Birds smarter than seven year old kids

No matter how bright you think your child is, until the age of seven, children are no brainier than the birds.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge during simple experiments found out that birds did just as well as children up until the age of seven, The Daily Mail reported.

By pitting birds against boys and girls using tests inspired by the Aesop’s fable in which a thirsty crow is able to drink from a pitcher after using pebbles to raise the water level to within its reach.

In two of the three tests the birds, Eurasian jays, did just as well as the seven-year-old children.

After this, the human mind proved superior to the bird brain.

The experiments built on earlier work in which jays quickly learned that adding stones to a cylinder half-filled with water would bring a tasty treat floating on the surface within reach of their beaks.

In a second task the jays, colourful members of the crow family and about the same size as jackdaws, realized it was better to use pebbles, which sink, than corks, which float.

When Cambridgeshire children, aged four to ten, were set similar tasks, they did as well as the jays on the first, up to the age of seven.

From the age of eight, the pupils learned more quickly than the birds. The pattern was similar with the second task, except four-year-old children did worse than the jays.

However, a third, more complex, task separated the youngsters from the birds.

It again involved dropping objects into water to raise its level. But this time, a U-shaped tube was used, with the join at its bottom hidden; giving the impression it was two separate tubes.

This appeared to confuse the birds. However, the children did as well as before. The researchers said this shows children are better at putting preconceptions aside.

Lucy Cheke, a PhD student, said: “It is a child’s job to learn about the world. They can’t do that if they’re limited by a preconceived idea about what is or is not possible. For a child, if it works, it works. The birds, however, found it much harder to learn what was happening because they were put off by the fact it shouldn’t be happening.” …

via Birds smarter than seven year old kids – Phenomenica.

Dead East River ‘monster’ confounds New Yorkers, animal experts

 

… A bloated, pig-like carcass spotted beneath the Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend has spooked New Yorkers buzzing about mutant river “monsters.”

Photographer Denise Ginley shot pics of the rotting, sand-covered corpse on Sunday. “My boyfriend and I were walking along the East River on our way to a farmer’s market when we spotted it among some driftwood on a small stretch of sand below the Brooklyn Bridge that you can barely call a beach,” she emailed the Daily News.

“We were horrified by it and we took some camera phone pictures and then finally we decided to come back with my camera and I got up the courage to climb over the fence and get closer to it,” she told the blog ANIMAL New York.Ginley sent the photos to Gothamist, which published them on Monday and sparked furious speculation — and a few conspiracy theories — on local blogs and social media.

Vickie Karp, a spokeswoman for the Parks Department, said the creature was a “discarded cooked pig” and that the department “threw it out.”

But the purplish brute’s long tail and hoof-less claws made for one freaky swine, naysayers said.

“The Parks Dept. was probably very quick to identify it as a pig and dispose of it, but it is most certainly NOT a pig,” Denise Ginley stressed to the Daily News. “The most obvious sign being the lack of a cloven hoof, instead this creature has five digits all close together.”

“My best guess would be that this is some sort of raccoon or giant rodent. The missing upper jaw makes it very difficult to identify and the lack of distinct canine teeth on the lower jaw is confusing.”

In a post in New York magazine’s Daily Intel blog, titled “We’re Supposed to Believe the New East River Monster Is Just a Pig?” writer Joe Coscarelli tagged the rotting hulk “Wilbur,” and said it looked like something “in between a rodent of unusual size and a part-human werewolf.”

Gothamist also called the beast a “R.O.U.S.” – rodent of unusual size – a swamp creature from the 1980s fantasy adventure flick, “The Princess Bride.”

Dr. Paul Curtis, a Cornell University professor and wildlife specialist, mused to Gothamist that it could be a small dog that ballooned with decay.

via Dead East River ‘monster’ confounds New Yorkers, animal experts  – NY Daily News.

Ancient Life-Size Lion Statues Baffle Scientists

Two sculptures of life-size lions, each weighing about 5 tons in antiquity, have been discovered in what is now Turkey, with archaeologists perplexed over what the granite cats were used for.

One idea is that the statues, created between 1400 and 1200 B.C., were meant to be part of a monument for a sacred water spring, the researchers said.

The lifelike lions were created by the Hittites who controlled a vast empire in the region at a time when the Asiatic lion roamed the foothills of Turkey.

“The lions are prowling forward, their heads slightly lowered; the tops of their heads are barely higher than the napes,” write Geoffrey Summers, of the Middle East Technical University, and researcher Erol Özen in an article published in the most recent edition of the American Journal of Archaeology.

The two lion sculptures have stylistic differences and were made by different sculptors. The lion sculpture found in the village of Karakiz is particularly lifelike, with rippling muscles and a tail that curves around the back of the granite boulder.

“The sculptors certainly knew what lions looked like,” Summers told LiveScience in an interview. He said that both archaeological and ancient written records indicate that the Asiatic lion, now extinct in Turkey, was still very much around, some even being kept by the Hittites in pits.

Curiously the sculpture at Karakiz has an orange color caused by the oxidization of minerals in the stone. Summers said that he doesn’t believe it had this color when it was first carved. (Aerial Photos Reveal Mysterious Stone Structures)

The story of the discovery of the massive lions began in 2001, when Özen, at the time director of the Yozgat Museum, was alerted to the existence of the ancient quarry by a man from Karakiz village and an official from the Ministry of Culture. An extensive search of the area was undertaken in spring 2002 with fieldwork occurring in the following years.

Looters, however, beat the archaeologists to the catch. The Karakiz lion was found dynamited in two, likely in the mistaken belief that it contained hidden treasure. “There’s this belief that monuments like this contain treasure,” said Summers, explaining that the dynamiting of monuments is a problem in Turkey. “It makes the Turkish newspapers every month or so.”

The second lion, found to the northeast of the village, had also been split in two. As a result of this destruction both lion sculptures, which originally were paired with another, now mainly have one lion intact.

The danger of new looting loomed over the researchers while they went about their work. In the summer of 2008 evidence of “fresh treasure hunting” was found at the ancient quarry along with damage to a drum-shaped rock that, in antiquity, was in the process of being carved. …

via Ancient Life-Size Lion Statues Baffle Scientists : Discovery News.

Great headline, but after reading this, I wouldn’t say the scientists are baffled by these lion statues. Perhaps they are baffled by the stupidity of treasure hunters in Turkey, though.

Anti-matter universe sought by space-based detector

A seven metric ton particle detector parked for over a year on the International Space Station (ISS) aims to establish whether there is an unseen “dark universe” woven into the cosmos, the scientist leading the project said on Wednesday.

And the detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer or AMS, has already broken all records in registering some 17 billion cosmic rays and storing data on them for analysis, Nobel physics laureate Samuel Ting told a news conference.

“The question is: where is the universe made from anti-matter?” said Ting. “It could be out there somewhere far away producing particles that we could detect with the AMS.”

Physicists say that the event 13.7 billion years ago that brought the known universe into existence and has been dubbed the “Big Bang” must have created equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. But then anti-matter largely disappeared.

Why that happened is one of the great mysteries of the cosmos which are being investigated through the AMS and scientific analysts back on the ground at CERN, the European particle physics research center where Ting spoke.

The purpose of the AMS program, he said, “is to search for phenomena that so far we have not had the imagination or the technology to discover”.

Some researchers have suggested that the invisible “dark matter” estimated to make up about 25 percent of the known universe could be linked to anti-matter, but others say that is highly unlikely.

via Anti-matter universe sought by space-based detector | Reuters.

Sea stars rapidly evolved into 2 species

Two sea stars evolved into independent species in extraordinarily little time, a genetic study indicates.

By examining differences in the genetic codes of two closely related “cushion stars,” researchers concluded ancestors of the two species stopped interbreeding as little as 6,000 years ago.

This qualifies as “one of the fastest known marine speciation events,” write the authors, referring to the creation of new species.

The sea stars may look identical, though they live in different areas on the Australian coast. One, Cryptasperina hystera, lives on a few beaches and islands at the far southern end of the range belonging to the second sea star, Cryptasperina pentagona.

But their sex lives couldn’t be more different: C. pentagona has two separate sexes, males and females, that release sperm and eggs into the water to fertilize and become larvae. These larvae float around in the water before settling down and growing into adult sea stars. [ The Animal Sex Quiz ]

C. hystera are hermaphrodites that brood their young inside their bodies and give birth to tiny sea stars that then mature into adults.

“It’s as dramatic a difference in life history as in any group of organisms,” Rick Grosberg, a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, said in a statement released by the university.

The genetic analysis indicated that the species diverged between 6,000 and 22,000 years ago.

But how? The research team, led by Jonathan Puritz of the University of Hawaii, suggests a small population of these species’ ancestors, even as few as one individual, colonized a remote area at the far southern end of the range and became isolated by a fluctuation in the boundary between cold and warm water in the Coral Sea. Over time, the colonizers became a distinct species, C. hystera.

The results of this research were detailed online July 18 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. …

via Sea stars rapidly evolved into 2 species – Technology & science – Science – LiveScience – NBCNews.com.

The first robot that mimics the water striders’ jumping abilities

The first bio-inspired microrobot capable of not just walking on water like the water strider – but continuously jumping up and down like a real water strider – now is a reality. Scientists reported development of the agile microrobot, which could use its jumping ability to avoid obstacles on reconnaissance or other missions, in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Qinmin Pan and colleagues explain that scientists have reported a number of advances toward tiny robots that can walk on water. Such robots could skim across lakes and other bodies of water to monitor water quality or act as tiny spies. However, even the most advanced designs – including one from Pan’s team last year – can only walk on water. Pan notes that real water striders actually leap. Making a jumping robot is difficult because the downward force needed to propel it into the air usually pushes the legs through the water’s surface. Pan’s group looked for novel mechanisms and materials to build a true water-striding robot.

Using porous, super water-repellant nickel foam to fabricate the three supporting and two jumping legs, the group made a robot that could leap more than 5.5 inches, despite weighing as much as 1,100 water striders. In experiments, the robot could jump nearly 14 inches forward – more than twice its own length – leaving the water at about 3.6 miles per hour. The authors report that the ability to leap will make the bio-inspired microrobot more agile and better able to avoid obstacles it encounters on the water’s surface. …

via The first robot that mimics the water striders’ jumping abilities.

Life of Pi Trailer

Great book. Now it is a movie.

In New Mexico, daredevil skydives from 18 miles above Earth

An Austrian daredevil jumped from a balloon flying at an altitude more than 18 miles above Earth on Wednesday, falling at speeds topping 500 miles per hour (805 kilometers per hour) in a training run for his attempt to make the world’s highest skydive.

Felix Baumgartner landed safely in a desert near Roswell, New Mexico after leaping from an estimated 96,940 feet wearing a pressurized space suit equipped with an oxygen supply.

The test parachute jump was the second for Baumgartner, who is on a quest to complete a record-breaking skydive from 120,000 feet in the coming weeks. He also hopes to become the first man to break the speed of sound at 700 mph in a free fall.

“Only one more step to go,” Baumgartner said in a statement.

The current record for the highest altitude skydive is 102,800 feet. It was set 52 years ago by U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, who is serving as an adviser to Baumgartner.

A 43-year-old former member of the Austrian military, Baumgartner has jumped from Malaysia’s Petronas Towers and Taiwan’s Taipei 101, two of the world’s tallest buildings.

A helium-filled balloon lifted Baumgartner into the sky on Wednesday carrying him in a pressurized capsule.

He executed a free fall of 3 minutes and 48 seconds, reaching speeds of 536 mph, according to Red Bull Stratos, a project using the jumps to gather medical and scientific research data.

In the next jump, the size of the balloon that will carry Baumgartner will rise as tall as a skyscraper.

via In New Mexico, daredevil skydives from 18 miles above Earth | Reuters.

Homemade South Korean satellite to go boldly into space

Years of rummaging through back-alley electronics stores will pay off later this year for a South Korean artist when he fulfills his dream of launching a homemade, basement-built satellite into space.

“Making a satellite is no more difficult than making a cellphone,” said Song Hojun, 34, who said he built the $500 OpenSat to show people they could achieve their dreams.

“I believe that not just a satellite, but anything can be made with the help of the Internet and social platforms. I chose a satellite to show that symbolically.”

There’s a long history of do-it-yourself satellites being launched by universities and scientific groups around the world, as well as amateur radio clubs, but Song said his is the first truly personal satellite designed and financed by an individual.

An engineering student at university, Song regularly incorporated technology into his art pieces. In a work called Apple he used light bulbs that would “ripen” — change color from green to red when people take photos of it with flashes.

After working as an intern at a private satellite company, he came up with the idea for his “Open Satellite Initiative,” which in turn led him to contact space professionals from Slovenia to Paris.

“I’m just an individual, not someone working for big universities, corporations or armies, so they open up to me and easily give out information,” said Song.

The bespectacled Song spent nearly six years combing through academic papers, shopping online at sites that specialize in components that can be used for space projects, and rummaging through electronic stores hidden in the back alleys of Seoul.

He ran a small electronics business to support himself, but the bulk of his funds came from his parents.

The cubical OpenSat weighs 1 kg (2.2 lbs) and measures 10 cubic centimeters. It will transmit information about the working status of its battery, the temperature and rotation speed of the satellite’s solar panel.

Radio operators will be able to communicate with the satellite. If all goes well, it will repeat a message in Morse code using its LED lights at a set time and location.

The components cost only 500,000 won ($440). But the cost for launching it hit 120 million won after Song signed a contract with NovaNano, a French technology company, which acted as a broker to arrange the launch, including submitting paperwork and finding a rocket.

The satellite will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in December with another satellite. …

via Homemade South Korean satellite to go boldly into space | Reuters.

Ancient ‘mistake’ led to humans

More than 500 million years ago a spineless ocean-dwelling creature experienced a dramatic change to its DNA, which may have led to the evolution of vertebrates, says a new study.

The good news is that these ancient DNA doublings boosted cellular communication systems, so that our body’s cells are now better at integrating information than even the smartest smartphones.

The bad part is that communication breakdowns, traced back to the very same genome duplications of the Cambrian Period, can cause diabetes, cancer and neurological disorders.

“Organisms that reproduce sexually usually have two copies of their entire genome, one inherited from each of the two parents,” says Professor Carol MacKintosh, co-author of a study appearing today in the Royal Society journal Open Biology.

“What happened over 500 million years ago is that this process ‘went wrong’ in an invertebrate animal, which somehow inherited twice the usual number of genes. In a later generation, the fault recurred, doubling the number of copies of each gene once again.”

MacKintosh, of the College of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, says such duplications also happened in plant evolution. As for the progeny of the newly formed animal, they remarkably survived and thrived.

“The duplications were not stable, however, and most of the resulting gene duplicates were lost quickly – long before humans evolved,” she says. But some did survive, as MacKintosh and her team discovered.

Her research group studies a network of several hundred proteins that work inside human cells to coordinate their responses to growth factors and to insulin, a hormone. Key proteins involved in this process are called 14-3-3.

Cambrian ancestor

For this latest study, the scientists mapped, classified and conducted a biochemical analysis of the proteins. This found that they date back to the genome duplications, which occurred during the Cambrian.

The first animal to carry them remains unknown, but gene sequencing shows that a modern day invertebrate known as amphioxus “is most similar to the original spineless creature before the two rounds of whole genome duplication,” says MacKintosh. “Amphioxus can therefore be regarded as a ‘very distant cousin’ to all the vertebrate (backboned) species.”

The inherited proteins appear to have evolved to make a “team” that can tune into more growth factor instructions than would be possible with a single protein.

“These systems inside human cells therefore behave like the signal multiplexing systems that enable our smartphones to pick up multiple messages,” says MacKintosh.

The downside of multiplexing

The teamwork may not always be a good thing, though. The researchers propose that if a critical function were performed by a single protein, as in amphioxus, then its loss or mutation would likely be lethal, resulting in no disease.

If multiple proteins are working as a team, however, and one or more becomes lost or mutated, the individual may survive, but could still wind up with a debilitating disorder and pass it onto the next generation. Such breakdowns could help to explain how diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, are so entrenched in humans. …

via Ancient ‘mistake’ led to humans › News in Science (ABC Science).