Updating Darwin’s theory of evolution

Three years ago, researchers led by a professor at the university of Linköping in Sweden created a henhouse that was specially designed to make its chicken occupants feel stressed. The lighting was manipulated to make the rhythms of night and day unpredictable, so the chickens lost track of when to eat or roost. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, they showed a significant decrease in their ability to learn how to find food hidden in a maze.

The surprising part is what happened next: the chickens were moved back to a non-stressful environment, where they conceived and hatched chicks who were raised without stress – and yet these chicks, too, demonstrated unexpectedly poor skills at finding food in a maze. They appeared to have inherited a problem that had been induced in their mothers through the environment. Further research established that the inherited change had altered the chicks’ “gene expression” – the way certain genes are turned “on” or “off”, bestowing any given animal with specific traits. The stress had affected the mother hens on a genetic level, and they had passed it on to their offspring.

The Swedish chicken study was one of several recent breakthroughs in the youthful field of epigenetics, which primarily studies the epigenome, the protective package of proteins around which genetic material – strands of DNA – is wrapped. The epigenome plays a crucial role in determining which genes actually express themselves in a creature’s traits: in effect, it switches certain genes on or off, or turns them up or down in intensity. It isn’t news that the environment can alter the epigenome; what’s news is that those changes can be inherited. And this doesn’t, of course, apply only to chickens: some of the most striking findings come from research involving humans.

One study, again from Sweden, looked at lifespans in Norrbotten, the country’s northernmost province, where harvests are usually sparse but occasionally overflowing, meaning that, historically, children sometimes grew up with wildly varying food intake from one year to the next. A single period of extreme overeating in the midst of the usual short supply, researchers found, could cause a man’s grandsons to die an average of 32 years earlier than if his childhood food intake had been steadier. Your own eating patterns, this implies, may affect your grandchildren’s lifespans, years before your grandchildren – or even your children – are a twinkle in anybody’s eye. …

If what happens to you during your lifetime – living in a stress-inducing henhouse, say, or overeating in northern Sweden – can affect how your genes express themselves in future generations, the absolutely simple version of natural selection begins to look questionable. Rather than genes simply “offering up” a random smorgasbord of traits in each new generation, which then either prove suited or unsuited to the environment, it seems that the environment plays a role in creating those traits in future generations, if only in a short-term and reversible way. You begin to feel slightly sorry for the much-mocked pre-Darwinian zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, whose own version of evolution held, most famously, that giraffes have long necks because their ancestors were “obliged to browse on the leaves of trees and to make constant efforts to reach them”. As a matter of natural history, he probably wasn’t right about how giraffes’ necks came to be so long. But Lamarck was scorned for a much more general apparent mistake: the idea that lifestyle might be able to influence heredity. “Today,” notes David Shenk, “any high school student knows that genes are passed on unchanged from parent to child, and to the next generation and the next. Lifestyle cannot alter heredity. Except now it turns out that it can . . .”

Epigenetics is the most vivid reason why the popular understanding of evolution might need revising, but it’s not the only one. We’ve learned that huge proportions of the human genome consist of viruses, or virus-like materials, raising the notion that they got there through infection – meaning that natural selection acts not just on random mutations, but on new stuff that’s introduced from elsewhere. Relatedly, there is growing evidence, at the level of microbes, of genes being transferred not just vertically, from ancestors to parents to offspring, but also horizontally, between organisms. The researchers Carl Woese and Nigel Goldenfield conclude that, on average, a bacterium may have obtained 10% of its genes from other organisms in its environment. …

via Why everything you’ve been told about evolution is wrong | Science | The Guardian.

Banana Museum Curator Must Split

Ken Bannister is going bananas because no one wants his bananas.

Over the past 38 years, Mr. Bannister has collected more than 17,000 banana-themed artifacts. He is the founder of the International Banana Club and Museum in Hesperia, Calif., in the High Desert northeast of Los Angeles.

On Jan. 8, he received a letter from the Hesperia Recreation & Parks District informing him the banana collection must go, because the district wants to bring in new blood to the city-owned space. It will be replaced by artifacts collected by the late John Swisher, a local historian. Mr. Bannister has until the end of the month to pack up his bananas.

“I guess it’s time to split,” he says.

The collection includes a banana golf putter, banana beverages, and a gold-sequined “Michael Jackson banana.” Mr. Bannister organizes the goods into “hard” (brass, lead, wood, plastic banana wares) and “soft” (stuffed bananas, banana beach mats, banana tents). He estimates the effort has cost him over $150,000 over the years.

There are other fruit and vegetable museums. The Carrot Museum in England boasts more than 1,000 items. The National Apple Museum of Biglerville, Pa., has a related Apple Core Band. And the Vidalia Onion Museum in Georgia will open a new 1,500 square-foot space in April. Still, the banana museum holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for the “world’s largest collection devoted to any one fruit.”

It all began in 1972, when Mr. Bannister worked as the president of a photo-equipment manufacturing company. As a joke, a secretary handed him 10,000 Chiquita banana stickers to distribute at a manufacturers conference. She received them from her husband, a stevedore, and they were an instant hit at the conference.

Friends started sending in banana merchandise, which quickly crammed Mr. Bannister’s office. Soon thereafter, he opened his museum in Altadena, Calif., where it stayed until it moved 80 miles to its current Hesperia location in 2005. Most of the items are sent in from fans who hear about the collection.

via Banana Museum Curator Must Split – WSJ.com.

Sixteen UFO Cases Reported on Earthquake Night

The earthquake was followed by a boom in UFO sightings, but sixteen cases occurred on the night of the tragedy alone (some of them accompanied by significant visual material) which have been subjected to study by UFO researchers.

Researcher Rodrigo Fuenzalida told Publimetro that the highest concentrations of reports appear to be Las Condes, Peñalolén, Providencia and Colina. “We have eyewitness testimony from a couple that refused to sleep in their apartment on the night of the earthquake, choosing instead to spend the early morning hours in the street. They were able to see an object that looked much like the moon, but immediately realized that the moon was on the other side. This event may have been seen by residents of other communes,” said Fuenzalida.

Another major sighting took place on Isla Robinson Crusoe, part of the Juan Fernandez Archipelago, where people witnessed an object emerging from the sea shortly before the earthquake.

Regarding the case involving a humanoid — reported by passengers on a bus in Iquique — Fuenzalida notes that while startling, he is aware of other similar cases, but people “do not dare report them, fearing that they will not be believed.

“I’ve heard of the manifestations of these “luminous men”, said the ufologist. “We are in an ideal period for sightings. I would ask everyone to be alert, but be mindful to avoid confusion, or a state of hysteria.”

via Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology: Chile: Sixteen UFO Cases Reported on Earthquake Night.

23,000 year old stone wall found at entrance to cave in Greece

An undated handout photo shows an prehistorical stone wall. Greek experts discovered the oldest stony wall of the country, blocking the entrance of a cavern for 23,000 years in Thessalia, in the north. (Photo: Greek Culture Ministry)

The oldest stone wall in Greece, which has stood at the entrance of a cave in Thessaly for the last 23,000 years, has been discovered by palaeontologists, the ministry of culture said Monday.

The age of the find, determined by an optical dating test, singles it out as “probably one of the oldest in the world”, according to a ministry press release.

“The dating matches the coldest period of the most recent ice age, indicating that the cavern’s paleolithic inhabitants built it to protect themselves from the cold”, said the ministry.

The wall blocked two-thirds of the entrance to the cave, located close to Kalambaka, itself near the popular tourist area and monastic centre of Meteora in central Greece. Greek palaeontologists have been excavating the site for the last 25 years.

via 23,000 year old stone wall found at entrance to cave in Greece.

Fungi can change quickly, pass along infectious ability

Fungi have significant potential for “horizontal” gene transfer, a new study has shown, similar to the mechanisms that allow bacteria to evolve so quickly, become resistant to antibiotics and cause other serious problems.

This discovery, to be published March 18 in the journal Nature, suggests that fungi have the capacity to rapidly change the make-up of their genomes and become infectious to plants and possibly animals, including humans.

They are not nearly as confined to the more gradual processes of conventional evolution as had been believed, scientists say. And this raises issues not only for crop agriculture but also human health, because fungi are much closer on the “evolutionary tree” to humans than bacteria, and consequently fungal diseases are much more difficult to treat.

The genetic mechanisms fungi use to do this are different than those often used by bacteria, but the end result can be fairly similar. The evolution of virulence in fungal strains that was once believed to be slow has now been shown to occur quickly, and may force a renewed perspective on how fungi can behave, change and transfer infectious abilities.

“Prior to this we’ve believed that fungi were generally confined to vertical gene transfer or conventional inheritance, a slower type of genetic change based on the interplay of DNA mutation, recombination and the effects of selection,” said Michael Freitag, an assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Oregon State University.

“But in this study we found fungi able to transfer an infectious capability to a different strain in a single generation,” he said. “We’ve probably underestimated this phenomenon, and it indicates that fungal strains may become pathogenic faster than we used to think possible.” …

Fungal diseases are a major problem in crop agriculture, and billions of dollars are spent around the world every year to combat new and emerging fungal pathogens in plants, animals and humans.

On a more basic level, this study provides evidence that the “tree of life,” with one trunk and many branches, is outdated. It should be replaced by a “network of life” in which many horizontal connections occur between different species.

via Fungi can change quickly, pass along infectious ability.

University of Kansas researcher investigates mysterious stone spheres in Costa Rica

The ancient stone spheres of Costa Rica were made world-famous by the opening sequence of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” when a mockup of one of the mysterious relics nearly crushed Indiana Jones. So perhaps John Hoopes is the closest thing at the University of Kansas to the movie action hero.

Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program, recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica where he and colleagues evaluated the stone balls for UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization that might grant the spheres World Heritage Status.

His report will help determine if sites linked to the massive orbs will be designated for preservation and promotion because of their “outstanding value to humanity.”

Hoopes, who researches ancient cultures of Central and South America, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Costa Rican spheres. He explained that although the stone spheres are very old, international interest in them is still growing.

“The earliest reports of the stones come from the late 19th century, but they weren’t really reported scientifically until the 1930s — so they’re a relatively recent discovery,” Hoopes said. “They remained unknown until the United Fruit Company began clearing land for banana plantations in southern Costa Rica.”

According to Hoopes, around 300 balls are known to exist, with the largest weighing 16 tons and measuring eight feet in diameter. Many of these are clustered in Costa Rica’s Diquis Delta region. Some remain pristine in the original places of discovery, but many others have been relocated or damaged due to erosion, fires and vandalism.

The KU researcher said that scientists believe the stones were first created around 600 A.D., with most dating to after 1,000 A.D. but before the Spanish conquest.

“We date the spheres by pottery styles and radiocarbon dates associated with archeological deposits found with the stone spheres,” Hoopes said. “One of the problems with this methodology is that it tells you the latest use of the sphere but it doesn’t tell you when it was made. These objects can be used for centuries and are still sitting where they are after a thousand years. So it’s very difficult to say exactly when they were made.”

via Paleontology news: University of Kansas researcher investigates mysterious stone spheres in Costa Rica.

Dinosaurs’ dominance ‘helped by mass volcanism’

Immense volcanic activity helped the dinosaurs rise to prominence some 200 million years ago, a study suggests.

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrates on land for some 135 million years.

While it is widely accepted that an asteroid or comet wiped them out, there has been less agreement on the factors which led to their ascendancy.

Research in PNAS journal suggests volcanic eruptions changed the climate, causing a mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs’ main competitors.

The scientific paper, by researchers from the US and Taiwan, looked at several lines of evidence such as the remains of plant wax and wood from sedimentary rocks interbedded with lava flows. From these, they were able to extract vital data about the climate at this time.

The lava flows are dated to the end-Triassic extinction, 201.4 million years ago, which wiped out 50% of tetrapods (four-limbed animals) on land, 50% of terrestrial plants and 20% of marine families.

The scientists examined how two different isotopes (or forms) of carbon fluctuated during these volcanic eruptions. They found that the “heavy” form of carbon was depleted relative to the “light” form.

Super greenhouse

They say this reflects disturbances in the carbon cycle at this time, including a spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and aerosols (fine solid particles).

This would have resulted in “super” greenhouse warming, according to lead author Jessica Whiteside, a geologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

“We are showing that these events are synchronous with the extinction and that the events all occur within a few tens of thousands of years of the eruption of these huge lava flows,” Dr Whiteside told BBC News. …

via BBC News – Dinosaurs’ dominance ‘helped by mass volcanism’.

Are cosmic rays really causing Toyota’s woes?

It may sound far-fetched, but federal regulators are studying whether sudden acceleration in Toyotas is linked to cosmic rays.

Radiation from space long has affected airplanes and spacecraft, and is known for triggering errors in computer systems, but has received scant attention in the auto industry.

The questions show how deep regulators and automakers may have to dig to solve the mysteries of sudden acceleration. Toyota says it is fixing mechanical problems — floor mats and sticky pedals — that explain sudden acceleration in 13 models and 5.6 million vehicles.

But at least half of more than 1,500 recent complaints to regulators involve other models, raising questions whether Toyota has fixed its problem.

An anonymous tipster whose complaint prompted regulators to look at the issue said the design of Toyota’s microprocessors, memory chips and software could make them more vulnerable than those of other automakers.

“I think it could be a real issue with Toyota,” Sung Chung, who runs a California testing firm, said.

Toyota, which has led the auto industry in using electronic controls, told the Free Press its engine controls are “robust against this type of interference.”

Cosmic rays offered as acceleration cause

Electronics makers have known for decades about “single event upsets,” computer errors from radiation created when cosmic rays strike the atmosphere.

With more than 3,000 complaints to U.S. regulators of random sudden acceleration problems in Toyota models, several researchers say single event upsets deserve a close look.

The phenomenon can trigger software crashes that come and go without a trace. Unlike interference from radio waves, there’s no way to physically block particles; such errors typically have to be prevented by a combination of software and hardware design.

And an anonymous tipster told NHTSA last month that “the automotive industry has yet to truly anticipate SEUs.”

Such radiation “occurs virtually anywhere,” said William Price, who spent 20 years at the Jet Propulsion Lab testing for radiation effects on electronics. “It doesn’t happen in a certain locale like you would expect in an electromagnetic problem from a radio tower or something else.”

Toyota staunchly defends its electronics, saying they were designed for “absolute reliability.” Responding to the Free Press, Toyota said its systems “are not the same as typical consumer electronics. The durability, size, susceptibility and specifications of the automotive electronics make them robust against this type of interference.”

Testing for the problem would involve putting vehicles in front of a particle accelerator and showering them with radiation, a step that experts said would help resolve the question.

“Nobody wants to come out and say we have issues and we need to test,” said Sung Chung, president of the testing firm Eigenix. …

via Are cosmic rays really causing Toyota’s woes? | freep.com | Detroit Free Press.

World’s first amphibious insects discovered

The world’s first amphibious insects have been discovered by scientists.

The tiny caterpillars belong to the moth genus Hyposmocoma which includes an enormously diverse group of at least 350 species found only on Hawaii.

Entomologist Professor Daniel Rubinoff and colleagues observed larvae feeding and breathing in streams and on dry rocks – a newly discovered phenomenon.

Many insects can withstand extreme conditions in a dormant state, but never before has one been known to survive an entire life cycle above and below the water’s surface.

The team sequenced the caterpillars’ genes and say their versatility represent an example of parallel evolution – a rare event in which unrelated organisms develop similar characteristics simply by living in the same place.

And they believe it has occurred three separate times during Hyposmocoma’s history beginning six million years ago before the current islands existed.

Prof Rubinoff, of Hawaii University, said similar patterns of parallel evolution have also been found in damselflies and birds which are unique to the islands.

Four species of Hyposmocoma including molluscivora have been discovered to binds snails with silk webbing before devouring them whole – the first caterpillars known to eat snails or molluscs of any kind.

This behaviour occurs nowhere else on Earth. The overwhelming majority of caterpillars are vegetarians and even the few known predatory groups feed exclusively on insects.

But peculiar adaptations are par for the course in Hawaii – the most remote islands in the world – which also boasts spiders that impale flying insects with their long claws.

Such oddities are probably a result of the islands’ great isolation which means many ecological niches normally exploited by other animals remain vacant. …

via World’s first amphibious insects discovered – Telegraph.

Military application of Transcendental Meditation gaining acceptance

A leading scientific journal in Pakistan, The Journal of Management & Social Science,* recently published a paper titled “A New Role for the Military: Preventing Enemies from Arising-Reviving an Ancient Approach to Peace,” indicating that the military application of the Transcendental Meditation technique has merit. The paper discusses how militaries worldwide could use the Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi® program, founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, as a non-religious and scientifically verified way to prevent war and terrorism. When used in a military context, these meditation practices are known as Invincible Defense Technology (IDT).

The paper describes the concept of a “Prevention Wing of the Military,” a group of military personnel that practices the advanced TM-Sidhi program twice daily as a group. A group that reaches a critical threshold in size has been scientifically shown to reduce collective societal stress.

The paper hypothesizes that war, terrorism, and crime are caused by collective societal stress. The absence of collective stress translates into the absence of tension between countries, between religious groups, or even within individual terrorists. The paper proposes that, by applying this non-lethal and non-destructive technology, any military can reduce societal stress and prevent enemies from arising. If IDT prevents the emergence of enemies, the military has no one to fight, so the nation becomes invincible.

Over 50 scientific studies have found that when 1% of a given population practices Transcendental Meditation, or when sufficiently large groups practice the TM-Sidhi program together twice daily, measurable positive changes take place throughout society as a whole. The studies show decreased violence, crime, car accidents, and suicides, and improved quality of life in society. The paper reviews IDT research, such as a study published in the Yale University-edited Journal of Conflict Resolution showing that an intervention by a civilian group in Israel resulted in a 76% reduction in war deaths in neighboring Lebanon. Seven subsequent, consecutive experiments over a two-year period during the peak of the Lebanon war found:

• war-related fatalities decreased by 71% (p < 0.0000000001)
• war-related injuries fell by 68% (p < 0.000001)
• the level of conflict dropped by 48% (p < 0.00000001)
• cooperation among antagonists increased by 66% (p < 0.000001)

A follow-up study published in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality found that the likelihood that these combined results were due to chance is less than one in a quintillion. A global-scale study published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation documented a 72% drop in international terrorism when IDT groups were large enough to affect the global population. Terrorism returned to previous levels after the experiment. IDT’s causal mechanism is not completely understood. An explanation of the causality of IDT in biological terms was proposed in a study in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality (Walton et al 2005, 17: 339-373). Serotonin, a powerful neurotransmitter, has been shown to produce feelings of happiness, contentment, and even euphoria. Research indicates that low levels of serotonin correlate with aggression, poor emotional moods and violence. The study indicated that when the size of a group of IDT experts changed, serotonin production of people in the nearby community changed correspondingly. Since results were statistically significant, this study offers a plausible neurophysiologic mechanism that may explain reduced aggression and hostility in a whole society.

via Military application of Transcendental Meditation gaining acceptance.