-biggest-science

scibyte59 Animal

shared by Mars Base on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Captured in Everglades National Park, the "monstrous" constrictor will eventually be displayed at the Florida Museum of Natural History,
  • Florida
  • a 17.7-foot-long (5.4-meter-long) Burmese python, the biggest snake of that species ever found in the southeastern U.S. state,
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • a necropsy on the euthanized python revealed she was carrying 87 eggs—also a state record for the species
  • The Everglades is home to a growing population of the invasive Asian pythons, many of which originate from snakes that either escaped into or were dumped into the wild in the 1990s
  • To biologist
  • those 87 eggs are "just more evidence that they are pretty much established—they're breeding in the Everglades
  • Python Patrol, focuses not on eradicating invasive pythons but on stopping the spread of the snake to sensitive areas, such as bird breeding spots
  • don't think we can necessarily get rid of every last one. We just want to keep them from moving elsewhere
  • pythons are going to be part of the native fauna in the next few decades
Mars Base

Dinosaurs were lighter than previously thought, new study shows - 0 views

phys.org/...ighter-previously-thought.html

scibyte50 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 06 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Scientists have developed a new technique to accurately measure the weight and size of dinosaurs and discovered they are not as heavy as previously thought.
  • biologists used lasers to measure the minimum amount of skin required to wrap around the skeletons of modern-day mammals, including reindeer, polar bears, giraffes and elephants
  • discovered that the animals had almost exactly 21% more body mass than the minimum skeletal 'skin and bone' wrap volume, and applied this to a giant Brachiosaur skeleton
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Previous estimates of this Brachiosaur's weight have varied, with estimates as high as 80 tonnes
  • Manchester team's calculations – published in the journal Biology Letters – reduced that figure to just 23 tonnes
  • new technique will apply to all dinosaur weight measurements
  • One of the most important things palaeobiologists need to know about fossilised animals is how much they weighed
  • surprisingly difficult
  • laser scanned various large mammal skeletons, including polar bear, giraffe and elephant
  • This has the advantage of requiring minimal user intervention and is therefore more objective and far quicker
Mars Base

Muscle reconstruction reveals how dinosaurs stood - 0 views

phys.org/...n-reveals-dinosaurs-stood.html

scibyte52 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 21 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Much is known about the dinosaurs that walked on 4 legs like Stegosaurus and Triceratops, but their stance has been a topic of debate
  • reconstructed the muscles on dinosaur limb bones and combined this with what is already known about their skeletons to get a truer picture of how they stood.
  • team looked at the horned dinosaurs (ceratopsids), the armoured dinosaurs (stegosaurs), and the duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs), 3 groups of ornithischian dinosaurs.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • studied more than 200 dinosaur fossil bone specimens, looking at how muscles and soft tissue attach to forelimbs, hind limbs, hip bones and vertebrae
  • results suggest the front limbs of the ceratopsids and the stegosaurs had elbows that were bent and held slightly out from the sides of the body
  • hadrosaurs held their forelimbs quite close together.
  • 'If a muscle is present in birds, and it is also present in crocodiles, then we can be quite sure it was also present in the dinosaurs,' says Maidment. 'By looking at all of the limb muscles in crocodiles and birds through dissection, we can build up a picture of the limb muscles in the dinosaurs.'
  • scientists use data from the dinosaurs' closest living relatives, birds and crocodiles.
  • Although their skeletons were very similar, the team found that the muscles were different
  • more diverse methods of locomotion than previously thought.
  • the shape of the bones alone does not tell the full story
  • We've already begun doing this and are producing 3D computational models of the limbs to look at how the muscles worked as the animals moved
  • Mars Base on 21 Jun 12
     
    The results suggest the front limbs of the ceratopsids and the stegosaurs had elbows that were bent and held slightly out from the sides of the body (as though it was half-way through a press up). In comparison the hadrosaurs held their forelimbs quite close together. Until now, scientists have just used the fossil skeletons to reconstruct what a dinosaur looked like. However, the team says the skeleton alone isn't a good predictor of how the animal stood, and it is crucial to look at the soft tissue as well. This also has implications for scientists who study behaviour an
Mars Base

The World's Oldest Animal Is Even Older Than We Thought | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...t-animal-even-older-we-thought

scibyte110

shared by Mars Base on 16 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Ming, a mollusk of the species Arctica islandica. In 2006, researchers
  • examined its interior growth rings--patterns on the inside of its shell--to determine its age
  • at an impressive 405 years old
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • now researchers are reporting it's more than an entire century older than that: a healthy 507 years
  • originally, researchers counted the rings on its shell, which usually provides an accurate count, since the clams produce another ring each summer
  • the rings were so compressed there was apparently a miscount
  • . A new count of rings on the exterior, confirmed by carbon dating, gave the new age
  • Ming's slow metabolism is what allows it to survive for so long
  • Ming died
  • back in 2006
  • it's not unlikely that an even older one has been found and not properly researched
Mars Base

Numbers Games Devised to Aid People with "Dyscalculia": Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte78 Dyscalculia

shared by Mars Base on 19 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The study confirmed for Butterworth that developmental forms of dyscalculia are the result of basic problems in comprehending numbers and not in other cognitive faculties
  • determining exactly what those problems are would prove challenging
  • approximate number sense, distinguishes larger quantities from smaller ones, be they dots flashing on a screen or fruits in a tree.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • A second ancient number system allows humans and many other animals to instantly and precisely recognize small quantities, up to four.
  • People who are poor at distinguishing approximate quantities do badly in maths, suggesting that the approximate-number system is crucial.
  • some work shows that dyscalculics are poor at recognizing small numbers, suggesting that this ability is also fundamental to numeracy
  • scans of people with dyscalculia suggest that their intraparietal sulci are less active when processing numbers and less connected with the rest of the brain compared with numerate children and adults.
  • views such results as consequences, not causes, of the poor numerical abilities that characterize dyscalculia.
  • argues that another cognitive capacity is even more fundamental to number sense
  • calls this 'numerosity coding': the understanding that things have a precise quantity associated with them, and that adding or taking things away alters that quantity.
  • Approximation and a sense of small numbers, while critical, are not enough for humans to precisely grasp large numbers,
  • Language, he argues, empowers humans to integrate the two number systems — giving them the ability to intuitively distinguish, say, 11,437 from 11,436.
  • young children who could not yet count past two nonetheless understood that adding pennies to a bowl containing six somehow altered its number, even if the children couldn't say exactly how.
  • If numerosity coding is fundamental, it predicts that dyscalculics
  • struggle to enumerate and manipulate all numbers, large and small.
  • hopes that, by honing this ability, the Number Sense games will help support his research ideas
Mars Base

Microbes May Slim Us Down After Gastric Bypass - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...robiomes-surgical-weight-.html

scibyte88 WeightLoss

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • In many people with type 2 diabetes, the disease vanishes almost immediately after surgery, too quickly to be explained by the gradual weight loss that happens later
  • Patients also describe not being as hungry, or craving foods like salad that they hadn't liked much before
  • Because it bypasses part of the stomach and small intestine, the surgery alters the intestinal environment, changing elements such as pH and bile concentrations
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Another important question
  • is whether the transplants will have the same effect in animals who weren't raised in a sterile environment and who already have their own gut microbiome
  • These animals would more closely mimic people undergoing gastric bypass surgery
Mars Base

Scientists reverse memory loss in animal brain cells - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...everse-memory-loss-animal.html

scibyte91 BrainTraining

shared by Mars Base on 18 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Using sea snail nerve cells, the scientists reversed memory loss by determining when the cells were primed for learning
  • scientists were able to help the cells compensate for memory loss by retraining them through the use of optimized training schedules
  • study builds on
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • 2012 investigation that pioneered this memory enhancement strategy
  • The 2012 study showed a significant increase in long-term memory in healthy sea snails
  • study's co-lead author and a research scientist
  • has developed a sophisticated mathematical model that can predict when the biochemical processes in the snail's brain are primed for learning
  • model is based on five training sessions scheduled at different time intervals ranging from 5 to 50 minutes
  • can generate 10,000 different schedules and identify the schedule most attuned to optimum learning
  • Memory is due to a change in the strength of the connections among neurons. In many diseases associated with memory deficits, the change is blocked
  • senior research scientist
  • simulated a brain disorder in a cell culture by taking sensory cells from the sea snails and blocking the activity of a gene that produces a memory protein
  • This resulted in a significant impairment in the strength of the neurons' connections, which is responsible for long-term memory
  • To mimic training sessions, cells were administered a chemical at intervals prescribed by the mathematical model
  • After five training sessions, which like the earlier study were at irregular intervals, the strength of the connections returned to near normal in the impaired cells
  • This methodology may apply to humans if we can identify the same biochemical processes in humans
  • results suggest a new strategy for treatments of cognitive impairment
  • Mathematical models might help design therapies that optimize the combination of training protocols with traditional drug treatments
  • Combining these two could enhance
  • effectiveness
  • while compensating at least in part for any limitations or undesirable side effects of drugs
  • two approaches are likely to be more effective together than separately and may have broad generalities in treating individuals with learning and memory deficits."
Mars Base

Potential diabetes breakthrough: Researchers discover new hormone spurring beta cell pr... - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...kthrough-hormone-spurring.html

scibyte92 Diabetes

shared by Mars Base on 26 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes
  • researchers believe that the hormone might also have a role in treating type 1, or juvenile, diabetes
  • The hormone, called betatrophin, causes mice to produce insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells at up to 30 times the normal rate
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • The new beta cells only produce insulin when called for by the body, offering the potential for the natural regulation of insulin
  • The researchers who discovered betatrophin
  • caution that much work remains to be done before it could be used as a treatment in humans
  • the results of their work, which was supported in large part by a federal research grant, already have attracted the attention of drug manufacturers.
  • could eventually mean that instead of taking insulin injections three times a day, you might take an injection of this hormone once a week or once a month, or in the best case maybe even once a year
  • Type 2 diabetes,
  • usually caused by a combination of excess weight and lack of exercise
  • causes patients to slowly lose beta cells and the ability to produce adequate insulin
  • provide this hormone, the type 2 diabetic will make more of their own insulin-producing cells, and this will slow down, if not stop, the progression of their diabetes
  • betatrophin primarily as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, he believes it might play a role in the treatment of type 1 diabetes as well
  • perhaps boosting the number of beta cells and slowing the progression of that autoimmune disease when it's first diagnosed
  • betatrophin could be in human clinical trials within three to five years, an extremely short time in the normal course of drug discovery and development
  • not for the federal funding of basic science research, there would be no betatrophin
  • impressed National Institutes of Health grant reviewers, and received federal funding for 80 percent of the work leading to the discovery of betatrophin
  • just wondering what happens when an animal doesn't have enough insulin. We were lucky to find this new gene that had largely gone unnoticed before
  • Another hint came from studying
  • What happens during pregnancy
  • During pregnancy, there are more beta cells needed, and it turns out that this hormone goes up during pregnancy
  • in pregnant mice
  • when the animal becomes pregnant this hormone is turned on to make more beta cells
  • not interested in curing mice of diabetes, and we now know the gene is a human gene
  • know that the hormone exists in human plasma; betatrophin definitely exists in humans
Mars Base

Specialized nerve fibers send touchy-feely messages to brain | Body & Brain | Scien... - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...touchy-feely_messages_to_brain

scibyte80 TouchMessages

shared by Mars Base on 31 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Some nerve fibers seem to love a good rubdown. These tendrils, which spread across skin like upside-down tree roots, detect smooth, steady stroking and send a feel-good message to the brain
  • The results are the latest to emphasize the strong and often underappreciated connection between emotions and the sensation of touch
  • “It may seem frivolous to be studying massage neurons in mice, but it raises a profound issue — why do certain stimuli feel a certain way?”
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • . Earlier studies in people suggested that a particular breed of nerve fibers detects a caress and carries that signal to the brain
  • scientists hadn’t been able to directly link this type of neuron to good feelings, either in people or in animals.
  • Directly linking these neurons with pleasure clarifies the importance of touch
  • The new study relied on mice genetically engineered so that a select population of nerve cells would glow when they sensed a caress
  • These neurons,
  • possessed the attributes of massage sensors, but they stubbornly refused to respond to touch in experiments in lab dishes
  • by touching the genetically engineered animals’ skin, the researchers were able to study these cells in live mice.
  • A harsher poke, with a more focused point of pressure, didn’t elicit a reaction from the cells
  • These neurons, which all carry a protein called MRGPRB4, seem tuned to detect a steady stroke
  • the researchers tested whether this stroke felt good to mice
  • the scientists used a different kind of genetically engineered mouse, one with caress-sensitive neurons that a drug could activate
  • When the researchers dispensed the drug in a particular room, the mice soon learned to prefer that room over others
  • associating it with the presumably enjoyable sensation of being stroked
  • not yet clear whether the nerve fibers in the mice have exact analogs in humans,
  • new view of caress detection
  • offers a deeper understanding of touch.
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