Doggone Shame


The southwest of England has a long history of rebellion, riot and just being awkward. The latest little fracass is playing out in Langbridge, a small village near the old city of Bath. There is a group of one hundred protesters intimidating one poor individual leading a dog's life. Both the Daily Mail and Telegraph are running reports.

One hundred sheep have ganged up on poor Ci their Border collie supervisor. They close ranks and march forward with fixed expressions. As they get within a few feet, poor Ci has to back down. When Ci tries to walk away, they trot after him in a manner that can only be described as "purposeful.


What is this break down in discipline due to? Sheep dogs are not allowed to use physical punishment on the flocks in their charge. This may be a case of “spare the teeth and spoil the sheep” but we can't ignore the responsibility of the flock owner in this sort of situation. How much support have they given Ci? Was there adequate training given before throwing Ci into the general milieu teaching the naughty sheep their manners?

Well, the answer to these questions is a resounding “No.” Ci was put in with the flock as an inexperienced young puppy and the flock immediately took charge. That was the start of his ovinophobia. He has had this for four years now and there is no sign of him being booked in for therapy.

The next big question is what happens to a sheep dog that fails herding 101? Could he be re-trained to herd cows or would he be reduced to herding chickens? Perhaps he’ll have to maker the best of it and resort to fetching a tennis ball for a living. To make his disgrace complete, the Telegraph has a video of the action (1).

  1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8591664/Britains-worst-sheep-dog-chased-by-flock.html

Worn Out Genes


As we get older, the ends of our DNA, the telomeres, get shorter until replication goes haywire and we join the downhill race with our contemporaries, hoping to finish last. But it is not just the frazzled ends of our DNA that shows that we’re getting towards our use by date. Epigenetic modification does it too. Brockland et al of U Cal, LA have published a new study quantifying some of these effects (1).

In the early stages of our development, methyl groups get tacked on to some of the cytosine blocks of our DNA. This controls the activity and helps the cells remember what they are supposed to be. There are lots of unmodified cytosine molecules and those next to guanine form little islands – CpG islands. Brockland et al studied the methylation of two cytosine sites in three genes to see how this correlated with age.

The experimental program looked at 34 male identical twins so that random chance methylation could be ruled out. The twins were aged between 21 and 55. Then a larger group of men and women were asked to spit in a cup. Their ages ranged from 18 to 70. The results from all that saliva? Well,  the predicted age of the participants was within spitting distance of their actual age. That is, their age could be predicted within about 5 years on average.

The paper suggests that this could be a useful tool for forensic guys, and that may be so. But a much more exciting possibility is the use of the method to look at the difference between  chronological age and a patients biological age. We could all try hard to keep our DNA younger than our years and not just rely on our mirror. Also we could get tailored programs of health care to get us back on track and beat that ticking clock. Picture the day when we can drop into our local pharmacy, spit, and shortly after take our computer printout to the supplement counter.

  1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014821

Urbanized Brains


Across the globe there is population drift towards the cities. The drift is rapid and by mid-century more than two-thirds of the people on the planet will be nicely urbanized. The size of cities is increasing all the time as they fill with oligarch-wannabes demanding the good life filled with luxury goods and pampered by doubtful services.

The scramble to survive in those seething masses is stressful. Schizophrenia is on the rise, as is anxiety and depression. Just being born in the city, even we subsequently break free, has our brains sensitized to react anxiously. Meyer-Lindenberg and a large team have carried out an fMRI study of people from different environments who were being stressed (1).

The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 80. Some were urban born, some were not and some were currently city dweller and some not. With their heads in the big magnet, the subjects were plied with nasty little arithmetic problems. That in itself would stress most of us, but with feedback telling the subjects to hurry, and the problems manipulated to ensure that nobody did better than get somewhere between 25 and 40% as a score, the amygdala and cingulate cortex of each subject lit up.  Some more like Christmas trees than others.

Recall that the cingulate cortex regulates the amygdala. That part of the brain was shown to be more active with those who had spent the most time as kids in cities. When your amygdala is lit up, you are feeling threatened and stressed. It’s not just nasty sums that lights up your amygdalae (remember they come in pairs but not necessarily of equal size), but people getting too close and personal get it excited too. Binge drinking is bad for you, of course, and it damages your amygdala. On the other hand working hard on expanding you social network can increase its size and that is likely to help you be nice to your neighbors.

All this leaves us with an intriguing question. How do we build sustainable cities, which won’t get our amygdalae flashing like the light on an ambulance rushing to the ER?


  1. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7352/full/nature10190.html

A Royal Visit


The world’s newspapers are all agog with the events on the north island of New Zealand. At Peka Peka Beach an emperor has landed and is currently holding court to lots of locals. He’s made no pronouncements, but just relaxes and watches the fuss with interest.

He is a 10-month-old Emperor Penguin. Nice and plump and well fed on squid and krill according to the Sidney Morning Herald (1). He is however having a problem with the local drinks menu. Back home he would be slaking his thirst with a nice cold beakfull of snow. Not on the menu old chap in Peka Peka, but we have lots of warm wet sand. He has chosen to make do with that so as not to offend the locals. Although, warm sand will weigh a little heavy and maybe dull his appetite.

The consensus is that whilst cavorting in the Antarctic seas, he turned left instead of right and took one of those short cuts like your Uncle Bert used to take, which always involved you arriving late at the party or the wedding. Two thousand miles, though, is rather a long short cut.  I guess, like most males, he refused to admit being lost and wouldn’t ask for directions.

The last regal visit by a penguin of  Emperor status was 44 years ago on the south island. He is expected to leave shortly when he gets its fill of the attention of locals. It is to be hoped that he knows its right flipper from his left as he needs to make a right and head straight on from there.

  1. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/penguin-takes-wrong-turn-ends-up-in-new-zealand-20110622-1gebr.html

Bug Eyes


Everyday, we hear or see some news item about drones wreaking havoc on some remote site. Fifteen to twenty years ago, these seemed to be just “big boys toys.” Now the big, big boys in the Pentagon have around 7,000 of them according to yesterday's New York Times (1). More are on the way. The Times also points out that the US is training more remote pilots than bomber and fighter pilots combined. So, all you gamers out there, there may be a new career waiting. Would boot camp be required for drone pilots, I wonder?

Ohio now has the USAF microaviary where they are developing small to tiny drones that can zoom about and look like a hawk or a moth. Perhaps a small kestrel would be a good design to aim at as that falcon swoops about and hovers.

I can imagine a moth design being prone to great difficulties, though. The picture that comes to mind are clouds of these little moth bugs trapped in the circle of light from a street lamp,  unable to get to its target and do its bugging job. Besides they would give bats indigestion and bats are becoming critically endangered. Flying bugs that are moth-like should clearly be off the agenda

  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/20drones.html?_r=3


A Bird's Eye View.


When we look at a bird, we say “Oh there’s a crow,” or maybe a magpie or a mockingbird or whatever the species is. As we go out into our local environment everyday we see the same birds who, quite naturally, regard it as their environment. If we have a bird feeder, then we note the birds that come to feed. We may get a noisy crow who seems to be waiting and starts screeching as soon as it sees us coming.

We assume that it is the same crow because it happens at the same place, but could we pick him or her out of a police line up? I would wager that the answer would be a resounding “No.” All crows look the same to us, but all us don’t look the same to a crow, or a mockingbird as has been well documented in the past.

There are two reports this month in the journal Animal Cognition on birds recognizing specific humans (1, 2). The first shows that magpies can recognize people who have climbed to peer into their nest and will explain to them the error of their ways in livid magpie every time they see them (1). The other deals with pigeons in the park who quickly learn who are nice and who are nasty in terms of sharing food. Even swopping overcoats doesn’t fool them (2).

I am surprised at the surprise of the researchers who find this surprising. Birds spend a deal of their time in the air looking at the bigger scheme of things from an elevated viewpoint. They obviously have both sharp eyes and an extraordinary good pattern recognition and rapid processing ability, otherwise they would miss the lurking ground-based predator or the little snippet of food, or even worse that small entrance amongst the leaves to their nest site as the approach rapidly from a height.

The other point which I feel is almost too obvious to mention is that one crow, for example, recognizes other individual crows in spite of none of them wearing name-tags. The question that I would like answered is does that magpie recognize individual crows? Or would he say, if asked, “Oh crows, they all look alike to me.”

  1. http://www.springerlink.com/content/906q30818lv87592/
  2. http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4570207731l47h6/

Earmarked!


The brain-computer interface is taking a huge, dramatic step forward and moving into the consumer domain. The guys at Neurowear are working hard to bring their latest brain wave activated device to the fashionable stores by the end of the year. I have it right at the top of my Santa list. They are called Necomimi, Santa, mark it down now, please.

The prototype consists of a discreet headband that has a pair of furry cat ears mounted on it (1). Big deal, just another Anime character costume – I here you mutter, but remember that they are brain wave activated. If you are bored and disinterested in what you are looking at, the ears droop and you look fetchingly sad and clearly need attention. A fresh dish of caviar or perhaps freshening up your vodka-daiquiri would perk you up. As you feel more perky and interested, your cat’s-ears perk up in proportion.

Don’t dismiss this as a children’s toy. It is much more exciting than that. Open your mind to the possibilities. Picture a speed-dating event with everybody wearing these cat’s ears. There would be little pussy footing around. No need now for those little white lies and pretending to take down phone numbers. And think of the instant feedback potential; you could vary your line as his or her ears drooped.

They could be essential in every classroom throughout the land. No goofing off by students in the back row. But of course it goes both ways. Teachers and professors could be graded by an “ear-up count”. No longer any need for those tiresome questionnaires with unreliable answers.

The corporate meeting rooms would also benefit greatly. Those who have read the doc.s and ppt.s, and who have come loaded for bear, would show immediately that they were stand up guys, while the tag alongs who were disinterested and unprepared would be the droopy lot around the table.

The one proviso before launch is a government edict banning them from family-time gatherings. Some of us need to keep our illusions that our kids and spouses are interested in what we have to say.

The BBC video (1) shows how functional the Necomimi are. I dare say that some macho guys might prefer dog ears, perhaps of a Rotweiler design. I can hardly wait!

  1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13694911