Scientists create novel approach to find RNAs involved in long-term memory storage

Public release date: 25-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Eric Sauter
esauter@scripps.edu
267-337-3859
Scripps Research Institute

JUPITER, FL, April 25, 2013 Despite decades of research, relatively little is known about the identity of RNA molecules that are transported as part of the molecular process underpinning learning and memory.

Now, working together, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Columbia University and the University of Florida, Gainesville, have developed a novel strategy for isolating and characterizing a substantial number of RNAs transported from the cell-body of neuron (nerve cell) to the synapse, the small gap separating neurons that enables cell to cell communication.

Using this new method, the scientists were able to identify nearly 6,000 transcripts (RNA sequences) from the genome of Aplysia, a sea slug widely used in scientific investigation.

The scientists' target is known as the synaptic transcriptomeroughly the complete set of RNA molecules transported from the neuronal cell body to the synapse.

In the study, published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists focused on the RNA transport complexes that interact with the molecular motor kinesin; kinesin proteins move along filaments known as microtubules in the cell and carry various gene products during the early stage of memory storage.

While neurons use active transport mechanisms such as kinesin to deliver RNA cargos to synapses, once they arrive at their synaptic destination that service stops and is taken over by other, more localized mechanismsin much the same way that a traveler's bags gets handed off to the hotel doorman once the taxi has dropped them at the entrance.

The scientists identified thousands of these unique sequences of both coding and noncoding RNAs. As it turned out, several of these RNAs play key roles in the maintenance of synaptic function and growth.

The scientists also uncovered several antisense RNAs (paired duplicates that can inhibit gene expression), although what their function at the synapse might be remains unknown.

"Our analyses suggest that the transported RNAs are surprisingly diverse," said Sathya Puthanveettil, a TSRI assistant professor who designed the study. "It also brings up an important question of why so many different RNAs are transported to synapses. One reason may be that they are stored there to be used later to help maintain long-term memories."

The team's new approach offers the advantage of avoiding the dissection of neuronal processes to identify synaptically localized RNAs by focusing on transport complexes instead, Puthanveettil said. This new approach should help in better understanding changes in localized RNAs and their role in local translation as molecular substrates, not only in memory storage, but also in a variety of other physiological conditions, including development.

"New protein synthesis is a prerequisite for maintaining long term memory," he said, "but you don't need this kind of transport forever, so it raises many questions that we want to answer. What molecules need to be synthesized to maintain memory? How long is this collection of RNAs stored? What localized mechanisms come into play for memory maintenance?"

###

In addition to Puthanveettil, who was the first author of the study, authors of "A Strategy to Capture and Characterize the Synaptic Transcriptome," include Igor Antonov, Sergey Kalchikov, Priyamvada Rajasethupathy, Yun-Beom Choi, Maxime Kinet, Irina Morozova, James J. Russo, and Jingyue Ju of Columbia University; Kevin A. Karl of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Eric R. Kandel of Columbia University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Kavli Institute for Brain Science; and Andrea B. Kohn, Mathew Citarella, Fahong Yu and Leonid L. Moroz of the University of Florida, Gainesville. For more information, see http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/10/1304422110.long

The work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Institutes of Health (Grants P50 HG002806, MH075026, 1R01 NS060762, 1R01 GM097502, R21RR025699, and 5R21DA030118), McKnight Brain Research Foundation, Whitehall Foundation, and the National Science Foundation (Grant 0744649).

About The Scripps Research Institute

The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the world's largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs about 3,000 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientistsincluding three Nobel laureateswork toward their next discoveries. The institute's graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. For more information, see http://www.scripps.edu.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 25-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Eric Sauter
esauter@scripps.edu
267-337-3859
Scripps Research Institute

JUPITER, FL, April 25, 2013 Despite decades of research, relatively little is known about the identity of RNA molecules that are transported as part of the molecular process underpinning learning and memory.

Now, working together, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Columbia University and the University of Florida, Gainesville, have developed a novel strategy for isolating and characterizing a substantial number of RNAs transported from the cell-body of neuron (nerve cell) to the synapse, the small gap separating neurons that enables cell to cell communication.

Using this new method, the scientists were able to identify nearly 6,000 transcripts (RNA sequences) from the genome of Aplysia, a sea slug widely used in scientific investigation.

The scientists' target is known as the synaptic transcriptomeroughly the complete set of RNA molecules transported from the neuronal cell body to the synapse.

In the study, published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists focused on the RNA transport complexes that interact with the molecular motor kinesin; kinesin proteins move along filaments known as microtubules in the cell and carry various gene products during the early stage of memory storage.

While neurons use active transport mechanisms such as kinesin to deliver RNA cargos to synapses, once they arrive at their synaptic destination that service stops and is taken over by other, more localized mechanismsin much the same way that a traveler's bags gets handed off to the hotel doorman once the taxi has dropped them at the entrance.

The scientists identified thousands of these unique sequences of both coding and noncoding RNAs. As it turned out, several of these RNAs play key roles in the maintenance of synaptic function and growth.

The scientists also uncovered several antisense RNAs (paired duplicates that can inhibit gene expression), although what their function at the synapse might be remains unknown.

"Our analyses suggest that the transported RNAs are surprisingly diverse," said Sathya Puthanveettil, a TSRI assistant professor who designed the study. "It also brings up an important question of why so many different RNAs are transported to synapses. One reason may be that they are stored there to be used later to help maintain long-term memories."

The team's new approach offers the advantage of avoiding the dissection of neuronal processes to identify synaptically localized RNAs by focusing on transport complexes instead, Puthanveettil said. This new approach should help in better understanding changes in localized RNAs and their role in local translation as molecular substrates, not only in memory storage, but also in a variety of other physiological conditions, including development.

"New protein synthesis is a prerequisite for maintaining long term memory," he said, "but you don't need this kind of transport forever, so it raises many questions that we want to answer. What molecules need to be synthesized to maintain memory? How long is this collection of RNAs stored? What localized mechanisms come into play for memory maintenance?"

###

In addition to Puthanveettil, who was the first author of the study, authors of "A Strategy to Capture and Characterize the Synaptic Transcriptome," include Igor Antonov, Sergey Kalchikov, Priyamvada Rajasethupathy, Yun-Beom Choi, Maxime Kinet, Irina Morozova, James J. Russo, and Jingyue Ju of Columbia University; Kevin A. Karl of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Eric R. Kandel of Columbia University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Kavli Institute for Brain Science; and Andrea B. Kohn, Mathew Citarella, Fahong Yu and Leonid L. Moroz of the University of Florida, Gainesville. For more information, see http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/10/1304422110.long

The work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Institutes of Health (Grants P50 HG002806, MH075026, 1R01 NS060762, 1R01 GM097502, R21RR025699, and 5R21DA030118), McKnight Brain Research Foundation, Whitehall Foundation, and the National Science Foundation (Grant 0744649).

About The Scripps Research Institute

The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the world's largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs about 3,000 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientistsincluding three Nobel laureateswork toward their next discoveries. The institute's graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. For more information, see http://www.scripps.edu.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/sri-scn042513.php

wii u wii u American Music Awards turkey brine Imessage Not Working mc hammer pecan pie recipe

Budget cuts back in spotlight as flight delays mount

By Mark Felsenthal and Alwyn Scott

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday backed a plan that would temporarily eliminate spending cuts disrupting U.S. air travel, while lawmakers in Washington scrambled to avoid blame as the impact of the reductions began being felt across the country.

Airlines pushed for the government to act as flight delays increased and planes stacked up at airports, with one chief executive saying, "We can't do this for long."

With Republicans and conservative commentators blaming President Barack Obama for using the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration to score political points, the White House said it supported Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's proposal to replace the reductions by claiming savings from the drawdown of war spending.

"We support this effort to allow both sides to find a longer-term solution that replaces the sequester permanently in a balanced way so we can stop these harmful cuts that are hurting our economy and middle-class families across the country," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing.

The administration would support the move as a temporary measure even though it does not raise revenues, Carney said.

Congressional Republicans have rejected the proposal, saying counting war savings is an accounting gimmick, but complaints about the air traffic delays have thrust sequestration back into the spotlight.

EFFECTS ADDING UP

Thousands of flights have been held on the ground, some for as long as two hours, since the Federal Aviation Administration began furloughing air-traffic controllers on Sunday. The intermittent delays have slowed travel at major hubs like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, caused flight cancellations and stirred concern a chunk of the nation's economy could suffer if the situation persists or worsens.

For business travelers and tourists, the slowdown means missed connections and meetings. Private planes used by businesses are waiting while controllers first guide commercial flights into hubs, and they are carrying more fuel as a safety precaution, in case they are held in the air.

US Airways, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have warned that furloughs could cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost revenue. The airline industry says it helps generate more than $1 trillion in economic activity in the United States annually and supports 10 million jobs.

"We can't do this for long without having major disruption to the flying public," US Airways CEO Doug Parker said in an interview. He said he called government officials at the airline's hubs last week, and that Congress and the Obama administration were trying to limit the damage.

The requirements have put pressure on FAA chief Michael Huerta, who was questioned in congressional hearings in the past two weeks about furloughs and the closures of smaller towers.

Huerta says the cuts are the only way to trim the agency's budget, and he said on Wednesday that flight delays had not been as bad as feared.

But industry critics said the FAA had not been forthcoming with information. "We didn't get a detailed briefing until Tuesday - a week ago Tuesday," said Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for the trade organization Airlines for America, or A4A.

Last Friday, A4A sought to block the furloughs in court, and the Air Line Pilots Association joined the A4A in launching a website that directs visitors to email or call congressional members on the issue. The ALPA represents nearly 53,000 pilots at airlines in the United States and Canada.

More than 12,000 people have used it to voice concerns since it went live on Friday. A map showing congressional districts shows large pockets of opposition in Chicago, the Northeast and California. Most of those posting comments oppose furloughs.

CONGRESS LASHES OUT

"These cuts simply punish everyone rather than specifically target the great number of outdated, wasteful and duplicative functions being funded with our taxpayer dollars," Iowa Republican Tom Latham said. "In short, arbitrary, non-targeted, across-the-board cuts are no way to run a government."

Members of Congress are offering a measure that would allow the FAA to transfer funds between accounts to minimize disruptions to air travel.

The sequestration cuts are the legacy of Republican efforts to pressure the Obama administration into spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation's debt limit. The White House and lawmakers agreed to hold up the threat of the reductions, which affect defense and non-defense spending equally, as incentive to reach a broader deficit-reduction deal.

When that deal never materialized, the cuts took effect on March 1. Although the administration broadly advertised the negative impact they would have, those effects were not evident right away.

Flight delays this week have revived the issue. Carney blamed Republicans on Wednesday for underestimating the negative impact of the spending reductions.

"Republicans in Congress made a political tactical decision to embrace the sequester," he said. Cuts proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would bite even more deeply than those under the sequester, he added.

But some Republican conservatives expressed support for the sequestration cuts on Wednesday, saying that they were long overdue.

"I don't understand this fascination with the Democrats right now with the sequester, and frankly some Republicans as well," Republican Representative Raul Labrador said.

(Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs in Scottsdale, Arizona; Editing by Ben Berkowitz, Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/budget-cuts-back-spotlight-flight-delays-mount-013232389--business.html

doris day buffalo sabres texas news kim mulkey sarah palin today show dallas tornado video 1940 census

Learning to cook with grains at Whole Foods Market Sarasota

At the corner of 1st and Lemon downtown are double glass doors to?Sarasota Whole Foods Market. Behind those doors is a fantastic classroom and kitchen I never knew existed until last month. For as much time as I spend shopping there, I never made the time to sign up for and attend one of the free cooking classes available at our local?Whole Foods Market.

Color me impressed. The fantastic stainless kitchen is equipped with all the best cookware and fresh foods a chef could ask for. There is even a camera on the workspace that shows up on an overhead large screen so that one can watch the cooking team at work. Last month the kitchen hosted a grains class by Kathryn McCue, Healthy Eating Specialist and Robin Rosen, Culinary Expert. I do know quite a bit about grains as a plant-based eater, but I found some great pearls of wisdom and cooking tips that were incredibly helpful for everyday cooking, along with some fantastic new recipes.

?

Whole Foods Market?maintains four pillars of Healthy Eating for their?Health Starts Here?program. Throughout the store, you can find foods labeled with Health Starts Here to tell you that the ingredients inside offer the greatest health benefits.

1.?Eat Whole Foods?- Choosing foods that are closest to their natural form are best. For example, it?s best to choose an apple over applesauce or a potato over the chip.

2.?Choose Healthy Fats?- Find your healthy fats from plant, nut and seed sources,?not?from oils or processed fats.

3.?Be Plant Strong?- Eating a rainbow of foods is a great way to ensure a variety of nutrients. Eat more plants such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains.

4.?Eat Nutrient-Dense Foods?- Choose foods that have a wide spectrum of vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Kathryn?s class focused on different types of grains. Some lesser-used grains can provide a great change in diet and nutrients. There are three parts to every grain. The?bran, which is the protective layer on the outside, contains fiber, vitamins and minerals. The?germ?stores the nutrients for the seed and contains fiber, B and E vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals (plant-based antioxidants) that help prevent the growth of cancer. And last is the?endosperm, which contains some protein and mostly carbohydrates and sugars. When whole grains are refined, the bran and germ are removed. ?The problem with many grains now is that they?re stripped of all their true nutrients, shelled, crushed, processed and in some cases even cooked before you get them, leaving minimal nutrients in the food. This is why it?s so important to choose grains closer to their natural state. For instance, rather than choosing couscous, which is highly processed pasta, try choosing wheatberries, which are the wheat seed or hulless barley which also maintains the whole seed.

As far as gluten is concerned, wheat, barley, rye and oats typically contain gluten. To ensure that grains are gluten-free, it?s best to purchase them prepackaged with ?gluten-free? on the label to avoid contamination. There is normally a warning on the packaging that says wheat is a possible allergen, or that the grains were processed in a factory that handles wheat. This is particularly important for those with celiac disease and identified wheat allergies. Buckwheat, millet, whole grain rice and quinoa are great gluten-free grain options.

Whole Foods Market Sarasota carries a wide variety of grains prepackaged in their grains aisle ?

? and a huge selection of bulk grains are available near the front of the store in the bulk aisle. These are probably the most economical way to purchase grains without waste.

?

When reading grain labels, be sure to look for the word?whole?in front of the grain (whole wheat, whole spelt, etc.). If the word whole is missing, the grain in question has been stripped of some of its nutrients.

In the cooking class, Kathryn and Robin chose to make tabbouleh. Normally the base of this dish is bulgur (cracked) wheat, but they chose millet.? Millet looks like small blonde pellets. You might recognize it as bird seed, but it currently feeds one third of the world?s population. The great news is that it?s gluten-free and cooks very quickly. Millet can be like rice in that it often clumps and sticks together. Kathryn boiled her millet for the recipe in a large pot of water like you would cook pasta. This prevented clumping and left the millet light and fluffy.

I recreated a version of this recipe at home that my whole family enjoyed in a variety of ways as leftovers.

MILLET TABBOULEH

1 cup millet
3 heirloom or a pint of grape or cherry tomatoes, chopped
2 cucumbers, chopped
1/2 cup red onion, chopped
1 cup flat leaf parsley
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup lemon juice.

The recipe also called for 1/3 cup fresh mint, but I omitted it because I didn?t have any on hand.

I boiled about two quarts of water over high heat (no salt or oil added) and added the millet once the water boiled. I reduced the heat to medium and covered, cooking for about 14 minutes. Then I drained and rinsed the millet and added it to the other chopped ingredients in a large bowl.

?

I found a few ways to sneak the tabbouleh into lunches and complete meals.

In a salad for lunch, I had a baby spinach salad with sliced cucumbers, grape tomatoes and sliced avocados. I topped the salad with about a half of a cup of tabbouleh, raw walnuts and squeezed lime juice over the top for the dressing.

?

?My husband?s lunch was similar, with baby spinach and baby kale topped with a large portion of the millet tabbouleh on top. ?His salad was topped with small cucumber pieces, watermelon radish triangles, grape tomatoes and whole walnuts along with fresh fruit.

I found a wonderful recipe similar to Whole Foods? ?California Quinoa? in the deli, which is one of my personal favorites. I found that another blogger had recreated the recipe, so you can find it here on his blog:?Kid Tested Firefighter Approved California Quinoa Salad Recipe. It?s oil-free and delicious!

This recipe is a kids pleaser too. With the unsweetened coconut, mango and raisins, the kids will eat this up and forget about the grain in it.

Above, the salad is packed to go for lunch in an Easy Lunchboxes container with kiwi and tangleo slices.

?

Another trick of my trade in feeding children is to make it pleasing to the eye. I made Columbian lentils for dinner the night before. I took the leftover rice and pressed it into a small flower mold with the back of a spoon. You can refrigerate it overnight in the mold and pop it out carefully in the morning. I added a small red pepper circle in the middle for decoration. You can even use a small cookie cutter on a plate as a rice or grain mold by pressing them in tightly without having to buy special tools.

Another tip for grains is to add raisins, dates or cinnamon for a touch of healthy sweetness to get them to try it. Remember, for some children it takes over a dozen times to taste a food before they decide they like it?so give them credit for trying!

?

?For my little one?s lunch above, I used India Tree brand natural food coloring available at Whole Foods Market in the baking aisle. The food dyes are derived from vegetables, unlike their conventional cousins which are petroleum and chemical-based, cause hyperactivity and have been linked to cancer. India Tree dyes are harmless and add an element of fun to entice little ones to try new grains. The heart mold was the top of a heart-shaped Easter container. Again, I scooped the rice into a bowl, stirred in the food coloring and tightly packed it in with the back of a spoon. Then I carefully squeezed the rice out on top of the lunch. In this case it was black beans and sweet onions.

?

I made small rice balls into an animal face with the help of some fun tools from my favorite bento box supply store,?Bento USA by All Things For Sale. ?They carry the small rice molds and fun animal picks you see in my sample lunchboxes. I used Stretch Island fruit leather for the mouth, beans for the eyes and an animal pick stuck in the top for ears. I don?t recommend the picks for children under the age of three, but they?re a great option for older kids.

Kathryn,?Whole Foods Market Sarasota?s Healthy Eating Specialist, is available for store tours. She teaches a monthly cooking class on the third Thursday of each month. Please see?Whole Foods Market Sarasota?s Facebook page?for a schedule of classes and events. Just call the store to sign up for the cooking classes and tours.

Happy, healthy eating!

Sarah Felder

Sarah Felder is a vegan mom with a passion for fresh, local food and healthy living. She shares beautiful, creative and kid-approved lunchbox ideas on her WordPress blog, Bentoriffic.

Source: http://www.thisweekinsarasota.com/learning-to-cook-with-grains-at-whole-foods-market-sarasota/

clear channel drexel dale george will obama birth certificate nick cannon lindsay lohan saturday night live

Scientist at Work Blog: A Night of Saurian Spotlighting

Jonathan Losos, professor and curator of herpetology at Harvard?s Museum of Comparative Zoology, writes from Colombia, where he is studying the biodiversity of anole lizards, an evolutionarily successful group that has produced 400 species throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean islands. For more on anoles, see anoleannals.org.

March 5, 2013

Nightfall signals the end of a very successful afternoon of lizard monitoring. To celebrate, we head into Colonia Torva ? billed as ?Germany in the Caribbean? ? to grab some cervezas at the local kaffeehaus. We were elated at the unexpected abundance of tiger anoles we had found, as well as the equally unexpected show they put on.

Yet one question remained: Why did we find four times as many males as females? Is that truly a reflection of a population sex ratio out of whack? Or, as seems more likely, is it just a reflection of males? being more active and using more conspicuous parts of the habitat?

To find out, our plan is use one of the oldest tricks in the anole lizard finder?s book: night lizarding. We?ll go out after dark and look for them while they sleep. It?s then that males and females are more likely to be found in proportion to their true abundance.

Most anoles sleep on leaves and thin branches. This choice of boudoir has a built-in alarm system. It can protect the snoozing saurians from approaching predators, whose footfalls (or in the case of snakes, undulations) cause the sleep site to vibrate. The bed tremors wake the lizard in time for it to jump to safety. But their natural tripwire is completely ineffective against a more recently evolved predator: a bipedal species sporting a strong flashlight. Indeed, for hard-to-find anole species, the most effective strategy is to sleep all day and work all night.

So, off we stroll to town for dinner, planning to head straight from there to the forest we visited earlier in the day. Being herpetologists, we can?t help turning on our headlamps as we walk, scanning our surroundings for who knows what. A frog in the tree? A possum in the bush? You have to look.

And then it happens.

As we pass by a patch of overgrown weeds, Anthony Herrel spots a telltale pale blob attached to a grass blade. A quick panoramic scan indicates the field is chock-full of sleeping lizards, and close examination confirms that they are tiger anoles.

In a day full of surprises, this is possibly the biggest of them all. In all of our many collective years of lizard hunting, none of us has ever seen a twig anole in a weedy field. Twig anoles simply don?t live in such habitats; they are arboreal and occur in bushes and forests. In fact, an anatomically divergent type of habitat specialist called the grass-bush anole has evolved many times to use these habitats.

Finding a twig anole in grass-bush habitat is the anoline equivalent of finding a kangaroo in a tree. How did this happen? But then I remember: This is no ordinary twig anole. It may look like a twig anole, but we found this afternoon that it behaves in a distinctly un-twig-anolish way.

A Different Kind of Tiger

The rest of our trip goes by quickly. Our nighttime surveys revealed the tiger anole?s abundance to be even greater than we had imagined. In a typical night out we might find a couple of lizards per hour, but here we find 40 in 20 minutes. As expected, the sex ratio is approximately even. Further behavioral surveys over the following days are as action-packed as the first afternoon. In one marathon session, Rosario Casta?eda, the Colombian biologist currently working in my lab at Harvard, remains motionless for nearly two hours because every time she takes video of one lizard, another appears nearby. And visits to the weed patch confirm that the lizards are active there, as well as in the forest.

Heading back home, I reflect on the surprising turn of events. We had expected the two species with twig anole-like morphology to behave and use habitats like their Caribbean cousins. We thought the toepad-deprived beach anole should be utterly different from any of the pad-enhanced island habitat specialists.

We found that the variable-scaled anole does, indeed, fit the twig anole bill ? score one for convergent evolution. But the tiger anole is another story altogether. It?s got twig anole-like morphology and uses twig anole habitats. But it also uses habitats occupied by different habitat specialists in the Caribbean, and behaves in a manner distinctly unlike the twig anole. How can convergent evolution in anatomy be explained when species aren?t using the same ecological niche?

And, finally, the curious case of the padless anole. The explanation that pads were lost as an adaptation for walking on the sand isn?t satisfying when one finds that the lizards don?t seem to be using the sand. Why, then?

As always, more questions than answers. Although it would be fascinating to come back and study these species in greater detail, that?s not our plan for the moment. Rather, we need to more broadly survey the evolutionary diversity of mainland anoles, to find out which patterns are the norm, and which are the exceptions. Once we grasp the bigger picture, we can better choose which species to study in greater detail. With data for 30 mainland species in hand, that leaves only 220 more to go. Time to start planning our next trip, in July.

Source: http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/a-night-of-saurian-spotlighting/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Darla Moore newsweek Tony Scott UFC 151 empire state building Hurricane prince harry

Poor parenting -- including overprotection -- increases bullying risk

Apr. 25, 2013 ? Children who are exposed to negative parenting -- including abuse, neglect but also overprotection -- are more likely to experience childhood bullying by their peers, according to a meta-analysis of 70 studies of more than 200,000 children.

The research, led by the University of Warwick and published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, found the effects of poor parenting were stronger for children who are both a victim and perpetrator of bulling (bully-victims) than children who were solely victims.

It found that negative or harsh parenting was linked to a moderate increase in the risk of being a 'bully-victim' and a small increase in the risk of being a victim of bullying. In contrast, warm but firm parenting reduced the risk of being bullied by peers.

The study authors, Professor Dieter Wolke, Dr Suzet Lereya and Dr Muthanna Samara, called for anti-bullying intervention programmes to extend their focus beyond schools to focus on positive parenting within families and to start before children enter school.

Professor Wolke said: "The long shadow of bullying falls well beyond the school playground -- it has lasting and profound effects into adulthood.

"We know that victims and bully-victims are more likely to develop physical health problems, suffer from anxiety and depression and are also at increased risk of self-harm and suicide.

"It is vital we understand more about the factors linked to bullying in order to reduce the burden it places on the affected children and society.

"People often assume bullying is a problem for schools alone but it's clear from this study that parents also have a very important role to play.

"We should therefore target intervention programmes not just in schools but also in families to encourage positive parenting practices such as warmth, affection, communication and support."

The study categorised behaviours such as abuse/neglect, maladaptive parenting and overprotection as negative parenting behaviour.

It categorised authoritative parenting, parent-child communication, parental involvement and support, supervision and warmth and affection as positive parenting behaviours.

Professor Wolke highlighted the finding that overprotection was linked to an increased risk of bullying.

"Although parental involvement, support and high supervision decrease the chances of children being involved in bullying, for victims overprotection increased this risk.

"Children need support but some parents try to buffer their children from all negative experiences.

"In the process, they prevent their children from learning ways of dealing with bullies and make them more vulnerable.

"It could be that children with overprotective parents may not develop qualities such as autonomy and assertion and therefore may be easy targets for bullies.

"But it could also be that parents of victims become overprotective of their children.

"In either case, parents cannot sit on the school bench with their children.

"Parenting that includes clear rules about behaviour while being supportive and emotionally warm is most likely to prevent victimisation.

"These parents allow children to have some conflicts with peers to learn how to solve them rather than intervene at the smallest argument."

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Warwick, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. \ Suzet Tanya Lereya, Muthanna Samara, Dieter Wolke. Parenting behavior and the risk of becoming a victim and a bully/victim: A meta-analysis study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.03.001

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/-9amG3HR3LE/130425214005.htm

Jason Molina UCF Pigeon Forge Fire beyonce cyprus cyprus Bracketology

Betaworks acquires Instapaper, promises continued development

If you're the sort who likes to catch up on web articles through a dedicated reader app, you're likely familiar with Instapaper and its lone creator, Marco Arment. His solo work makes for a cohesive experience and a great story, but it also involves a lot of strain -- enough so that Arment is selling majority control of the app to Betaworks, the owner of Bitly and Digg. Thankfully, this shouldn't represent a classic acquire-and-absorb deal that ultimately kills the original brand. Arment says he'll remain involved as an advisor, and the takeover is arranged with promises that Betaworks will add staff and continue building the read-it-later tool. While neither side has said just where they'll take Instapaper with more resources, there's a real chance that competitors like Pocket will feel some added pressure.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets

Comments

Via: Marco Arment (Twiter)

Source: Marco.org

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/25/betaworks-acquires-instapaper-promises-continued-development/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

young jeezy world wildlife fund gsa keith olbermann andrew bynum the time machine michelin tires

Einstein's theory of general relativity gets most extreme test yet

In their efforts to crack the mysteries of gravity, scientists continue to probe Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. The latest test involved a curious binary star system.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / April 25, 2013

Snow falls on the Albert Einstein Memorial Statue at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C. during the early morning hours in February 2010. Scientists continue to probe Einstein's theory of general relativity, in their efforts to crack the mysteries of gravity.

Hyungwon Kang/Reuters/File

Enlarge

The most massive neutron star known and its tightly orbiting companion, a wimp of a white-dwarf, have provided one of the most extreme tests yet of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

The theory has again passed with flying colors ? for now.

Although the theory has cleared test after test over the past century, researchers keep trying to find its limits. They don't think it's wrong, just incomplete.

The other basic forces of nature ? the strong force, which binds particles in an atom's nucleus, the weak force, which governs radioactive decay, and electromagnetism ? have found explanations in quantum physics. Gravity is the only force that so far has resisted assimilation.

Many physicists are convinced that resistance is futile and that at some point gravity will yield to a quantum-physics explanation. But that breakdown may only become apparent under the most extreme conditions ? conditions no human technology can establish.

So researchers turn to the cosmos for their extremes. And in the binary pair identified as PSR J0348+0432, they've found perhaps the most extreme conditions yet.

The pair is located some 7,000 light-years from Earth. The neutron star is all that remains of a star at least 10 times more massive than the sun that ended its luminous run in an explosion known as a supernova. Astronomers estimate that the neutron star is about 12 miles across. But it is so dense that a thimble full of the matter the explosion left behind would weigh about 1 billion tons.

It's white dwarf companion is the slowly cooling end state of a star like the sun.

White dwarfs are dense as well, typically packing roughly half of the sun's mass into an object slightly larger than Earth. This one, however is a lightweight, tipping the scales at about 17 percent of the sun's mass into an object roughly seven times larger than Earth.

Follow-up observations at radio and visible wavelengths revealed a duo that orbits its combined center of mass once every 2.46 hours. Considering the two objects are about a 500,000 miles apart, that's a mighty brisk pace.

"What we were looking for were changes in the orbital period," Dr. Lynch explains, referring to the time it takes for the two objects to orbit each other.

Those changes arise because the act of orbiting dissipates energy. That energy leaves in the form of gravity waves ? ripples in space-time, the very fabric of the cosmos. These ripples travel through space almost as though some interstellar housekeeper was shaking out the sheets.

This loss of energy shortens the time it takes to complete an orbit, signaling that the two objects are slowing and inching closer to one another. Different theories of gravity offer up different predictions for the rate at which the orbits of objects as close and as massive as these decay.

The key issue: "Can we measure that number precisely enough that we can say this agrees with general relativity or disagrees?" Lynch says. After careful measurements using the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico to track the pulsar, and the Very Large Telescope in Chile to track the white dwarf, the answer is: Yes we can, and it agrees with general relativity.

Beyond the test of Einstein's theory of general relativity, the system also poses a challenge to ideas about how binary systems form, Lynch adds.

The neutron star was discovered in 2009 as researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's facility at Green Bank, W. Va., combed through data gathered two years earlier during a hunt for rapidly spinning neutron stars, dubbed pulsars.

Pulsars earned their name because they emit radio waves as they spin, acting like beacons in the cosmos. Researchers were able to detect this neutron star because it, too, is a pulsar, spinning once every 39 milliseconds.

The team, led by John Antoniadis, with the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, also combed through data gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to see if anything showed up in the pulsar's vicinity at visible wavelengths. That's when they found the pulsar's companion.

Astronomers have found other pulsars that spin as fast as the pulsar in the PSR J0348+0432 system, he says. But when such pulsars appear in binary systems, their companions tend to have more mass.

It's the combination of a pulsar with a relatively long spin period in a tight orbit with a relatively low-mass white dwarf "that makes this a little strange," he says, adding that the combination suggests that the system had a unique evolutionary history,

So how fast is the orbital period decreasing? The pace is slowing by about 2.7 ten-trillionths of a second per second. At that rate, some 400 million years from now, the binary system will become an ultra-compact binary system with X-rays for a beacon, the team suggests.

If the neutron star ends up near the high end of the mass scale for such objects as it draws matter from its partner, an eventual merger with the white dwarf could lead to a catastrophic collapse into a black hole ? an object whose gravity is so strong that not even light, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, can escape. If the neutron star star ends up with a more middling mass, the white dwarf in essence would be considered a planet once it cools sufficiently.

A formal report of this test of Einstein's theory of general relativity was published Thursday in the journal Science.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/WR6kqBKKYj0/Einstein-s-theory-of-general-relativity-gets-most-extreme-test-yet

Diaper the beach Fear Airport Terminal easter bunny easter april fools pranks