Horse Sense


In the laboratory, mice and rats are frequently used as test models for humans, but the use of horses is unusual. Dr. Hausberger and her team at the Universite´ de Rennes have used a group of horses to determine if their type of work affects their personality (1). Sharing with us problems such as suppressed emotions and interpersonal conflicts makes them a good model.

This was a paper that I had to read. Expecting to see huge differences between a carthorse’s personality and that of a racehorse, I delved deep. No dawn to dusk heavy work or pampered athletes in this study, though. The work ranged from dressage, through show jumping to voltige. Makes sense of course, as the extremes would be an easy guess.

The results are interesting as they show marked differences in the way they expressed their emotions. The voltige horses were very laid back, and I guess running around a ring all day, while some scantily clad human does gymnastics on your back, would give you a “whatever” approach to life. The dressage beasts were the most tetchy and emotionally uptight. The rationale was that the utterly complete, tight control by the rider of every movement that the horse makes, while having to be sensitive to the slightest indication of the rider's intention and act accordingly, would make anyone anxious and stressed.

The more I read, the more the parallels with life at the office stand out. The question remains though, why do so many of us clamor for the high stress ‘dressage life’ when the ‘voltige life' would only make us laid back and calm?

1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014659

Mob Rule


Working with flocks of Polish ravens, Dr. Selva has shown that life is stressful for juveniles. The received wisdom was that as the juveniles go around in gangs, sharing food and generally raising hell, their troubles would start once the grew up and settled down with a soulmate for life. Squabbling with neighbors and bringing up the next generation were assumed to be heavy duty with respect to stress. On the other hand, the young had it easy, just hanging out with their friends taking no responsibility. 

Doesn’t this sound familiar? It is a line going back to the start of our written records, that human adults have been complaining about their young as being lazy, not taking responsibility and generally having an easy time.


The Polish study shows that corticosterone is present at a higher level in the juvenile ravens. This hormone is produced in the adrenal gland as is cortisol, (the stress hormone that we hear so much about) and was used as a measure of the higher stress levels experienced by the young members of the raven gang. I seem to remember that growing up was pretty stressful and being encouraged to get married and settle down.  Gang life has never been low stress due to all the squabbling and jockeying for position and general nonsense that goes on as juveniles mature. Poland clearly needs a raven outreach program in the Bialowieza Forest to bring these raving ravens back onto the straight and narrow.

Ants and other social insects have gang life down to a fine art, though. They all do their own thing and don’t squabble over group decisions. They utilize a system of quorum sensing to recruit their fellows to the same occupation. We’ve all experienced the same sort of things at meetings where it’s difficult to be the hold out and not go along with the majority. Dr. Franks of U of Bristol studies this process in ant colonies. When enough ants start doing the same thing, cognition reaches colony level and the decision is made. Then the colony goes with the flow. Very democratic, no partisan squabbling. Of course, we also have things to learn from lemmings.

Reflections


The fogging over of the bathroom mirror by the steam from the morning shower is one of nature’s kindnesses, for which most of us are truly grateful. When wiping a small circle to reflect my chin for its shaving trauma, I now am reminded of the chatty mirror in ‘Snow White’ and I’m waiting for the new generation of speech-enabled and programmable bathroom mirrors that will have the details of our fitness challenges and give us daily advice and encouragement.  The bathroom may then take on the character of the confessional. Our iPhones will naturally come to the rescue here. There is already an app to help the Catholic penitent with a checklist to fill out so saving time when going to confession.

However, our personal fitness regimens are probably taking a hit now that we are several weeks away from our New Year Resolution commitments. But the view in our mirrors should keep us up to the mark and help pushback the ravages of age.

It is a pity that we don’t have the ability to fatten up our telomeres. These protect the ends of our DNA and their lengths are critical in our ageing process. Short is bad, long is good. The activity of the enzyme, telomerase, increases telomere length but we don’t seem to be able to control this yet. A paper published yesterday by Cayuela et al (1) describes the use of zebrafish as a model. If the fins of this fish are cut off, they regrow and during the re-growth, the telomerase activity is high and the fish’s telomeres were elongated, especially if the fins are repeatedly chopped off. This seems a hard way to stay young. Maybe if I keep cutting my hair and finger nails, I will tweak my telomeres and look younger. That’s my best shot as anything else that gets chopped off won’t regenerate.



1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016955

Future Tech


As I suffer from a non-ostentatious form technophilia, I read with interest and a modicum of concern about the big new EU project called RoboEarth. Mark Ward of the BBC reports that this grand project will provide domestic robots with their own broadband internet which will enable them to share a veritable Wikipedia of knowledge about…er what?

Dr. Waibel of SFIT, Zurich, suggests that one domestic robot finding an unusual situation could find solutions suggested by other robots elsewhere. A noble intention, I guess. The scene is worth exploring a little further though. For the foreseeable future, domestic robots will be mainly enabled appliances. Refrigerators for example which can monitor inventory, flag up expired items and at least print out a shopping list if not place the order for delivery. Perhaps your web connected 52inch HD TV will be monitoring your heart rate and other vital signs while you are working out with MS Kinect, and tweeting the data to the robot in your Family Doctor’s surgery. Sounds wonderful, or does it?

My mind rapidly moved on to my robotic vacuum cleaner gossiping via Robotwitter with my neighbor’s refrigerator, about what it found under my bed and that silly refrigerator posting the gem on its Robofacebook page so that the snippet goes viral by lunchtime. Of course the robots should come with privacy settings, but they will need to be variable depending on which device they are talking to, but can I rely on my refrigerator keeping the confidences shared with it by my robotic medicine cabinet?

Wild Goose Chase





With waterfront property getting scarce and crowded, an expansion westward is beginning to take place. I met with this pair of pioneer homesteaders staking out a claim to the grass verge by the sidewalk. I attempted to explain the hazardous nature of the environment to the gander, and how this wasn’t an ideal spot to bring up goslings, but all he would do was to hiss me quiet so as not to worry his goosefriend, who had complete faith in his ability to handle any and all situations.

The transformation of the Ponds to a regular river–flood plain habitat has taken a leap forward this winter. The landfill for the riparian benches along the ponds, which reduce the steepness of the banks, are now sporting some sparse grass and the planting of the native species of trees and shrubs is well under way. Clearly, it is well on the way to becoming the nature wonderland envisioned in the original plan of six years ago. I do worry about our goosey friends and their ilk though. They are no match for the hungry predators that rush up and down the road. True, the Western Pond Turtle that I rescued from the road last year is still keeping his head down, but our Canada friends seem pretty determined to push the frontier.

Talking Heads


Today, I would like to commend to you Abraham’s article and give its URL (1). It is celebrating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Dr. Head who was head of the journal Brain ahead of Dr. Brain who was head of Brain from 1954-67 and who wrote an essay about Head in Brain on the centenary of Head's birth. Never mind that I am a few days late, it is a worthy read. It had quite slipped my mind that Dr. Brain had been honored and was Baron Brain of Eynsham.

Whilst doffing my cap to such scientific worthies, I thought about our gestures in general and how nearly all species indulge in these although they may not be universal, even among a single species. Dr. Laidre, while studying Mandrills (2), observed that one community had developed a gesture that was unique amongst Mandrills. They will raise their arm with their elbow stuck out in the manner of the military and cover their eyes with their hand. This is clearly not a passing acknowledgement as say, in a military march past, as they will hold this eye-covering gesture for up to half an hour. It is a “Do not disturb” indicator. This I thought was strange, until I read that they live in a wildlife park in Colchester, England. I am digging deeper to see if there is a gestural timing coincident with the screening of either “Britain has Talent” or “Prime Minister’s Questions” on TV.

Another interesting gesture that has been studied by Dr. Feldman of Cambridge U, is the rolling about of cats. She concludes that it is either a sexy ‘come on’ or a sign of submission – depending who is there. With the many cats that I have met, this has either been an invitation to play or a request for a tummy-rub. I usually know which afterwards as my hand is either dripping blood or is unscathed.


1.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/24/improbable-research-brain-journal

2. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014610;jsessionid=55B556879D0F7952C7CEB6C2B597FBF2.ambra02

Artful Access


Today I discovered Google’ tour of some of the worlds major art galleries and got lost in the wonder of the masterpieces of world spread over my 27 inch screen. You can zoom in to check out the brushwork and get some brief viewing notes on each painting or sculpture. There is a 3D mode but glasses are needed. Perhaps this is in preparation for future advances in technology.

You can click onto a museum and land in one of its galleries. In what is now classic Google-fashion, you can look around just as you do in G-Earth’s street view. ‘This is great,’ I thought as I proceeed to struggle to get through doors to explore further. Being gaming-impaired it took me some time (I won’t say how long) to understand the difference between a rectangle and an ellipse.  Click with the ellipse and you are dragged through the door into a new gallery with transmigrational visuals rather reminiscent of Star Trek.

My jar of quarters now has a purpose. The hot things at this year’s Consumer Electronics show were web-enabled huge screen HD TVs.  Google’s Art Project is clearly what they have been designed for. Try it: http://www.googleartproject.com/. 

By the time my quarter-jar has enough in it, they will also have 3D without the need for glasses. I will have to start planning now. The first thing to do will be to move my refrigerator next to my recliner and then….