TRANSCRIPT

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Dreaming up answers. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Many creative thinkers, including artists, musicians and scientists, report getting new insights through dreams. Harvard clinical psychologist Deirdre Barrett studies creative dreaming, and has found that t he dreaming brain specializes in visual-spatial solutions.

BARRETT:

Problems that start off as visual always get solved in a straightforward visual way in the dream, but things that are more of a word problem or math problem often get represented in images, because that seems to be the part of the mind that’s most active during dreaming.

HIRSHON:

She says dreams also excel at solving problems requiring outside the box thinking, probably because our prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that filters out ideas that are silly or inappropriate—is quiet during sleep, allowing unusual ideas to surface. She says visualizing a problem before going to sleep, and having paper, pen and a flashlight on a bedside table frequently yields valuable new insights. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

MORE INFO

If you want to hear Dr. Barrett discuss sleep in detail, check out this podcast on the Science of Dreaming from the American Psychological Association.

Also, check out this video, Dream Hacking, from NOVA.

A study titled Increased Creative Thinking in Narcolepsy looks at creativity in patients with narcolepsy, a condition characterized by a sudden onset of REM-stage sleep. Since creativity has been associated with this stage of sleep, the authors wanted to see if narcolepsy patients were more creative than a control group.

Researchers are also looking at the effects of daytime napping on different types of creativity.

And this study looks at our ability to enhance the creativity-boosting qualities of our sleep.

The post Creative Dreaming appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Refining robot social skills. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Making eye contact is an important social skill, but so is occasionally breaking eye contact. That’s true for robots as well. Bilge Mutlu is a professor of computer science, psychology, and engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His team found that humans were most comfortable talking to robots that glanced away in typical human patterns: to signal the other person’s turn to speak, for example.

BILGE MUTLU (University of Wisconsin, Madison):

People don’t interrupt the robot when it’s averting its gaze. And both when no aversion, or, sort of badly timed aversions happen, people are more likely to interrupt the robot, they think the robot’s not as thoughtful, and they don’t think that the robot’s behaviors are intentional.

HIRSHON:
Next, Mutlu says he’d like to teach robots more sophisticated gaze aversion habits: for example, making them respond to changes in eye contact from their human partners. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

——————————

This research was a project of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, co-led by Professors Bilge Mutlu and Michael Gleicher, and carried out by graduate student Sean Andrist and undergraduate student Zhi Tan.

The post Robot Gaze Aversion appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (Host):

Bombardier beetle buddies. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Bombardier beetles are bright blue and red, which helps to advertise their fierce defensive arsenal: burning hot toxic chemicals they can spray from nozzles on their butts. In the journal PLOS ONE, University of Arizona entomologist Wendy Moore and her colleagues report that while the nocturnal beetles are solitary at night, many different species shelter together during the day, under rocks.  

WENDY MOORE (University of Arizona, Tucson):

It’s actually a fairly unusual phenomenon for different species to regularly associate with one another.

HIRSHON:

One reason could be that the different species bring different toxic weapons.

MOORE:

–that probably contribute to a big chemical cocktail for a vertebrate predator that might find them during the day.

HIRSHON:

And the huge mass of brightly colored beetles could warn would-be predators to back off. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Enjoyable fear.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Fear and anxiety are negative sensations that people tend to avoid. In fact, they exist to help us avoid threatening situations. So why do we sometimes seek out fear-inducing experiences for fun— especially around Halloween? New York University neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux explains that being thrilled and excited and being terrified share many of the same physiological reponses.

JOSEPH LEDOUX (New York University):

You’ve got adrenaline and noradrenaline being released, and cortisol and all these things are impacting your brain. But in the situation that you’re in, you’re interpreting that in terms of elation or excitement, rather than in terms of something awful happening to you.

HIRSHON:

Of course, adrenaline feels more pleasurable to some people than others; for some, no matter how safe the environment, the negative sensations from viewing a horror movie or riding a roller coaster will outweigh any thrills. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

The post Seeking Out Fear appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Dancing with the lyrebirds. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

(Lyrebird song)

This might sound like a shoot-’em up arcade game, but it’s really an Australian bird serenading a female. Superb lyrebirds are known for their prodigious vocal talents. But now, scientists have discovered that the males also impress females by pairing each of their courting songs with a particular dance. Australian National University behavioral ecologist Anastasia Dalziell led the study.

ANASTASIA DALZIELL (Australian National University):

When they’re dancing they have just four different songs, and with each of those four songs, the lyrebirds have a unique set of dance movements. So depending on what songs they sing, you can predict what kind of dance moves they’re going to perform.

HIRSHON:

She says as in humans, coordinating dance moves with songs is hard work. So it’s possible that females pick their mates based on their ability to groove. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Watch a video about superb lyrebird song and dance

For more information about this study, visit: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.05.018

The post The Lyrebird’s Dance appeared first on Science Update.

A colorful defense. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Sea hares are strange sluglike creatures that live on seaweed in shallow waters. Like squid, they emit a colorful but foul-tasting ink when threatened by predators. But according to Georgia State neuroecologist Charles Derby, the ink contains an amino acid that can actually stimulate a predator’s appetite.

CHARLES DERBY (Georgia State University):

They’ll grab the sea hare; the sea hare will ink, and the predator will drop the sea hare and start eating this ink, and what happens then is that it’s distracted by this, and allows the sea hare to escape. So it’s a pretty cool form of defense.

HIRSHON:

Derby’s research team found that the ink may also scramble the predator’s ability to sense the presence of prey. And he adds that enzymes in the ink have antimicrobial properties, which could be used to treat wounds or combat harmful bacteria. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

The post Sea Hare Ink appeared first on Science Update.

The ups and downs of yo-yo dieting. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Many doctors warn that yo-yo dieting, in which people repeatedly cut down on calories and lose weight, but then gain it right back again, is worse than being overweight. But Indiana University researcher David Allison and his colleagues report in the journal Obesity that in mice, such up and down weight cycling improved longevity when compared with mice who didn’t diet at all.

DAVID ALLISON (Indiana University School of Public Health- Bloomington):

So it’s better, at least if you’re an obese mouse, to lose weight, even if you regain that weight, and do it over and over again.

HIRSHON:

Allison says more work will be needed to see whether the same holds true for humans. Since losing and regaining weight is so common in people, he adds that understanding how it affects metabolism, body composition, inflammation and other markers of health is important. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (Host):

Dad’s exercise might make kids healthier. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

If a male mouse exercises for a few weeks before fathering offspring, those offspring will grow up to be healthier adult mice. This according to Ohio State researcher Kristin Stanford and her colleagues, writing in the journal Diabetes.

KRISTIN STANFORD (Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center):

So essentially, it improved their glucose metabolism, decreased body weight, and increased insulin sensitivity.

HIRSHON:

She said that even though exercise doesn’t change the DNA that the father mouse gives to its offspring, it does change other molecules called small RNAs that control how the DNA is expressed. She suspects the same is true in people.

STANFORD:

The idea would be if you have a dad who wants to have a child, if they could exercise, maybe just a month prior to conception, that would have a really dramatic effect on their child’s life.

HIRSHON:

The researchers are now trying to understand how the small RNAs exert this effect. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Talking with dogs. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

It often seems like our dogs hang on our every word, but do they really understand human vocabulary? To find out, Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns and his team scanned the brains of pet dogs while their owners talked to them. They report in Frontiers in Neuroscience that the dogs’ brains distinguished familiar words associated with favorite toys from words they had never heard before that were paired with random objects.

GREGORY BERNS (Emory University):

What we found was some evidence that at least in half the dogs we could ID regions that seem to represent these objects based solely on the names of them. We see evidence for representation in the temporal lobes, which is also what you see in humans.

HIRSHON:

Berns says while their word discrimination abilities are impressive, your dogs may understand you best when you use simple language combined with hand signals. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

The post Dog Vocabulary appeared first on Science Update.

Can virtual reality boost empathy? I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Virtual reality technology helps people experience what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. This makes them more empathetic, according to a study in the journal PLOS ONE. Stanford psychologist Fernanda Herrera and her colleagues immersed volunteers in a virtual reality experience that simulated homelessness: from facing eviction, to living in a car, and interacting with other homeless people.

FERNANDA HERRERA (Stanford University):

The main takeaway of our study is that taking the perspective of others in VR produced more empathy and pro-social behaviors immediately after the VR experience and better attitudes toward the homeless comparative to a traditional perspective taking task.

HIRSHON:

Herrera says those improved attitudes were long-lasting. She plans to test whether different types of virtual reality foster empathy in other social contexts. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.    

Story by Susanne Bard

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Runaway germs. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Modern office work has increased the spread of viruses. To find out just how quickly germs move around, University of Arizona environmental microbiologist Charles Gerba and his team put a harmless virus on the doorknobs of office buildings at the beginning of the day.

CHARLES GERBA (University of Arizona):

We were quite surprise by how fast the virus spread. Within four hours it appeared on half the surfaces that people would commonly touch.

HIRSHON:

In fact, he says people’s hands spread viruses around more quickly than sneezing. And in another study, they found that hotel cleaning crews spread germs very efficiently from room to room via the very towels they used to clean with.

GERBA:

If you hear someone coughing in the room next to you, whatever he had will probably be in your room the next night.

HIRSHON:

If that’s enough to make you want to go live under a rock, the good news is, common disinfectant wipes reduced the viruses’ concentration by up to 99%. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

The post Spreading Viruses appeared first on Science Update.

Kangaroos in trees. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

If you visit the tropical rainforests of New Guinea, you won’t see any monkeys in the trees. But if you’re lucky, you might catch sight of a tree kangaroo. Like monkeys, these adorable creatures are adapted to life in the rainforest. They’re agile climbers, and use their hind legs to hop up tree trunks.

CHRISTINE JANIS (Brown University):

But compared to a monkey, they’re really clumsy.

HIRSHON:

That’s Brown University paleontologist Christine Janis. She says if monkeys had made it to New Guinea, tree kangaroos probably wouldn’t have had a chance there. But a twist of evolutionary fate kept New Guinea monkey-free: it was once connected to Australia, and shares much of the same for flora and fauna.

JANIS:

Basically, Australia and New Guinea have only recently moved up north into the tropical zone.

HIRSHON:

Tree kangaroos and monkeys are a great example of evolutionary convergence, where unrelated animals have similar characteristics because they live in similar environments. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

The post Kangaroos in Trees appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Debunking a sticky myth…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Listener Michelle Simms of Alexandria, Virginia says her parents warned her never to swallow chewing gum because it wouldn’t be digested for seven years. We asked Dr. Aaron Carroll, a health services researcher at the Indiana University School of Medicine, if this is true.

AARON CARROLL (Indiana University School of Medicine):

There’s no truth to the idea that swallowed gum will stay in your stomach for seven years. The body is incredibly good at getting things from one end to the other, even things that aren’t digestible.

HIRSHON:

Carroll says gum will normally pass through the system in about 24 hours. However, he warns that swallowing very large pieces of gum could cause an emergency blockage. And if you have a science question, give us a call at 1-800-WHY-ISIT. Thmat’s 1-800-949-4748. If we answer your question on the show, we’ll send you a Science Update mug! I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

The post Chewing Gum Myth appeared first on Science Update.

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Buzzing about the eclipse. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 captivated people across North America, including 5th graders living in the path of totality. The young citizen scientists investigated what bees do when the sun disappears behind the moon. University of Missouri researchers Candi Galen and Zack Miller helped them deploy tiny microphones to record the buzzing of bees in flight before, during, and after the eclipse. Galen says instead of gradually ramping down their buzzing as darkness fell, the bees kept flying. But as soon as totality hit, they stopped.

CANDI GALEN (University of Missouri):

At that time, the buzzing ceased, which meant that there were no bee flights. That surprised us.

HIRSHON:

They write in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America that the students continued to learn from their data for months afterwards. Catch the next total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

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Story by Susanne Bard

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Learning in the wild. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

(Savannah sparrow song)

Despite our lack of feathers, we share the ability to learn our vocalizations with songbirds. Now, researchers have demonstrated for the first time that young birds can learn from recorded songs in the wild. University of Windsor ornithologist Dan Mennill and his team played recordings of Savannah Sparrow songs through loudspeakers to young birds on Kent island in Eastern Canada. The recordings were of songs that had never before been heard on the island. When they reached adulthood, 1/3 of the songsters had learned the new songs.

DAN MENNILL (University of Windsor):

The first bird to open his beak produced a song that was a near perfect match to the sounds that we were playing through our loudspeakers. 3

HIRSHON:

The researchers write in Current Biology that the birds learned best if they heard the songs as babies and again as young adults. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

(Savannah sparrow song)

Story by Susanne Bard

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Mapping our exposure to microbes and chemicals. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

We spend our lives in an invisible ocean of bacteria, chemical, pollen and other air-borne material, both living and non-living. Scientists who study it, like Stanford researcher Michael Snyder call it the exposome.

MICHAEL SNYDER (Stanford):

So we’re trying to get a much more complete and accurate picture of what people are exposed to and we think ultimately that will be very very powerful for understanding how that impacts our health.

HIRSHON:

In the journal Cell, he and his colleagues report outfitting 15 volunteers with devices that sniff out biological agents like bacteria, and chemical ones, like pesticides. They cataloged thousands of microbes and chemicals, that varied based on geography and lifestyle. Snyder says the next step is to outfit thousands of volunteers with the devices to discover how this exposure affects health. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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Starving our marshes. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The marshes that surround New York might look like wastelands, but they purify water, provide a nursery for fish, and absorb the brunt of hurricanes and other storms. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, NASA paleoecologist Dorothy Peteet and her colleagues report that the marshes are weakening, because they’re no longer getting mineral sediments from rivers.

DOROTHY PETEET (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies):

You used to have eighteen streams bringing sediment into the marshes and now there are only eight. So you’re starving these marshes of the mineral matter that helps them keep up.

HIRSHON:

Also, nutrients from storm run-off make the marsh plants grow shallow roots that can’t grip the soil. They conclude that without expanded restoration efforts, the marshes will continue to recede, leaving the mainland exposed to storms and rising sea levels.  I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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Bundling memories. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Think back to great meal you had, and you might remember not only the food, but also the room you were in, and maybe a story someone shared while you dined. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UC Davis cognitive neuroscientist Tanya Jonker and her colleagues explain how this memory-bundling occurs, and how the very act of remembering reinforces it.

TANYA JONKER (UC Davis):

And we were able to demonstrate that when you are recalling you are in fact reactivating all of this rich contextual information, and you are binding it together, making that whole memory a more stable event in your mind.

HIRSHON:

They used brain imaging technology to reveal how thinking back on a very specific memory automatically activates other, associated memories, and strengthens connections between them. The work could have implications for the treatment of memory disorders. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

A century of flu lessons. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

100 years ago, the 1918 influenza pandemic claimed more than 50 million lives.

CAROLIEN VAN DE SANDT (Doherty Institute/University of Melbourne):

And it’s actually the most deadly pandemic that has ever occured in human history. 1

HIRSHON:

University of Melbourne researcher Carolien van de Sandt says we’re still at risk for new pandemics. In order to better prepare, her team has analyzed what made the 1918 flu so deadly. They write in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology that mutations to the virus sent immune systems into overdrive, and also made it more transmissible. Young adults were most at risk then, but today, malnutrition, obesity, and secondary bacterial infections could make a pandemic more deadly for some. What’s more, climate change affects where new flu strains emerge.

VAN DE SANDT:

It’s hard to believe how bad it can be and maybe we underestimate it a little bit. 3

HIRSHON:

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

Story by Susanne Bard

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Giraffes’ spotty inheritance. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Each giraffe has its own unique pattern of spots. Now, researchers report in the journal PeerJ that the size and shape of those spots is inherited. Penn State biologist Derek Lee’s team compared spot patterns between mother giraffes and their babies. They found that not only do mothers pass down specific features of their spots to their offpspring, but calves with especially large and irregular spot patterns were more likely to survive.

DEREK LEE (Penn State):

This evidence supports the camouflage theory that the spots exist so that the calves, when they’re hiding in the bushes in the first few weeks of life, will be harder to detect by visual predators like lions and hyenas.

HIRSHON:

Lee says this could be part of the reason spots evolved in giraffes, but that thermoregulation and social communication may also play a role. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS the science society.

Story by Susanne Bard

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Weighing rain. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Rain gauges can tell us how much rain fell in one place, but how do we tell how much water fell from a storm like Hurricane Harvey over all of Houston? Well, scientists now have the ability to weigh it, using GPS satellites. NASA Jet Propulsion Lab geologist Chris Milliner says Earth’s bedrock is springy, like a bed.

MILLINER (Jet Propulsion Lab):

So you can think about the effects of Harvey’s stormwater on Earth’s surface as if you were to sit down on a mattress.

HIRSHON:

In the journal Science Advances, he and his colleagues describe using GPS stations drilled into the bedrock to measure precisely how far down the water pushed the rock.

MILLINER:

And so we can then back out and calculate “what was the weight of that water that caused the observed depression in Earth’s crust?”

HIRSHON:

The technology will allow scientists to track water movements during storms and forecast floods. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Skunk vs skunk. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

[Pepé LePew clip] The cartoon skunk Pepé LePew was oblivious to his own stink, and listener Arthur Magida wonders whether skunks in general are immune. We asked University of New Mexico skunk researcher Jerry Dragoo. He says that skunks and other members of the order Carnivora, including dogs, don’t seem to mind the smell. But they are still repelled because the spray is an irritant.

JERRY DRAGOO (University of New Mexico):

If one skunk gets sprayed by another one, and it hits him in the face, gets him in the eyes, they do go through a lot of the typical behaviors you could see a dog do, you know, rub their face in the dirt, put their paws up to their face and rub it a little bit, so they are definitely affected by it when another animal sprays them.

HIRSHON:

If you have a science question, give us a call at 1-800-WHY-ISIT. Or email us from our website, science update dot com. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Memory-boosting exercise. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

We’ve all heard that exercise can be good for the brain as well as the body. But for many older adults jogging and cycling may be difficult. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UC Irvine neurobiologist Michael Yassa and his colleagues report that even light exercise can help.

MICHAEL YASSA (University of California, Irvine):

And what we’ve found here is that even exercise sessions as short as ten minutes of exercise that is not very strenuous, equivalent to maybe a brisk walk, we can see effects on memory, positive effects on memory.

HIRSHON:

They also report finding a likely mechanism: improvements in neural connections to, from and within the brain’s hippocampus, an area known to affect memory. The work was based on single short bouts of exercise in young adults. The team is now investigating the effects of regular light exercise on older adults. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Altruistic toddlers. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Altruism is a cornerstone of cooperative human societies. Research has shown that empathetic people with highly altruistic tendencies tend to be especially attuned to images of others in distress. Now, researchers report in the journal PLOS Biology that these patterns may develop at a very early age. University of Virginia developmental neuroscientist Kathleen Krol says infants who paid more attention to fearful faces when they were seven months old were more likely to display helping behaviors once they became toddlers.

KATHLEEN KROL (University of Virginia):

Already in infancy humans are showing this tremendous capacity to help others, and more shockingly, they show a tremendous variability in this behavior.

HIRSHON:

Krol says says despite these differences, parents can help nurture empathy in their children by encouraging them to recognize when others are in distress. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Susanne Bard

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Debunking STEM gender myths. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Fewer women than men are employed in science, engineering, and math fields. But that’s not due to differences in academic achievement, according to a study in Nature Communications. University of New South Wales researcher Rose O’Dea and her team analyzed the academic performance of 1.6 million students worldwide and found that girls received slightly higher average grades in STEM than boys.

ROSE O’DEA (University of New South Wales):

Our study suggests that there are enough talented girls to feed into this STEM pipeline and shrink this gender gap in science and maths, but just that this talent pool is being underutilized.

HIRSHON:

O’Dea’s team also found that boys’ overall performance was more variable than girls, but more so in non-STEM fields like reading and writing.

O’DEA:

So rather than worrying about improving girls’ maths skills, maybe we should be worrying about improving boys language skills.

HIRSHON:

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

Story by Susanne Bard

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Spacecraft hygiene. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The NASA Office of Planetary Protection is sort of a high-tech janitorial service cleaning and checking spacecraft for bacteria and their tough spores. Betsy Pugel is deputy to the Planetary Protection Officer.

BETSY PUGEL (NASA):

So that when something goes to Mars, or Enceladus, places that may have life, that we know what we’re taking along in terms of a biological load.

HIRSHON:

But she says no matter how carefully they scrub, some spores manage to survive.

PUGEL:

Nature always finds a way. You think you’ve cleaned something to the nth degree and somehow, somewhere there’s something that manages to persist.

HIRSHON:

In fact, the extreme efforts the group takes to disinfect the spacecraft have led to the discovery of new types of super-tough microorganisms that survive their efforts — clues to the very sorts of microbes that might live on other worlds. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Octopi on ecstasy. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The octopus bimaculoides, despite having eight limbs, is not a touchy-feely kind of species. The animals avoid each other except when mating, and even then, the larger females often tear their mates limb from limb. But in the journal Current Biology, Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Gul Dolen reports that the drug MDMA, also called ecstasy, makes the animals seek out one another’s company. She says MDMA boosts levels of a brain chemical called serotonin that controls sociability in humans and other mammals. But what about our far more distant relatives?

GUL DOLEN (Johns Hopkins):

I thought this is a great opportunity to test whether or not serotonin had this function back before when vertebrates and invertebrates diverged from each other.

HIRSHON:

The work is helping her team understand the brain’s evolution. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

Story by Bob Hirshon

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Dead elephants ID their killers. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Using a detailed map of African elephant populations based on their DNA, scientists can now match the tusk of a poached elephant to the time and place where it was killed. In the journal Science Advances, University of Washington biologist Samuel Wasser and his colleagues describe how that information can help find the kingpins behind the poaching.

SAMUEL WASSER (University of Washington):

To our surprise, we found that over the last decade, virtually 100 percent of the ivory was coming from just two places. ­­The same cartel is pulling the ivory out of the same place over and over again, and he’s probably in fact funding the operations of the poachers on the ground.

HIRSHON:

By matching events on the ground with ivory seized at major ports, along with suspicious financial transactions and other clues, they can prosecute suspects who have eluded justice for years. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

A guppy-munching insect. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Giants among insects, praying mantises have been observed to gobble up frogs, rodents, and even small birds. Now, researchers report in the Journal of Orthoptera Research that fish can be added to that list. Italian entomologist Roberto Battiston of the Musei del Canal di Brenta has been working with the insects for 20 years.

ROBERTO BATTISTON (Musei del Canal di Brenta/Museums of the Canal of Brenta):

So I was quite surprised because it is the first time heard about mantis feeding on a fish.

HIRSHON:

He says colleagues in India first alerted him to the unusual behavior via social media. They documented the mantis climbing onto pond vegetation to grab the guppies at night.

BATTISTON:

They have very sharp mandibles, so they basically cut the fish like a Japanese chef.

HIRSHON:

Battiston says the insects have large brains and may actually learn to fish through repeated experience. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Original source:

Battiston R, Puttaswamaiah R, Manjunath N (2018) The fishing mantid: predation on fish as a new adaptive strategy for praying mantids (Insecta: Mantodea). Journal of Orthoptera Research27(2): 155-158. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.27.28067

Story by Susanne Bard

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Behind our “gut feeling”. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Like our eyes and ears, our gut is a sense organ. In response to what we eat, it conveys information about nutrients, heat, and fullness to our brain. Now, researchers report in the journal Science that these signals travel via an electrical connection from the gut to the brain in mere milliseconds. Duke neuroscientist Maya Kaelberer says scientists used to think slow-acting hormones primarily transmitted this information.

MAYA KAELBERER (Duke University):

If we’ve ever eaten a really fast meal we feel full a lot faster than that. And this kind of led us to believe that there has to be a faster synaptic connection that’s actually relaying these messages to the brain.

HIRSHON:

In mice, her team found that a neurotransmitter called glutamate is responsible for actually relaying the signal. The discovery could help shed light on appetite disorders and obesity. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

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