Science Special News

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Magnets may make the brain grow stronger

Could magnets make the mind grow stronger? In mice at least, stimulating the brain with a magnetic coil appears to promote the growth of new neurons in areas associated with learning and memory. If the effect is confirmed in humans, it might open up new ways of treating age-related memory decline and diseases like Alzheimer's.Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been used experimentally to treat a range of brain disorders, including depression and schizophrenia, and to rehabilitate people after a stroke. TMS uses a magnetic coil to induce electric fields in the brain tissue - activating or deactivating groups of neurons, although the exact mechanism has remained unknown. One theory was that it aided learning and memory by strengthening brain circuits through a process called long-term potentiation (LTP).

To investigate, Fortunato Battaglia at the City University of New York and his colleagues gave mice TMS for five days, then analysed their brains for evidence of LTP or cell proliferation.They confirmed that TMS enhanced LTP in all areas of the brain tested, by modifying key glutamate receptors so that they stayed active for longer. The team also saw large increases in the proliferation of stem cells in the dentate gyrus hippocampus. These cells divide throughout life and are now believed to play a crucial role in memory and mood regulation.

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New frog species found in Thailand

Submitted by Pendekar Timur: A new species of mountain frog that changes colour in response to its surroundings has been discovered in northeast Thailand, a biologist said Wednesday. The Odorrana aureola, known locally as the Phu Luang Cliff frog after the national park where it was found, can grow to 80 millimeters (3.5 inches) and has a green body which occasionally turns brown, researchers said."It reflects its surrounds," said Tanya Chan-ard, curator of Bangkok's National Science Museum, who studied the frog with a team of government biologists and researchers.Tanya told AFP it was the world's newest species of mountain frog, and was found only in Phu Luang National Park, which covers parts of the three mountainous northeastern Thai provinces.The frog can only be found at waterfalls and creeks between 1,000 and 1,500 metres (3,300 and 4,900 feet) above sea level, he added.

"We found the frog quite some time ago but we began seriously studying it at the DNA level last year," said Tanya, who presented his findings at a seminar in Bangkok on Tuesday.The team's findings were confirmed by US-based experts with the natural history journal Fieldiana last year, he added.Researchers do not know how many of the Odorrana aureola are in the Thai wild, but Tanya said there were probably not very many as they did not breed very often.

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Man stays awake for 11 days/nights

A Cornish man says he has broken the world record for sleep deprivation by staying awake for 11 days and nights. Tony Wright, 42, from Penzance, was trying to beat the Guinness world record of 264 sleepless hours set by Randy Gardner in the US in 1964. He fought off tiredness by drinking tea, playing pool and keeping a diary. The Guinness Book of Records has since withdrawn its backing of a sleep deprivation class because of the associated health risks. Weary Mr Wright told BBC News: "I feel pretty good, It's been a bit of a slog, but I got there." He said that his 'Stone Age' diet of raw food helped parts of his brain to stay awake and remain functional for long periods. He said: "It makes it much easier to switch from one side of the brain which is really tired, to the other. "But both are pretty tired at the moment."

During the record attempt, Mr Wright noticed his speech becoming incomprehensible at times and colours appearing very bright. A webcam and CCTV cameras monitored him 24-hours a day. The attempt was part of Mr Wright's research into the body's relationship to sleep. He argues that parts of the human brain require a different amount of sleep and it is possible to stay awake and remain functional for long periods.

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The surprising realites of mythical creatures

While sailing the ocean near Haiti, Christopher Columbus in 1493 reported seeing three mermaids from a distance. The Genoese explorer was not impressed.Up close, the sea maidens were "not as pretty as they are depicted," he wrote in his journal, "for somehow in the face they look like men."Many scientists now think that what Columbus probably saw was a manatee, an aquatic mammal that resembles a flippered hippo.In a new exhibition opening at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) here this weekend, viewers can digitally superimpose the picture of a mermaid atop that of a manatee and see how Columbus and countless other sailors might have been fooled.Entitled Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids, the exhibition traces the possible origins of some of the world's most famous "imaginary" beasts and also their lesser-known counterparts. "This museum has a long history of studying and presenting great stories about the natural world and the culture of humanity," said AMNH president Ellen Futter at a press preview of the exhibition earlier this week. "In this exhibition, we extend that tradition further, by looking at the intersection of nature and culture, those moments when people glimpse something fantastical in nature."

The exhibition deftly combines nature and myth, paleontology and anthropology, and delightfully campy models of mythical creatures with real fossils. Upon first entering the exhibition, visitors are greeted by a 17-foot-long, green, European dragon of the sort that legend says Saint George slew. Its sinuous and colorful Chinese counterpart hangs from the ceiling in one of the last rooms of the exhibition. In the mythical water-creatures section, large tentacles and the head of a giant squid-inspired kraken rise from the floor, its body mostly hidden.Mythic Creatures borrows specimens and artifacts from the fossil, art and anthropological collections of the AMNH and other museums, and examines how such objects might have-through imagination, misidentification, speculation or outright deception-given birth to fantastical creatures.

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Nasa names shuttle launch date

After weeks of delay, space shuttle Atlantis has finally been given a launch date for its mission to the International Space Station (ISS). US space agency officials said the blast-off was scheduled for 8 June from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The orbiter will deliver new equipment to the space station. The mission was due to take place in March but repairs had to be made to the shuttle's external tank, which was damaged by a hailstorm in February. Golf-ball sized hail stones hit the launcher vehicle system, causing hundreds of dents and minor surface damage to the tank's foam covering and to heat shields on the orbiter itself. Since the destruction of Atlantis's sister shuttle Columbia and the death of its crew in 2003, shuttle damage has been a major cause of concern for Nasa. Columbia's heat shield was damaged during its launch and the ship was destroyed as it returned through the atmosphere 16 days later. After extensive repairs, Nasa is now confident Atlantis is ready to fly. "We're good to go," said Wayne Hale, Nasa's space shuttle programme manager.

"We have no show stoppers ahead of us." Atlantis will have a crew of seven: Rick Sturckow will command the mission and Lee Archambault will serve as Atlantis' pilot. Mission specialists James Reilly, Patrick Forrester, Steven Swanson, John Olivas and Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson make up the rest of the team.

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Great wall of China for world wonder

China is so worried that its iconic Great Wall will not be named one of the "new" seven wonders of the world, it has launched a campaign to get Chinese people to vote for it, Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday. More than 45 million votes had so far been cast in an online campaign by the non-profit New7Wonders Foundation (www.new7wonders.com) to choose the world's seven "new" wonders, the foundation said. The final result will be unveiled on July 7.According to the Academy of the Great Wall of China, the wall has recently dropped out of the top seven and it blamed the voting process, saying relatively few Chinese used the Internet and those that did had poor English-language abilities.But people can now vote by mobile telephone, and some of the Web site has been translated into Chinese, Xinhua added."China's Great Wall missed an opportunity 2,000 years ago when the Greeks named the Seven Wonders of the World. It would be extremely regretful if it became an also-ran this time," the academy said in a statement.

Among other monuments or sites nominated were the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Taj Mahal in India, Peru's mountaintop city of Machu Picchu, Britain's Stonehenge and New York's Statue of Liberty.The New7Wonders Foundation was set up in 2001 by Swiss-Canadian adventurer Bernard Weber to protect humanity's heritage.The ancient Greeks chose the original Seven Wonders but only one of those remains -- the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

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Upright walking 'began in trees'

Submitted by Pendekar & Waspie: The ancestors of humans began walking upright while they were still living in trees - not out on open land, according to a new theory. The traditional view is of bipedalism evolving gradually from the four-legged "knuckle-walking" displayed by chimpanzees and gorillas today. Now, a study published in the journal Science disputes this idea. The British authors of the study say that upright walking was always a feature of great ape behaviour. Humans inherited it without ever passing through a knuckle-walking phase. They believe that knuckle-walking evolved only recently as a way of getting around the forest floor. Susannah Thorpe, Robin Crompton and Roger Holder came to their conclusions after analysing the movement of wild orangutans, which spend most of their lives in trees. They found that orangutans used upright locomotion to fetch food from the small branches of trees and to cross directly from one tree to another.

"Both access to fruits and crossing gaps in the trees would require an ability to navigate very thin, terminal tree branches which are liable to bend under body mass," said Professor Robin Crompton, from the University of Liverpool. "The logical conclusion from the environmental, fossil, and experimental evidence is that upright, straight-legged walking originally evolved as an adaptation to tree-dwelling."

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Patent sought on 'synthetic life'

Scientists working to build a life form from scratch have applied to patent the broad method they plan to use to create their "synthetic organism". Dr Craig Venter, the man who led the private sector effort to sequence the human genome, has been working for years to create a man-made organism. But constructing a primitive microbe from a kit of genes is a daunting task. Dr Venter says, eventually, these life forms could be designed to make biofuels and absorb greenhouse gases. The publication of the patent application has angered some environmentalists. The Canada-based ETC group, which monitors developments in biotechnology, called on patent offices to reject applications on synthetic life forms. The J Craig Venter Institute's US patent application claims exclusive ownership of a set of essential genes and a synthetic "free-living organism that can grow and replicate" made using those genes. It has also filed an international application at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) which names more than 100 countries where the institute may seek monopoly patents. Dr Venter's team intends to construct an organism with a "minimal genome" that can then be inserted into the shell of a bacterium.

By removing genes, one by one, from a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium they identified the minimum number of genes required for this particular organism to replicate, or reproduce, in its controlled environment. They have been able to remove 101 of its 482 genes without killing the bacterium, meaning that 381 were required for replication. But generating a man-made living organism from the bottom up requires much more than just its minimal genome.