Category: Science

Dogs Know More than We Knew

(p. A14) Dr. Andics, who studies language and behavior in dogs and humans, along with Adam Miklosi and several other colleagues, reported in a paper to be published in this week’s issue of the journal Science that different parts of dogs’ brains respond to the meaning of a word, and to how the word is said, much as human brains do.
. . .
A trainer spoke words in Hungarian — common words of praise used by dog owners like “good boy,” “super” and “well done.” The trainer also tried neutral words like “however” and “nevertheless.” Both the praise words and neutral words were offered in positive and neutral tones.
The positive words spoken in a positive tone prompted strong activity in the brain’s reward centers. All the other conditions resulted in significantly less action, and all at the same level.
. . .
In terms of evolution of language, the results suggest that the capacity to process meaning and emotion in different parts of the brain and tie them together is not uniquely human. This ability had already evolved in non-primates long before humans began to talk.

For the full story, see:
JAMES GORMAN. “For Dogs, It’s What You Say and Also How You Say It.” The New York Times (Tues., AUG. 30, 2016): A14.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date AUG. 29, 2016, and has the title “With Dogs, It’s What You Say — and How You Say It.”)

The scientific article on canine cognition, mentioned above, is:
Andics, A., A. Gábor, M. Gácsi, T. Faragó, D. Szabó, and Á Miklósi. “Neural Mechanisms for Lexical Processing in Dogs.” Science 353, no. 6303 (Sept. 2, 2016): 1030-32.

Greenland Shark Likely to Have Lived to at Least 272 Years Old

(p. A11) The mysterious Greenland shark lives at extreme depths in dark, icy waters, which have long protected it from scientists’ prying eyes.
But now, an international group of researchers has estimated the dark brown cartilaginous fish may live as long as 500 years–which would make it the longest-living vertebrate on the planet.
The work, published Thursday [Aug. 11, 2016] in the journal Science, “offers the first hard evidence of how long-lived this poorly understood shark species can be,” said Steve Campana, a shark expert at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, who wasn’t involved in the study.
. . .
. . . the 11-person team of researchers turned to math models and radiocarbon dating, a technique typically used to date fossils. They focused their work on the eye lens nucleus of each shark, a structure that stops developing at birth and therefore serves as a rough proxy of birth date. They measured the levels of carbon-14 in the tissue, which animals stop accumulating when they die.
The oldest shark in the study, which measured more than 16 feet, lived an estimated 392 years, according to the scientists. Because the study had a margin of error of 120 years for that fish, the researchers concluded the sharks could live up to about 500 years.

For the full story, see:
DANIELA HERNANDEZ. “Enigmatic Shark Can Live for Centuries, Study Says.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Aug. 12, 2016): A12.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 11, 2016, and has the title “Mysterious Greenland Shark May Live Hundreds of Years, Scientists Say.” The online version included several additional sentences, interspersed through the article, that were not included in the print version. The sentences quoted above, appeared in both versions, but the formatting of the quotes above, most closely follow the print version.)

The research article reporting findings discussed above, is:
Nielsen, Julius, Rasmus B. Hedeholm, Jan Heinemeier, Peter G. Bushnell, Jørgen S. Christiansen, Jesper Olsen, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Richard W. Brill, Malene Simon, Kirstine F. Steffensen, and John F. Steffensen. “Eye Lens Radiocarbon Reveals Centuries of Longevity in the Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus).” Science 353, no. 6300 (Aug. 12, 2016): 702-04.

Colorful Coral Reef Is Thriving in Hot Water

(p. D1) In 2003, researchers declared Coral Castles dead.
On the floor of a remote island lagoon halfway between Hawaii and Fiji, the giant reef site had been devastated by unusually warm water. Its remains looked like a pile of drab dinner plates tossed into the sea. Research dives in 2009 and 2012 had shown little improvement in the coral colonies.
Then in 2015, a team of marine biologists was stunned and overjoyed to find Coral Castles, genus Acropora, once again teeming with life. But the rebound came with a big question: Could the enormous and presumably still fragile coral survive what would be the hottest year on record?
This month, the Massachusetts-based research team finished a new exploration of the reefs in the secluded Phoenix Islands, a tiny Pacific archipelago, and were thrilled by what they saw. When they splashed out of an inflatable dinghy to examine Coral Castles closely, they were greeted with a vista of bright greens and purples — unmistakable signs of life.
“Everything looked just magnificent,” said Jan Witting, the expedition’s chief scientist and a researcher at Sea Education Association, based in Woods Hole, Mass.
. . .
(p. D6) If Coral Castles can continue to revive after years of apparent lifelessness, even as water temperatures rise, there might be hope for other reefs with similar damage, said another team member, Randi Rotjan, a research scientist who led and tracked the Phoenix Islands expedition from her base at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
No one actually knows what drives reef resilience or even what a coral reef looks like as it is rebounding. In remote, hard-to-get-to places, our understanding of coral is roughly akin to a doctor’s knowing only what a patient looks like in perfect health and after death, Dr. Rotjan said.

For the full story, see:
KAREN WEINTRAUB. “In Splash of Colors, Signs of Hope for Coral Reefs.” The New York Times (Tues., AUG. 16, 2016): D1 & D6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date AUG. 15, 2016, and has the title “Giant Coral Reef in Protected Area Shows New Signs of Life.” The print version gave incorrect affiliation for Jan Witting. The version above is the online version.)

Mather and Boylston Risked Much to Fight Smallpox

I enjoyed reading the book reviewed below. From the title, and from reviews, I had the impression that it would mostly be about the smallpox epidemic and the innoculation conflict. I was surprised that of equal, or greater, importance in the book is the role of James Franklin’s newspaper in laying the intellectual groundwork for the American Revolution. I learned from that part of the book too, but some might feel misled from the title about what the book was mainly about. (I think “fever” in the title is intended as a double entendre, referring both to a fever from smallpox, and a fever from the ideas of liberty.)

(p. A11) Inoculation was proposed by Cotton Mather, a figure much diminished in the 30 years since Salem. He had suffered a terrible sequence of tragedies, losing his wife and 10 of his children to accidents and epidemic disease. He had also been marginalized within the religious community by quarrels and scandals. But he had become an assiduous student of science, corresponding with the Royal Society in London and learning from its “Transactions” that inoculation against smallpox had long been practiced in Constantinople. Mr. Coss shows how Mather’s investigations led him to consult a source closer to home. His slave Onesimus, when asked whether he had ever had smallpox, replied “both Yes, and No”: He had been inoculated as a child in Africa, receiving a mild infection and subsequent immunity.

Inoculation was commonplace across swaths of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, Mr. Coss explains, but this inclined the doctors of Enlightenment-era Europe to regard it as a primitive superstition. Such was the view of William Douglass, the only man in Boston with the letters “M.D.” after his name, who was convinced that “infusing such malignant filth” in a healthy subject was lethal folly. The only person Mather could persuade to perform the operation was a surgeon, Zabdiel Boylston, whose frontier upbringing made him sympathetic to native medicine and who was already pockmarked from a near-fatal case of the disease.
“Given that attempting inoculation constituted an almost complete leap of faith for Boylston,” Mr. Coss writes, “he spent surprisingly little time agonizing over it.” He knew personally just how savage the toll could be. On June 26, 1721, just as the epidemic began to rage in earnest, Boyston filled a quill with the fluid from an infected blister and scratched it into the skin of two family slaves and his own young son.
News of the experiment was greeted with public fury and terror that it would spread the contagion. A town-hall meeting was convened, at Dr. Douglass’s instigation, at which inoculation was condemned and banned. Mather’s house was firebombed with an incendiary device to which a note was attached: “I will inoculate you with this.”

For the full review, see:
MIKE JAY. “‘BOOKSHELF; An Ounce of Prevention; When Cotton Mather advocated inoculation during a smallpox outbreak, young Benjamin Franklin helped foment outrage against him.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., March 3, 2016): A11.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 2, 2016, and has the title “‘BOOKSHELF; When Ben Franklin Was Against Vaccines; When Cotton Mather advocated inoculation during a smallpox outbreak, young Benjamin Franklin helped foment outrage against him.”)

The book under review, is:
Coss, Stephen. The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

Iowa State Students Go Bananas to Save (or Harm?) African Children

(p. A11) Student activists at Iowa State University are up in arms after researchers offered to pay them almost a thousand bucks to eat some genetically modified banana. The bananas, created by an Australian scientist, contain high levels of beta carotene, which converts to vitamin A when eaten.
. . .
“Those students are acting out of ignorance,” Jerome Kubiriba, the head of the National Banana Research Program in Uganda, tells me. “It’s one thing to read about malnutrition; it’s another to have a child who is constantly falling sick yet, due to limited resources, the child cannot get immediate and constant medical care. If they knew the truth about the need for vitamin A and other nutrients for children in Uganda and Africa, they’d get a change of heart.”

For the full commentary, see:
JULIE KELLY. “Anti-GMO Students Bruise a Superbanana.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 15, 2016): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 14, 2016.)

Many Discoveries Take a Long Time Because “No One Really Looked”

Periods are a strange phenomenon. We don’t know why humans have them, or, to look at it another way, why most other animals don’t. Scientists say only 1.5 percent of mammal species have periods, and most of those are primates like us. The ranks of the menstrually afflicted grew a little bit recently, as researchers learned that female spiny mice have periods, too. They shared their findings on the bioRxiv preprint server.
. . .
Why did it take scientists so long to notice that these curious creatures were part of the period posse? “The answer, as with many discoveries in science, is that no one really looked,” said Hayley Dickinson, a reproductive physiologist and long-time spiny rat researcher at the University of Monash. “Everyone knew that rodents didn’t menstruate.”

For the full story, see:
Nowogrodzki, Anna. “First Rodent Found with a Humanlike Menstrual Cycle.” Nature (Fri., June 10, 2016).
(Note: ellipsis added.)

The preprint of the research mentioned above is:
Bellofiore, Nadia, Stacey J. Ellery, Jared Mamrot, David W. Walker, Peter Temple-Smith, and Hayley Dickinson. “First Evidence of a Menstruating Rodent: The Spiny Mouse (Acomys Cahirinus).” bioRxiv (June 3, 2016).

Scientists Reviving Extinct Tortoise Species

(p. D1) . . . the story of extinct Galápagos tortoises has taken a strange, (p. D5) and hopeful, twist.
More than a century ago, it turns out, sailors dumped saddlebacked tortoises they did not need into Banks Bay, near Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island. Luckily, tortoises can extend their necks above water and float on their backs. Many of them made it to shore, lumbered across the lava fields and interbred with Isabela’s native domed tortoises.
In 2008, scientists tagged and collected blood samples from more than 1,600 tortoises living on the flanks of the volcano. Back in the laboratory, there was a genetic eureka: Eighty-nine of the animals were part Floreana, whose full genetic profile DNA had been obtained from museum samples.
Some had genes indicating their parents were living purebred Floreana tortoises, hinting that the species may not be extinct after all.
Seventeen tortoises were shown to have high levels of Pinta DNA. Tortoises can live for more than 150 years, so some of them may well be George’s immediate next of kin.
Last month, scientists went back to find them. Their plan was to capture and separate tortoises with high levels of Pinta and Floreana DNA, and then breed animals that are genetically closest to the original species.
In just a few generations, it should be possible to obtain tortoises with 95 percent of their “lost” ancestral genes, the scientists said.

For the full story, see:
SANDRA BLAKESLEE. “A Lost Species Crawls Back to Life.” The New York Times (Tues., DEC. 15, 2015): D1 & D5.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date DEC. 14, 2015, and has the title “Scientists Hope to Bring a Galápagos Tortoise Species Back to Life.”)

Iceland Project Turns 95% of Carbon Dioxide into Calcite Rock

(p. A6) For years, scientists and others concerned about climate change have been talking about the need for carbon capture and sequestration.
. . .
Among the concerns about sequestration is that carbon dioxide in gaseous or liquid form that is pumped underground might escape back to the atmosphere. So storage sites would have to be monitored, potentially for decades or centuries.
But scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and other institutions have come up with a different way to store CO2 that might eliminate that problem. Their approach involves dissolving the gas with water and pumping the resulting mixture — soda water, essentially — down into certain kinds of rocks, where the CO2 reacts with the rock to form a mineral called calcite. By turning the gas into stone, scientists can lock it away permanently.
One key to the approach is to find the right kind of rocks. Volcanic rocks called basalts are excellent for this process, because they are rich in calcium, magnesium and iron, which react with CO2.
Iceland is practically all basalt, so for several years the researchers and an Icelandic utility have been testing the technology on the island. The project, called CarbFix, uses carbon dioxide that bubbles up naturally with the hot magma that powers a geothermal electrical generating plant 15 miles east of the capital, Reykjavik.
. . .
Early signs were encouraging: . . .
. . .
The scientists found that about 95 percent of the carbon dioxide was converted into calcite. And even more important, they wrote, the conversion happened relatively quickly — in less than two years.
“It’s beyond all our expectations,” said Edda Aradottir, who manages the project for the utility, Reykjavik Energy.
. . .
. . . the researchers say that there is enough porous basaltic rock around, including in the ocean floors and along the margins of continents.

For the full story, see:
HENRY FOUNTAIN. “Project in Iceland for Storing Carbon Shows Promise.” The New York Times (Fri., June 10, 2016): A6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JUNE 9, 2016, and has the title “Iceland Carbon Dioxide Storage Project Locks Away Gas, and Fast.”)

The research mentioned above was detailed in an academic paper in Science:
Matter, Juerg M., Martin Stute, Sandra Ó Snæbjörnsdottir, Eric H. Oelkers, Sigurdur R. Gislason, Edda S. Aradottir, Bergur Sigfusson, Ingvi Gunnarsson, Holmfridur Sigurdardottir, Einar Gunnlaugsson, Gudni Axelsson, Helgi A. Alfredsson, Domenik Wolff-Boenisch, Kiflom Mesfin, Diana Fernandez de la Reguera Taya, Jennifer Hall, Knud Dideriksen, and Wallace S. Broecker. “Rapid Carbon Mineralization for Permanent Disposal of Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emissions.” Science 352, no. 6291 (June 10, 2016): 1312-14.

New Technology Reveals Huge Helium Supplies

(p. A8) Helium’s role in superconductivity and other applications has grown so much that there have been occasional shortages. The gas forms in nature through radioactive decay of uranium and thorium, but exceedingly slowly; in practical terms, all the helium we will ever have already exists. And because it does not react with anything and is light, it can easily escape to the atmosphere.
. . .
But now scientists have figured out a way to explore specifically for helium. Using their techniques, they say, they have found a significant reserve of the gas in Tanzania that could help ease concerns about supplies.
. . .
Working with scientists from the University of Oxford and a small Norwegian start-up company called Helium One, the researchers prospected in a part of Tanzania where studies from the 1960s suggested helium might be seeping from the ground. The area is within the East African Rift, a region where one of Earth’s tectonic plates is splitting. The rifting has created many volcanoes.
Dr. Gluyas said the gas discovered in Tanzania may be as much as 10 percent helium, a huge proportion compared with most other sources. The researchers say the reservoir might contain as much as 54 billion cubic feet of the gas, or more than twice the amount currently in the Federal Helium Reserve, near Amarillo, Tex., which supplies about 40 percent of the helium used in the United States and is being drawn down.
The next step would be for Helium One or one of the major helium suppliers around the world to exploit the find.

For the full story, see:
HENRY FOUNTAIN. “A New Way to Search Out Elusive Helium.” The New York Times (Weds., JUNE 29, 2016): A8.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JUNE 28, 2016, and has the title “Scientists Devise New Way to Find an Elusive Element: Helium.”)

Majerus Did Not Need a Randomized Trial to Know that Aspirin Prevents Heart Attacks

(p. A21) Philip W. Majerus, a biochemist who was credited as being the first to theorize that taking small doses of aspirin regularly can prevent heart attacks and strokes in vulnerable patients, died last Wednesday [June 8, 2016] at his home in St. Louis. . . .
. . .
Even before his findings were confirmed in a study by other researchers a decade later, Dr. Majerus was taking aspirin daily.
“I was already convinced that aspirin prevented heart attacks,” he recalled in the journal Advances in Biological Regulation in 2014. “I was unwilling to be randomized into a trial where I might end up with the placebo. I refused to participate.”
Dr. Majerus recommended that “all adults should take an aspirin daily unless they are among the few percent of the population that cannot tolerate the drug.” The cardiovascular benefit of aspirin was fully achieved by 50 to 75 milligrams daily, he said, and “there is no evidence that branded aspirin, which is much more expensive, is in any way superior to the generic version.”
Later studies found that for people in their 50s who are vulnerable to heart disease, taking daily doses of aspirin reduces the risk of heart disease.
. . .
Investigating how aspirin inhibited clotting, Dr. Majerus concluded that the medicine modified an enzyme that leads to the formation of a platelet-made molecule that constricts blood vessels and aggregates platelets. The pills’ effect lasts for the platelets’ life span, typically about two weeks.
“Phil Majerus, more than any other individual, has produced the most original body of work on biochemistry of platelets as it relates to thrombosis,” Prof. Joseph L. Goldstein, a Nobel laureate at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said when the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award was announced.

For the full obituary, see:
SAM ROBERTS. “Dr. Philip Majerus, Who Recognized Heart Benefits of Aspirin, Is Dead at 79.” The New York Times (Weds., JUNE 15, 2016): A23.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date JUNE 14, 2016, and has the title “Dr. Philip Majerus, Who Discerned Aspirin’s Heart Benefits, Dies at 79.”)

Details of a Case of Gene Transfer Between Species

(p. A7) . . . in recent years, scientists have pinpointed many instances of horizontal gene transfer–genes being ferried from one species into an entirely unrelated species that happens to live in the same environment.
For example, a gene from a species of bacteria has been discovered in the genome of the coffee berry borer beetle, where it enables the beetle to feed exclusively on coffee beans. It is through horizontal gene transfer that bacteria typically develop antibiotic resistance.
A few months ago, a team of U.K. researchers concluded that the “jumping gene” method enabled humans to acquire more than 145 foreign genes from bacteria, viruses and fungi over the course of our evolution.
The big mystery is: How does this happen? In the latest study, researchers suggest a possible route whereby the genes of parasitic wasps jump into the genomes of butterflies and moths.

For the full story, see:
GAUTAM NAIK. “Scientists Find How Genes Jump Species.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Sept. 18, 2015): A7.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 17, 2016, and has the title “Scientists Learn How Genes Can Jump Between Species.”)

The academic paper reporting the possible details of a process of horizontal gene transfer, is:
Gasmi, Laila, Helene Boulain, Jeremy Gauthier, Aurelie Hua-Van, Karine Musset, Agata K. Jakubowska, Jean-Marc Aury, Anne-Nathalie Volkoff, Elisabeth Huguet, Salvador Herrero, and Jean-Michel Drezen. “Recurrent Domestication by Lepidoptera of Genes from Their Parasites Mediated by Bracoviruses.” PLoS Genetics 11, no. 9 (Sept. 17, 2015): e1005470.