Through several data stating that chimpanzees and humans are 97%, 98%, or 99% similar DNA wise mean one thing: chimpanzees are very closely related to humans. It can be easily observed that our body structure, intellect, and especially behavior and those of chimpanzees display some commonalities. With these in mind, do chimpanzees feel any emotional attachment to others? In a recent article, two experiments were initiated to observe how chimps respond to the death of those close to them.
Chimpanzees actually respond to dying chimps as well as dead chimps. This shows how highly developed their awareness of death in contrast to what has been suggested before. Researchers believe that this aspect is involved in their sense of self awareness much like their being able to self-recognize and displays of empathy for others.
A major difference between how humans react to the death of a close one and how the chimp reacts is truly different. Chimps tend to be more calm compared to humans be frenzied and becoming traumatized.
In the first study, the researchers were able to observe how much attention is paid to a dying adult female chimp. Before the chimp died, those around her groomed her as well as caressed her. By caressing her, the other chimps are testing for any signs of life or death. Right after she dies, the other chimps left her while her daughter stuck beside her mother throughout the night. For many days, the chimpanzees avoided going near the dead chimp’s sleeping spot.
In a different study, five members of semi-isolated chimp community were witnessed dead. Of the five, two were infants. The response from the mother chimps to her child’s death was to carry it on her back for weeks and months following their death. They also treat the dead as though they were alive such as carrying them everywhere, grooming them, and taking them into the nests during the day and night. As days pass, the mothers are able to let go little by little, allowing others to handle the dead.
This exemplifies how highly aware chimpanzees are concerning death. Also, this displays how strong the bonds are between mother and infant chimps. It’s truly amazing how readers are able to understand somewhat how the mother chimp feels or how an infant chimp feels about the death of the other. What truly surprised me was the fact that in spite of the dead infant chimp, the mother would allow other infants to play with the dead corpse as though it was normal. That’s going to an extreme.
Posted by Vinh Tran
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Male Combat Favors Female Biased Populations in Species
A group of herpetologists from Indiana University’s Biology Department, Steven Freedberg and Michael Wade, decided to combine several theories of environmental sex determination, and female gender selection to provide a more inclusive theory on reptilian sex determination. There was no actual experiment done to test their hypothesis, but the evidence and proven background theories provide a realistic commentary within their proposal.
Male vs. Male combat is present in many species throughout the animal world. However it is more rare in cold-blooded animals. Both the snapping turtles and in many crocodilians this male combat has shown determine male territories and establish a social hierarchy throughout the population. In snapping turtles males often have a significant amount of scars and missing claws when compared with females, which are indicative of a male cost to reproduction. As many of you know, the males at the top of the hierarchy achieve more access to mates and therefore have a higher reproductive success rate. This means that a male’s adult morphology plays a much larger role in how successful they are in passing their genes on to the next generation.
On the other side of the spectrum are the females. Crocodilian females typically live and breed in a male’s territory that he has established through fighting. A number of females can live within one male’s territory and all mate with the male who supplies the environment for them.
One theory that plays a role in sex determination in crocodilians is ESD or Environmental sex determination. This theory is relatively self-explanatory. It simply means that sex is determined through environmental cues such as temperature. This theory yields the hypothesis that an equilibrium sex ration is not 1:1, but rather favors the gender that is produced more frequently in poorer environments
Another theory that actually calculates which sex should be produced in these particular environments is the Trivers-Willard Hypotheses, which states that mothers produce females in poorer environments (particularly in species with male combativeness). In reptilians, temperature does play a role in gender identification, however there is no temperature pattern that coincides with gender determination across all species of reptilians.
A last theory that contributes to this overall picture is Shuster-Wade’s sexual dimorphism theory. In species where there is male combativeness there seems to be two outstanding male attributes. The first being that males have a selective pressure on size represented in their disparity in size when compared with females of the same species and secondly in their forced insemination patterns.
Freedberg and Wade are conveying a summary of these theories that pertains to species of Herps that display male combativeness. Their theory states that females are more common within these species because it is more fitness effective. Males have a larger selective pressure (competitive combat) in their adult stages to be successful breeders than females do. Therefore mothers will produce more females in poorer environments (which are more common in nature) and more males in richer environments to achieve their own reproductive success. These species achieve this gender determination by through environmental cues specific to their species. (ESD)
A group of herpetologists from Indiana University’s Biology Department, Steven Freedberg and Michael Wade, decided to combine several theories of environmental sex determination, and female gender selection to provide a more inclusive theory on reptilian sex determination. There was no actual experiment done to test their hypothesis, but the evidence and proven background theories provide a realistic commentary within their proposal.
Male vs. Male combat is present in many species throughout the animal world. However it is more rare in cold-blooded animals. Both the snapping turtles and in many crocodilians this male combat has shown determine male territories and establish a social hierarchy throughout the population. In snapping turtles males often have a significant amount of scars and missing claws when compared with females, which are indicative of a male cost to reproduction. As many of you know, the males at the top of the hierarchy achieve more access to mates and therefore have a higher reproductive success rate. This means that a male’s adult morphology plays a much larger role in how successful they are in passing their genes on to the next generation.
On the other side of the spectrum are the females. Crocodilian females typically live and breed in a male’s territory that he has established through fighting. A number of females can live within one male’s territory and all mate with the male who supplies the environment for them.
One theory that plays a role in sex determination in crocodilians is ESD or Environmental sex determination. This theory is relatively self-explanatory. It simply means that sex is determined through environmental cues such as temperature. This theory yields the hypothesis that an equilibrium sex ration is not 1:1, but rather favors the gender that is produced more frequently in poorer environments
Another theory that actually calculates which sex should be produced in these particular environments is the Trivers-Willard Hypotheses, which states that mothers produce females in poorer environments (particularly in species with male combativeness). In reptilians, temperature does play a role in gender identification, however there is no temperature pattern that coincides with gender determination across all species of reptilians.
A last theory that contributes to this overall picture is Shuster-Wade’s sexual dimorphism theory. In species where there is male combativeness there seems to be two outstanding male attributes. The first being that males have a selective pressure on size represented in their disparity in size when compared with females of the same species and secondly in their forced insemination patterns.
Freedberg and Wade are conveying a summary of these theories that pertains to species of Herps that display male combativeness. Their theory states that females are more common within these species because it is more fitness effective. Males have a larger selective pressure (competitive combat) in their adult stages to be successful breeders than females do. Therefore mothers will produce more females in poorer environments (which are more common in nature) and more males in richer environments to achieve their own reproductive success. These species achieve this gender determination by through environmental cues specific to their species. (ESD)
Friday, April 23, 2010
Promoting Health Through Coffee
Coffee is one of the most demanded drinks by people. People drink coffee to get up in the morning and to stay awake during the day. It seems like everyone is drinking coffee. For me, however, coffee isn’t such a big deal. I never drink it and feel that I would rather go without it because I like my body to naturally wake up on its own without the aid of some outside substance such as coffee. Although I assumed coffee as only helping a person wake up, it seems like coffee has other effects.
According to an article on science daily, coffee can help many different aspects of a person’s health. From the article, it seems like coffee can help lower chronic inflammation and raise our good cholesterol. It also contains nutrients such as calcium and other compounds that may promote health. Coffee’s role in helping to reduce type 2 diabetes was also mentioned in this article and, for me, was the most interesting and surprising.
Although I am still hesitant to drink coffee because I don’t want to become reliant on it, it seems like coffee would be good to drink for other reasons other than trying to become more awake in the morning and throughout the day. Because this article does not talk much about coffee’s role in helping to prevent type 2 diabetes, I would like to look at other sources to see more about this.
Posted by Kayla Perry
According to an article on science daily, coffee can help many different aspects of a person’s health. From the article, it seems like coffee can help lower chronic inflammation and raise our good cholesterol. It also contains nutrients such as calcium and other compounds that may promote health. Coffee’s role in helping to reduce type 2 diabetes was also mentioned in this article and, for me, was the most interesting and surprising.
Although I am still hesitant to drink coffee because I don’t want to become reliant on it, it seems like coffee would be good to drink for other reasons other than trying to become more awake in the morning and throughout the day. Because this article does not talk much about coffee’s role in helping to prevent type 2 diabetes, I would like to look at other sources to see more about this.
Posted by Kayla Perry
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Male monkeys use babies to make guy friends
It seems like a good plan. Whether it’s a cute baby or dog a cute defenseless being somehow allows one to better socialize with other. It’s the same for some monkeys as well, but I thought the benefit would be only meeting more females. Turns out I’m wrong.
A new study published in Animal Behavior has found that male Barbary macaques have a better chance of bonding when one is carrying an infant on their back. When the two males meet they undergo a ritual of sorts. Julia Fischer, one of the authors describes it, "[they] sit together, embrace each other, then they hold up the infant and nuzzle it. Their teeth chatter and lip smack while making low frequency grumbling noises."
There are significant benefits to having a bunch of guys as friends as well. One monkey rose from fifth to second place on the social ladder by having the most male friends. The baby also doesn’t even have to belong to male carrying it.
However the research also found a cost to using your baby as a “social tool.” Feces samples taken from males, who carry their babies, showed that they had higher stress levels. Baby macaques sound very similar to human infants when they cry, so its not surprising that the male gets stressed out when this happens.
Social benefits are known to occur for females holding a baby as well (more grooming and attention). Although, I was surprised to learn that the same thing occurred with males getting popular with the other men in the group and rising in rank. Yet another interesting behavior displayed by monkeys.
Posted by Daniel Solomon (3)
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Could Excessive Friday Night Drinking Lead to Cancer?
Typically college students spend their weekends partying. This social environment can lead to excessive drinking and alcohol consumption problems. We've heard that too much drinking can affect your liver and kidneys but today was the first time I heard it can affect the structure of your telomeres. What is the big concern? Well, your telomeres are important to the genetic stability of your cells. The telomeres are already shortening as age progresses due to the natural processes of the body which makes the genetic information in the cells less stable normally. Recent research has shown that excessive alcohol consumption could increase the progression of these telomeres shortening more rapidly that normal. This idea makes you wonder if the telomeres shortening is what makes heavy drinkers typically appear older than they really are. When cells are less stable due to telomeres shortening there is a greater risk of genetic mutations, which is the main cause of many cancer types.
In a recent article, " Excessive Alcohol Consumption May Lead to Increased Cancer Risk" the author describes current research lead by Andrea Baccarelli, M.D, Ph. D. who is the head of the Center of Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology , Ca' Granda Hospital Foundation at the University of Milan, Italy. Baccarelli currently is involved in research testing the relation of excessive drinking to shortening of telomeres. She preformed Polymerase Chain Reaction testing or PCR on all of her participants. This group was divided into people who abused alcohol and people who have variable alcohol consumption. To eliminate many variables this group were all similar in age, environment, diet, and other factors related to their everyday life. After testing results showed that the length of the telomeres where dramatically shorter in those participants who were excessive drinkers.
I was interested to see the results of this study. You always here of smoking being a lead cause in some cancer types and now excessive alcohol drinking is coming more serious in other ways the alcoholism. This article isn't saying that having one drink is going to cause your telomeres to dramatically shorten and cause a genetic mutation. This article is more of a warning that alcoholism can pose as a greater risk to health than we may have thought. So think twice before you drink that whole bottle of vodka next weekend it may not be worth it.
Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100421102336.htm
By Valerie Silva
In a recent article, " Excessive Alcohol Consumption May Lead to Increased Cancer Risk" the author describes current research lead by Andrea Baccarelli, M.D, Ph. D. who is the head of the Center of Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology , Ca' Granda Hospital Foundation at the University of Milan, Italy. Baccarelli currently is involved in research testing the relation of excessive drinking to shortening of telomeres. She preformed Polymerase Chain Reaction testing or PCR on all of her participants. This group was divided into people who abused alcohol and people who have variable alcohol consumption. To eliminate many variables this group were all similar in age, environment, diet, and other factors related to their everyday life. After testing results showed that the length of the telomeres where dramatically shorter in those participants who were excessive drinkers.
I was interested to see the results of this study. You always here of smoking being a lead cause in some cancer types and now excessive alcohol drinking is coming more serious in other ways the alcoholism. This article isn't saying that having one drink is going to cause your telomeres to dramatically shorten and cause a genetic mutation. This article is more of a warning that alcoholism can pose as a greater risk to health than we may have thought. So think twice before you drink that whole bottle of vodka next weekend it may not be worth it.
Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100421102336.htm
By Valerie Silva
Toward a Urine Test for Detecting Colon Cancer
When we reach certain age it advised by medical professionals to get colonoscopy at least every 3 years to screen for colon cancer which is reported to be the third most common cancer in the United States. Colonoscopy involves using a flexible, lighted tube to see inside the colon, is the most effective tool for the early screening of colon cancer. The process of going through the test can be embarrassing for some people, thanks to science now moving towards a urine test to detect colon cancer.
The article from ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2010) — Scientists are reporting an advance toward development of a urine test for detecting colon cancer. Such a test could eventually compliment or even reduce the need for colonoscopy, the mainstay screening test used today. when scientists analyzed urine samples from 123 people 60 with colon cancer and 63 without, for differences in its composition. They identified 16 substances that appear in unusual amounts in colon cancer. The changes include increased levels of tryptophan, one of the 22 amino acids that are found in proteins. The results demonstrate the potential of using urine as a tool for diagnosing colon cancer as per involved scientists .
This is good news, it will reduce the pain, fear/anxiety or embarrassment that goes with the actual colonoscopy test. I guess this could also save a lot of money and time because patients will now be able to just provide urine sample for their initial assessment and probably not to undergo the colonoscopy unnecessarily .
Posted by Anna Moreno
The article from ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2010) — Scientists are reporting an advance toward development of a urine test for detecting colon cancer. Such a test could eventually compliment or even reduce the need for colonoscopy, the mainstay screening test used today. when scientists analyzed urine samples from 123 people 60 with colon cancer and 63 without, for differences in its composition. They identified 16 substances that appear in unusual amounts in colon cancer. The changes include increased levels of tryptophan, one of the 22 amino acids that are found in proteins. The results demonstrate the potential of using urine as a tool for diagnosing colon cancer as per involved scientists .
This is good news, it will reduce the pain, fear/anxiety or embarrassment that goes with the actual colonoscopy test. I guess this could also save a lot of money and time because patients will now be able to just provide urine sample for their initial assessment and probably not to undergo the colonoscopy unnecessarily .
Posted by Anna Moreno
Friday, April 16, 2010
Unaffected By Your Body Image Women? Think Again.
It seems that society has, is, and will most likely, always advertise an idealistic image of what a "typical" woman should look like to everyone. The question is not whether or not these images are right but what affects do they have on us? There will always be women that are negatively influenced by media sources when it comes to what they feel they should look like but what about the women that believe they are happy with how they look? Are they completely unaffected?
A study was done to better understand if the female brain was hardwired to be concerned with body image. This study focused on the resemblance between the brain of bulimic women versus the brain of healthy women when confronted with the thought that they might be overweight. The hope is that these findings might eventually aid doctors in better evaluating and treating body image issues regardless of how subtle they may be. This study could be evidence for the suspicion that most women are walking a fine like between having and not having an eating disorder.
To conduct the study this group focused on a particular part of the brain they referred to as the medial prefrontal cortex. This portion of the brain seems to be stimulated when people are exposed to questions that force them to engage in serious self-reflection. Scientists suspect that this particular area of the brain may betray the subconscious thoughts that people may have. This article made reference to another study with word association that showed people who did not believe themselves to be racist actually showed racist tendencies when they have no time to consciously override what is under the surface.
By using fMRI machines scientists scanned the brains of 10 "healthy" women who had all passed eating disorder screening tests and therefore, theoretically, felt perfectly fine with their bodies. While hooked up to brain scanners these women viewed images of models that were both skinny and overweight. These women were also told to imagine that someone else was telling them that these models looked like them. When the images were of overweight women the medial prefrontal cortex lit up in all women. The mere thought that these women were imagining themselves overweight seemed to trigger a response indicating that the women were questioning their sense of self. After these tests however, the women claimed that the tests were boring or meaningless. It seems that this article suggests that even though women say that they are comfortable with their body image and are well adjusted, subconsciously, they may really care.
While most men, excluding body builders, were unaffected by this kind of test we see that women seem to be. Even though women that have bulimia have a stronger reaction in their medial prefrontal cortex they seem to show similarities with women who do not suffer from it. Therefore, concluding from this study, there may just be an even finer line women walk between being healthy and suffering from an eating disorder. It just goes to show that even if you feel like you are the most confidant woman in the world you may be betrayed by your subconscious.
Caitlin Lavin
A study was done to better understand if the female brain was hardwired to be concerned with body image. This study focused on the resemblance between the brain of bulimic women versus the brain of healthy women when confronted with the thought that they might be overweight. The hope is that these findings might eventually aid doctors in better evaluating and treating body image issues regardless of how subtle they may be. This study could be evidence for the suspicion that most women are walking a fine like between having and not having an eating disorder.
To conduct the study this group focused on a particular part of the brain they referred to as the medial prefrontal cortex. This portion of the brain seems to be stimulated when people are exposed to questions that force them to engage in serious self-reflection. Scientists suspect that this particular area of the brain may betray the subconscious thoughts that people may have. This article made reference to another study with word association that showed people who did not believe themselves to be racist actually showed racist tendencies when they have no time to consciously override what is under the surface.
By using fMRI machines scientists scanned the brains of 10 "healthy" women who had all passed eating disorder screening tests and therefore, theoretically, felt perfectly fine with their bodies. While hooked up to brain scanners these women viewed images of models that were both skinny and overweight. These women were also told to imagine that someone else was telling them that these models looked like them. When the images were of overweight women the medial prefrontal cortex lit up in all women. The mere thought that these women were imagining themselves overweight seemed to trigger a response indicating that the women were questioning their sense of self. After these tests however, the women claimed that the tests were boring or meaningless. It seems that this article suggests that even though women say that they are comfortable with their body image and are well adjusted, subconsciously, they may really care.
While most men, excluding body builders, were unaffected by this kind of test we see that women seem to be. Even though women that have bulimia have a stronger reaction in their medial prefrontal cortex they seem to show similarities with women who do not suffer from it. Therefore, concluding from this study, there may just be an even finer line women walk between being healthy and suffering from an eating disorder. It just goes to show that even if you feel like you are the most confidant woman in the world you may be betrayed by your subconscious.
Caitlin Lavin
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