Pelliciari
Fossils Reveal A New Ancestor On The Family Tree
Photo: University of Witwatersrand
We may have some relatives we didn’t know about. Jeffrey Kluger writes onTIME:
One August day in 2008, a pair of nine-year-old boys crossed paths at a cave in South Africa. The boys didn’t play, didn’t speak, didn’t even smile at each other. One of them was Matthew Berger, the young son of paleoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, accompanying his dad into the field for an expedition. The other boy was known only as Australopithecus sediba, a pre-human child who died 1.977 million years ago, leaving only his fossilized bones behind.
The site, 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg, had been visited before and other bones had been found, but the remains Matthew stumbled across, along with those of an adult female, are the subject of no fewer than five papers in this week’s issue of the journal Science — and with good reason.
The skeletons are both in remarkably good…
Gene Found That Controls Chronic Pain
Popping pain killers may not be the answer, not if you can isolate and alter the gene which regulates chronic pain. Via Reuters:
British scientists have identified a gene responsible for regulating chronic pain, called HCN2, and say their discovery should help drug researchers in their search for more effective, targeted pain-killing medicines.
“Our research lays the groundwork for the development of new drugs to treat chronic pain by blocking HCN2.”
Scientists from Cambridge University said that if drugs could be designed to block the protein produced by the gene, they could treat a type of pain known as neuropathic pain, which is linked to nerve damage and often very difficult to control with currently available drugs.
“Individuals suffering from neuropathic pain often have little or no respite because of the lack of effective medications,” said Peter McNaughton of Cambridge’s pharmacology department, who led the study.
Chemical Agent Turns Tissue Transparent
Olivia Solon writes on Wired:
Japanese researchers have developed a chemical agent that turns biological tissue transparent, allowing for vivid imaging of neurons and blood vessels deep inside mouse brains.
The aqueous reagent — referred to as Scale — offers a way of analyzing complex organs and networks in tissue samples, without having to dissect them into smaller pieces. Developed by Atsushi Miyawaki and his team at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Scale performs better than other clearing reagents because it doesn’t affect the shape or proportions of the sample. It also manages to avoid decreasing the strength of signals emitted by genetically-encoded fluorescent proteins in the tissue, which are frequently used by researchers as markers to flag up specific cells.
This means that neuroscientists can visualise fluorescently-labelled brain samples at a depth of several millimetres (as opposed to just one millimetre) and see neural networks at sub-cellular resolution. The team has used the agent to examine…
New Shark Species Found In Food Market
Photo: Laurent Bugnion (CC)
Biologists are finding new species constantly, but it took a hungry market and working fishermen to find this new shark species. The National Geographic reports:
It’s unlikely anyone’s ever complained, “Waiter, there’s a new species in my soup.” But the situation isn’t as rare as you might think.
A monkey, a lizard, and an “extinct” bird have all been discovered en route to the dinner plate, and now a new shark species joins their ranks, scientists report.
Fish taxonomists found the previously unknown shark at a market in Taiwan—no big surprise, according to study co-author William White.
“Most fish markets in the region will regularly contain sharks,” White, of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Hobart, Australia, said via email.
[Continues at National Geographic]
Lunar Orbiter Find Footprints On The Moon
Some people were in awe as they watched to first men walk on the moon in 1969. Others still remain in skepticism of the lunar landing. Taken by NASA’s lunar orbiter, new photographs have been released of landing sites, including footprints left on the surface. Via Reuters:
Federal Regulators Sue Big Banks Over Mortgages
Will the Obama administration finally approach national banks with an iron fist? The New York Times reports:
A bruising legal fight pitting the country’s most powerful banks against the full force of the United States government began Friday, as federal regulators filed suits against 17 financial institutions that sold the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nearly $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities that later soured.
The suits are the latest legal salvo fired at the banks accusing them of misdeeds during the housing boom. Investors fled financial shares Friday amid growing concern that the litigation could last for years and undermine earnings and balance sheets in the process.
The complaints were filed just as the stock market closed Friday afternoon, but with word leaking out of the impending legal action during the trading session, shares of Bank of America fell more than 8.3 percent, while JPMorgan Chase dropped 4.6 percent and Goldman fell 4.5…
Ikea Used Political Prisoners As Slave Labor
Photo: Alexander Kaiser (CC)
Like many global companies mass producing goods, Ikea has a past of unjust labor. The Telegraph reports:
Ikea developed strong links with the communist state in the 1970s, opening a number of manufacturing facilities, one of which, according to Stasi records discovered by German television company WDR, used political prisoners to construct sofas.
The factory in Waldheim stood next to a prison, and inmates were used as unpaid labour, it is claimed. Gaols in the Democratic Republic housed significant numbers of political prisoners, with some estimates indicating they made up at least 20 per cent of the entire prison population.
Quoted in a Stasi file, Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea’s founder, said while he had no official knowledge of the use of prison labour, if it did indeed exist “in the opinion of Ikea it would be in society’s interests.”
[Continues at The Telegraph]
Dolphin Whisperer Could Help Us Speak To E.T.
Photo: Auntie Rain (CC)
Could talking to animals guide us to talking to extraterrestrials? Discovery News reports:
For 27 years, marine biologist Denise Herzing and colleagues have been regular visitors in the Atlantic Ocean home of a 200-member pod of spotted dolphins living north of the Bahama Islands.
Understanding the relationships between the members of the pod is key to unraveling what their dozens of whistles, clicks and other signals mean.
“The large goal of this project is to tell the story of what it’s like to be a dolphin,” Herzing, a researcher with Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and the founder and head of the Wild Dolphin Project, told Discovery News.
[Continues at Discovery News]
Need A New Liver? Get One Printed
Scientists at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University are creating headway in being able to grow human organs in laboratories. If you need a new liver or finger, it may soon be as easy as pressing print. Via Reuters:
Study Of Coral May Lead To Sunburn Pill
Photo: Richard Ling (CC)
What happened to remembering to apply sunscreen? The Bangkok Post reports:
The research team hope within the next two years to test a compound based on one which shields coral against harmful ultraviolet rays.
“We already knew that coral and some algae can protect themselves from the harsh UV rays in tropical climates by producing their own sunscreens but, until now, we didn?t know how,” said Dr Paul Long, head of the team.
“What we have found is that the algae living within the coral makes a compound that we think is transported to the coral, which then modifies it into a sunscreen for the benefit of both the coral and the algae.
“Not only does this protect them both from UV damage, but we have seen that fish that feed on the coral also benefit from this sunscreen protection, so it is clearly passed up the food chain,” the King’s team leader…
City Introduces “Sex Tax Meters” For Prostitutes
Inspectors may be pulling prostitutes off the streets in Germany. Not because they’re trying to lower crime rate, but because they haven’t been paying their income taxes. Via Reuters:
Prostitutes in the German city of Bonn must carry a ticket purchased from a new parking meter-like machine while working the streets or face hefty fines from tax authorities in a scheme launched on Monday night.
In Germany, ladies of the night pay income tax — the level of which varies from region to region — but compliance is difficult to enforce with women seeking business on the street.
Germany’s first “sex tax meters,” from which prostitutes can purchase a ticket for 6 euros ($8.72) per night, will ensure the tax system is fairly implemented, a city spokeswoman said.
“Inspectors will monitor compliance — not every evening but frequently,” the spokeswoman told Reuters.
[Continues at Reuters]
9/11 Coloring Book Sparks Controversy
Via The Raw Story:
A 9/11 coloring book has emerged on the brink of the tenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. It is entitled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom,” and was published by Missouri-based Really Big Coloring Books.
The color book begins with Osama bin Laden plotting to attack the United States and ends with bin Laden being shot by a Navy SEAL. A spokesperson for the publisher said that seeing bin Laden get shot “provides closure” for children.
Dawud Walid, Michigan representative for the Council on American Islamic Relations, called the book disgusting because it portrays all Muslims as terrorists.
Florida Funeral Home Unveils New Body ‘Liquefaction’ Unit
There are many things to consider when taking care of funeral arrangements: did the person want to be buried, cremated, or liquidated? This ‘alkaline hydrolysis” unit is thought to be more environmentally friendly than the traditional cremation process. BBC News reports:
A Glasgow-based company has installed its first commercial “alkaline hydrolysis” unit at a Florida funeral home.
The unit by Resomation Ltd is billed as a green alternative to cremation and works by dissolving the body in heated alkaline water.
The facility has been installed at the Anderson-McQueen funeral home in St Petersburg, and will be used for the first time in the coming weeks. It is hoped other units will follow in the US, Canada and Europe.
The makers claim the process produces a third less greenhouse gas than cremation, uses a seventh of the energy, and allows for the complete separation of dental amalgam for safe disposal.
Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is…
Yesterday’s News Could Be Tomorrow’s Fuel
Everyday millions of newspapers are read and then throw out or, hopefully, recycled. Instead of turning those papers into other paper products, they may be able to be used for fuel. Via Discovery News:
Tulane University scientists discovered a strain of clostridia bacteria, dubbed “TU-103,” that can devour old newspapers to produce butanol, a substitute for gasoline.
Old editions of the Times Picayune, New Orleans’ daily newspaper, have been successfully used by the researchers to produce butanol from the cellulose in the paper. Cellulose is a structural material in plants.
TU-103 is the first bacterial strain found in nature (not genetically engineered) to produce butanol directly from cellulose. It is also the only strain yet found that can grow in the presence of oxygen. Keeping bacterial fermentation chambers air tight makes other strains more expensive to work with.
“This discovery could reduce the cost to produce bio-butanol,” said David Mullin, who’s lab discovered the…
U.S. Reviews Syphilis Experiment In Guatemala: Researchers Knew It Was Unethical
All too often groups of people are unknowingly infected with disease as a means of isolated experimentation. Earlier this week the Commision for the Study of Bioethical Issues reviewed the 1940s incident where the U.S. government infected Guatemalan prisoners and patients with syphilis. Via Reuters:
U.S. government researchers must have known they were violating ethical standards by deliberately infecting Guatemalan prison inmates and mental patients with syphilis for an experiment in the 1940s, according to a U.S. presidential commission.
The U.S.-funded research in Guatemala did not treat participants as human beings, failing to even inform them they were taking part in research, as was the case for a similar study in the United States, the commission said on Monday.
The United States apologized last year for the experiment, which was meant to test the drug penicillin, after it was uncovered decades later by a college professor.
President Barack Obama’s Commission for the Study of…
Mysterious Drop In Mosquito Numbers
Photo: Arthur Chapman (CC)
Is this a good or a bad thing? Incidents of malaria are reduced, but there are less people to test treatment on. Via BBC News:
Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are disappearing in some parts of Africa, but scientists are unsure as to why.
Figures indicate controls such as anti-mosquito bed nets are having a significant impact on the incidence of malaria in some sub-Saharan countries.
But in Malaria Journal, researchers say mosquitoes are also disappearing from areas with few controls.
They are uncertain if mosquitoes are being eradicated or whether they will return with renewed vigour.
Data from countries such as Tanzania, Eritrea, Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia all indicate that the incidence of malaria is dropping fast.
[Continues at BBC News]
Kids’ Weight Loss Book Sparks Protests
It seems everyday there’s a new statistic about which country is fighting obesity, how school lunches and fast food restaurants are offering “healthy” options, and other stories about reducing the weight problem of current and future generations. But a new book about a fourteen years old girl going on a diet has sparked controversy. Discovery News reports:
An upcoming children’s book with the seemingly noninflammatory title “Maggie Goes on a Diet” is causing a firestorm of protest.
According to the book’s description on Amazon.com, “This inspiring story is about a 14-year-old who goes on a diet and is transformed from being overweight and insecure to a normal sized teen who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self-image.”
You’d think that with one-third of American kids overweight or obese, and children experiencing unprecedented weight-related health problems including diabetes, a book…
Foreign Workers In Baghdad Can’t Leave And Can’t Get Paid
Photo: Kjirstin (CC)
The New York Times reports:
For months, they have sat here, half a block from the prime minister’s palace in the Green Zone, essentially captives with little food, drinking water or electricity.
Humble laborers, they had come to Baghdad in January from Eastern Europe and Asia seeking better wages.
They had the important sounding assignment of building a dozen villas to house heads of state for the annual meeting of the Arab League, which was scheduled to take place here.
But the project was halted in April for reasons that are unclear, and a month later, as the Arab Spring rolled on, the Arab League meeting was postponed until next year.
Now the workers — 27 Ukrainians (including a woman), 7 Bulgarians and 1 Nepalese — are marooned here, living in one of the world’s hottest and most inhospitable cities in an abandoned building next to the construction site and lacking the documents they…
Dick Cheney Had Secret Resignation Letter
Other than his health, what were some other things he was concerned about that prompted him to pre-write his resignation? One of many ’secrets’ revealed in Cheney’s new book, In My Time, set to be released at the end of the month. Via Reuters:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney signed a secret resignation letter shortly after taking office in 2001 and kept it in a safe, according to an excerpt of an NBC interview released on Wednesday.
Cheney, who has a long history of heart disease, said concern about a possible health crisis was one of the main reasons he kept the letter. Former President George W. Bush knew about it and so did a Cheney staff member.
“I did it because I was concerned … for a couple of reasons,” Cheney said.
“One was my own health situation. The possibility that I might have a heart attack or a stroke that would be incapacitating.…
