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Charles Darwin and His Voyage Aboard H.M.S. Beagle

Posted date: 5:00 PM / comment : 0 , ,

The Young Naturalist Spent Five Years on a Royal Navy Research Ship

By Robert McNamara
Charles Darwin’s five-year voyage on H.M.S. Beagle has become legendary, as insights gained by the bright young scientist on his trip to exotic places greatly influenced his masterwork, the book On the Origin of Species.
Darwin didn’t actually formulate his theory of evolution while sailing around the world aboard the Royal Navy ship. But the exotic plants and animals he encountered challenged his thinking and led him to consider scientific evidence in new ways.
                                                    Charles Darwin
                                                   Library of Congress

The History of H.M.S. Beagle

H.M.S. Beagle is remembered today because of its association withCharles Darwin, but it had sailed on a lengthy scientific mission several years before Darwin came into the picture. The Beagle, a warship carrying ten cannons, sailed in 1826 to explore the coastline of South America. The ship had an unfortunate episode when its captain sank into a depression, perhaps caused by the isolation of the voyage, and committed suicide.
Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy assumed command of the Beagle, continued the voyage, and returned the ship safely to England in 1830. FitzRoy was promoted to Captain and named to command the ship on a second voyage, which was to circumnavigate the globe while conducting explorations along the South American coastline and across the South Pacific.
FitzRoy came up with the idea of bringing along someone with a scientific background who could explore and record observations. Part of FitzRoy’s plan was that an educated civilian, referred to as a “gentleman passenger,” would be good company aboard ship and would help him avoid the loneliness that seemed to have doomed his predecessor.

Darwin Was Invited to Sail Aboard H.M.S. Beagle in 1831

Inquiries were made among professors at British universities, and a former professor of Darwin’s proposed him for the position aboard the Beagle.
After taking his final exams at Cambridge in 1831, Darwin spent a few weeks on a geological expedition to Wales. He had intended to return to Cambridge that fall for theological training, but a letter from a professor, John Steven Henslow, inviting him to join the Beagle, changed everything.
Darwin was excited to join the ship, but his father was against the idea, thinking it foolhardy. Other relatives convinced Darwin’s father otherwise, and during the fall of 1831 the 22-year-old Darwin made preparations to depart England for five years.

H.M.S. Beagle Departed England in 1831

With its eager passenger aboard, the Beagle left England on December 27, 1831. The ship reached the Canary Islands in early January, and continued onward to South America, which was reached by the end of February 1832.
During the explorations of South America, Darwin was able to spend considerable time on land, sometimes arranging for the ship to drop him off and pick him up at the end of an overland trip. He kept notebooks to record his observations, and during quiet times on board the Beagle he would transcribe his notes into a journal.
In the summer of 1833 Darwin went inland with gauchos in Argentina. During his treks in South America Darwin dug for bones and fossils, and was also exposed to the horrors of slavery and other human rights abuses.

Darwin Visited the Galapagos Islands

After considerable explorations in South America, the Beagle reached the Galapagos Islands in September 1835. Darwin was fascinated by such oddities as volcanic rocks and giant tortoises. He later wrote about approaching tortoises, which would retreat into their shells. The young scientist would then climb on top, and attempt to ride the large reptile when it began moving again. He recalled that it was difficult to keep his balance.
While in the Galapagos Darwin collected samples of mockingbirds, and later observed that the birds were somewhat different on each island. This made him think that the birds had a common ancestor, but had followed varying evolutionary paths once they were separated.

Darwin Circumnavigated the Globe

The Beagle left the Galapagos and arrived at Tahiti in November 1835, and then sailed onward to reach New Zealand in late December. In January 1836 the Beagle arrived in Australia, where Darwin was favorably impressed by the young city of Sydney.
After exploring coral reefs, the Beagle continued on its way, reaching the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa at the end of May 1836. Sailing back into the Atlantic Ocean, the Beagle, in July, reached St. Helena, the remote island where Napoleon Bonaparte had died in exile. The Beagle also reached a British outpost on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, where Darwin received some very welcome letters from his sister in England.
The Beagle then sailed back to the coast of South America before returning to England, arriving at Falmouth on October 2, 1836. The entire voyage had taken nearly five years.

Darwin Wrote About His Voyage Aboard the Beagle

After landing in England, Darwin took a coach to meet his family, staying at his father’s house for a few weeks. But he was soon active, seeking advice from scientists on how to organize specimens, which included fossils and stuffed birds, he had brought home with him.
In the following few years he wrote extensively about his experiences. A lavish five-volume set, The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, was published from 1839 to 1843.
And in 1839 Darwin published a classic book under its original title, Journal of Researches. The book was later republished as The Voyage of the Beagle, and remains in print to this day. The book is a lively and charming account of Darwin’s travels, written with intelligence and occasional flashes of humor.

Darwin, H.M.S. Beagle, and the Theory of Evolution

Darwin had been exposed to some thinking about evolution before embarking aboard H.M.S. Beagle. So a popular conception that Darwin’s voyage gave him the idea of evolution is not accurate. Yet is it true that the years of travel and research focused Darwin's mind and sharpened the powers of observation that would eventually lead to the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859.
Elsewhere on the Web

Brain scans show that dogs are as conscious as human children

Posted date: 10:04 AM / comment : 0 , , , ,

By GREGORY BERNS
Source: How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain

FOR the past two years, my colleagues and I have been training dogs to go in an M.R.I. scanner — completely awake and unrestrained. Our goal has been to determine how dogs’ brains work and, even more important, what they think of us humans.
Now, after training and scanning a dozen dogs, my one inescapable conclusion is this: dogs are people, too.
Because dogs can’t speak, scientists have relied on behavioral observations to infer what dogs are thinking. It is a tricky business. You can’t ask a dog why he does something. And you certainly can’t ask him how he feels. The prospect of ferreting out animal emotions scares many scientists. After all, animal research is big business. It has been easy to sidestep the difficult questions about animal sentience and emotions because they have been unanswerable.
Until now.
By looking directly at their brains and bypassing the constraints of behaviorism, M.R.I.’s can tell us about dogs’ internal states. M.R.I.’s are conducted in loud, confined spaces. People don’t like them, and you have to hold absolutely still during the procedure. Conventional veterinary practice says you have to anesthetize animals so they don’t move during a scan. But you can’t study brain function in an anesthetized animal. At least not anything interesting like perception or emotion.
From the beginning, we treated the dogs as persons. We had a consent form, which was modeled after a child’s consent form but signed by the dog’s owner. We emphasized that participation was voluntary, and that the dog had the right to quit the study. We used only positive training methods. No sedation. No restraints. If the dogs didn’t want to be in the M.R.I. scanner, they could leave. Same as any human volunteer.
My dog Callie was the first. Rescued from a shelter, Callie was a skinny black terrier mix, what is called a feist in the southern Appalachians, from where she came. True to her roots, she preferred hunting squirrels and rabbits in the backyard to curling up in my lap. She had a natural inquisitiveness, which probably landed her in the shelter in the first place, but also made training a breeze.
With the help of my friend Mark Spivak, a dog trainer, we started teaching Callie to go into an M.R.I. simulator that I built in my living room. She learned to walk up steps into a tube, place her head in a custom-fitted chin rest, and hold rock-still for periods of up to 30 seconds. Oh, and she had to learn to wear earmuffs to protect her sensitive hearing from the 95 decibels of noise the scanner makes.
After months of training and some trial-and-error at the real M.R.I. scanner, we were rewarded with the first maps of brain activity. For our first tests, we measured Callie’s brain response to two hand signals in the scanner. In later experiments, not yet published, we determined which parts of her brain distinguished the scents of familiar and unfamiliar dogs and humans.
Soon, the local dog community learned of our quest to determine what dogs are thinking. Within a year, we had assembled a team of a dozen dogs who were all “M.R.I.-certified.”
Although we are just beginning to answer basic questions about the canine brain, we cannot ignore the striking similarity between dogs and humans in both the structure and function of a key brain region: the caudate nucleus.
Rich in dopamine receptors, the caudate sits between the brainstem and the cortex. In humans, the caudate plays a key role in the anticipation of things we enjoy, like food, love and money. But can we flip this association around and infer what a person is thinking just by measuring caudate activity? Because of the overwhelming complexity of how different parts of the brain are connected to one another, it is not usually possible to pin a single cognitive function or emotion to a single brain region.
But the caudate may be an exception. Specific parts of the caudate stand out for their consistent activation to many things that humans enjoy. Caudate activation is so consistent that under the right circumstances, it can predict our preferences for food, music and even beauty.

In dogs, we found that activity in the caudate increased in response to hand signals indicating food. The caudate also activated to the smells of familiar humans. And in preliminary tests, it activated to the return of an owner who had momentarily stepped out of view. Do these findings prove that dogs love us? Not quite. But many of the same things that activate the human caudate, which are associated with positive emotions, also activate the dog caudate. Neuroscientists call this a functional homology, and it may be an indication of canine emotions.
DOGS have long been considered property. Though the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 and state laws raised the bar for the treatment of animals, they solidified the view that animals are things — objects that can be disposed of as long as reasonable care is taken to minimize their suffering.
But now, by using the M.R.I. to push away the limitations of behaviorism, we can no longer hide from the evidence. Dogs, and probably many other animals (especially our closest primate relatives), seem to have emotions just like us. And this means we must reconsider their treatment as property.
One alternative is a sort of limited personhood for animals that show neurobiological evidence of positive emotions. Many rescue groups already use the label of “guardian” to describe human caregivers, binding the human to his ward with an implicit responsibility to care for her. Failure to act as a good guardian runs the risk of having the dog placed elsewhere. But there are no laws that cover animals as wards, so the patchwork of rescue groups that operate under a guardianship model have little legal foundation to protect the animals’ interest.
If we went a step further and granted dogs rights of personhood, they would be afforded additional protection against exploitation. Puppy mills, laboratory dogs and dog racing would be banned for violating the basic right of self-determination of a person.
I suspect that society is many years away from considering dogs as persons. However, recent rulings by the Supreme Court have included neuroscientific findings that open the door to such a possibility. In two cases, the court ruled that juvenile offenders could not be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. As part of the rulings, the court cited brain-imaging evidence that the human brain was not mature in adolescence. Although this case has nothing to do with dog sentience, the justices opened the door for neuroscience in the courtroom.
Perhaps someday we may see a case arguing for a dog’s rights based on brain-imaging findings.

By 2047, Coldest Years May Be Warmer Than Hottest in Past, Scientists Say

Posted date: 10:24 AM / comment : 0 , , ,


By 2047, Coldest Years May Be Warmer Than Hottest in Past, Scientists Say

If greenhouse emissions continue their steady escalation, temperatures across most of the earth will rise to levels with no recorded precedent by the middle of this century, researchers said Wednesday.
Scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa calculated that by 2047, plus or minus five years, the average temperatures in each year will be hotter across most parts of the planet than they had been at those locations in any year between 1860 and 2005.
To put it another way, for a given geographic area, “the coldest year in the future will be warmer than the hottest year in the past,” said Camilo Mora, the lead scientist on a paper published in the journal Nature.
Unprecedented climates will arrive even sooner in the tropics, Dr. Mora’s group predicts, putting increasing stress on human societies there, on the coral reefs that supply millions of people with fish, and on the world’s greatest forests.
“Go back in your life to think about the hottest, most traumatic event you have experienced,” Dr. Mora said in an interview. “What we’re saying is that very soon, that event is going to become the norm.”
The research comes with caveats. It is based on climate models, huge computer programs that attempt to reproduce the physics of the climate system and forecast the future response to greenhouse gases. Though they are the best tools available, these models contain acknowledged problems, and no one is sure how accurate they will prove to be at peering many decades ahead.
The models show that unprecedented temperatures could be delayed by 20 to 25 years if there is a vigorous global effort to bring emissions under control. While that may not sound like many years, the scientists said the emissions cuts would buy critical time for nature and for human society to adapt, as well as for development of technologies that might help further reduce emissions.
Other scientists not involved in the research said that slowing emissions would have a bigger effect in the long run, lowering the risk that the climate would reach a point that triggers catastrophic changes. They praised the paper as a fresh way of presenting information that is known to specialists in the field, but not by the larger public.
“If current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, we will be pushing most of the ecosystems of the world into climatic conditions that they have not experienced for many millions of years,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif.
The Mora paper is a rarity: a class project that turned into a high-profile article in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals.
Dr. Mora is not a climate scientist; rather he is a specialist in using large sets of data to illuminate environmental issues. He assigned a class of graduate students to analyze forecasts produced by 39 of the world’s foremost climate models. The models, whose results are publicly available, are operated by 21 research centers in 12 countries, and financed largely by governments.
Thousands of scientific papers have been published about the model results, but the students identified one area of analysis that was missing. The results are usually reported as average temperature changes across the planet. But that gives little sense of how the temperature changes in specific places might compare with historical norms. “We wanted to give people a really relatable way to understand climate,” said Abby G. Frazier, a doctoral candidate in geography.
So Dr. Mora and his students divided the earth into a grid, with each cell representing 386 square miles. Averaging the results from the 39 climate models, they calculated a date they called “climate departure” for each location — the date after which all future years were predicted to be warmer than any year in the historical record for that spot on the globe.
The results suggest that if emissions of greenhouse gases remain high, then after 2047, more than half the earth’s surface will experience annual climates hotter than anything that occurred between 1860 and 2005, the years for which historical temperature data and reconstructions are available. If assiduous efforts were made to bring emissions down, that date could be pushed back to 2069, the analysis found.
With the technique the Mora group used, it is possible to specify climate departure dates for individual cities. Under high emissions, climate departure for New York City will come in 2047, the paper found, plus or minus the five-year margin of error. But lower emissions would push that to 2072.
For Beijing, climate departure would come in 2046 under high emissions, or 2078 under lower emissions. The dates for Moscow are 2063 and 2092; for Washington, 2047 and 2071.
Perhaps the most striking findings are in the tropics. Climate variability there is much smaller than in high latitudes, and the extra heat being trapped by greenhouse gases will push the temperature beyond historical bounds much sooner, the research found. Under high emissions, the paper found a climate departure date of 2031 for Mexico City, 2029 for Jakarta and for Lagos, Nigeria, and 2033 for Bogotá, Colombia.
Many people perceive climate change to be most serious at the poles, and the largest absolute changes in temperature are already occurring in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica. But the Mora paper dovetails with previous research suggesting that the biggest risks to nature and to human society, at least in the near term, may actually be in the tropics.
People living in the tropics are generally poor, with less money to adapt to climate change than people in the mid-latitude rich countries that are burning the most carbon-based fuels and contributing most of the emissions. Plants and animals in the tropics also are accustomed to a narrow temperature range. Organisms that do not have the genetic capacity to adapt to rapid climatic changes will be forced to move, or will be driven to extinction, climate scientists say.
“I am certain there will be massive biological and social consequences,” Dr. Mora said. “The specifics, I cannot tell you.”
A version of this article appears in print on October 10, 2013, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: By 2047, Coldest Years May Be Warmer Than Hottest in Past, Scientists Say.

They’re Cheering Us Both, You Because Nobody Understands You, and Me Because Everybody Understands Me

Posted date: 8:41 PM / comment : 0 , ,

Charlie Chaplin? Albert Einstein? János Plesch? Apocryphal?

The entertainer Charlie Chaplin and the scientist Albert Einstein were two of the most famous individuals of the last century. I have heard the following anecdote about a meeting between them in the 1930s. While traveling together they were recognized and a crowd of people started to vigorously applaud the luminaries. They waved to the throng and reportedly exchanged the following words:
Einstein: What I most admire about your art, is your universality. You don’t say a word, yet the world understands you!
Chaplin: True. But your glory is even greater! The whole world admires you, even though they don’t understand a word of what you say.
Is there any truth to this tale?
The earliest evidence of this anecdote known , appeared in a memoir by János Plesch who was Albert Einstein’s physician and also his friend. This work was translated into English by Edward Fitzgerald and published in 1947. In this version of the tale the two celebrities Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein were conversing, but only Chaplin presented the comparison between their different types of fame. Boldface has been added to excerpts below: 1
Once when Einstein was in Hollywood on a visit Chaplin drove him through the town. As the people on the sidewalks recognized two of their greatest, if very different, contemporaries, they gave them a tremendous reception which greatly astonished Einstein. “They’re cheering us both,” said Chaplin: “you because nobody understands you, and me because everybody understands me.” There was a good-humoured pride in his remark, and at the same time a certain humility as at a recognition of the difference between ready popularity and lasting greatness.
Apparently, Plesch was not present when the words were spoken, so his account was second-hand. An episode showing the relationship between Plesch and Einstein was mentioned in the valuable recent biography “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson. When Einstein wished to obtain some peace and quiet he sometimes sojourned at the estate of his medical-doctor friend to hide from journalists: 2
Einstein wanted some solitude for his fiftieth birthday, a refuge from publicity. So in March 1929 he fled once again, as he had during the publication of his unified field theory paper of a few months earlier, to the gardener’s cottage of an estate on the Havel River owned by Janos Plesch, a flamboyant and gossipy Hungarian-born celebrity doctor who had added Einstein to his showcase collection of patient-friends.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1956 “Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography” by Carl Seelig was released in English with a translation by Mervyn Savill. A version of the anecdote with additional details was included, and the author cited the memoir of Plesch: 3
An episode which is amusing but in contrasting vein is told by the Hungarian doctor, Professor Johann Plesch (who discovered new methods of blood corpuscular measurements and the registration of blood pressure) in his book of memoirs Janos, The Story of a Doctor.
When Einstein was in Hollywood in 1931, Charlie Chaplin invited him with his wife, his secretary, Helene Dukas and his assistant, Professor Walter Meyer (d. autumn 1948) to dinner in his villa and later to see in his private cinema a performance of the film City Lights.
During the drive to the town they were recognized by the crowd and enthusiastically cheered. Chaplin calmly remarked to his guests: “The people are applauding you because none of them understands you and applauding me because everybody understands me.”
In 1996 the biography “Einstein: A Life” by Denis Brian was published, and it also presented an instance of the anecdote. In the following passage “Cissy” referred to the journalist Eleanor (Cissy) Patterson who was covering Einstein for the “Washington Herald” newspaper. However, the reference notes for this section of the book indicated that the reported words of Chaplin were actually based on the biography of Einstein by Carl Seelig that was excerpted above: 4
A few nights later Cissy covered the premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s movie City Lights, at which Einstein was the guest of honor. Chaplin put his own twist on their rousing reception at the movie theater, telling Einstein,“They are applauding you because none of them understands you and applauding me because everybody understands me.”
The 2007 Einstein biography by Walter Isaacson also recounted the tale. While touring a Hollywood movie studio Einstein mentioned his desire to meet Charlie Chaplin and when Chaplin was notified he immediately joined Einstein for lunch in the commissary: 5
The result, a few days later, was one of the most memorable scenes in the new era of celebrity: Einstein and Chaplin arriving together, dressed in black tie, with Elsa beaming, for the premiere of City Lights. As they were applauded on their way into the theater, Chaplin memorably (and accurately) noted, “They cheer me because they all understand me, and they cheer you because no one understands you.”
The footnote for this passage cited the Einstein biographies by Carl Seelig and Denis Brian for support.
The comprehensive 2010 reference “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press included an entry on this topic which pointed to a 1997 biography for support: 6
They cheer me because they all understand me, and they cheer you because no one understands you.
Actor Charlie Chaplin, after the premiere of City Lights in Los Angeles in January 1931, to which Chaplin had invited Einstein. See Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 457
Fölsing, Albrecht. Albert Einstein. Trans. Ewald Osers. New York: Viking, 1997.
In conclusion, the strongest evidence for this anecdote known appeared in the memoir of János Plesch which was published in English in 1947. The Chaplin movie “City Lights” was released to theaters in 1931. So the account was printed a number of years after the event. When examined, the accounts given in other biographies he has typically found a chain of references leading back to Plesch’s memoir. Important biographers have found the quotation attributed to Chaplin credible though the precise wording varies.
Image Notes: Charlie Chaplin image cropped from Modern Times movie poster. Albert Einstein in 1921 by Ferdinand Schmutzer. Both images in public domain obtained via Wikimedia Commons.
(Great thanks to John McChesney-Young who found the important 1947 citation and who also obtained scans of the 1947 and 1956 citations. Special thanks to Miguel Méndez whose inquiry gave impetus to formulate this question and perform this exploration.)

Notes:
  1. 1947, János: The Story of a Doctor by John Plesch (János Plesch), Translated to English by Edward Fitzgerald, Quote Page 211, Victor Gollancz, London. (Verified with scans; thanks to John McChesney-Young and the University of California, Berkeley library system) ↩
  2. 2007, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, Chapter 16: Turning Fifty, Quote Page 357, Simon & Schuster, New York. (Kindle Edition) ↩
  3. 1956, Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography by Carl Seelig, Translated to English by Mervyn Savill, Quote Page 193 and 194, Staples Press, London. (Verified with scans; thanks to John McChesney-Young and the University of California, Berkeley library system) ↩
  4. 1996, Einstein: A Life by Denis Brian, Quote Page 214, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. (Verified on paper) ↩
  5. 2007, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, Chapter 16: Turning Fifty, Quote Page 374, Simon & Schuster, New York. (Kindle Edition) ↩
  6. 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Section: Others on Einstein, Quote Page 493, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper) ↩

Prevalence and costs of co-occurring traumatic brain injury with and without psychiatric disturbance and pain among Afghanistan and Iraq War Veteran V.A. users.

Posted date: 8:06 AM / comment : 0 ,

Prevalence and costs of co-occurring traumatic brain injury with and without psychiatric disturbance and pain among Afghanistan and Iraq War Veteran V.A. users.

Taylor BC, Hagel EM, Carlson KF, Cifu DX, Cutting A, Bidelspach DE, Sayer NA.

Source

Center for Chronic Disease Outcomes Research, Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis, MN 55417, USA. Brent.Taylor2@va.gov

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the "signature injury" in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars [Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (OEF)/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)]. Patients with combat-related TBI also have high rates of psychiatric disturbances and pain.

OBJECTIVES:

To determine the prevalence of TBI alone and TBI with other conditions and the average cost of medical care for veterans with these diagnoses.

METHODS:

Observational study using national inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy data from Veterans Health Administration (VHA) datasets. Costs are estimated from utilization related to care within the VHA system. Participants were all OEF/OIF VHA users in 2009.

RESULTS:

Among 327,388 OEF/OIF veterans using VHA services in 2009, 6.7% were diagnosed with TBI. Among those with TBI diagnoses, 89% were diagnosed with a psychiatric diagnosis [the most frequent being posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at 73%], and 70% had a diagnosis of head, back, or neck pain. The rate of comorbid PTSD and pain among those with and without TBI was 54% and 11%, respectively. The median annual cost per patient was nearly 4-times higher for TBI-diagnosed veterans as compared with those without TBI ($5831 vs. $1547). Within the TBI group, cost increased as diagnostic complexity increased, such that those with TBI, pain, and PTSD demonstrated the highest median cost per patient ($7974).

CONCLUSIONS:

The vast majority of VHA patients diagnosed with TBI also have a diagnosed mental disorder and more than half have both PTSD and pain. Patients with these comorbidities incur substantial medical costs and represent a target population for future research aimed at improving health care efficiency.

PMID: 
22228249 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Source:  2012 Apr;50(4):342-6. doi: 10.1097/MLR.0b013e318245a558.
bipolar, bipolar disorder, symptoms of bipolar, what is bipolar disorder, depression, manic depressive, major depression,
symptoms of depression, psychological disorders, anxiety symptoms, depression and anxiety, anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety disorder,
anxiety, symptoms of anxiety, anxiety disorder, bi polar, split personality, 

Week in science: Canine brains resemble humans' & others

Posted date: 8:58 PM / comment : 0 , , ,

Excerpts from science, technology, environment and health reports from around the web.

Source: Canines have lateralised brains—just like people
Sinister v dexterous. Commie v Tory. The difference between left and right carries more meaning to human beings than mere matters of handedness and symmetry. And so it is with man’s best friend as well. For in dogs, too, left and right signal different things. Specifically, it is in the way they wag their tails. And for dogs, like people, it is the left-hand side that is sinister.
The story started a few years ago when Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trento, in Italy, and his colleagues, established that dogs wag their tails to the right when they see something pleasant, such as a beloved human master, and to the left when they see something unpleasant, such as an unfamiliar dominant dog. What Dr Vallortigara did not establish then was whether such signals are meaningful to other dogs. Now, he and the team from the previous study have done just that.
Source: Exoplanet discovered to be Earth-sized and covered in lava
Astronomers have found that another world is quite similar to our own: It has a radius just 1.17 times and a mass only 1.9 times that of Earth. Though its size is familiar, it has the troubling problem of orbiting about 100 times closer to its star than our own planet.
That means surface temperatures on the planet, called Kepler-78b, range from 2,240 to nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Kepler-78b is basically a planet of lava. The scorched world zips around its parent star, completing a year every eight and a half hours.
Source: NASA sends ISRO peanuts for Mars trip via Facebook
As ISRO’s scientists prepare themselves for a landmark-making launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) on November 5, their counterparts in NASA, the U.S. space agency, have extended their good wishes for the mission by sending them some ‘lucky peanuts’.
The good wishes were posted on ISRO’s eight-day-old MOM Facebook page.
Source: Simulations help study impacts of aerosols over India
Scientists say that computer-aided simulations of seasonal dust emissions and transport using regional climate models (RegCM) can help overcome the lack of ground-based data on aerosols rising over the Indian sub-continent.
Aerosols are colloids of fine particles suspended in the air that come from natural sources or man-made activity and are known to impact the climate and human health.
Source: Reindeer eyes turn blue in winter, study finds
Reindeer may be best known for fictional Rudolph's glowing red nose, but now scientists find the animals can alter color elsewhere as well — the backs of their eyeballs change from gold in the summer to blue in the winter.
This change in color helps reindeer eyes capture more light during the dark winter months in the Arctic, scientists added.
Source: Building cars out of batteries isn’t as crazy as it sounds
The high cost and limited range of electric vehicles can make them a tough sell, and their costliest and most limiting component are their batteries.
But batteries also open up new design possibilities because they can be shaped in more ways than gasoline tanks and because they can be made of load-bearing materials. If their chemistries can be made safer, batteries could replace conventional door panels and other body parts, potentially making a vehicle significantly lighter, more spacious, and cheaper. This could go some way toward helping electric cars compete with gas-powered ones.
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