It felt like I was not going to find anything of interest today as I was quite busy but then some interesting bits and pieces showed up.
- Autism - Paul Offit, a vaccine expert, made the following comment concerning autism in a webchat: "I work in a hospital with David Mandell, Hakon Hakanarson, and Bob Schultz, all excellent researchers in the field of autism. And the story of the cause or causes of the disorder is clearly emerging. There's been a lot of wonderful research in this area that involves specific genes, the proteins those genes make, when they make them, structural abnormalities in the brains of children with ASD and others that offers some real hope for the future. I look forward to the time when these stories are the main story, rather than the unfortunate focus on a dead-end hypothesis like vaccines. That discussion has only hurt children with autism, causing some to miss vaccines from which they would have benefited." [1] This is definitely something I want to read more about.
- Bonobo - These apes have a matriachal structure which leads to a highly tolerant society where no fatal violence has been observed as yet. Unfortunately they live in the Congo jungle and so they are hard to study as it's the scene of violent conflict which also endangers their survival. These apes play throughout their lives, learning trust, bonding and building tolerance. They are known as the "make love not war" apes. They show play as an adaptive wild card. As for us, play is not frivolous, but essentual. [2]
- Salmonella Hijacks Macrophages - Salmonella replicates inside macrophages, the cells usually used to destroy bacteria and viruses in the body. When the Salmonella is engulfed by a macrophage, the macrophage encloses it in a 'phagosome.' Within a phagsome the environment is make inhospitable (acidic) with the purpose that everything will be destroyed. However, with Salmonella, the Salmonella stops the environment from getting too nasty and makes itself comfortable, replicating wildly. There are various triggers which start to make the environment inhospitable. If two of these are knocked out, as you might expect, the immune response isn't so good. If, however, all these triggers are knocked out, the salmonella doesn't replicate as it seems that it requires the acidity in order to 'know' it's in the right place to replicate. [3]
- Bats - The lesser bulldog bat uses recently caught insects to fuel its flying which has been measured by a breath test which detects exhaled carbon-13. This is surprising because insects, consisting of mainly proteins and fats, do not form an easy energy source. Resting, fasted bats burn mainly stored fat for energy. [4]
- Octopuses - Octopuses have a central nervous system with a peripheral nervous system in their arms. How are the arms controlled? The octopus does not appear to have the exceptional computing mechanism required to control the arms so they seem to function autonomously. It appears that octopuses can learn to use visual information from the central nervous system to control the peripheral arms by watching what they are doing. [5, 6]
UPDATE: Cephalove: The octopus, the maze, and why it matters: behavioral flexibility and sensory-motor integration
- Exercise & Weight Loss - Hypotesis: "Thus, I would predict that people in whom overeating is driven by stress, depression, poor self-esteem, or unrestorative sleep, will lose weight when they take up exercising - not because they are burning calories, but because they are eating less." [7] I'll be interested to see any research that looks into this especially as the hypothesis fits in with my own experience.
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