Spanish scientists develop echolocation in humans

A team of researchers from the University of Alcalá de Henares (UAH) has shown scientifically that human beings can develop echolocation, the system of acoustic signals used by dolphins and bats to explore their surroundings. Producing certain kinds of tongue clicks helps people to identify objects around them without needing to see them, something which would be especially useful for the blind.

“In certain circumstances, we humans could rival bats in our echolocation or biosonar capacity”, Juan Antonio Martínez, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Superior Polytechnic School of the UAH, tells SINC. The team led by this scientist has started a series of tests, the first of their kind in the world, to make use of human beings’ under-exploited echolocation skills.

In the first study, published in the journal Acta Acustica united with Acustica, the team analyses the physical properties of various sounds, and proposes the most effective of these for use in echolocation. “The almost ideal sound is the ‘palate click, a click made by placing the tip of the tongue on the palate, just behind the teeth, and moving it quickly backwards, although it is often done downwards, which is wrong”, Martínez explains.

The researcher says that palate clicks “are very similar to the sounds made by dolphins, although on a different scale, as these animals have specially-adapted organs and can produce 200 clicks per second, while we can only produce three or four”. By using echolocation, “which is three-dimensional, and makes it possible to ‘see’ through materials that are opaque to visible radiation” it is possible to measure the distance of an object based on the time that elapses between the emission of a sound wave and an echo being received of this wave as it is reflected from the object.

In order to learn how to emit, receive and interpret sounds, the scientists are developing a method that uses a series of protocols. This first step is for the individual to know how to make and identify his or her own sounds (they are different for each person), and later to know how to use them to distinguish between objects according to their geometrical properties “as is done by ships’ sonar”.

Some blind people had previously taught themselves how t

via Spanish scientists develop echolocation in humans.

Nobel Prize winner finds fundamentally different type of nerve receptor which may exist in humans

Although the tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has only 302 neurons in its entire nervous system, studies of this simple animal have significantly advanced our understanding of human brain function because it shares many genes and neurochemical signaling molecules with humans. Now MIT researchers have found novel C. elegans neurochemical receptors, the discovery of which could lead to new therapeutic targets for psychiatric disorders if similar receptors are found in humans.

Dopamine and serotonin are members of a class of neurochemicals called biogenic amines, which function in neuronal circuitry throughout the brain. Many drugs used to treat psychiatric disorders, including depression and schizophrenia, target these signaling systems, as do cocaine and other drugs of abuse. Scientists have long known of a class of biogenic-amine receptors that are G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and that, when activated, trigger a slow but long-lasting cascade of intracellular events that modulate nervous system activity.

A study in the July 3 issue of Science has found that in C. elegans these chemicals also act on receptors of a fundamentally different type. These receptors are chloride channels that open and close quickly in response to the binding of a neurochemical messenger. By allowing the passage of negatively charged chloride ions across the cell membrane, chloride channels can rapidly inactivate nerve cells.

“These results underscore the importance of determining whether, as in the C. elegans nervous system, a diversity of biogenic amine-gated chloride channels function in the human brain,” said H. Robert Horvitz of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and senior author of the study. “If so, such channels might define novel therapeutic targets for neuropsychiatric disorders, such as depression and schizophrenia.”

In 2000, Horvitz’s group discovered that serotonin activates a chloride channel they called MOD-1, which inhibits neuronal activity in C. elegans. …

“We now have four members of a family of chloride channels that can act as receptors for biogenic amines in the worm,” Ringstad said. “That these neurochemicals activate both GPCRs and ion channels means that they can have very complex actions in the nervous system, both as slow-acting neuromodulators and as fast-acting inhibitory neurotransmitters.”

It is unknown as yet whether an equivalent to this new class of worm receptor exists in the human brain, but Horvitz points out that worms have proved remarkably informative for providing insights into human biology. In 2002, Horvitz shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery based on studies of C. elegans of the mechanism of programmed cell death, a central feature of some neurodegenerative diseases and many other disorders in humans.

“Historically, studies of C. elegans have delineated mechanisms of neurotransmission that subsequently proved to be conserved in humans,” says Horvitz, the David H. Koch Professor of Biology at MIT and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. “The next step is to look for chloride channels controlled by biogenic amines in mammalian neurons.”

via Researchers find new actions of neurochemicals

VLBA locates superenergetic bursts near giant black hole

Peering Deeper Into the Core of M87: At top left, a VLA image of the galaxy shows the radio-emitting jets at a scale of about 200,000 light-years. Subsequent zooms progress closer into the galaxy’s core, where the supermassive black hole resides. In the artist’s conception (background). the black hole illustrated at the center is about twice the size of our Solar System, a tiny fraction of the size of the galaxy, but holding some six billion times the mass of the Sun. Usi

sing a worldwide combination of diverse telescopes, astronomers have discovered that a giant galaxy’s bursts of very high energy gamma rays are coming from a region very close to the supermassive black hole at its core. The discovery provides important new information about the mysterious workings of the powerful “engines” in the centers of innumerable galaxies throughout the Universe.

The galaxy M87, 50 million light-years from Earth, harbors at its center a black hole more than six billion times more massive than the Sun. Black holes are concentrations of matter so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull. The black hole is believed to draw material from its surroundings — material that, as it falls toward the black hole, forms a tightly-rotating disk.

The scientists reported their findings in the July 2 online edition of the journal Science.

Processes near this “accretion disk,” powered by the immense gravitational energy of the black hole, propel energetic material outward for thousands of light-years. This produces the “jets” seen emerging from many galaxies. In 1998, astronomers found that M87 also was emitting flares of gamma rays a trillion times more energetic than visible light.

However, the telescopes that discovered these bursts of very high energy gamma rays could not determine exactly where in the galaxy they originated. In 2007 and 2008, the astronomers using these gamma-ray telescopes combined forces with a team using the National Science Foundation’s continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a radio telescope with extremely high resolving power, or ability to see fine detail.

“Combining the gamma-ray observations with the supersharp radio ‘vision’ of the VLBA allowed us to see that the gamma rays are coming from a region very near the black hole itself,” said Craig Walker, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

via VLBA locates superenergetic bursts near giant black hole.

Jellyfish Robot Swims Like its Biological Counterpart

“Jellyfish are one of the most awesome marine animals, doing a spectacular and psychedelic dance in water,” explain engineers Sung-Weon Yeom and Il-Kwon Oh from Chonnam National University in the Republic of Korea. Recently, Yeom and Oh have built a jellyfish robot that imitates the curved shape and unique locomotive behavior of the living jellyfish.

As the researchers explain, advances in electro-active polymers (EAP) enabled them to achieve this biomimetic swimming behavior in a robot. One specific type of EAP, ionic polymer metal composites (IMPC), can be used to make actuators that behave like biological muscles, exhibiting large bending under a low applied voltage. The muscle material has several advantages for biomimetic robots, such as compactness, high power efficiency, controllable steering, and quiet locomotion. In this study, the researchers used this material, permanently bending it to mimic the living jellyfish’s bell (the hemispherical top part).

“This is the first jellyfish robot based on the electro-active polymer artificial muscle,” Oh told PhysOrg.com. “They could be used as entertainment robots, micro/nano-robots, and biomedical robots in the near future.”

Living jellyfish, the authors note, can vary in size from a few inches up to seven feet in diameter. Yet all jellyfish use a similar, simple swimming mechanism. By contracting its bell, the animal reduces the space underneath it, forcing water out through a lower opening near its mouth and tentacles. This pulsating motion allows the jellyfish to partially control its vertical movement. This ability is important, since jellyfish are photosensitive and prefer deeper water at brighter times of day. Although living jellyfish can move vertically, they passively depend on ocean current, tides, and wind for horizontal movement.

Previous research on the locomotion of living jellyfish has found that, if the animal’s muscles force the bell to contract at its resonant frequency, less energy is required for movement. In their study, the researchers mimicked the natural pulse and recovery processes of the living jellyfish. They found that the bio-inspired periodic input signal enables the jellyfish robot to obtain a large floating velocity upward; in comparison, harmonic sinusoidal signals do not push the robot upward.

via Jellyfish Robot Swims Like its Biological Counterpart.

NASA – LRO’s First Moon Images

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the moon on June 23. The spacecraft’s two cameras, collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface.

“Our first images were taken along the moon’s terminator — the dividing line between day and night — making us initially unsure of how they would turn out,” said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. “Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is nearly ready to begin its mission.”

via NASA – LRO’s First Moon Images.

Perfect Pitch Pill?

As we shape our evolution more and more, we may seek out people with genetic traits we desire not only for breeding, but in an immediate sense, so we may plug their traits into our own bodies. How many years away are we from abilities like this? 50? 100? 500? 2000?  If good genes lead to perfect pitch, I hope we get to a point where we could take a perfect pitch pill.

Practice, practice, practice might get you to Carnegie Hall, but for aspiring musicians, there’s new evidence that genes may influence one’s ability to get there, as well.

Perfect pitch, also known as absolute pitch, is the rare ability to recognize and name musical notes without any reference pitch for comparison, detecting, for instance, A before middle C. The rarity of the aptitude contrasts with the common ability to immediately recognize and name colors, distinguishing pink from red or azure from blue.

In the July 2 online posting of “American Journal of Human Genetics,” UCSF scientists report that they identified a particular region of genes on human chromosome eight that is linked to perfect pitch, at least in people of European ancestry. The next step, they say, is to identify a specific gene.

The finding, part of a larger examination of families of various ancestries – Europeans, Ashkenazi Jews, Indians and East Asians – is the first significant genetic evidence of a role of genes in perfect pitch. It is likely, the researchers say, that multiple genes are involved in all cases of perfect pitch and that different genes could be associated with different ethnic backgrounds.

Regardless, the finding is an important advance, they say, in their effort to move in on the relative roles of early musical training and genetic inheritance on perfect pitch. More broadly, says senior author Jane Gitschier, PhD, UCSF professor of medicine, pediatrics and genetics, and herself a singer, it is an advance in the team’s effort to explore the relative contributions of environmental factors and genes on learning and other behaviors.

“Perfect pitch is a window into the way in which multiple genes and environmental factors influence cognitive or behavioral traits,” she says. The team has learned over the last decade that both factors contribute to perfect pitch. “What’s exciting now,” she says, “is that we now have made the first foray into teasing out the genes that may be involved.”

via- EurekaAlert

I’ve posted about perfect pitch previously: correcting wrong learned notes, paul mccartney making girls scream, absolute pitch test.