Dark winters ‘led to bigger human brains and eyeballs’

Humans living at high latitude have bigger eyes and bigger brains to cope with poor light during long winters and cloudy days, UK scientists have said.

The Oxford University team said bigger brains did not make people smarter.

Larger vision processing areas fill the extra capacity, they write in the Royal Society’s Biology Letters journal.

The scientists measured the eye sockets and brain volumes of 55 skulls from 12 populations across the world, and plotted the results against latitude.

Lead author Eiluned Pearce told BBC News: “We found a positive relationship between absolute latitude and both eye socket size and cranial capacity.”

The team, from the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, used skulls dating from the 1800s kept at museums in Oxford and Cambridge.

The skulls were from indigenous populations ranging from Scandinavia to Australia, Micronesia and North America. …

The largest brain cavities came from Scandinavia, while the smallest were from Micronesia.

Eiluned Pearce said: “Both the amount of light hitting the Earth’s surface and winter day-lengths get shorter as you go further north or south from the equator. …

“They are also getting bigger brains, because we found this increase in cranial capacity as well. …

via BBC News – Dark winters ‘led to bigger human brains and eyeballs’.

If larger cranial capacity leads to larger brains, what abilities did the individuals with elongated skulls have? The skulls below (with large eye sockets) are from the Andean Paracas culture.

McCauley family scoops third US lottery win

A lucky US mother and daughter from North Carolina have beaten all the odds by winning the lottery three times.

Kimberly McCauley won $100,000 (£60,000) in a new instant scratch-card game called “10X the Money”.

In 2007, her mother won more than $161,000 in the state lottery – a meagre sum compared to her big win in 1991 of $15.5m in the New York Lotto.

Kimberly said she thought her mother was “hogging all the luck” and that she was overwhelmed by her win.

Kimberly took her mother with her to the lottery office to collect her prize.

The pair appeared to be calm, a spokesman for the North Carolina Education Lottery told ABC News.

“Once you win the lottery twice, what’s a third time?” Ryan Kennemur said.

Kimberly said she was going to use the money to pay off her student loans and to buy a car.

“I never thought I’d win anything. This is so overwhelming, but it’s a good kind of overwhelming,” she told lottery officials. …

via BBC News – McCauley family scoops third US lottery win.

See, my formula for winning the lottery does work. But PLEASE don’t use it over and over or people will get suspicious!

Airbrushed make-up ads banned for ‘misleading’

Cosmetic adverts featuring airbrushed images of actress Julia Roberts and model Christy Turlington have been banned by the advertising watchdog.

Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson complained that the L’Oreal adverts were “not representative of the results the products could achieve”.

The Advertising Standards Authority agreed that the images were exaggerated and breached its code of conduct.

L’Oreal admitted retouching but denied that the two adverts were misleading.

Ms Swinson said that while some retouching may be acceptable, the adverts were “particularly bad examples of misleading advertising” and could contribute to body image problems. …

via BBC News – Airbrushed make-up ads banned for ‘misleading’.

Lucas loses Star Wars copyright case at Supreme Court

A prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets for Star Wars has won his copyright battle with director George Lucas over his right to sell replicas. The five-year saga, which ended in the highest court in the land, has stakes of galactic proportions. …

It was in 2002, when struggling to pay school fees, that he first sold a helmet and “bits and pieces” gathering dust on top of his wardrobe.

‘Pandora’s box’

To his surprise they fetched £60,000 at Christie’s, leaving him in no doubt about their potential.

“The phone didn’t stop ringing… I dug out the old moulds, cleaned them down and made a few helmets,” he says.

The hard core fans recognised them as the real thing, he recalls, but by the time he had sold 19 or so to the US, so did Lucas.

Lucasfilm sued for $20m in 2004, arguing Mr Ainsworth did not hold the intellectual property rights and had no right to sell them – a point upheld by a US court.

But the judgement could not be enforced because the designer held no assets in the US, so the battle moved to the UK.

Although no paperwork was ever signed between Mr Ainsworth and Lucas, it was ruled there was an “implied contract”.

Nevertheless, the High Court rejected the multi-billionaire director’s claim and the focus switched to design rights, specifically whether the helmets sold were works of art or merely industrial props.

If Lucasfilm could convince the courts the 3D works were sculptures, they would be protected by copyright for the life of the author plus 70 years.

If not, the copyright protection would be reduced to 15 years from the date they were marketed, meaning it would have expired and Mr Ainsworth would be free to sell them.

The High Court and Court of Appeal found in Mr Ainsworth’s favour, and despite Lucas being backed by directors Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson, the Supreme Court has now followed suit. …

via BBC News – Lucas loses Star Wars copyright case at Supreme Court.

South Korean scientists seem to have produced a glowing dog

Jeremy Laurence – South Korean scientists said on Wednesday they have created a glowing dog using a cloning technique that could help find cures for human diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, Yonhap news agency reported.A research team from Seoul National University SNU said the genetically modified female beagle, named Tegon and born in 2009, has been found to glow fluorescent green under ultraviolet light if given a doxycycline antibiotic, the report said.The researchers, who completed a two-year test, said the ability to glow can be turned on or off by adding a drug to the dog’s food.“The creation of Tegon opens new horizons since the gene injected to make the dog glow can be substituted with genes that trigger fatal human diseases,” the news agency quoted lead researcher Lee Byeong-chun as saying.He said the dog was created using the somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that the university team used to make the world’s first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005.The scientist said that because there are 268 illnesses that humans and dogs have in common, creating dogs that artificially show such symptoms could aid treatment methods for diseases that afflict humans.The latest discovery published in ‘Genesis’, an international journal, took four years of research with roughly US$3-million spent to make the dog and conduct the necessary verification tests, Yonhap said.

via South Korean scientists seem to have produced a glowing dog | Posted | National Post.

Lee was a key aide to disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose breakthroughs on stem cell research were found to have been made using faked data. Independent tests, however, later proved the team’s dog cloning was genuine.

via Kimatv

Dan Peek, co-founder of rock band America, dies at 60

Dan Peek, a co-founder and musician for the folk rock band America, famous for the No. 1 hit “A Horse with No Name,” has died. He was 60.

Peek, who died on Sunday, founded the band in the late 1960s with bandmates Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell while they attended high school together in London, where their fathers were stationed with the United States Air Force.

America’s self-titled debut album, which featured “A Horse with No Name,” shot to the top of the charts in 1972. The group won a Grammy for best new artist that year, and enjoyed a string of other popular hits including “Ventura Highway” and “Lonely People.”

“We created lasting music together and experienced a life that we could never have imagined,” wrote America co-founder and bandmate Dewey Bunnell on the band’s website. “This news brings me great sadness. My sincere condolences go out to his wife, Catherine, and the entire Peek family. May Dan rest in peace, and his memory be cherished forever.”

Neil Portnow, chief executive of The Recording Academy which gives out music’s highest awards, the Grammys, called Peek “a dynamic individual and great talent.”

He noted that Peek was a multi-talented musician who played guitar, bass, keyboards and harmonica.

Peek left America in 1977 and went on to perform contemporary Christian music, but never found the sort of fame he enjoyed with the popular band that recorded hit singles.

via Dan Peek, co-founder of rock band America, dies at 60 | Reuters.

Death sucks. Sixty is so young when people are living to be 100. There should be a rule, if you write a good enough song, you never have to die.  R.I.P. Dan, and thanks for the tunes.

New Zealand goldfish survive 134 days without food

Two goldfish, named Shaggy and Daphne after characters from the animated television show Scooby Doo, have become the smallest and hardiest survivors of the devastating February earthquake in Christchurch that killed 181 people.

The fish spent four and a half months — 134 days — trapped in their tank in the city’s off-limits downtown without anyone to feed them or even any electricity to power their tank filter before they were discovered this month and rescued.

“It’s certainly an incredible story. I wouldn’t have guessed that fish could survive on their own for four months,” said Paul Clarkson, curator at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. “Goldfish are very hardy critters.”

So how did they do it?

Luckily for the fish, they lived in a large 26-gallon (100-liter) tank. They had weed to munch through. And, according to Clarkson, the fish may have gleaned some nutrition from eating algae growing on the tank’s rocks and walls. He said naturally growing bacteria may have helped keep the water clean enough to sustain life.

Then there’s the delicate question of their missing companions. There were six goldfish in the tank when the earthquake struck. By the time the survivors were found, no trace remained of three of the fish. …

via New Zealand goldfish survive 134 days without food – USATODAY.com.

Scientists Solve 14 Year Mystery of Saturn’s Water Source

The latest discovery around Saturn reveals that a moon covered with ice is providing water to the planet, creating a rain showering halo. The water vapors are visible as tiger like stripes of gas and ice which escapes at the southern pole of the moon and becomes a main water source vapor for Saturn’s upper atmosphere.

Thanks to Saturn’s sixth largest moon Enceladus, the mystery that has baffled scientists for 14 years is now solved. Herschel space observatory explains that the ring of water vapors surrounding Saturn originates from Enceladus. The ring is ten time greater than Saturn’s radius and that Enceladus continues to feed the ring of water vapors during its orbit.

Another find shows that Saturn’s moon is the only one that carries influence in regards to chemical composition towards its parent planet.

“There is no analogy to this behaviour on Earth. No significant quantities of water enter our atmosphere from space. This is unique to Saturn,” said Paul Hartogh, a Projec Scientist from the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung. …

via Scientists Solve 14 Year Mystery, Discover Saturn’s Water Source – International Business Times.

Dolphin hunts with electric sense

A South American dolphin is the first “true mammal” to sense prey by their electric fields, scientists suggest.

The researchers first showed that structures on the animal’s head were probably sensory organs, then found it could detect electric fields in water.

Electroreception is well known in fish and amphibians, but until now the only mammal example was the platypus.

Writing in the Royal Society’s journal Proceedings B, the scientists say other cetaceans may show the same ability.

The Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) lives around the east coast of South America, and resembles the much more common bottlenose variety.

Like all of the toothed cetaceans, it hunts and locates using sound.

But the researchers have now shown that at close range, it can also sense electrical signals.

They are not as sensitive as sharks and rays, but can detect signals of the same size as those produced in water when fish move their muscles. …

via BBC News – Dolphin hunts with electric sense.

Post offices may be closed

… In an effort to bridge a budget gap, the U.S. Postal Service is reviewing more than 3,600 national postal branches for possible closure, including 11 in Metro Detroit.The Postal Service’s budget woes come from the loss of customer traffic through increased use of email and online bill paying.

Branches on the chopping block include 10 in the city of Detroit and one in Ferndale.Ed Moore, a spokesman for the Postal Service’s Detroit district, said people aren’t sending as much mail as before.”With that decline, we find it hard to sustain our facilities,” he said. “We’re not necessarily saying people will be laid off. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”

Over the past five years, the service has declined by 32 billion pieces of mail, Moore said. Over the past four fiscal years, the Postal Service has reduced 110,000 career positions, saving $12 billion.

via Metro and State | Post offices may be closed | The Detroit News.