If the history of life were to play out again from the beginning, it would have a similar plot and outcomes, although with a different cast and timing, argues UC Davis paleontologist Geerat Vermeij in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Evolution at this level, like the rest of history, is predictable, perhaps more predictable than people want to imagine,” Vermeij said. “Many traits are so advantageous under so many circumstances that you are likely to see the same things again and again.”
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Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have identified for the first time a certain area of the brain which can shrink in old age and cause depression and Alzheimer’s disease. The scientists believe the shrinkage may be caused by high levels of stress hormones.
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Predators are, ironically, the key to keeping the world green, because they keep the numbers of plant-eating herbivores under control, reports a research team lead by John Terborgh, a professor of environmental science at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.
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A survey of older adults in rural North Carolina shows that they widely use complementary medicine therapies, but tend to focus on folk or home remedies, such as taking a daily “tonic” of vinegar or using Epsom salts.
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Scientists from NASA and Columbia University, New York, have used computer modeling to successfully reproduce an abrupt climate change that took place 8,200 years ago. At that time, the beginning of the current warm period, climate changes were caused by a massive flood of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean.
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Repeated defeat by dominant animals leaves a mouse with an enduring “molecular scar” in its brain that could help to explain why depression is so difficult to cure. Silencer molecules turned off a gene for a key protein in the brain’s hippocampus. Antidepressants compensated for the resulting social avoidance syndrome, but failed to remove the silencers, which are thought to remain as a latent source of vulnerability to future depression-like responses to stress.
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While a bonefish catch is always gratifying for the avid angler, one caught in the Bahamian flats off southwestern Andros Island in December proved even more satisfying for the researchers who study bonefish migration at Bonefish and Tarpon Unlimited (BTU) and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. The fish was a record catch, representing the longest movement by a bonefish and measured at more than double the previous distance record.
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Older people who have negative stereotypes about the elderly have a greater chance of hearing decline, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the March issue of Journals of Gerontology.
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Mechanical engineers at Purdue University have developed software that promises to increase the efficiency of creating parts for everything from cars to computer hardware by making it possible to quickly evaluate and optimize complex designs. Details are contained in a paper posted online and appearing in May.
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A new study of the Hadza population in Tanzania, forthcoming in the April 2006 issue of Current Anthropology, explores the role of hunting in human evolution. Researchers have long tried to locate the advantage that hunting, a dangerous and tiring activity, brings to men. Though some have argued that good hunters have longer-lasting ties to mates and better-fed offspring, other research suggests that hunting provides an opportunity to garner social attention and increase one’s mating prospects, also known as the “showoff hypothesis.”
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