By Sue Shellenbarger It’s easy to be offended when a colleague yawns while you’re talking. But that yawn may not mean what you think. A growing number of researchers believe the purpose of this little-understood behavior is to cool the brain, says a research review published earlier this year in Frontiers in Neuroscience. Changes in climate affect how often people yawn. Researchers in an earlier study asked two groups of pedestrians in Tucson, Ariz., one in early summer and one in the winter. People were asked to look at pictures of people yawning and talk about their own yawning behavior. The participants were nearly twice as likely to yawn when they were surveyed during the winter, when they could inhale cool air to reduce the temperature of the brain, says the study, published in 2011 in Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience. Participants yawned less when surveyed in the early summer, when temperatures outdoors were about the same as the human body. Other studies show yawning increases after people experience heat stress or have a heat pack placed on their foreheads. Yawning also may build empathy within groups. Yawns are seen as contagious, but “catching” a yawn depends on a person’s ability to feel empathy and closeness with the yawner, says a 2013 research review in the International Journal of Applied Basic Medical Research. ©2013 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 18383 - Posted: 07.18.2013

Alison Abbott When neurobiologist Bill Newsome got a phone call from Francis Collins in March, his first reaction was one of dismay. The director of the US National Institutes of Health had contacted him out of the blue to ask if he would co-chair a rapid planning effort for a ten-year assault on how the brain works. To Newsome, that sounded like the sort of thankless, amorphous and onerous task that would ruin a good summer. But after turning it over in his mind for 24 hours, his dismay gave way to enthusiasm. “The timing is right,” says Newsome, who is based at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. He accepted the task. “The brain is the intellectual excitement for the twenty-first century.” It helped that the request for the brain onslaught was actually coming from Collins's ultimate boss — US President Barack Obama. Just two weeks after that call, on 2 April, Obama announced a US$100-million initial investment to launch the BRAIN Initiative, a research effort expected to eventually cost perhaps ten times that amount. The European Commission has equal ambitions. On 28 January, it announced that it would launch the flagship Human Brain Project with a 2013 budget of €54 million (US$69 million), and contribute to its projected billion-euro funding over the next ten years (see Nature 482, 456–458; 2012). Although the aims of the two projects differ, both are, in effect, bold bids for the neuroscientist's ultimate challenge: to work out exactly how the billions of neurons and trillions of connections, or synapses, in the human brain organize themselves into working neural circuits that allow us to fall in love, go to war, solve mathematical theorems or write poetry. What's more, researchers want to understand the ways in which brain circuitry changes — through the constant growth and retreat of synapses — as life rolls by. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 18382 - Posted: 07.18.2013

by Sarah C. P. Williams Researchers think they've hit on why a common obesity gene causes weight gain: Those who carry a version of it don't feel full after eating and take in extra calories. That's because the variant of the FTO gene in question, which one in six individuals carry, leads to higher levels of ghrelin, a hormone involved in mediating appetite and the body's response to food, researchers have discovered. While most studies on FTO have relied on mice, the new work analyzed blood samples and brain scans from humans. "This is a very exciting piece of research," says geneticist Andrew Hattersley of the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, U.K., who was not involved in the new study. "There is a lot of work that's been done on the mechanism of FTO in animals, but you have to be careful about applying those lessons to people. So it's nice to finally see work done in humans." Hattersley was part of a team that in 2007 reported that people who had one version of the FTO gene, called AA, weighed an average of 3 kilograms more than those with the TT version of the gene. Since then, studies in mice have shown that in everyone, there are high levels of the FTO protein in brain areas that control energy balance. Researchers have also found that animals with the AA version tend to eat more and prefer high-fat food compared with those with the TT version. But why FTO had this effect wasn't known. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 18381 - Posted: 07.16.2013

By SABRINA TAVERNISE WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration announced on Monday that it had approved the first brain wave test to help diagnose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children. The test uses an electroencephalogram, or EEG, with sensors attached to a child’s head and hooked by wires to a computer to measure brain waves. It traces different types of electrical impulses given off by nerve cells in the brain and records how many times those impulses are given off each second. The test takes 15 to 20 minutes, and measures two kinds of brain waves — theta and beta. Certain combinations of those waves tend to be more prevalent in children with A.D.H.D., the Food and Drug Administration said in a news release. The disorder is one of the most common behavioral disorders in children. About 9 percent of adolescents have A.D.H.D. and the average age of diagnosis is 7, the drug agency said, citing the American Psychiatric Association. Children who have it tend to be hyperactive, impulsive and exhibit behavioral problems. The maker of the testing device, NEBA Health of Augusta, Ga., gave the F.D.A. data from a study of 275 children and adolescents, ages 6 to 17, with attention or hyperactivity problems. Clinicians used the device, called a Neuropsychiatric EEG-Based Assessment Aid, in combination with traditional testing methods, like listing the criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, behavioral questionnaires and I.Q. testing. An outside group of researchers then reviewed the data and decided whether the child had the disorder. The results showed that the device helped doctors make a more accurate diagnosis than using traditional methods alone, the F.D.A. said. An agency spokeswoman said it did not release the study’s data. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 18380 - Posted: 07.16.2013

By Scicurious It seems like the worst sort of cycle. The less sleep you get, the less effective you are. Then you have more to do, get more stressed, and stay up trying to get it all done (or lie awake stressing about it). The next day, less sleep, and even more anxiety. The ironic part is that you might not be quite so anxious…if you could just get some SLEEP. The authors of this study wanted to look at anxiety responses in people, and how they were affected by lack of sleep. To do this, you need 19 healthy participants, an fMRI machine, a test of anxiety…and way to keep people up all night. How do you assess anxiety responses? Start with cues, and then give outcomes. You can see the layout of the studies above. The participants were placed in an fMRI scanner. During the recording, they were shown signs, followed by stimuli. If they got a negative sign, they would always get a negative stimuli (a man with a gun, which is plenty good enough to provoke an anxiety response). If they got a zero sign, they got a normal stimuli (a doorknob. Nothing scary there). If they got a question mark, they have a 50% chance of getting the negative stimulus. This question mark gives you an ambiguous stimulus, you don’t know what to expect. They had the participants go through the series of stimuli in two conditions: rested and sleep deprived. And when they sleep deprived them, BOY did they. Many sleep deprivation studies will restrict sleep to, say, 4 hours the night before the study, or 5. Not these guys. No, they had the participants pull an all-nighter! © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Sleep; Emotions
Link ID: 18379 - Posted: 07.16.2013

An Ontario researcher has discovered that common male crickets talk trash, dance and brag after winning a fight. The discovery has caught the attention of fellow researchers and National Geographic magazine. Lauren Fitzsimmons, a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Windsor, discovered the brash behaviour. Fitzsimmons placed pairs of male crickets in a small, clear arena, which always led to fights. The arena included a viewing area for other crickets. She set up three audience situations: a male watching and listening to a fight, a female watching and listening to a fight, or no audience. The combatants bit, pushed and flipped each other around the ring. "After a series of these bouts, one male will kind of sulk away and not interact anymore, while the other will perform a song and dance," Fitzsimmons said. She said the winning cricket would "shake his body back and forth" and chirp in victory. "When we had a male audience watching, the male would produce more of these victory displays," Fitzsimmons said. "The speculation is they can tell there is another individual there, and they’re showing off. "We know females prefer dominant males and males who win fights." © CBC 2013

Keyword: Aggression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 18378 - Posted: 07.16.2013

By Marilynn Marchione The Associated Press New research boosts the "use it or lose it" theory about brainpower and staying mentally sharp. People who delay retirement have less risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, a study of nearly half a million people in France found. It's by far the largest study to look at this, and researchers say the conclusion makes sense. Working tends to keep people physically active, socially connected and mentally challenged — all things known to help prevent mental decline. "For each additional year of work, the risk of getting dementia is reduced by 3.2 percent," said Carole Dufouil, a scientist at INSERM, the French government's health research agency. She led the study and gave results Monday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Boston. About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's — 1 in 9 people aged 65 and over. What causes the mind-robbing disease isn't known and there is no cure or any treatments that slow its progression. France has had some of the best Alzheimer's research in the world, partly because its former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, made it a priority. The country also has detailed health records on self-employed people who pay into a Medicare-like health system.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 18377 - Posted: 07.16.2013

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR There are many dying languages in the world. But at least one has recently been born, created by children living in a remote village in northern Australia. Carmel O’Shannessy, a linguist at the University of Michigan, has been studying the young people’s speech for more than a decade and has concluded that they speak neither a dialect nor the mixture of languages called a creole, but a new language with unique grammatical rules. The language, called Warlpiri rampaku, or Light Warlpiri, is spoken only by people under 35 in Lajamanu, an isolated village of about 700 people in Australia’s Northern Territory. In all, about 350 people speak the language as their native tongue. Dr. O’Shannessy has published several studies of Light Warlpiri, the most recent in the June issue of Language. “Many of the first speakers of this language are still alive,” said Mary Laughren, a research fellow in linguistics at the University of Queensland in Australia, who was not involved in the studies. One reason Dr. O’Shannessy’s research is so significant, she said, “is that she has been able to record and document a ‘new’ language in the very early period of its existence.” Everyone in Lajamanu also speaks “strong” Warlpiri, an aboriginal language unrelated to English and shared with about 4,000 people in several Australian villages. Many also speak Kriol, an English-based creole developed in the late 19th century and widely spoken in northern Australia among aboriginal people of many different native languages. Lajamanu parents are happy to have their children learn English in school for use in the wider world, but eager to preserve Warlpiri as the language of their culture. There is an elementary school in Lajamanu, but most children go to boarding school in Darwin for secondary education. The language there is English. But they continue to speak Light Warlpiri among themselves. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 18376 - Posted: 07.15.2013

Trevor Stokes Reuters Talk therapy may be a helpful supplemental treatment for people with depression who have not responded to medication, a new study from the United Kingdom suggests. Researchers found that people with depression who had not improved despite taking antidepressants were three times more likely to experience a reduction in their depression symptoms if talk therapy was added to their treatment regimen compared with those who continued to take only antidepressants. The study is one of the first large trials to test the effectiveness of talk therapy given in tandem with antidepressants, the researchers said. Up to two-thirds of people with depression don’t respond fully to antidepressant treatment, and the findings suggest a way to help this group, the researchers said. “Until now, there was little evidence to help clinicians choose the best next step treatment for those patients whose symptoms do not respond to standard drug treatments," study researcher Nicola Wiles of the University of Bristol's Centre for Mental Health, Addiction and Suicide Research said in a statement. The study followed patients for one year. Future studies should examine the effectiveness of this treatment combination over the long term, as patients with depression can relapse after treatment, the researchers said.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 18375 - Posted: 07.15.2013

The lifetime rate of diagnosis of anxiety disorders is higher in women, with 33 percent experiencing an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, as compared with 22 percent of men. Experts believe this difference arises from a combination of hormonal fluctuations, brain chemistry and upbringing: women more often feel responsible for the happiness of others, such as their children or their spouse. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Emotions; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 18374 - Posted: 07.15.2013

By Susan Gaidos For nearly a decade, neuro­scientist Li-Huei Tsai and her colleagues have been studying senile mice. In a lab at MIT her team has genetically fast-forwarded the mice into a condition much like dementia: They have problems making new memories and retrieving old ones. The mice forget how to navigate water mazes they had mastered; they don’t recognize signs of imminent danger they had once responded to fearfully. Last year, Tsai’s group found a way to reverse the process. When given a drug known to strengthen nerve cell connections in the brain, the mice not only gained back the ability to learn new tasks, but also remembered many forgotten behaviors. On the opposite coast, researchers are using a similar drug to rewire long-held memories in mice facing another kind of mental challenge: drug addiction. Neurobiologist Marcelo Wood of the University of California, Irvine coaxes cocaine-seeking mice to view the sights and sounds they’ve learned to associate with getting cocaine. He then creates a new, harmless memory around those cues. After a single treatment, mice placed near their drug den forget their cravings. Though Tsai and Wood use different drugs in their studies, both draw on research showing that the ability to learn and remember can be influenced by subtle changes to DNA — changes that affect how genes turn on and off without altering the underlying genetic information. Such epigenetic modifications, it turns out, might have a profound impact on long-term memory. Exploring these methods has opened a growing field of research, called neuroepigenetics, aimed at finding ways to boost memory in humans. Results so far offer the prospect of new types of medication to improve memory and even restore long-forgotten information in disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease or other types of dementia. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Epigenetics
Link ID: 18373 - Posted: 07.13.2013

By JAN HOFFMAN From the shock of the cancer diagnosis onward, depression can take its well-documented toll on patients. Even patients who appear to pack away their fears during the grinding treatment journey to becoming cancer-free concede that when the regimen ends, they unspool emotionally. There has been less attention paid to the disease’s emotional impact on spouses. They, too, can become depressed. But with the roles of caregiver and cheerleader thrust upon them, they may feel constrained about expressing their darker feelings. Now a new analysis finds that within two years of a cancer diagnosis, the pervasiveness of depression in patients and their spouses tends to drop back to roughly the same levels as in the general population, only to be replaced by another mind-demon: anxiety, which can even intensify as time passes. 48 Were you a caretaker for someone with cancer? How did you take care of yourself while your partner was going through treatment? Join in the discussion below. The analysis, which looked at 43 studies involving 51,381 patients with a range of cancers, found that over all, nearly 18 percent of patients experienced serious anxiety two to 10 years after their diagnosis, compared with about 14 percent of the general population. But in a cluster of studies that looked at couples, anxiety levels in that time frame grew to as high as 28 percent in patients and 40 percent in their spouses. Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 18372 - Posted: 07.13.2013

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers have found brain changes in preschool-age children with depression that are not apparent in their nondepressed peers. The study, in the July issue of The Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, examined 23 children 4 to 6 years old who had been diagnosed with depression and 31 of their healthy peers. Researchers used well-validated tests to diagnose depression, and eliminated from the study children with neurological disorders, autism or developmental disorders, or who had been born prematurely. None of the subjects was taking antidepressants. The children underwent M.R.I. brain scans while viewing pictures of happy, sad, fearful or neutral faces. The researchers found that right amygdala and right thalamus activity was significantly greater in the depressed children than in the others, a finding that has also been observed in depressed adolescents and adults. “We found something in the brain that is aligned with the idea of neurobiological models of depression — which parts of the brain are involved and how they interact,” said the lead author, Michael S. Gaffrey, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis. “We can begin to use this information in conjunction with other information — symptoms, other biological markers — to identify and eventually prevent and treat this disorder.” Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 18371 - Posted: 07.13.2013

By Bruce Bower A surprisingly simple decision-making tool shows promise as a way for physicians to identify people with depression. An answer to the first of four questions was all that researchers usually needed to identify women who weren’t depressed, say psychologist Mirjam Jenny of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and her colleagues. Using all four questions, this tool spotted depressed women about as well as two more-complex methods, Jenny’s team reports June 24 in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. If the findings hold up in other studies, physicians and other professionals with no mental-health training could use this brief technique to tag individuals who need thorough depression evaluations. “This decision tree can be used to screen for depression, but not to reach a final diagnosis,” Jenny says. Her team drew on data from 1,382 German women who completed a 21-item screening questionnaire for depression on two occasions, separated by 18 months. Based on this measure, depression initially affected 3.6 percent of the sample, or 50 individuals, and later appeared in 1.9 percent of the sample, or 26 individuals. Women’s initial responses to a handful of items that best predicted whether they would rank as depressed 18 months later were used to create a four-question decision tree. The first question in the tree — “Have you cried more than usual in the last week?” — led the pack in identifying cases of depression. A “no” response to this or any of the other three questions — which inquired about feelings in the last week of disappointment or self-hate, discouragement about the future and personal failure — exempted women from being categorized as depressed. Those who responded “yes” to all four questions were classified as depressed. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 18370 - Posted: 07.13.2013

Heidi Ledford The growth of new nerves in and around prostate cancers spurs tumours to grow and invade other tissues, studies in mice have shown. The results, published today in Science1, could steer researchers towards novel approaches to treating cancer. Although it is not yet clear whether the mechanism occurs in humans — or in cancers affecting other organs — an analysis of samples from 43 patients with prostate cancer found that nerve density was high in patients who fared poorly in the clinic. “It’s a catalytic paper,” says John Isaacs, a cancer researcher at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland, who was not affiliated with the study. “People may now focus on trying to tackle these unanswered questions.” Previous work had shown that cancer cells sometimes migrate along nerves, and that this process can be associated with poor responses to therapy2. To learn more, Claire Magnon and Paul Frenette of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and their colleagues studied tumour development in mice injected with human prostate cancer cells. The resulting tumours, they saw, were infiltrated with certain types of nerve fibres. Chemically destroying those nerves prevented the development of tumours in the prostate. Furthermore, the team found that another class of nerves was associated with tumour spread, and that blocking certain receptors on those nerves prevented the cancer from invading nearby lymph nodes. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 18369 - Posted: 07.13.2013

by Emily Underwood "Antibrain" antibodies that slip through the placenta from mother to fetus during pregnancy may account for roughly a quarter of autism cases, a new study suggests. Some scientists say the work could lead to a blood test that accurately predicts whether a mother will bear a child with this immune-triggered form of the disorder—a claim that's raising eyebrows among skeptics. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a range of communication and social deficits estimated to affect 1 in 88 children, is now largely thought to be a neurodevelopmental malady that begins in the womb. For years, many researchers have brushed aside the idea that an out-of-whack immune response could contribute to this, preferring to focus on genetic factors that could derail typical brain development, says immunologist Judy Van de Water. Over the past decade, however, she and her colleagues at the University of California (UC), Davis, as well as several other research groups, have been slowly building a case for the role of an immune disorder in a subset of autism cases. "We just didn't quit," she says. In 2008, Van de Water found that roughly a quarter of 61 women with autistic children carried in their blood an unusual group of antibodies—large, Y-shaped proteins with sticky ends that normally bind to and destroy foreign or potentially harmful microbes. Some of these, called autoantibodies, occasionally go rogue and attack the body's healthy cells, causing autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The higher the level of autoantibodies in the mother's blood, the more severe the child's autistic symptoms, Van de Water observed. She hypothesized that these autoantibodies were attacking proteins necessary for fetal brain development. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Autism; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 18368 - Posted: 07.11.2013

Josh Howgego Thresher sharks can use their lengthy tail fins to swat sardines from shoals, researchers have found by taking underwater footage. Such tactical use of the tail fin during hunting — which was previously observed only in mammals such as dolphins and killer whales1 — might indicate that sharks are more intelligent than scientists thought. Pelagic thresher sharks (Alopias pelagicus) are nocturnal and notoriously shy. Researchers have long suspected that the shark uses its tail — which makes up half of its body length — to stun its prey, but the behaviour has not been documented before under natural conditions2. Simon Oliver, lead investigator of the Thresher Shark Research and Conservation Project, and his colleagues studied the sharks off the coast of Cebu, an island in the Philippines. Oliver, who is based at the University of Liverpool, UK, has been watching the animals during the day since 2005, but he hadn’t seen the sharks hunting until some divers saw it happening and phoned him. “Immediately I dropped everything and went to investigate,” he says. The sharks hunt by first lunging into a school of fish, priming their tails as they move in. They then swipe the tail in a trebuchet-like motion through an arc of 180o in just one-third of a second — fast enough to both physically hit the fish and to create a stunning shock wave (see image below). Each strike can take out up to seven sardines, so Oliver thinks it is probably the most energy-efficient way for the animals to hunt. The team published the results today in PLOS ONE3. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 18367 - Posted: 07.11.2013

By Helen Briggs BBC News Today's 90-year-olds are surviving into very old age with better mental performance than ever before, Danish research suggests. People born in 1915 scored higher in cognitive tests in their 90s compared with those born a decade earlier, according to a study in The Lancet. Better living standards and intellectual stimulation may be key factors, experts say. The number of people reaching very old age is on the rise globally. In the US, for example, the amount of people aged 90 or above has more than doubled in 30 years. In Denmark, where the study took place, the chance of surviving into the 10th decade of life has gone up by about 30% each decade for people born in 1895, 1905 and 1915. However, there has been little research on the quality of life that people reaching such an old age can look forward to. The researchers, led by Prof Kaare Christensen, of the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, surveyed all Danes born in 1905 who were still alive and living in the country in 1998 (3,600 people, aged 92-93). They assessed their physical strength, mental functioning, ability to carry out daily living tasks such as walking inside and outside, and any symptoms of depression. BBC © 2013

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 18366 - Posted: 07.11.2013

by Jessica Hamzelou THE next generation may live to see 100, and with old age inevitably comes illness. While older people may be more prone to getting cancer or Alzheimer's, it seems they are unlikely to succumb to both. Understanding this link could offer insights into treating both diseases. The association was first noticed in 2005 when researchers looked at how many people over 65 with cancer later developed Alzheimer's, and vice versa. To further explore the link, Massimo Musicco at the Institute of Biomedical Technology in Milan, Italy, and his colleagues recorded cancer and Alzheimer's diagnoses for over a million people by looking at registries of drug prescriptions and hospital admissions between 2004 and 2009. In each case of cancer or Alzheimer's, they checked for the other disease before the person was treated, as well as in the years after. The group found that people with Alzheimer's were half as likely to develop cancer as their age-matched peers. People with cancer, on the other hand, were 35 per cent less likely to get Alzheimer's. "It's a very convincing demonstration of the links between two pathologies that we often think of as separate," says Richard Faragher of the British Society for Research on Ageing. "The question is: what is going on?" Although both diseases are linked to ageing, they work in very different ways. While cancer results from the uncontrolled growth of cells, Alzheimer's is related to the death of brain cells. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 18365 - Posted: 07.11.2013

By Kate Wong In the July issue of Scientific American, anthropologist Barbara King of The College of William & Mary makes the case that animals ranging from ducks to dolphins may grieve when a relative or close companion dies. In so doing she departs from a long-standing tradition among animal behaviorists of assiduously avoiding projecting human emotions onto other animals. Not all animal responses to death qualify as mourning, however. King is careful to establish criteria for grief, noting that “researchers may strongly suspect grief only when certain conditions are met: First, two (or more) animals choose to spend time together beyond survival-oriented behaviors such as foraging or mating. Second, when one animal dies, the survivor alters his or her normal behavioral routine—perhaps reducing the amount of time devoted to eating or sleeping, adopting a body posture or facial expression indicative of depression or agitation, or generally failing to thrive.” Here King describes two recent, well-publicized examples of animal reactions to death that illustrate the challenges of interpreting such behaviors: “Occasionally the pull of anthropomorphism may overwhelm scientists’ normal caution in reporting animal responses to death. When Teresa Iglesias of the University of California at Davis and her colleagues published a paper in Animal Behaviour last year entitled ‘Western scrub jay funerals: cacophonous aggregations in response to dead conspecifics,’ the news media responded enthusiastically to the notion of a bird funeral. Yet nothing like a caretaking ritual around jay bodies actually had been observed. From a series of experiments, the scientists had discovered that scrub jays respond by vocalizing upon sighting the bodies of dead companions; they seem to be communicating information to their flock mates about potential risks in the environment. Iglesias told me last year, for my post about her paper at NPR.org’s 13.7 blog, that ‘funeral’ is an apt term ‘only to the extent that it is an animal paying attention to another dead animal’ (and excluding behaviors such as scavenging). Any of the animal examples discussed in this article would, on this definition, quality as a ‘funeral,’ a too-generous application of the term.” © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 18364 - Posted: 07.09.2013