Gaming Evolves

By day, Thomas Near studies the evolution of fish, wading through streams in
Kentucky and Mississippi in search of new species. By night, Dr. Near, an
assistant professor at Yale, is a heavy-duty gamer, steering tanks or playing
football on his computer. This afternoon his two lives have come together. On
his laptop swims a strange fishlike creature, with a jaw that snaps sideways and
skin the color of green sea glass. As Dr. Near taps the keyboard, it wiggles and
twists its way through a busy virtual ocean. It tries to eat other creatures and
turns its quills toward predators that would make it a meal. The chairman of Dr.
Near's department, Richard Prum, watches him play and worries about his reckless
lunges. "You're just attacking them?" he asks as Dr. Near tries to eat a fat
purple worm that looks too dangerous to bother.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/science/02spor.html

Sounds From The Wild: The Laughing Kookaburra

It's a common sound in the Australian bush, starting up just around daylight:
the laughing call of the kookaburra. In the group captured in this field
recording by wildlife expert David Stewart, four or five birds can be heard.
They're letting kookaburras know this is their territory. "They get together,
they have a bit of a chat, and then they go into a full laughter song," says
Stewart.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93511846

Elephant Elders Know Better

Experience breeds wisdom, especially for elephants. On the East African savanna,
where wildlife must contend with regular famine and drought, elephant matriarchs
rely on their long-term memories of distant sources of food and water to help
their groups get through the worst of times. According to a recent study by the
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL)
published in The Royal Society's Biology Letters, old female elephants seem to
give their family groups an edge in the struggle for survival.

http://www.wcs.org/353624/wcs_elephantstudy

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080902/hl_hsn/bondinggenecouldhelpmenstaymarried
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080902/hl_hsn/bondinggenecouldhelpmenstaymarried>




MONDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Whether a man has one type of gene versus
another could help decide whether he's good "husband material," a new study
suggests.

A study of Swedish twin brothers found that differences in a gene modulating the
hormone vasopressin were strongly tied to how well each man fared in marriage.

"Our main finding was an association between a variant of the vasopressin
receptor 1a gene and how strong bonds men reported they had to their partners,"
said lead researcher Hasse Walum, of the department of medical epidemiology and
biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. "Men carrying this
variant scored on average lower on a scale measuring the strength of the bond
compared to men not carrying this variant."

Women married to men carrying the "poorer bonding" form of the gene also
reported "lower scores on levels of marital quality than women married to men
not carrying this variant," Walum noted.






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Marriage problems? Husband's genes may be to blame

The same gene that affects a rodent's ability to mate for life may affect human
marriages, Swedish and U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. Men carrying a
common variation of a gene involved in brain signaling were more likely to be in
unhappy marriages than men with the other version, the team at the Karolinska
Institute found. Although they are not sure what the genetic changes do to a
man's behavior, some other research suggests it has to do with the ability to
communicate and empathize, the team reported in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0242120820080902

Are Birds Best Hope for Pest-Ridden Coffee Crops?

Chances are you've never heard of Hypothenemus hampei. But this tiny insect is
the world's biggest threat to something many of us swear we can't live without:
our morning cup of coffee. The bug, commonly known as the coffee berry borer,
strikes almost everywhere coffee grows. It can destroy up to 70 percent of a
crop, posing a significant threat to this $70-billion-a-year industry. Millions
of dollars have funded research to eradicate the coffee berry borer, and for
decades, coffee farmers the world over have been battling the pest using every
weapon they can muster, from traps to insecticide and even other insects-all
with limited success. But a simple solution may already exist in their own
backyards: birds.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080826-jamaica-coffee-birds-miss\
ions.html

Elephants Decimated in Congo Park; China Demand Blamed

Since the beginning of this year, armed groups, soldiers, and poachers have
killed 10 percent of the elephants in Congo's troubled Virunga National
Park-allegedly driven by rising Chinese demand for ivory-park officials say. The
announcement raises fears that elephants could disappear forever from Africa's
oldest and largest national park, which has recently made headlines for its
gorilla murders.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080829-africa-elephants.html

Black-footed Ferrets Sired By Dead Males Via Frozen Sperm

Two black-footed ferrets at the Smithsonian's National Zoo have each given birth
to a kit that was sired by males who died in 1999 and 2000. These endangered
ferrets-part of a multi-institutional breeding and reintroduction program-were
artificially inseminated in May with frozen semen from the two deceased males,
each giving birth to a kit on June 20 and 21 respectively. The sperm samples
were collected and frozen in 1997 and 1998.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902095117.htm

Researchers Create Animal Model Of Chronic Stress

In an effort to better understand how chronic stress affects the human body,
researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University, have created an animal
model that shows how chronic stress affects behavior, physiology and
reproduction.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903172156.htm

Artificial Meadows And Robot Spiders Reveal Secret Life Of Bees

Many animals learn to avoid being eaten by predators. Now ecologists have
discovered that bumblebees can even learn to outwit colour-changing crab
spiders. The ongoing battle between predators and prey has fascinated ecologists
for decades, and Ings is no exception. But instead of studying iconic predators
such as lions or tigers, Dr Tom Ings of the University of London studies
creatures closer to home.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902225431.htm

Why Did The Squirrel Cross The Road?

A study has shown that red squirrels can and do make use of special crossings
set up over busy roads. Stephen Lockwood used cameras and tubes filled with nuts
and sticky tape to gather hairs and clay moulds to record the animals'
footprints. He says: "This isn't just about cutting down on the number of
squirrels killed on the roads. We also know that when a natural habitat becomes
fragmented, such as by the introduction of unnatural barriers like roads, there
is a lesser chance of the species surviving in the long term because the
opportunities for breeding are fewer.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080829120525.htm

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=intelligence-evolved

Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of the Human Mind

* The human brain lacks conspicuous characteristics-such as relative or absolute
size-that might account for humans' superior intellect.
* Researchers have found some clues to humanity's aptitude on a smaller scale,
such as more neurons in our brain's outermost layer.
* Human intelligence may be best likened to an upgrade of the cognitive
capacities of nonhuman primates rather than an exceptionally advanced form of
cognition.


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Lightweight And Long-legged Males Go The Distance For Sex

Finding a mate can take considerable legwork as recently illustrated by the
flightless and nocturnal Cook Strait giant weta Deinacrida rugosa. This cricket
relative is found in New Zealand and is one of the world's heaviest insects with
females weighing in at 20 g, averaging twice the size of males.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080905153853.htm

Can Science Improve Man's Best Friend?

If you could design the perfect dog, what would it look like? Tall, short,
fluffy, wiry, black, white, tan or brindle? While animal buyers often look
closely at physical characteristics, behavioural traits can make the difference
between a dog becoming a much loved and pampered family member, or a mistreated
or neglected unwanted animal. According to Monash University researcher Dr
Pauleen Bennett from the School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological
Medicine, science and breeding can be used to produce dogs that have
characteristics desired by average dog owners and are well suited to the
domestic environment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080904220139.htm

Bird Duets Are "Aggressive Audio Warfare"

The intertwining songs of tropical wrens are their weapons of choice in turf
wars, says a new study that could also shed light on other duetting species. The
duets may also help the birds locate one another in dense foliage. The new
discoveries were made using a new multi-microphone technology, which
triangulates the positions of singing birds in trees even when they aren't
visible. "With this technique, we can find exactly where breeding pairs are
while they perform duets, and where males and females move between subsequent
duets," said study leader Daniel Mennill, a biologist at the University of
Winsdor in Canada.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080904-wren-songs-missions.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/10/ants-colony-efficiency.html

Ants Slack Off for Colony's Greater Good
Sept. 10, 2008 -- They are capable of carrying up to seven times their body
weight, but leaf cutter ants are slacking off for the greater good, according to
new research.
In a paper published in today's Biology Letters, Martin Burd of Australia's
Monash University details how a lower level of productivity by foraging leaf
cutter ants improves productivity within the colony.
"What looks inefficient is actually efficiency," Burd, who is attached to the
School of Biological Sciences, said.
Burd measured the work done by worker ants tasked with collecting and harvesting
leaf fragments in colonies of Atta colombica. He measured the load the ants
carried, the time it took to cut leaf fragments and the rate at which fragments
were delivered to the colony.
Burd and co-author Jerome Howard at the Department of Biological Sciences at the
University of New Orleans found the ants were carrying about half the maximum
load they could manage.


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http://www.livescience.com/animals/
Wild Animals Suffer on 'Junk Food' Diets
In the Baltic Sea, birds called common guillemots raise their young on
herringlike fish called sprat. In the 1990s, local sprat became unusually
abundant after populations of their main predator, cod, plunged because of
overfishing and climatic changes.
Yet during that time, guillemot chicks grew poorly. Why?
The answer may lie in the "junk food hypothesis," which holds that poor-quality
food can hamper the reproductive success of marine predators just as badly as
low-quantity food.
Henrik Österblom, the biologist from the Baltic Nest Institute at the University
of Stockholm who studied the guillemots, noted that sprat were leaner when they
were abundant and had to compete for limited supplies of zooplankton. The lean
sprat made less-nutritious meals for the guillemot chicks. The chicks' parents
tried to compensate by bringing home more sprats, but because they catch and
carry just a single fish at a time, it was hard to keep up.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.livescience.com/animals/080908-flightless-birds.html
Theory of Flightless Birds Shot Down

Ostriches, emus, kiwis and other winged non-flyers might seem to be birds of a
feather, sharing similar evolutionary origins, but the story could turn out to
be much weirder, with perhaps numerous flying ancestors.

This group of birds, called ratites, has been viewed by biologists as part of a
larger group (paleognaths) of mostly extinct birds that are key to understanding
the early evolution of birds. All living ratites are found in the Southern
Hemisphere and share features associated with flightlessness, such as small or
absent keels on their breastbones; smaller, simpler and fewer wing bones; bigger
leg bones; and structures in their feathers that don't help with aerodynamics.

So for these reasons and others, many scientists previously figured the ratites,
a group that also includes rheas and cassowaries, all shared a common ancestor
that was flightless.

However, a new analysis shows they do not share this single hypothetical
flightless ancestor. Rather they probably evolved from more than one different
airborne ancestor.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.livescience.com/animals/080901-beetle-evolution.html
Beetles Evolving as Lovers or Fighters
The evolutionary tradeoff between becoming a bigger fighter or lover could lead
to new species among dung beetle populations.
Male beetles may not transform in the blink of an eye, but natural selection
seems to have driven rapid evolution in the size of their fighting horns - and
their reproductive tools - during a time period of just 50 years in one newly
studied case.
"As horns get bigger, copulatory organs get smaller, or vice versa," said Armin
Moczek, an evolutionary biologist at Indiana University-Bloomington. "What was
not known was how frequently and how fast this can occur in nature, and whether
this can drive the evolution of new species."


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080903-wolves-salmon.html

Wolves Prefer Salmon to Deer?

Move over, grizzly bears. "Fishing wolves" in coastal British Columbia are also
looking to snatch some salmon, and will eat the fish almost exclusively when
they are available, new research reveals.

Biologists analyzed years of data from gray wolves' feces to monitor what the
animals were eating.

The team found that the coastal predators, like many other wolves, rely on deer
most of the time in the spring and summer.

But during several months in the fall, the wolves ignored deer to focus on
migrating salmon.

"What is unusual is this huge seasonal shift to salmon. They were forgoing deer
to target salmon," said study leader Chris Darimont at the University of
Victoria in Canada.

Study co-author Thomas Reimchen added in a press release that the results are as
much about salmon as about wolves.

"Salmon continue to surprise us, showing us new ways in which their oceanic
migrations eventually permeate entire terrestrial ecosystems," he said.

"In terms of providing food and nutrients to a whole food web, we like to think
of them as North America's answer to the Serengeti's wildebeest."


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http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7627

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

TAU has a "purrfect" recipe for interspecies harmony at home
Thinking about adopting a perky little puppy as a friend for your fluffy cat,
but worried that they'll fight -- well, like cats and dogs?Think again. New
research at Tel Aviv University, the first of its kind in the world, has found a
new recipe for success. According to the study, if the cat is adopted before the
dog and if they are introduced when still young (less than 6 months for kittens,
a year for dogs), there is a high probability that your two pets will get along
swimmingly. Results from the research were recently reported in the journal
Applied Animal Behaviour Science.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.springer-sbm.com/index.php?id=291&backPID=121&L=0&tx_tnc_news=4778&cH\
ash=32a2ea4e25

Scavenger birds chew the fat
Bearded vultures prefer fatty bones according to new study
Humans aren't the only ones who like fatty foods - bearded vultures do, too. A
study by Antoni Margalida from the Bearded Vulture Study and Protection Group in
El Pont de Suert, Spain, has found that the bearded vulture will discard less
energy-dense bones and choose only the bones containing the highest fat content
both for its consumption and delivery to its young. His findings1 will be
published this week in the Springer journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.


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http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2008/09/12/monkeys-show-their-generous-side/


Monkeys Show Their Generous Side
<http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2008/09/12/monkeys-show-their-generous-side/>
: Video


Everybody knows that it feels good to do good. Giving someone a gift can be just
as rewarding as getting one yourself. In fact, studies using MRI scans have
shown that the part of our brain that stimulates pleasure when
receiving a gift also reacts when giving one.

Until now, scientists believed that such emotional responses were distinctly
human traits, but new research indicates monkeys have them too.

Primatologist Frans de Wall, at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in
Atlanta, gave a group of capuchin monkeys a task that involved taking one of two
tokens while in the presence of another monkey.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

A Commitment Pill?

A couple of weeks ago, the arginine vasopressin receptor 1a gene sprang into
notoriety: in a just-published study of Swedish couples, variation in this gene
was found to be associated with difficulties, for men, in maintaining long-term
monogamous relationships. Which suggests the following mischievous thought:
could such restlessness be cured one day?

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/a-commitment-pill/

Waterbirds Disappearing from African-Eurasian Flyways

Struck by climate change and wetland destruction, 40 percent of the migratory
waterbird populations that travel across Africa and Eurasia are in decline,
finds a new study presented to delegates at an international migratory waterbird
conservation meeting today in Antananarivo. The main causes of decrease in the
522 bird populations studied are infrastructure development, wetland
reclamation, increasing pollution and hunting pressure, according to the report.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2008/2008-09-15-01.asp

Many Texas Pets, Zoo Animals Spared Ike's Wrath

Although Hurricane Ike devastated stretches of the U.S. Gulf Coast this past
weekend, rescue crews are finding that improved evacuation procedures-and a bit
of luck-helped many of the area's animals weather the storm. Shelters set up to
accommodate pets and livestock, for example, offered relief to people who were
forced to evacuate while providing a safe haven for their animals.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080916-ike-pets.html

Federal study says grizzlies thriving in Montana

The majestic grizzly bear, once king of the Western wilderness but threatened
with extinction for a third of a century, has roared back in Montana. The
finding, from a $4.8 million, five-year study of grizzly bear DNA mocked by
Republican presidential candidate John McCain as pork barrel spending, could
help ease restrictions on oil and gas drilling, logging and other development.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080917/ap_on_sc/grizzly_bears_14

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080911-whale-legs.html?source=em\
ail_inside_20080918&email=inside
Whales Had Legs, Wiggled Hips, Study Says
An early whale had large back legs, a tail like a dog's, and a hip-wiggling
swimming style, according to a new fossil study.

The discovery helps pinpoint the advent of "modern" whale flukes to between 38
and 40 million years ago, scientists say.

Flukes are the two wide, flat triangular lobes on a whale's back end and are
made of skin and connective tissue, with bones in the middle.

Scientists have known whales evolved from semiaquatic, four-footed creatures
with long, thin tails to today's fully aquatic mammals with fluked tails, no
back legs, and flippers instead of front legs.

(Related story: Whales Evolved From Tiny Deerlike Mammals, Study Says [December
19, 2007].)

But it was previously unknown when the tail flukes first arose in the whale
family tree.

"What's interesting about this animal is that it had these back legs that it
used to push itself through the water," said study author Mark D. Uhen, a
paleontologist from the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

"This animal didn't have flukes, but the ones just a little bit younger
[geologically] did. So we can really narrow that time frame now."

Uhen's study is detailed in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology.


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http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/22/social-paper-wasp.html

The Secret Life of a (Very) Social Wasp
Sept. 22, 2008 -- Many terms for socializing, such as "social butterfly," "queen
bee," and "the buzz," come from the insect world, and now it seems at least one
species, the paper wasp, deserves its reputation.
Female paper wasps can't perform an "air kiss," hug or shake hands, but like
humans, they look each other over and remember individuals for at least a week
after first meeting them. They then base subsequent encounters on these first
impressions.
Scientists previously thought only humans and other big-brained creatures could
remember social encounters over long periods of time, with insects possessing
more fleeting memories. Since the paper wasp brain is less than a millionth the
size of our brains, some assumptions about social cognition now appear wrong.
"Wasps have a complex social life because any individual is potentially capable
of reproducing," co-author Elizabeth Tibbetts told Discovery News.
She explained that multiple females join to create a single nest, some
dominating others and laying most of the eggs. The subordinates must then "work
hard to feed and care for the offspring."


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/18/full-moon-birds.html

Full Moon Energizes Birds
Sept. 18, 2008 -- If the night sky seems less tranquil on nights when the moon
is bright, the observation probably isn't imagined since a new study has
determined that at least one bird's level of activity dramatically increases
with moonlight.
The finding adds to a growing body of evidence that lunar phases affect the
behavior of insects, birds, fish and mammals -- including humans.
The study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Animal
Behavior, is among the first to provide direct evidence for the "full moon
effect," since many other claims have been based on indirect observations and
even folklore, such as werewolf tales.
In the case of streaked shearwaters, the focus of the study, this marine bird
flew for longer periods and landed on water more frequently on nights with a
full moon. But because sharks and other bird predators also appear to be more
energized on such nights, the shearwaters didn't stay on the water for long.
"Pelagic seabirds, including shearwaters, are known to be preyed upon by sharks
or seals at sea, so birds are attacked from under the sea, not from the air,"
lead author Takashi Yamamoto explained to Discovery News.
"When birds are sitting on the water's surface at night with a full moon, it
shades moonlight passing through into the sea, so predators might be able to
detect seabirds using such shades," added Yamamoto, a researcher at Japan's
National Institute of Polar Research.


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