ResearchBlogging.orgEvolutionary psychology tends to receive harsh criticism, and often rightly so. One of the main reasons for this is the severe lack of evidence for many of it’s proposals given that the paucity of fossilised brains fails to bolster many a case. And it isn’t even anyone’s fault. That’s just the way it goes sometimes, that the brain is a jelly-like substance that is subject to decay after death, and there’s no way we can objectively analyse or verify any differences in brains of long ago with brains of today.
This isn’t set to change anytime soon, but the remarkable discovery of a medieval child’s brain was the subject of a Neuroimage paper published recently. This is extremely exciting on many counts: the brain has been so fantastically preserved that it is possible to identify the frontal, temporal and occipital lobes, and even the sulci and gyri, the grooves and furrows channeled into brains.
However it is only the left-hemisphere that survived and not the entire brain, which had also shrunk to about 80% of it’s original weight due to the (natural) mummification process.
Neurowhoa: 700-year-old Brain Found Preserved
According to findings that could have been pulled from a deep-sea sequel to Avatar, bacteria appear to conduct electrical currents across the ocean floor, driving linked chemical reactions at relatively vast distances.
Noticed only when reseachers happened to test sediment leftovers from another experiment, the phenomenon may add a new mechanism to Earth’s biogeochemistry.
Wired Science: Deep-Sea Bacteria Form Avatar-Style Electrochemical Networks
(via Atom Jack)
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment.The team observed viruses as they evolved over hundreds of generations to infect bacteria. They found that when the bacteria could evolve defenses, the viruses evolved at a quicker rate and generated greater diversity, compared to situations where the bacteria were unable to adapt to the viral infection.
Read More – The “Red Queen Theory” -Scientists Find Driving Force Behind Evolution is Fight for Survival not Environment
(Thanks Paul)
The possibility of strange forms of alien life seems to have just got a whole lot closer to home. Astrobiologists from Arizona State University, Florida, UC Boulder, NASA, Harvard and Australia have recently theorized about a “shadow biosphere” – a biosphere within a biosphere where alternative biochemistry may be thriving in a way that we haven’t yet thought to examine. Such “weird life” may have had, for hundreds of millions of years, their own ecologies right here in our own backyard. Indeed, like Dark Energy and neutrinos, “weird life” may be all around us even now, only in a non-obvious way. Some astrobiologists are now suggesting that “weird life” is just as likely to be found here on Earth as it is in the Martian regolith, the seas of Europa , or certainly the complex bio-hadronistry on the surface of a neutron star.
Biology Blog: Scientists predict the possibility of shadow biosphere
(via Fadereu)
Previously mentioned here:
The new machine, which costs around $200,000, has been developed by Organovo, a company in San Diego that specialises in regenerative medicine, and Invetech, an engineering and automation firm in Melbourne, Australia. One of Organovo’s founders, Gabor Forgacs of the University of Missouri, developed the prototype on which the new 3D bio-printer is based. The first production models will soon be delivered to research groups which, like Dr Forgacs’s, are studying ways to produce tissue and organs for repair and replacement. At present much of this work is done by hand or by adapting existing instruments and devices.
To start with, only simple tissues, such as skin, muscle and short stretches of blood vessels, will be made, says Keith Murphy, Organovo’s chief executive, and these will be for research purposes. Mr Murphy says, however, that the company expects that within five years, once clinical trials are complete, the printers will produce blood vessels for use as grafts in bypass surgery. With more research it should be possible to produce bigger, more complex body parts. Because the machines have the ability to make branched tubes, the technology could, for example, be used to create the networks of blood vessels needed to sustain larger printed organs, like kidneys, livers and hearts. [...]
Though printing organs is new, growing them from scratch on scaffolds has already been done successfully. In 2006 Anthony Atala and his colleagues at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina made new bladders for seven patients. These are still working.
Read More – Economist: A machine that prints organs is coming to market
(via Edge of Tomorrow and G.V.)
New evidence from astrobiology “overwhelmingly” supports the view that life was seeded from outside Earth, a scientist has claimed.
Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University says the first microbes were deposited on Earth 3,800m years ago.
The astrobiologist has helped developed the panspermia theory which suggests an extra-terrestrial origin for life.
He argues for a cycle of life as microbes find their way into comets and “multiply and seed other planets”.
In the article, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, Monday, he argues humans and indeed all life on Earth is of alien origin, brought onto the planet by comets hitting the planet.
BBC: Professor’s alien life ’seed’ theory claimed
(via HipGnosis)
Outlaw Biology was a DIY biology symposium held January 29-30 at UCLA. Here’s a list of workshops that may or may not have occurred:
1. Bioweathermap, Jason Bobe. With field-trips to the UCLA Arboretum and Hammer Museum (in cooperation with Machine Project
2. Learn to Design a DNA-based nanostructure using cadnano software, Philip Lukeman
3. Paint colorful microbes – luminescent, fluorescent, and pigmented – on do-it-yourself solid media. With a little time and luck, we’ll preserve the painted results in epoxy, like microbiological paintings in amber, Mackenzie Cowell
4. SKDB: Learn to use software tools for open source manufacturing and bioengineering, Bryan Bishop and Ben Lipkowitz
5. Use of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus strain ADP1 as a DIY bioengineering platform, David Metzgar
6. Ars Synthetica: Have an informed, ethical, and open dialogue on the emerging field of synthetic biology, Gaymon Bennett
7. Extract DNA from Strawberries, CSG Staff
8. Lactobacillus Plasmid Recovery and Visualization for fun and profit, Meredith L. Patterson
9. DIY Webcam Microscopy. Join us for a worldwide webcam hacking event and make your own 100x USB microscope for less than $10. We’ll provide the webcams and a live internet feed from other workshop locations across the world, from Bangalore to Australia. Find out more at diybio.org/ucam
10. Velolab, See the first Bicyclized Mobile Biology lab, Sam Starr
11. Learn about FBI Outreach: Promoting Responsible Research & Career Opportunities, Special Agent Edward You
12. Learn about LavaAmp: The Personal Thermal Cycler, Guido Núñez-Mujica and Joseph P. Jackson III
13. The HOX Gene Zodiac project. Learn about homeobox genes, body plans and the Chinese Zodiac, Victoria Vesna
Learn more at their web site.
(via Grinding)
The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.
As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”
Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch.
Danger Room: Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included
(via Edge of Tomorrow)
A single-celled slime mould mindlessly foraging for food can create a network as efficient as the Tokyo rail system, researchers say.
A team of Japanese and British researchers say the behaviour of the amoeba-like mould could lead to better design of computer or communication networks.
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum grows to connect itself to food sources as part of its normal behaviour.
The mould “can find the shortest path through a maze or connect different arrays of food sources in an efficient manner,” wrote Atsushi Tero of Hokkaido University and his colleagues in this week’s issue of Science.
The researchers noticed that the slime mould spreading to gather scattered food sources organizes itself into a gelatinous network that interconnects the sources and looks somewhat like a railway system.
CBC: Slime mould mimics Tokyo’s railway
(via Social Physicist)
Yeesh, how do you think public transit planners feel right about now? “A single celled slime mould could do a better job than you!”
See also: Conway’s Game of Life Generates City.
Wood favors a conservative definition of tool use. By that standard—an animal using a solid object to solve an immediate problem, rather than just to provide defense against potential predators—there aren’t any real clear examples of octopuses using tools. But, he said, defining tool use isn’t a black or white issue. There’s no single, official right answer.
Mather works from a different, but still valid, definition. She doesn’t count the coconut shell as a tool, because the octopus isn’t modifying the shell in any way, and isn’t using it to alter other things in its environment.
But she does think octopuses use tools. In 1991, she documented octopuses collecting rocks and stacking them, outside the opening of a shelter, to form a protective fence. In fact, she said, the octopuses tended to do this before they went to sleep. That doesn’t count as tool use to Wood, but with several scientifically sound definitions, there’s room for interpretation.
Boing Boing: Behind the meme: Secrets of octopus intelligence
Cephalopods lovers should also check out Fuck Yeah Octopus.
It’s the ultimate form of solar power: eat a plant, become photosynthetic. Now researchers have found how one animal does just that.
Elysia chlorotica is a lurid green sea slug, with a gelatinous leaf-shaped body, that lives along the Atlantic seaboard of the US. What sets it apart from most other sea slugs is its ability to run on solar power.
Mary Rumpho of the University of Maine, is an expert on E. chlorotica and has now discovered how the sea slug gets this ability: it photosynthesises with genes “stolen” from the algae it eats.
New Scientist: Solar-powered sea slug harnesses stolen plant genes
(via WTF Nature)
New A team of researchers including scientists from the University of Florida has shown insect colonies follow some of the same biological “rules” as individuals, a finding that suggests insect societies operate like a single “superorganism” in terms of their physiology and life cycle. [...]
Now, researchers from UF, the University of Oklahoma and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have taken the same mathematical models that predict lifespan, growth and reproduction in individual organisms and used them to predict these features in whole colonies.
By analyzing data from 168 different social insect species including ants, termites, bees and wasps, the authors found that the lifespan, growth rates and rates of reproduction of whole colonies when considered as superorganisms were nearly indistinguishable from individual organisms.
Science Daily: Insect Colonies Operate as ‘Superorganisms’, New Research Finds
(via Chris Arkenberg)
OK, actually, just *part* virus:
People may not be quite the humans they think they are. Or so suggests new research showing that the human genome is part bornavirus.
Bornaviruses, a type of RNA virus that causes disease in horses and sheep, first inserted their genetic material into ancestral human DNA at least 40 million years ago, the study shows. The findings, published January 7 in Nature, provide the first evidence that RNA viruses other than retroviruses (such as HIV) can stably integrate genes into host DNA. The new work may help reveal more about the evolution of RNA viruses as well as their mammalian hosts.
“Our whole notion of ourselves as a species is slightly misconceived,” says Robert Gifford, a paleovirologist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York City. Human DNA includes genetic contributions from bacteria and other organisms, and humans have even come to rely on some of these genes for basic functions like fighting infections.
Wired: Human Genome Is Part Bornavirus
(via Bruce Sterling)
Nature has long perfected the construction of nanomachines, but David González and his fellow researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology and Utrecht University under the leadership of Spinoza Award winner Bert Meijer, have brought the construction of artificial supramolecular structures a step closer. The researchers managed to carefully control the self-assembly of guanosine, one of the building blocks of DNA.
The natural world is a shining example when it comes to the self-assembly of molecules. However, it has not disclosed all of its secrets yet. Controlling the shape and structure of self-assembled systems continues to be a stumbling block for scientists. Yet such structures, in which the different molecules cooperate with each other, can have unrivaled characteristics. Self-assembly could provide the way forward for the future mass production of nanomaterials, nanodrugs and nanoelectronics.
Science Daily: Nanotechnology: Self-assembly Of Building Blocks Of DNA Can Now Be Easily Controlled
(Via Chris Arkenberg)
In October, a small team of Silicon Valley researchers plans to turn software originally designed to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life to the task of looking for evidence of artificial life generated on a cluster of high-performance computers.
The effort, dubbed the EvoGrid, is the brainchild and doctoral dissertation topic of Bruce Damer, a Silicon Valley computer scientist who develops simulation software for NASA at a company, Digital Space, based in Santa Cruz, Calif.
Mr. Damer and his chief engineer, Peter Newman, are modeling their effort after the SETI@Home project, which was started by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, program to make use of hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers in homes and offices. The project turned these small computers into a vast supercomputer by using pattern recognition software on individual computers to sift through a vast amount of data to look for evidence of faint signals from civilizations elsewhere in the cosmos.
New York Times: Wanted: Home Computers to Join in Research on Artificial Life
(via Chris Arkenberg)
“It may not sound like the most promising start to a romance, but a bout of sneezing can be sign that someone is attracted to you. Doctors have uncovered a bizarre medical condition where people sneeze every time they think about sex or have an orgasm. The condition appears to afflict both and men and women and to be uncontrollable.
Dr Mahmood Bhutta, an ear, nose and throat expert at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, who describes the condition in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, admits that his initial reaction was disbelief. But now he thinks the phenomenon is genuine and closely linked to the bursts of sneezing that one in four people have when they are exposed to bright sunshine.
The condition came to light in a middle-aged man, who has not been named, who complained that he had an uncontrollable fit of sneezes each time he was sexually aroused. After overcoming his scepticism, Dr Bhutta began searching medical records – and internet chat rooms – to see if anyone else had a similar problem. ‘I was surprised by how many people also reported the same reflex in internet chat rooms,’ he said. Typing the words ’sex, sneeze or sneezing’ into the Google search engine produced a surprising number of hits. Seventeen men and women reported sneezing immediately when they thought about sex, and three had the same experience after orgasm.”
(via The Daily Mail)
“The University of Southampton is launching the world’s largest-ever study of near-death experiences this week. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study is to be launched by the Human Consciousness Project of the University of Southampton – an international collaboration of scientists and physicians who have joined forces to study the human brain, consciousness and clinical death.
The study is led by Dr Sam Parnia, an expert in the field of consciousness during clinical death, together with Dr Peter Fenwick and Professors Stephen Holgate and Robert Peveler of the University of Southampton. Following a successful 18-month pilot phase at selected hospitals in the UK, the study is now being expanded to include other centres within the UK, mainland Europe and North America. “Contrary to popular perception,” Dr Parnia explains, “death is not a specific moment. It is a process that begins when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working and the brain ceases functioning – a medical condition termed cardiac arrest, which from a biological viewpoint is synonymous with clinical death.”
(via Science Daily)
“Since being exposed to the idea of extreme life extension, which admittedly was only several months ago, I’ve found myself reacting in a more skeptical and reactionary manner than I often do when confronted with other radical new futuristic ideas and technologies. When I read about possibilities of faster than light travel, I get excited. Predictions of nano-assemblers make me hopeful. I find designs for colonies on the Moon and Mars fascinating. But when I read about trends in regenerative medicine and nanotechnology that some experts believe will conquer death, I am not enthusiastic. Instead I become very skeptical, nervous and even angry. On one level, I am surprised that I could be anything other than overjoyed that ending death could be a possibility, I very much enjoy life and, as a living organism, I have a strong instinct to stay alive. Yet I find it extremely difficult to wrap my head around the idea of life without death.
So why does extreme life extension make me uncomfortable? I’m not, nor have I ever been a religious person, though I have respect for those who are. I was raised by two atheists with PhDs in science and I haven’t ever held out hope for an afterlife. It’s not that I don’t value human life – I value it very much. As a humanist, I believe very strongly that each human life is sacred and unique and believe it is within our power, and is indeed our responsibility, to work towards giving every person as good a life as possible. I also don’t believe I am a Luddite. I am increasingly excited about technology in general, I love my cellphone and the new snazzier one I will someday get. I love my computer and wonders of the Internet. I’m fascinated by the promise of the Semantic Web. I also embrace any technology that could cure diseases or repair injuries. But when it comes to anything that may fundamentally change the way I am or the way people are in general, I am very hesitant.
I thought it would be interesting to explore some of the reactions, thoughts and feelings I have when pondering extreme life extension, as I think they probably overlap with those of the people who have been or will be exposed to these ideas.”
(via Future Blogger. Also:“Revised Thoughts on the Demise of Death”)
“Researchers say they’ve taken a significant stride forward in understanding how relaxation techniques such as meditation, prayer and yoga improve health: by changing patterns of gene activity that affect how the body responds to stress. The changes were seen both in long-term practitioners and in newer recruits, the scientists said.
“It’s not all in your head,” said Dr. Herbert Benson, president emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “What we have found is that when you evoke the relaxation response, the very genes that are turned on or off by stress are turned the other way. The mind can actively turn on and turn off genes. The mind is not separated from the body.”
One outside expert agreed. “It’s sort of like reverse thinking: If you can wreak havoc on yourself with lifestyle choices, for example, [in a way that] causes expression of latent genetic manifestations in the negative, then the reverse should hold true,” said Dr. Gerry Leisman, director of the F.R. Carrick Institute for Clinical Ergonomics, Rehabilitation and Applied Neuroscience at Leeds Metropolitan University in the U.K.”
(via The Washington Post)
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