Dogs, Wolves, Foxes and Psychopaths

Recently, the news seems to be a depressing parade of real-life horror stories of cannibalism and psychopaths. Clearly, there is very little in any of this that could be decribed as remotely beautiful, but the mindset of a psychopath is certainly very weird. In recent years, though, advances in our understanding of human and animal brains are finally giving hope of understanding the "causes", or, at least, the neuroanatomy of psychopathy. What the legal system chooses to do with this information, of course, is an entirely different issue. In any case, one of the better articles on the brains of psychopaths online is this piece: Anatomy of a Psychopath..: by Dr Jonathan T. Pararajasingham-->

http://nirmukta.com/2011/09/30/anatomy-of-a-psychopath-the-neurobiological-basis-of-evil/

For a long time, it has been known that it is possible to breed "tameness*", even "empathy" (apparently empathetic behaviour), into animals (compare the average golden retriever with a wolf...), which strongly implies a genetic component to tame and apparently affectionate behaviour. In this case, can "we" find a genetic component to the lack of empathy and shallowness of emotions that characterise psychopaths?

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*The most famous experiments on this subject were Dmitri Belayeav's studies on the domestication of silver foxes-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Konstantinovich_Belyaev

Spring in Belgium

So, Spring is here again, and providing a wealth of photographic opportunities for anyone so inclined and masses of cute young animals for anyone biologically minded or just plain-sentimental to admire; these are a few pictures I took around 30th April, mostly in North Eastern Belgium, near the Dutch border.

Rain-soaked Berberis sp. in bloom

Light green new-growth of spring foliage

 

Female moorhen, Gallinula chloropus beside her nest

Moorhen, Gallinula chloropus, and nest

Moorhen egg (from a different nest)- the mother was foraging for more nest-lining leaves nearby

 

Spring blossom

 

Broom in bloom (tribe: Genisteae) 

 

Ornamental White Broom. 

 

Pansies, Namur. (Viola tricolor subsp.)

All pictures taken in North East Belgium, near Peer except pansies, pictured in Namur. Taken with what I like to call my"lightweight, throwing camera*" (the Panasonic Lumix DMC LZ3); as I may have said before, I really like this camera and it is small enough to pack conveniently when "the proper camera" is not, however, this (above) is about the limit of what it can do. I think its macro capabilities are better than its landscape pictures, but I am sure that is partly because I have a great deal more experience of macro photography than landscape work. 

(* don't throw it- mine has survived being accidentally dropped twice, but this is not recommended.)

Cheering Up Bird- Black Heron

 

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful!

Today's Cheering-up bird is The Black Heron, Egretta ardesiaca: an African species famed for its bizarre "canopy feeding" technique, whereby it creates a patch of shade with its wings; the shade attracts fish and the heron feeds upon them. The picture above was taken to the East of Antannarivo in Madagascar, by Neil Strickland;it was posted to wikipedia [here] and has a creative commons attribution 2.0 license- for details, click [here].

Pacific Eels, The Fukang Meteorite and Plastic-eating Fungi

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful!

First link-of-the-day today is to an article by Paul Rincon on the discovery of an eel species in Palau, Oceania --> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14547942 .
 The eel, which has very "primitive features" is called Protoanguilla palau and is the first known member of a new zoological family, genus and species. More details can be found in the article [here ]

 Second link-of-the-day is to this video and article -->
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/more-mere-magic-mushrooms-154207424.html 
about two fungi- one of which (Pestalotiopsis microspora) can survive on a diet of polyurethane and therefore play an important role in breaking down plastics in landfill sites. The article and accompanying video also discusses the development of a natural Styrofoam-type material essentially from fungal "roots" (mycelia) and agricultural waste. The comany producing this material is Ecovative- their website is http://www.ecovativedesign.com/


 Last but not least, link number three is to an article and series of pictures of a huge, weird and beautiful meteorite-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2129747/The-beautiful-mysterious-Fukang-pallasite-meteorite.html

that fell in Fukang, in the Chinese part of the Gobi Desert. The meteroite, which was discovered in 2000 , is described as containing "translucent golden crystals of ... olivine..[gleaming] among a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron".

Poisoned dolphins, Einstein's Brain and Face transplants- Links of the week

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful. My pick-of-the-latest science and wildlife stories starts with the tale of the Bataria Bay Dolphins...

Dolphins- mother and calf - photographed in Israel by Faraj Meir, 2006. This image has a GNU Creative Commons attribution 3.0 license (details here) and was taken from wikipedia [here].

The New York Times has quoted America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as having "suggested" that Dolphins in Barataria Bay off Louisiana are seriously ill and that their ailments are probably related to toxic substances in the petroleum , which was released in that area by the BP oil spill in 2010. The full article is online here-->

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/gulf-dolphins-exposed-to-oil-are-seriously-ill-agency-says/#

Unfortunately, the New York Times is starting to restrict online readers to only viewing 10 articles per month without paying, so there will probably be a lot few links to their reportage and their stories from this blog in the future.This is a shame, because their coverage of science stories- in my opinion, at least- is generally the best of all newspapers; however, they are not the first newspaper to take this route- The Times (of London) has been charging for online content for some time. It will be interesting to observe how this move affects their visibility and the online "chatter" about their articles, since so many people, bloggers and writers now access newspapers online and I suspect many will favour free papers over their pay-per-view rivals.

I believe that one of the most interesting developments in medicine in recent years has been the advent of face transplants. The remarkable improvements in the surgical techniques- quite literally from one individual patient to the next- are plain for all to see. The most recent and extensive such transplant is the case of Richard Lee Norris: a man from Virginia, USA who had been badly disfigured in a gun accident. As well as the face transplant; surgeons at the University of Maryland's medical centre gave Mr. Norris teeth, a tongue and upper and lower jaws from a donor. You can read more details of the case online in a yahoo news article [here].

In February, The New England Journal of medicine published a paper by Bohdan Pomahac and colleagues reveiwing three such transplants- unfortunately, the ful text is not available without payment to the journal, but the abstract is online [here]

                                                    Andrea Versalius's "Base of the Brain" from "Fabrica" (1543)- copyright lapsed due to age- image taken picture uploaded to wikipedia here by Ancheta Wis.

Final link-of-the-day today is to this article by Shernah Noah in today's Independent newspaper, reporting that Albert Einstein's brain is to go on show as part of the "Brains: The Mind As Matter" exhibition in the Wellcome Collection on London's Euston Road. According to the Wellcome Collection's website The Exhibition runs from 29th March to 17th June 2012 and admission is free.

Link of the day- Electro convulsive therapy and how it works....

Welcome (back) to Weirbeautiful.

Link of the day today is this tabloid article describing a recent study that sheds light on Electro Convulsive Therapy- an effective, if very drastic and unpleasant treatment for severe depression.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2117246/Electro-convulsive-therapy-How-electric-shock-treatment-treat-severe-depression.html

Giant insects- past and present

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.

This week's links are both to popular science articles about giant insects- 
the first-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2108736/Extinct-tree-lobster-alive-clinging-Pacific-rock-taller-Empire-State-Building.html
- tells the story of  the world's largest stick insects being found on an isolated rocky outcrop near Lord between Australia and New Zealand, some 80 years after the species was thought extinct.

Meanwhile, scientists in China have unearthed the fossilized remains of giant prehistoric fleas-three or four times larger than modern fleas. As the yahoo news-article explains, "Nine perfectly preserved fossils were unearthed from 165-million-year-old Jurassic deposits in Daohugou, northeast China, and the 125-million-year-old Cretaceous strata at Huangbanjigou, China." You can find the full text here-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/monster-fleas-sucked-the-blood-of-jurassic-dinosaurs.html