Whales Have Talent


Humpback whales have built a solid reputation as wandering troubadours, plying their trade across the South Pacific. The hotspot for song writing is off the eastern Australian coast where the singer/songwriters audition for the big time. The big time is really huge, as all the guys in a population learn the same song and sing it all the time.

These whale versions of Pop songs are split into verses, which are then repeated. Their tonal range is startling and the very low notes can carry enormous distances ensuring a wide audience. Recordings of humpbacks singing are widely available so we can groan and shriek along even if we don’t understand the words.

Whales being whales, and males to boot, are never quite satisfied with the product and must tune tweak and change verses, so their songs develop over time. Garland et al from U of Queensland have been avidly studying recordings and have just published their results (1,2). During the whale’s 4,000 mile singing tours, pirated copies of the songs turn up in local populations along the route, with the result that songs with the same roots are heard all across the Pacific, with local tweaks creeping in here and there of course.


  1. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(11)00291-0
  2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9457000/9457855.stm

At First Sight


Last year a cooperative octopus living in an aquarium in Germany predicted the Football World Cup winners. This skill was a revelation to most of us who only meet octopus on our dinner plates. Sadly that wily octopus is now dead, so all bets are off for the 2014 Cup games.

It turns out that octopuses are quite bright lovable creatures. People who study them are aware of their individual personalities, their propensity to learn and solve problems, their ability to communicate visually and that they can recognize their lab caretaker, even if they don’t offer them multiple simultaneous hugs.

Tricarico and her Italian colleagues reported this week on a study of how well octopuses know their neighbors (1). In the wild, they don’t fight with their established neighbors but they do establish a pecking order. The question naturally arises then as to how easy is it for a new immigrant to move into the ‘hood?

When strange octopuses were allowed to stare at each other for a while, they recognized each other when they met again.  They had already sized each other up at first sight and in some cases dominance hierarchies changed. There had been no need to put things to the test and therefore, no ink had been spilt.

If the first encounter was short, the assessment was recalled for a day or so, but if they were staying for a while, they remembered for a much longer period.  Hence in the wild, the ‘hood is quiet with no undue gang violence.

  1.   http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018710

Aging Gracefully


Fruit flies in your kitchen are annoying little critters as they are telling all your visitors that you have over ripe (that is, rotting or fermenting) fruit available. They have a short life cycle; egg to adult takes a week, so your fruit fly restaurant gets crowded very quickly. The other side of the coin is that they make a good model system for scientists to study population behavior and change

In a paper published on Tuesday, Zou et al (1) described a detailed video study of their behavior, minute by minute throughout their lifetime. There was no privacy here. They were monitored as they rested, walked, flew, fed, drank or just scratched themselves.  The study showed that fly activity increased as the flies grew to their prime and then slowed down as they went past middle age and became elderly. Elderly flies spent much more time hanging around in cluster at the top of their cage complaining about the state of their world, the pushy exuberance of the younger guys etc.

A good healthy diet for fruit flies is a sugar and yeast smoothy. This keeps them up and flying well. As we all know (I think), a poor diet can lead to premature aging. A bad diet for fruit flies is to leave their vitamin B on the side of their plates and just drink the sugar water.

Using their tendency to laze around gossiping in clusters instead of getting around to their daily flying tasks as the indicator for reaching middle age, the team showed that middle and old age arrived much earlier when the flies were eating just junk food. A poor diet made the flies relatively hyperactive and increased their tendency after lights-out to stay hanging around bemoaning the state of their world. Rushing about, hustling on a poor diet had them middle aged in half the time of those living on a better diet and having a more relaxed well balanced lifestyle.

        1.  http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018151

Extreme Dates


We are all familiar with the nasty habits of female spiders and praying mantises eating their male friends after, or in some cases during, satisfying their lustful desires. However, it is always interesting to see someone bucking the trend, and when it comes to a whole species, it is even more compelling reading.

The Brazilian Wolf spider, Allocosa brasiliensis, who lurks in burrows in the sand prior to rushing out at night to grab an early breakfast, has settled on role reversal as a strategy for breeding success. Aisenberg et al from Clemente Estable Istitute, Montevideo.  In Uruguay have published a study (1) of 20 male Wolf spiders who were introduced to sprightly virgins and more experienced heavy bodied mated females.

The big boys ate 10% of the virgins on offer, but attacked 40% of the old gals and munched their way through 25% of the total on offer. The explanation is in the "extreme mate choice hypothesis" which the guys are going to go for the gals who will be most productive. The rest are lunch.

I guess guys will be guys and will be attracked to extreme sports. But these Wolf spiders seem to be determined to have their cake and eat it.


  1. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2011.01631.x/abstract

More Gosling Pictures




First Batch Hatch


The gosling hatch has commenced and the sitting around doing nothing is beginning to pay off, if you are a goose that is. These are the early birds. Some pairs still seem to be wandering about and can’t quite seem to concentrate on the job at hand. But there is a lot less squabbling going on and the ponds are peaceful.

Recent rains have brought the river level back up and the ponds are now at the highest that I’ve seen them. Some of the recent plantings are barely showing a tip above the water level. The cormorants are on vacation. The turtles are all over their abandoned logs, like huge barnacles whenever there is a hint of sun. Even a rumor seems to bring them out.

Some of the heron’s are working hard around the edges of the ponds. Their treetop nests are now well hidden by leaf growth. It is too soon to see if there are any chicks.



A Mug's Game


Whether we are old style hunter-gatherers in the forest or on the savannah, or are doing the equivalent in today’s modern, high tech world, cooperation between individuals in a group is a major factor in achieving success. How best to engender that cooperation is the subject matter of many books on the art of management and has turned many management consultants into fat cats. The usual recommended incentives are a blend of bonuses and punishments.

The laboratories most of the work is based on are in the field, with no controls and highly variable inputs. A new study by Pan and Houser of George Mason U (1) was carried out under regular laboratory conditions.  A large group of students were rounded up and handed a wad of experimental ‘green stuff’ to play an investment game. There were multiple rounds and sufficient controls to prevent corporate raids and other such capitalistic activities. The idea was for the groups to ‘invest’ in a project and the winners were the group that invested most generously. The kicker was that the bids were sealed so investment hysteria was out.

Of course games have winners and winners have prizes. In some rounds the prize was ice-cream. High quality of course, as would be suitable for future fat cats. In other rounds, the prizes were decorative mugs, suitable for prominent display on their desks, and of sufficient grandeur to brings ‘oohs and aahs’ from visiting friends and family.

The young women couldn’t get worked up enough to cooperate strongly for mugs. They went for the ice-cream. The young men in stark contrast were ambivalent when ice-cream was the reward, but would all invest heavily to win a trophy mug.

Those mugs would be permanently on display; announcing to the world the high status of those young men as Winners.

The long-term gains of the winning women might start off being on display, but perhaps not permanently after a spell of dieting.


1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018050#s3

Coffee Shopper


Sitting in the coffee shop corner of my local bookstore, my web ramblings turned up a couple of new and encouraging publications. The first one is the report of a metagenomic study from Caparoso et al from NIH, Bethesda (1) on a large number of  habitual caffeine consumers. The latter term is maybe more polite than addicts but I do need my early morning shot. It turns out that there are two spots on our genome that seem to be the culprits. It's always nice to be able to blame someone else for your habits and even better when it's a previous generation. 

Now, the discovery that one part of our genome sequence is helping us metabolize caffeine, whilst another part regulates the first part, is very encouraging. Since caffeine does good things for our health, apart from waking me up in the morning, understanding how we're programmed is important. It also can do bad things and maybe tracking the source of that response would be even more valuable. Some of us seem to be very intolerant to venti lattes, and maybe there is an opportunity there for some medical entrepreneur to offer some high priced genetic engineering service to those so afflicted.

Perhaps even more exciting for someone how is sitting in a store full of books to lust after, is the paper from Chang et al of NHRI in Taiwan (2). Retail therapy is now recognized as being a way towards longer and fuller life. Like all therapy, it has to be undertaken on a regular basis for it to be effective. Just once a week won’t do. Little and often is definitely the way to go.

We are left with the question of why does regular retail therapy improve your wellbeing and help you live longer? Note that it is an especially valuable therapy for the over 65s. My first thought, unworthy maybe, but first nevertheless, was that if we buy a lot, we owe a lot and we have to stay around to pay off the credit cards. But no, that’s not it. It’s the old physical activity and social interaction that does it. Scampering across the streets with loaded shopping bags will keep us nimble, and our vocabulary up to date.




  1. http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002033
  2. http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2011/03/17/jech.2010.126698.short?q=w_jech_ahead_tab