Vital biological clocks.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Disruptions in biological clocks have been linked to neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and accelerated age-related brain degeneration.  Now, researchers at Oregon State University have found a deeper connection.  Zoologist Jaga Giebultowicz and her colleagues studied fruit flies – some with a genetic mutation that causes neurological deficits, others with one that disrupts the biological clock, and still others with both mutations.

JAGA GIEBULTOWICZ (Oregon State University):

These flies live maybe a 30 to 50 percent shorter lifespan than either single mutant, and they have accelerated brain damage, and they have impaired vertical mobility, it’s one way to test aging in flies.

HIRSHON:
Other studies found that normal flies’ clock mechanisms gradually decay as they age.  The work suggests that faulty clocks and faulty brains may contribute to each other.   I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

The cost of a female shortage.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

When women seem scarce, men may become financially impulsive.  This according to University of Minnesota marketing professor Vladas Griksevicius.  He was inspired by animal studies, which show that males get more competitive when females are in high demand.

VLADAS GRISKEVICIUS (University of Minnesota):

And so in one of the studies, we showed men and women photo arrays.  And the photos had either more men than women or more women than men.

HIRSHON:
Men who saw the male-heavy arrays estimated that they would save less and borrow more in a mock budget.  They were also more likely to take a small cash payment immediately than a bigger one later on.  Neither pattern showed up in female subjects.  And in a separate analysis, the researchers found that cities with more single men than single women have higher consumer debt, and more credit card ownership, than female-skewed cities.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

Lead-fighting fungi…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Lead is highly toxic and can damage the developing nervous system. Fortunately, many countries have banned its use in paint and gasoline. But old lead mines and industrial sites can still leach the heavy metal into waterways and the food chain. Now, scientists say fungi may offer a new way to clean up lead-polluted sites.

Microbiologist Geoffrey Gadd of the University of Dundee in Scotland and his colleagues discovered that when lead is exposed to fungi, a highly stable mineral called pyromorphite results.

GEOFFREY GADD (University of Dundee, Scotland):

The more insoluble a compound is, the more stable it is; and almost no lead is released from this substance if put in water.

HIRSHON:

He says until now, it was thought that only non-biological processes formed the mineral.

GADD:

As a biologist, I like to demonstrate that’s there’s more to life than just physical and chemical forces.

HIRSHON:

I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

How hot is the sun? I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

A listener called with this question:

LISTENER:

“How hot is the surface of the sun?”

HIRSHON:

We consulted solar physicist Jack Ireland of the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center. He says the sun’s surface is about 6000 degrees Kelvin, which is around 20 to 30 times hotter than the hottest day ever recorded on earth. But he says sun’s core is even thousands of times hotter than that.

JACK IRELAND (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center):

You’re talking tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

HIRSHON:

He adds that the corona of the sun, which is what you see during a solar eclipse, is hotter than the surface.

IRELAND:

The strange thing about it is that you’re kind of moving away from a hot object, and instead of things getting cooler, they get hotter. I think that’s kind of a good example of how strange things can be on the sun.

HIRSHON:

And if you have a science question, give us a call at 1-800-why-isit. If we use your question, you’ll win a Science Update mug! I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

A saliva test for blood sugar. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

People with diabetes have to monitor the sugar levels in their blood regularly, and that means painful pin pricks to draw a sample. But researchers at Brown University are developing a new biochip the size of a fingernail etched with devices called plasmonic interferometers that can measure blood sugar levels from saliva samples. The technology, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is still confined to the lab. Applications include detecting not only sugar levels, but also toxic chemicals and infectious agents.

In other news, McGill scientists report in the joural Lancet Infectious Diseases that a saliva test for HIV that’s already available is as accurate as a laboratory blood test. The oral test could be a powerful weapon against AIDS, because people can take the test in private, which may encourage more people to check their HIV status. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Tasting pure fat.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Our tongues may have dedicated fat receptors, like they do for tastes like sweet and salty.  This according to nutritional scientist Yanina Pepino of the Washington University School of Medicine.  She says a protein called CD36 has been linked to fat detection in animals.  In her study, humans with different natural levels of CD36 tried to detect traces of oil in a beverage.

YANINA PEPINO (Washington University School of Medicine):

So we found that the more CD36 protein a person made, the more sensitive it was to the presence of fat, based on taste.

HIRSHON:

The CD36 protein has already been found in human taste buds.  So it’s possible that some taste receptors are devoted to finding fat.  It’s also known that rats on a high-fat diet decrease their production of CD36, which means it takes more and more fat to satisfy their taste for it.  The findings may eventually lead to interventions for obesity.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

Lip-reading babies…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

One of the most amazing qualities of being human is our ability to learn to talk in just a few short years. And new research suggests that babies achieve this, in part, by reading lips. Florida Atlantic University developmental psychologists David Lewkowicz and Amy Hansen-Tift tracked the eye gaze of 4- to 12-month-old babies as they watched videos of grown-ups talking. Lewkowicz says the younger babies looked primarily at the eyes of the speaker.

DAVID LEWKOWICZ (Florida Atlantic University):

But starting at 6 months, babies began to shift their attention away from the eyes and toward the mouth.

HIRSHON:

He says watching the mouth adds essential clues to how words are formed just as babies are beginning to babble. But by 12 months most babies had turned their gaze back to the eyes, probably because they provide important social cues. And other studies have shown that toddlers who don’t follow speakers’ eyes by age two are more likely to have a communication disorder such as autism. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Two suns, one planet…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Imagine looking up at the sky and seeing two suns. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered three planets circling twin star systems so far, and astronomers now believe they may be more common than previously thought. Two of the planets, called Kepler-34 and 35, are gas giants with about the mass of Saturn. They’re probably too hot to harbor life, according to San Diego State University astronomer Jerry Orosz. Plus, their stars’ wide elliptical orbits would cause extreme climate variations.

JERRY OROSZ (San Diego State University):

And so your seasons would be very very strange indeed, because every couple months it would be very very warm, and between that it would be very very cold, so it’s very interesting to imagine what life would be like on these planets.

HIRSHON:

But he says many yet undiscovered planets might have better odds of life.

OROSZ:

If you want to have a double sun and have a fairly normal climate, what you would have to have a is a pair of stars that orbited much closer to each other.

HIRSHON:

I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Wicked winters and warming.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Global warming may actually be keeping winters cold, at least for now.  This according to climatologist Judah Cohen, of the Massachusetts company Atmospheric and Environmental Research.  His team found that spring, summer and fall in the in the Northern Hemisphere have gotten steadily warmer recently, but winters haven’t.  One reason may lie in the warming Arctic autumns, where the warmer air can hold more moisture, and shrinking ice caps expose more seawater to evaporation.  The upshot:

JUDAH COHEN:

There’s been this statistically significant increasing trend in snow cover across Eurasia in the fall.  And the key month is October.

HIRSHON:

That snow, in turn, affects atmospheric patterns, pushing more cold air into the mid-latitudes during the winter.  Cohen notes that all this could break down when it gets too warm for those early snows to fall.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

An improved pill camera. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Tiny video cameras that you swallow so doctors can get a look inside you have been around for a while. But the cameras just tumble their way through your digestive tract. Now researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston are developing a new version that can be steered and aimed using the magnetic field of an MRI machine. The goal is not only to help doctors get a better look inside their patients, but also to guide drugs and lasers right where they’re needed.

In other news, concentrated solar power plants use hundreds of large mirrors that focus the sun’s energy on a central tower. But each power plant takes up many acres of land. Now MIT scientists have copied the spiral pattern within the sunflower to place the mirrors in a new arrangement. It takes up twenty percent less space, making the energy plants more practical. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

How to look like a dog…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Many people treat their dogs like members of the family. Now, there’s evidence that through thousands of years of co-habitation with us, they’ve developed some of the same social skills as human infants. Behavioral biologist Adam Miklósi and his colleagues at Eötvös University in Hungary outfitted dogs with eye-tracking devices. Then they had the canines watch videos of people turning their heads to look to at objects to their right or to their left. They found that the dogs only followed the direction of the movement with their eyes if the people in the videos greeted them verbally and made eye contact first. But if the people looked down and spoke in a neutral tone of voice, the dogs ignored the movement.

ADAM MIKLÓSI (Eötvös University, Budapest):

Dogs followed the action of the human only if this was preceded by this communicative interaction.

HIRSHON:

He says human infants do the same thing, and the study highlights the importance of communication in the relationship between humans and dogs. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

After thousands of years of co-evolution with humans, dogs show some of the same social skills as babies. (Bernadett Miklósi)

A whiff of kindness.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The hormone oxytocin promotes feelings of love, attachment, and empathy.  It’s been studied often in humans and amorous animals like prairie voles.  Now, Duke University neurobiologist Michael Platt and his colleagues have tried it on rhesus macaque monkeys, a much less cuddly species.

MICHAEL PLATT (Duke University):

Rhesus macaques are very despotic, they’re very obsessed with hierarchy, they don’t form pair bonds between males and females to raise offspring.  So there are a number of different features of social organizations that are very different between humans and rhesus monkeys.

HIRSHON:
Still, Platt’s team found that inhaling oxytocin made the monkeys nicer: for example, they were more likely to help others get a treat.  Platt says their animal model could help researchers study the long-term effects of oxytocin therapy, which is being explored as a possible treatment for autism. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

A case of violin confusion…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

(Clip of classical piece)

Top violinists often love the chance to play old instruments from famous makers like Stradivarius and Guarneri. And the mystique surrounding these instruments is reflected in their sometimes astronomical prices. For instance, a Stradivarius built in 1721 sold for nearly 16 million dollars at auction last year. But do these instruments really sound better? Psychoacoustician Claudia Fritz of the National Center for Scientific Research in France had 21 world-class violinists play both old and new instruments while blindfolded. She and her team then asked them which instruments they liked best and to estimate the age of the violins.

CLAUDIA FRITZ (National Center for Scientific Research in France):

We couldn’t find any clear preference for old instruments, and people can’t tell whether it’s old or not. 8

HIRSHON:

She says when musicians can see that an instrument is old, they’re biased into thinking it sounds better, and often blame themselves if it doesn’t. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Magnetic flies.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Studying weightlessness is expensive and challenging.  Now, scientists at the University of Nottingham in England have developed an alternative.  Research fellow Richard Hill and his colleagues simulate weightlessness in fruit flies by suspending them in a powerful magnetic field.

RICHARD HILL (University of Nottingham, England):

The advantage is that we can do these experiments on the ground.  So we can see the effects of weightlessness on a complex biological organism, without needing to use a rocket, if you like, to go into space and actually go into real weightlessness.

HIRSHON:

The technique works by tapping into weak, repellent magnetic forces produced by the fly’s body.  The magnetic field repels the fly enough from below to cancel the effect of gravity.  Hill’s team used this method to replicate experiments done previously in space – suggesting that it could help researchers choose and refine their experiments before trying them out in orbit.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

Vision saving grapes. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in elderly people. It’s caused by oxidative damage to the retina. In the journal  Free Radical Biology and Medicine, researchers at Fordham University report that a diet rich in grapes slowed the progression of a similar condition in mice. Grapes are rich in antioxidants that protect against oxidative damage. Future studies will look to see if they are effective in people as well.

In other dietary news, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report in the Journal of Nutrition that high fiber, whole grain carbohydrates can improve health by reducing inflammation. In just four weeks, overweight and obese patients in the study reduced levels of a key biomarker for inflammation by 22%. Inflammation is a major risk factor in heart disease and some cancers.  I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

How sleep affects mood…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Napping helps toddlers solve problems and cope emotionally. This according to University of Colorado, Boulder experimental psychologist Monique LeBourgeois. She and her team had toddlers put puzzles together after they’d either napped or been deprived of their nap. One puzzle was solvable, and the other was unsolvable because a piece had been replaced with one that didn’t fit. 

MONIQUE LeBOURGEOIS (University of Colorado, Boulder):

What we found is, when they had their naps, they were better able to emotionally cope with the challenges that were in this task; when kids didn’t have their nap, we saw a striking decrease in emotions such as joy, excitement and interest. Likewise, when kids didn’t have their nap we saw a big increase in negative emotions, primarily anxiety or worry.

HIRSHON:

She says it’s possible that getting adequate sleep in early childhood could be protective against mood disorders later in life. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Mimicking a mimic.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

To avoid predators, the mimic octopus of Indonesia contorts its body and adjusts its swimming patterns to resemble a sea snake or one of several toxic fish.  Now, ichtyologist Luiz Rocha of the California Academy of Sciences and his colleagues have discovered that a small, timid fish called the jawfish actually mimics the mimic octopus.

LUIZ ROCHA (California Academy of Sciences):

The jawfish is not mimicking anything that is mimicked by the octopus.  So the jawfish is not mimicking the lionfish, for example.  Or a sea snake.  It’s mimicking the actual mimic.

HIRSHON:

He says the jawfish rarely ventures out of its burrow alone.  But it will swim in the open with a mimic octopus, blending into its tentacles while the octopus itself puts up its own false front.  Rocha says it’s the first known fish in the sea to mimic a skilled imposter, rather than a genuinely dangerous species.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

Do some storms spark earthquakes?  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

As if tropical cyclones weren’t destructive enough on their own, they may also set the stage for big earthquakes.  This according to University of Miami geophysicist  Shimon Wdowinski.  He got suspicious after the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010.  Two years earlier, four severe storms had battered Haiti within 25 days. 

SHIMON WDOWINSKI (University of Miami):

It was only one example, so I looked for other examples, and I found them in Taiwan. 

HIRSHON:
Taiwan’s records were much more thorough.  Wdowinski’s team found that over the last half century, Taiwan’s worst typhoons have been followed by major earthquakes within four years.  His theory is that the heavy rains wash away huge amounts of soil that weighed on the area’s faults.  For the type of fault found in Haiti and Taiwan, that makes it easier to release stress in the form of an earthquake.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

Two sides of the same brain…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update. 

Humans tend to use the left side of their brains to process speech sounds and the right side to process music. Now, researchers have found that bats also process sounds differently on the right and left sides of their brains. Bats use echolocation to navigate in the dark. But they’re social animals, and they communicate using calls like this one, which has been slowed down so it’s within the range of human hearing.

(Bat call slowed down)

Georgetown University neuroscientist Jag Kanwal recorded the activity of single neurons in the bats’ brains as they listened to both types of sounds.

JAG KANWAL (Georgetown University Medical Center):

And we find that neurons on the right respond better to echolocation sounds than they respond to the communication sounds.

HIRSHON:

He says neurons are specialized for processing just one type of sound. But by using both sides of the brain, bats and humans can process two types of sound at the same time. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

A buttercup’s yellow shine. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

For generations, children have held buttercup flowers under the chins of their friends to see if they liked butter—as revealed by a yellow glow on their chins. But until recently, scientists didn’t know why these flowers were so uncommonly shiny. Now British researchers have found that the flowers have a layer of exceptionally flat cells on their petals, as well as an additional reflective layer just below them. Together, they account for the flower’s glossiness. They say the petals not only reflect yellow light, but also UV light that’s invisible to us, but attractive to pollinating insects. 

In other news, University of Oregon researchers report  that the first fish like creatures to climb onto land lived in flooded forests rather than arid pools, as was thought. They likely developed their limbs negotiating water choked with roots and fallen branches. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Regrowing muscle… I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Our muscles can patch minor wounds, but with a major injury, scarring blocks the replacement of lost tissue.  Now, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the CellThera company in Massachusetts may have found a way around that.  Chris Malcuit of CellThera explains.

CHRIS MALCUIT (CellThera, Worcester, MA):

We found a new material called fibrin microthreads, which serve as a very nice delivery vehicle for putting new muscle cells into a wound site.  And at the same time, these microthreads cause a dramatic decrease in scar formation.

HIRSHON:

His team implanted the microthreads in mice with major muscle injuries.  Surprisingly, although the threads were seeded with human cells, the resulting muscles were composed mainly of mouse cells – suggesting the threads attracted the host’s own cells to rebuild new tissue. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

The color of sound…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

(SFX: Low-pitched sound and high-pitched sound)

What colors come to mind when you hear low and high-pitched sounds? Studies have shown that most of us associate low-pitched sounds with dark colors and high-pitched sounds with bright colors. Now, scientists have discovered that our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, do this too. Cognitive neuroscientist Vera Ludwig of Humboldt University in Berlin led the study. Her team had both humans and chimpanzees sort white and black squares on a computer screen while listening to low or high-pitched sounds. 

VERA LUDWIG (Humboldt University, Berlin):

Humans perform worse when the sound doesn’t match the color and in chimpanzees, we found the same effect, so therefore we conclude that chimpanzees have this association between higher-pitched sounds and brighter colors.

HIRSHON:

The findings suggest that the phenomenon evolved much earlier than previously thought. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Predicting antidepressant success.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Antidepressants can take weeks to work, and it often takes several tries to find the right one.  But psychiatrist Angelos Halaris of Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois may be on to a shortcut.   His team found that patients with higher levels of a blood protein called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, responded better to an antidepressant called escitalopram.

ANGELOS HALARIS

Those with the higher levels at baseline were the ones who had the best response to treatment, as contrasted by those who had the lowest levels, who didn’t respond to treatment.

HIRSHON:

In fact, high starting VEGF levels predicted a good response to escitalopram with 85 percent accuracy.  That suggests a simple blood test could predict whether this particular drug would be worth a try.  The question now is whether VEGF, or other blood markers, could predict the success of other antidepressants as well.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

Counting pigeons…I’m Bob Hirshon, and this is Science Update.

Rhesus monkeys can put images in numerical order based on the number of objects in each image. It’s often assumed that this kind of counting ability is unique to primates. But pigeons can count, too, according to psychologist Damian Scarf of the University of Otago in New Zealand. He and his team trained pigeons how to count from 1 to 3 by putting images of objects in order on a touch screen. Then they introduced new quantities of objects, up to 9. 

DAMIAN SCARF (University of Otago in New Zealand):

And we found that the pigeons were able to correctly order different numbers of objects that they’d never see before.

HIRSHON:

This suggests that the pigeons aren’t just learning by rote memorization, but applying abstract counting rules to novel quantities. He says the skill makes evolutionary sense, because pigeons that can discriminate between areas with large and small amounts of food would have a survival advantage. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

A pigeon contemplates how many objects are in the box (William van der Vliet)

An eternal calendar. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

This year, New Years Day fell on a Sunday. And if Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Richard Conn Henry and economist Steve Hanke have their way, that’s the way it’ll stay. They’ve come up with a calendar that remains constant, year after year. That means holidays, sports schedules and the school year would never have to vary.Their calendar still has twelve months, each with thirty or thirty-one days, but no leap years. Instead, they add a leap week every five or six years.

In other news, researchers at Columbia and Stanford have found a direct correlation between being impatient and having a low credit score. Volunteers played a game in which they could either get a quick reward now or a bigger reward later. Players who tended to choose the quicker reward were found to have significantly lower credit ratings. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Predicting drug side-effects…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Dangerous drug side-effects often show up only after a drug has been on the market for a number of years. For instance, the arthritis drug Vioxx was recalled in 2004, 5 years after it was approved by the FDA, because of an increased risk of heart attacks. But what if a drug’s unknown side-effects could be predicted? Harvard Medical School computer scientists Ben Reis and Aurel Cami and their colleagues set out to do just that. Cami says they analyzed all the relationships that were known in 2005 between 800 drugs and 850 side-effects.

AUREL CAMI (Children’s Hopsital Boston/Harvard Medical School):

Based only on this 2005 data, our model was able to correctly predict about half of the new drug side-effect relationships that were reported between 2006 and 2010.

HIRSHON:

What’s more, he says the model only generated a small percentage of false positives. Next, they plan to use the model to predict harmful interactions between different drugs. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Debunking the “27 Club”… I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update. 

Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, and now Amy Winehouse…all famous musicians who died at the age of 27. But is the so-called “27 Club” a real phenomenon or just a coincidence? To find out, Queensland University of Technology statistician Adrian Barnett and his colleagues analyzed the lifespan of every musician who had a #1 hit on the UK album charts between 1956 and 2007.

ADRIAN BARNETT (Queensland University of Technology):

We did find a very small blip in risk at age 27, but there were also very similar blips at age 25 and 32, so if you’re going to believe in the 27 Club, then you need to believe in the 25 and 32 Club as well.

HIRSHON:

He adds that overall, famous musicians in their 20s and 30s were 2 to 3 times more likely to die than others of the same age. He says fame and lifestyle caused the spikes, not an unlucky number. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society. 

Brainy legs.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Some spiders’ brains are so big they spill over into their legs.  This according to evolutionary biologist William Eberhard of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Insitute.  He and his colleagues at the University of Costa Rica discovered this while studying a variety of Central American spiders. 

WILLIAM EBERHARD (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute):

In both young individuals of larger species and in adults of very small species, the brain extends into the bases of their legs and also bulges out of the lower part of their body, so they have what looks like a slightly bulging tummy, which houses almost pure brain as far as we can see. And this has also been found in very small insects, that they have brains that go all the way back into their abdomen, some species.

HIRSHON:

Eberhard notes that smaller creatures generally have big brains relative to their body size.  But the spiders are a particularly extreme case.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

The oldest oldies.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

In the 1880s, Alexander Graham Bell and his colleagues made primitive sound recordings on media like glass, beeswax, and tinfoil.  Now, scientists have begun playing back these recordings, which previously wasn’t possible.

CARL HABER (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory):

Many of these recordings are very delicate and you wouldn’t want to touch them. 

HIRSHON:

That’s physicist Carl Haber of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.  His team takes a high-def digital picture of the recording, and then calculates what a needle moving through it would sound like.  The results are noisy, but if you listen closely, you can hear a voice reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb”:

[audio: Mary Had a Little Lamb]

or “To Be or Not to Be.”

[audio: To Be or Not To Be]

I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

New drugs from smelly frogs. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The skin of a frog is moist and inviting to bacteria and fungi. So it’s not surprising that frogs secrete a host of microbe-fighting compounds. Now a team from China has looked into odorous frogs, a group of frogs that smell like rotten fish, and found that they are a treasure trove of antibiotic compounds. The team isolated over 700 microbe-fighting proteins from the frogs, some that kill germs in ways new to science. The goal is to use the proteins to develop new drugs to fight infectious disease.

In other news, French researchers have discovered that a species of African ant produces a venom so potent that it kills termites they don’t even sting. The ants spray the venom from a distance of about two body lengths. The ant venom could be the basis of more potent insecticides. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.