Christina's Thoughts

So much for the "Alpha Male" idea of wolf packs.

L. David Mech is a famous wolf researcher (and a blogger about his research). If you have heard of a concept of "alpha-male" it is because of ideas from an old book of his, about social structure of wolf societies.

However, most of the early research on wolves was done on artificially built groups, e.g., wolves caught in various places all put together in a single wolf pen at a zoo. In such rare and unnatural situations, these stranger-wolves do indeed form social hierarchies (or "pecking order" - a term that arose from studies of chickens). But such situations rarely if ever happen out in nature. A pack of wolves is usually composed of Mother, Father and their (sometimes quite grown-up) offspring: closely related individuals who know each other well.

These days, it is L. David Mech himself who is working the hardest to change the way we think about wolf (and dog) packs and to eliminate the term "alpha male" at least from studies of canid behavior if not from metaphors about human societies (hat-tip to Jim Henley). Decades have passed since his book came out, much research was done in the meantime (including by him and his students) and we now know better.

Apparently the stories of blue food dye healing spinal cord injuries were in error. It was not blue food dye, but rather, a similar chemical.

Still very interesting, though. :-)

Dirt-cheap blue food dye may aid recovery from spinal-cord injuries. This is a substance that's been used since 1928, and they only just discovered this benefit. It requires direct injection into the bloodstream. The article said there was a side-effect that the rats turned blue. I would hope that's a temporary side effect, but even if not, I'd rather have blue skin and be not paralyzed then keep my skin color and be paralyzed ...

The article said that it has to be administered within 15 minutes of the injury, which is one major disadvantage. And there are some other questions as to whether it could work in humans. But, if it does, it would be simply amazing! An incredibly cheap, completely non-toxic, drug to treat spinal-cord injuries? Awesome!

Current Mood: excited

Sixteen-year old baby.

A girl in Baltimore is 16 years old, but remains with the appearance and mental development of an 11-month-old baby, various parts of her body, however, are still aging at different rates. Her bones, for example, are at a level of development equivalent to about a 10-year-old's, while her teeth are equivalent to an 8-year-old's.

Willy was never really free. The killer whale star of the Hollywood movie Free Willy had to be cared for by humans even after he was released and he never successfully integrated with his wild kin. Researchers now say attempts to return him to the wild were misguided.

"We believe the best option for [Willy] was the open pen he had in Norway, with care from his trainers," says Malene Simon of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, who participated in efforts to reintegrate the cetacean in the wild and is lead author of the study. "He could swim as much as he wanted to, had plenty of frozen herring – which he was very fond of – and the people that he was attached to kept him active."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16902-bug-eats-electricity-farts-biogas.html

Science Is Imagination

Hunting elephants for their tusks has caused rapid evolution, creating groups with large numbers of tuskless elephants, in some populations, as many as 38% of the elephants are tuskless.

Tuskless elephants are paying a heavy price for survival.

Tusks are used to dig for food and water, to dig up trees and branches and move them around, for self defence and for sexual display.

Conservationists say an elephant without tusks is a crippled elephant.

Another interesting article http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16882-yeastpowered-fuel-cell-feeds-on-human-blood.html

Interesting article http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227024.400-rainforests-may-pump-winds-worldwide.html

The Physics of the Death Star and the economics of the Death Star.

Current Mood: amused

Wow!

( Self-Replicating Chemicals Evolve Into Life-Like Ecosystem )

This is huge! For the first time, we have something that may be similar to actual pre-cellular life! We are getting close to the very origins of life! Evolution without cells! Or even DNA!

And that it occurred in the Year of Darwin is a rather nice coincidence. :-)

Some interesting articles

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/chimerism-or-how-a-marmoset%25e2%2580%2599s-sperm-is-really-his-brother%25e2%2580%2599s/ Marmosets have been found to exhibit chimerism, meaning that some of their cells are actually from a twin sibling, even including sperm cells!

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/05/31/orang-utan-study-suggests-that-upright-walking-may-have-started-in-the-trees/ A study suggests that bipedal walking in humans may actually be a conservative trait rather than a new development.

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/human-cone-cell-lets-mice-see-in-new-colours/ Most mice have only two types of cone cells, making them partially color-blind. However, mice that had the gene for the third type of cone cell found in humans spliced into their genomes were found to be able to actually see those colors. That is, without altering any of the genes responsible for brain development, they were able to make use of the extra cone cells!

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/07/14/butterflies-evolve-resistance-to-male-killing-bacteria-in-record-time/ There is a wildly successful bacterial parasite called Wolbachia that infects a great many different arthropods. In many of them, it alters sex ratios. One group of butterflies with significant infection were left with only about 1% of the population being male. In these butterflies, it works by simply killing the males before they hatch. In just 10 generations, however, resistence to this male-killing evolved, returning the ration to the normal 50/50. Just ten generations! Amazingly fast evolution!

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/an-entire-bacterial-genome-discovered-inside-that-of-a-fruit-fly/ And another example of Wolbachia. This time, it was found to have completely inserted itself into the genome of a species of fruit fly.

Heh: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/what_i_hear_when_creationists.php

Current Mood: amused

This article is pretty interesting. They've found a method that may allow scientists to deduce the original colors of fossilized feathers! We may some day be able to know the color of ancient birds such as Archeopteryx and feathered dinos like Velociraptor!

Hunh, this is fascinating.

( Marine Microorganism Plays Both Host and Killer )

Quite intriguing to catch it at that crucial stage of evolution!

*laughs* This comment is win, from an article about Tiktaalik a couple years back:

Even more impressive is a recently identified transitional form between mammals and reptiles. This organism has a stunning blend of the traits of both groups. Diagnostically mammal characteristics include the presence of hair and mammaries, while typically reptilian characteristics include cold-bloodedness, a virtually undeveloped cerebral cortex, a smaller and more primitive heart, and a forked tongue. An official taxonomic designation has not been selected for the species, but Fasceophila vulgaris, Misanthropopsychosis belial, and Troglodyta macroscelidoides have been suggested.

Current Mood: amused

Hunh, this is an interesting article. Scientists have managed to "reprogram" ordinary cells to behave similarly to stem cells. Though the technique used damages the DNA, causing greater risk of cancer, and thus unsuitable for most uses, there is a possibility that that problem can be eliminated. It's quite promising, as, if it does indeed work, one could have all the benefits of stem cells without the messy ethical questions raised by embryonic stem cells. It's still too soon to tell if it'll work, though.

( full article )

A very interesting article: A new study suggests that the upright gait may have preceded the human-ape split, that is, that the other apes may actually have independently lost bipedalism.

( article )

It's an interesting notion, though it does seem improbable that humans would be the only group to retain bipedalism. And it still doesn't explain how the mutations involved would've come to spread through that ancestral species.

I finished up In The Blink of an Eye today. It's a rather interesting book. It's a theory explaining the Cambrian Explosion, an evolutionary event that occurred between 543 million and 538 million years ago, during which, a staggering variety of species evolved. 544 million years ago, there was little diversity. Most animals were worm-shaped, and soft-bodied, though they'd already evolved significant differences in internal structure. There was no evidence of active predation, most species were either herbivores or scavengers. Then, overnight in evolutionary terms, you got animals with hard shells, defensive spikes, large teeth, and so on.

The author's theory is that the Explosion was the result of the evolution of vision in the early trilobites. Not a single fossil has been discovered from 544 million years ago or earlier with evidence of eyes, while fully developed eyes are found as early as 543 million years ago. Calculations suggest that eyes could've evolved from photorecepive patches in less than a half a million years. Once vision existed, everything changed. Active predation - that is, predators capable of searching for prey and attacking it, as opposed to the passive "wait for food to come to you" style of, for example, jellyfish - could suddenly exist. Defensive structures became necessary, and a wide range of niches were opened. With vision, there became a difference between shaded areas and well-lit areas. Camoflauge became important. Mating displays and courtship rituals sprang into existence, which can easily split species into non-interbreeding populations based on differences in courtship, and so on.

A rather interesting idea, and quite convincing.

There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic, to human behavior