South Of Heaven

What makes a genius?

Maybe testosterone.

Mrazik, a professor in the Faculty of Education's educational psychology department, and a colleague from Rider University in the U.S., have published a paper in Roeper Review linking giftedness (having an IQ score of 130 or higher) to prenatal exposure of higher levels of testosterone. Mrazik hypothesizes that, in the same way that physical and cognitive deficiencies can be developed in utero, so, too, could similar exposure to this naturally occurring chemical result in giftedness.

"There seems to be some evidence that excessive prenatal exposure to testosterone facilitates increased connections in the brain, especially in the right prefrontal cortex," said Mrazik. "That's why we see some intellectually gifted people with distinct personality characteristics that you don't see in the normal population."

Mrazik's notion came from observations made during clinical assessments of gifted individuals. He and his fellow researcher observed some specific traits among the subjects. This finding stimulated a conversation on the role of early development in setting the foundation for giftedness.

"It gave us some interesting ideas that there could be more to this notion of genius being predetermined from a biological perspective than maybe people gave it credit for," said Mrazik. "It seemed that the bulk of evidence from new technologies (such as Functional MRI scans) tell us that there's a little bit more going on than a genetic versus environmental interaction."

Based on their observations, the researchers made the hypothesis that this hormonal "glitch" in the in-utero neurobiological development means that gifted children are born with an affinity for certain areas such as the arts, math or science. Mrazik cautions that more research is needed to determine what exact processes may cause the development of the gifted brain.

He notes that more is known about what derails the brain's normal development, thus charting what makes gifted people gifted is very much a new frontier. Mrazik hopes that devices such as the Functional MRI scanner will give them a deeper understanding of the role of neurobiology in the development of the gifted brain.

"It's really hard to say what does put the brain in a pathway where it's going to be much more precocious," he said. "The next steps in this research lay in finding out what exact stimuli causes this atypical brain development."

But then too much testosterone in the womb might cause autism.

How did humans conquer the world?

Partly, because they were friendly to strangers.

Research findings published in the March 11 edition of the journal Science by an international team of noted anthropologists, including several from Arizona State University, who study hunter-gatherer societies, are informing the issue by suggesting that human ancestral social structure may be the root of cumulative culture and cooperation and, ultimately, human uniqueness.

Because humans lived as hunter-gatherers for 95 percent of their species' history, current foraging societies provide the best window for viewing human social evolution, according to the authors. Given that, the researchers focused on co-residence patterns among more than 5,000 individuals from 32 present-day foraging societies around the globe, including the Gunwinggu, Labrador Inuit, Mbuti, Apache, Aka, Ache, Agta and Vedda. Their findings identify human hunter-gatherer group structure as unique among primates.

Professor Kim Hill of ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the lead author, along with Robert Walker of the University of Missouri. The collaborative effort involved ASU professors James Eder and Ana Magdalena Hurtado; ASU anthropology graduate student Miran Božičević; and anthropologists from SIL International, Dallas; Southern Methodist University, Dallas; Hawassa University, Ethiopia; Washington State University; Durham University, UK; University of Utah; and Stanford University.

Their finding showed that across all groups, adult brothers and sisters frequently live together, making it common for male in-laws to co-reside. They also found that it was equally common for males or females to move from or remain with family units. This is in contrast to other primate species, where either males or females move to another group at puberty.

A major point in the study is that foraging bands contain several individuals completely unconnected by kinship or marriage ties, yet include males with a vested interest in the offspring of daughters, sisters and wives. This organization mitigates the group hostility frequently seen in other apes and also promotes interaction among residential groups, thereby leading to the development of a large social network.

"The increase in human network size over other primates may explain why humans evolved an emphasis on social learning that results in cultural transmission," said Hill. "Likewise, the unique composition of human ancestral groups promotes cooperation among large groups of non-kin, something extremely rare in nature."

Something new to deny

Because if there is no global warming then the ice isn't melting.

The nearly 20-year study reveals that in 2006, a year in which comparable results for mass loss in mountain glaciers and ice caps are available from a separate study conducted using other methods, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes a year on average. That's enough to raise global sea level by an average of 1.3 millimeters (.05 inches) a year. (A gigatonne is one billion metric tons, or more than 2.2 trillion pounds.) Ice sheets are defined as being larger than 50,000 square kilometers, or 20,000 square miles, and only exist in Greenland and Antarctica while ice caps are areas smaller than 50,000 square km.

The pace at which the polar ice sheets are losing mass was found to be accelerating rapidly. Each year over the course of the study, the two ice sheets lost a combined average of 36.3 gigatonnes more than they did the year before. In comparison, the 2006 study of mountain glaciers and ice caps estimated their loss at 402 gigatonnes a year on average, with a year-over-year acceleration rate three times smaller than that of the ice sheets.

"That ice sheets will dominate future sea level rise is not surprising -- they hold a lot more ice mass than mountain glaciers," said lead author Eric Rignot, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine. "What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening. If present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Our study helps reduce uncertainties in near-term projections of sea level rise."

A scientific question

As the world fast approaches St. Patrick's Day, scientists ask, "Does Guinness taste better in Ireland?"

Yes.

A new study in the Journal of Food Science provides some limited scientific evidence to support the theory among beer enthusiasts that Guinness tastes much better in Ireland than other parts of the world.

Over a period of one year, four researchers of different nationalities traveled to 14 countries and visited 71 Guinness serving establishments in 33 cities to collect data for 103 tastings.

Tasting scores for pints of Guinness were generally high all around the world, yet tastings in pubs in Ireland scored significantly higher.

This difference remained statistically significant after adjusting for researcher, pub ambience, Guinness appearance, and the sensory measures of mouthfeel, flavor and aftertaste. Please note that results are subject to further verification because of limitations in the study design.

I wonder who gets to test for further verification.

It's more complicated than you thought

Blood, that is.

Tuesday I had to get my twice-a-year fasting blood tests. The hard part was that not having anything but water in the morning. I'm generally not a big breakfast eater but without coffee I'm hopeless.

It was a crappy day all around. I bent over the wrong way and pulled a muscle in my back. It was bill-paying day. I couldn't manage to install some software on my computer and have that to deal with today.

But here's something from the article:

"Right now a medical doctor analyzing the blood of an ailing patient looks at something like 10 to 20 chemicals," said University of Alberta biochemist David Wishart. "We've identified 4,229 blood chemicals that doctors can potentially look at to diagnose and treat health problems."

Blood chemicals, or metabolites, are routinely analyzed by doctors to diagnose conditions such as diabetes and kidney failure. Wishart says the new research opens up the possibility of diagnosing hundreds of other diseases that are characterized by an imbalance in blood chemistry.

Wishart led more than 20 researchers at six different institutions using modern technology to validate past research, and the team also conducted its own lab experiments to break new ground on the content of human-blood chemistry.

"This is the most complete chemical characterization of blood ever done," said Wishart. "We now know the normal values of all the detectable chemicals in blood. Doctors can use these measurements as a reference point for monitoring a patient's current and even future health."

Wishart says blood chemicals are the "canary in the coal mine," for catching the first signs of an oncoming medical problem. "The blood chemistry is the first thing to change when a person is developing a dangerous condition like high cholesterol."

I wonder if I should have tried this.

Probably not.

Capuchin monkeys have what at first glance appears to be an odd habit: they urinate onto their hands then rub their urine over their bodies into their fur.

Now scientists think they know why the monkeys "urine wash" in this way.

A new study shows that the brains of female tufted capuchins become more active when they smell the urine of sexually mature adult males.

That suggests males wash with their urine to signal their availability and attractiveness to females.

Details of the finding are published in the American Journal of Primatology.

A number of New World monkey species, including mantled howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys and the few species of capuchins, regularly "urine wash", urinating into the palm of the hand, then vigorously rubbing the urine into the feet and hindquarters.

Several hypotheses have been put forward as to why they do it, including that it may somehow help maintain body temperature or allow other monkeys to better identify an individual by smell.

Most studies into the behaviour have been inconclusive.

"But one study reported that when being solicited by a female, adult males increased their rate of urine-washing," said Dr Kimberley Phillips, a primatologist at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, US.

Cashiers at 7-11s knew this

Decades ago.

Loss of appetite is common among cancer patients, either because the cancer itself or its treatment affects the sense of taste and smell, leading to decreased enjoyment of food. This, in turn, can lead to weight loss, anorexia, a worse quality of life and decreased survival; therefore, finding effective ways of helping patients to maintain a good diet and consume enough calories is an important aspect of their treatment.

Researchers in Canada ran a small pilot study from May 2006 to December 2008in 21 adult patients with any advanced cancer (except brain cancer) who had been eating less as a result of their illness for two weeks or more. All were either being treated with chemotherapy or had been in the past. The patients were randomly assigned to receive medication from a pharmacist in a double-blind manner, which meant that neither the patients nor the doctors knew which treatment they were receiving. Eleven patients received oral capsules containing delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) -- the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis -- and eight patients were assigned to the control group to receive placebo capsules. The active capsules contained 2.5mg of THC and the patients took them once a day for the first three days, twice a day thereafter, and they had the option to increase their dose up to a maximum of 20mg a day if they wished; however, most followed the dosing protocol, with three patients in both groups increasing their dose to three times a day. The treatment ran for 18 days.

From patient answers to questionnaires conducted before, during and at the end of the trial, the researchers found that the majority (73%) of THC-treated patients reported an increased overall appreciation of food compared with patients receiving placebo (30%) and more often stated that study medication "made food taste better" (55%) compared with placebo (10%).

The majority of THC-treated patients (64%) had increased appetite, three patients (27%) showed no change, and one patient's data was incomplete. No THC-treated patients showed a decrease in appetite. By contrast, the majority of patients receiving placebo had either decreased appetite (50%) or showed no change (20%).

Dave Duerson's suicide

Dave Duerson committed suicide last week. He shot himself in the heart, not the head. Here's why.

He is the former Chicago Bears safety, most notably with the 1985 Super Bowl champs, and a businessman who grew a food company into a multimillion-dollar success. He had 11 years in the NFL and was selected to four Pro Bowls.

In other words, Duerson was more than just another guy.

Thursday, Duerson shot himself to death in his home in Florida. He was 50.

It took a day or so for the official word that it was suicide. It took another day or so for the real shocker to be revealed.

He shot himself in the heart, not the head. He did so, it became obvious, because he had left a request with relatives that he wanted his brain tissues examined. Word now is that that will be done at the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE as it is now known, first acquired public recognition when it was identified in the brain tissue of former Philadelphia Eagles player Andre Waters after his suicide in 2007. There have been other cases of CTE found in the brain tissue of former football players who committed suicide. It has been a murky concept for years, its connection to football injuries denied by most involved with the game, including medical personnel. Determining the presence of CTE can be done only on a deceased brain.

So Duerson gave his to medical science in the only way he could right now.

It is a story of unimaginable tragedy and incredible significance. If you are NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and you hear about Duerson, you want to lock yourself in a room for a couple of hours and alternately scream and cry.

Goodell has finally begun to address the issue of head injuries and their lasting effect on NFL players. It has been there for years, and been repeatedly sidestepped as the league flourished and got filthy rich.

Various NFL alumni groups meet on a regular basis now and focus their anger on paltry pension and medical benefits. Attending a meeting becomes a shocking visit to a roomful of formerly famous and now elderly men, many bent over or walking with canes. Some talk about forgetting things a lot. At one a few years ago in Las Vegas, one of the prominent organizers didn't come because his memory loss embarrassed him too much for him to see his friends.

This 2010 season was the year of concussion awareness. To his credit, Goodell made it so. Spectacular hits, the kind that leave TV sports directors drooling and recipient players concussed, were penalized. The climate was altered. Players knew that, although horrible, spearing, head-first hits would get them on "SportsCenter," they also would lighten their wallets.

Now, Duerson has raised the stakes. He has apparently martyred himself for a cause. And if he properly identified his symptoms, and the Boston University doctors confirm this in the next several months, no amount of rationalizing or perseveration on head-injury issues — past or present — will be acceptable.

The ticket-buying, TV-watching public, as shallow and oblivious as it can be about anything that disrupts its game-watching and team-worshiping, will not keep funding the future agony of athletes it adored. If the Duerson incident is as it seems, and we do not pressure it to be addressed in much more than lip service and phony studies that take months or years, then shame on us.

A man apparently killed himself to be heard. What more does it take?

Suicide is tragic, the ultimate scream of pain. Now, apparently, Dave Duerson has told us where to look for the pain, so that others who put on a helmet might be spared that in the future. Or maybe we'll simply learn that the kind of athletic violence necessary in football, and in sports such as boxing, will almost certainly bring later issues. At least then, we would know.

Read it all. It's more than you want to know about football.

Rivers in the sky

How the "Pineapple Express" works.

Like freight trains loaded with water vapor, atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands whose winds funnel huge amounts of moisture through the sky. When they hit coasts, these rivers can drop their moisture as rain and cause destructive flooding, as in January 2005 when more than 20 inches of rain soaked southern California, killing 14 people and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Scientists (and San Francisco) managed to escape December’s atmospheric river without such harm, but the storm dumped more than 10 feet of snow in parts of the Sierra Nevada, putting the mountains on track for their wettest recorded season. That sort of impact underscores why researchers have recently become fascinated with atmospheric rivers. Completely unknown just over a decade ago, these rivers turn out to be not only a key factor in Western flooding and water supply, but also a major player in the planet’s water cycle.

“Water is life, and atmospheric rivers provide water,” says Paul Neiman, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. New research is revealing how these rivers work, as well as helping forecasters better predict their consequences.

At any given time, somewhere between three and five atmospheric rivers are typically ferrying water in each hemisphere. More than 1,000 kilometers long, they are often no wider than 400 kilometers and carry the equivalent, in water vapor, of the flow at the Mississippi River’s mouth. “That has really captured the imagination of scientists,” says Marty Ralph, also a meteorologist at the Boulder lab. “There are only a handful of these events, and yet they do the work of transporting 90-plus percent of water vapor on the planet.”

Ordinary clouds don’t carry lots of water vapor long distances; they rain out as soon as water droplets coalesce and get heavy enough to fall as precipitation. In the 1990s, MIT researchers calculated from wind and moisture data that jets in the atmosphere, which the scientists termed atmospheric rivers, must exist to help ferry water around the planet.

Since then researchers have gotten a better look at the rivers, using microwave-sensing instruments carried on polar-orbiting satellites. Solar radiation bouncing off Earth’s surface in microwave wavelengths is affected by the amount of water vapor between the ground and the satellite, but microwaves aren’t affected by clouds the way visible and infrared radiation are. So microwave instruments are able to photograph ribbons of water vapor coursing through the atmosphere.

In the early days of atmospheric river research, scientists weren’t sure that the bright bands of water vapor in microwave satellite images really translated to super-soggy conditions. So teams flew research airplanes into storm systems, some of which spawned atmospheric rivers, to measure how wet things got. “You could really sense the juiciness,” Ralph says. “You could smell it in the cockpit.”

Read it all.

And when we get bashed on the West Coast, folks on the East Coast get it a week later.

New cure for baldness?

If stress causes people's hair to fall out would a chemical that blocks a stress hormone help people grow back their hair? It works in mice.

 It has been long known that stress plays a part not just in the graying of hair but in hair loss as well. Over the years, numerous hair-restoration remedies have emerged, ranging from hucksters' "miracle solvents" to legitimate medications such as minoxidil. But even the best of these have shown limited effectiveness.

Now, a team led by researchers from UCLA and the Veterans Administration that was investigating how stress affects gastrointestinal function may have found a chemical compound that induces hair growth by blocking a stress-related hormone associated with hair loss -- entirely by accident.

The serendipitous discovery is described in an article published in the online journal PLoS ONE.

"Our findings show that a short-duration treatment with this compound causes an astounding long-term hair regrowth in chronically stressed mutant mice," said Million Mulugeta, an adjunct professor of medicine in the division of digestive diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a corresponding author of the research. "This could open new venues to treat hair loss in humans through the modulation of the stress hormone receptors, particularly hair loss related to chronic stress and aging."

The research team, which was originally studying brain-gut interactions, included Mulugeta, Lixin Wang, Noah Craft and Yvette Taché from UCLA; Jean Rivier and Catherine Rivier from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif.; and Mary Stenzel-Poore from the Oregon Health and Sciences University.

For their experiments, the researchers had been using mice that were genetically altered to overproduce a stress hormone called corticotrophin-releasing factor, or CRF. As these mice age, they lose hair and eventually become bald on their backs, making them visually distinct from their unaltered counterparts. The Salk Institute researchers had developed the chemical compound, a peptide called astressin-B, and described its ability to block the action of CRF. Stenzel-Poore had created an animal model of chronic stress by altering the mice to overproduce CRF.

UCLA and VA researchers injected the astressin-B into the bald mice to observe how its CRF-blocking ability affected gastrointestinal tract function. The initial single injection had no effect, so the investigators continued the injections over five days to give the peptide a better chance of blocking the CRF receptors. They measured the inhibitory effects of this regimen on the stress-induced response in the colons of the mice and placed the animals back in their cages with their hairy counterparts.

About three months later, the investigators returned to these mice to conduct further gastrointestinal studies and found they couldn't distinguish them from their unaltered brethren. They had regrown hair on their previously bald backs.

"When we analyzed the identification number of the mice that had grown hair we found that, indeed, the astressin-B peptide was responsible for the remarkable hair growth in the bald mice," Mulugeta said. "Subsequent studies confirmed this unequivocally."

Of particular interest was the short duration of the treatments: Just one shot per day for five consecutive days maintained the effects for up to four months.

"This is a comparatively long time, considering that mice's life span is less than two years," Mulugeta said.

So far, this effect has been seen only in mice. Whether it also happens in humans remains to be seen, said the researchers, who also treated the bald mice with minoxidil alone, which resulted in mild hair growth, as it does in humans. This suggests that astressin-B could also translate for use in human hair growth. In fact, it is known that the stress-hormone CRF, its receptors and other peptides that modulate these receptors are found in human skin.

The finding is an offshoot of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

UCLA and the Salk Institute have applied for a patent on the use of the astressin-B peptide for hair growth.