By Felicity Muth Pigs are one of the top animals consumed across the world. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2010, around one hundred million metric tons of pork were consumed that year, with 10% of this being in the US (although it does seem that overall meat consumption is declining). With so many of us eating pork, you might think we’d know a bit more about these animals. A lot of people are surprised to hear about some of the cognitive abilities of the average pig. While it’s problematic to call an animal ‘intelligent’ or not, as this is a term is ill-defined and too often related to human cognition, pigs have shown us that they have a number of cognitive abilities tested across many different types of test. They have good learning and memory in many contexts (both short- and long-term), including episodic memory (memory for past events in their life), the ability to differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar pigs, and an inclination to explore novel objects. In addition to these behavioural feats, the pig brain is well-developed. For example, the volume of the prefrontal cortex is around 24% of the total neocortex and 10% of the total brain volume, comparable to primates including humans. I’m not sure why, despite this research, pigs have a reputation for being ‘stupid’. Similar to the ‘three-second memory’ myth with fish, I wonder if it’s perpetuated to make people not feel bad about eating these animals, or the conditions under which they are often reared. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 18259 - Posted: 06.12.2013

by Satoshi Kanazawa in The Scientific Fundamentalist Drinking alcohol is evolutionarily novel, so the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent people drink more alcohol than less intelligent people. The human consumption of alcohol probably originates from frugivory (consumption of fruits). Fermentation of sugars by yeast naturally present in overripe and decaying fruits produces ethanol, known to intoxicate birds and mammals. However, the amount of ethanol alcohol in such fruits ranges from trace to 5%, roughly comparable to light beer. (And you can't really get drunk on light beer.) It is nothing compared to the amount of alcohol present in regular beer (4-6%), wine (12-15%), and distilled spirits (20-95%). Human consumption of alcohol, however, was unintentional, accidental, and haphazard until about 10,000 years ago. The intentional fermentation of fruits and grain to yield ethanol arose only recently in human history. The production of beer, which relies on a large amount of grain, and that of wine, which similarly requires a large amount of grapes, could not have taken place before the advent of agriculture around 8,000 BC and the consequent agricultural surplus. Archeological evidence dates the production of beer and wine to Mesopotamia at about 6,000 BC. The origin of distilled spirits is far more recent, and is traced to Middle East or China at about 700 AD. The word alcohol - al kohl - is Arabic in origin, like many other words that begin with "al," like algebra, algorithm, alchemy, and Al Gore. Human experience with concentrations of ethanol higher than 5% that is attained by decaying fruits is therefore very recent. © Copyright 2002-2013 Sussex Directories, Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Intelligence
Link ID: 18258 - Posted: 06.12.2013

By Scicurious When I am stressed (and I’m stressed a lot of the time, as I bet a lot of you are as well), I turn to coffee. Not just to keep me going through the time when I need to get things done, but also for relaxation. For me, the smell and taste of coffee brings me thoughts of relaxing conversations with friends and other fun times. But what if the memories weren’t all the relaxing the caffeine was doing for me? What if the chronic caffeine consumption was keeping my stressful life at bay? It’s time to look at adenosine 2A receptors in the hippocampus. Don’t worry, the coffee will be back. First let’s talk about stress. Specifically, childhood stress. In small doses, stress exposure can actually be good for you, but in large, or prolonged, doses, it’s definitely not. There are effects immediately after stress, as well as long term ones. when you suffer strong stressors in development, you can end up with changes all the way into adulthood, from cognitive deficits to predisposition to psychiatric disorders. Why is stress in development so important? During development, our brains are developing too, particularly our hippocampus. While the hippocampus is best known for its role in memory and spatial navigation, it’s also extremely important in emotional responses. Neuronal growth in the hippocampus can come from enriched environments or chronic antidepressants, and death of those neurons can come from chronic stress. Chronic stress also disrupts the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (the HPA axis) And that’s just in adults! During development, animals are very susceptible to stress, and the hippocampus is still developing its connections. And we’re still figuring out what changes occur during early life stress and how they relate to behaviors in adulthood. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 18257 - Posted: 06.11.2013

By Sandra G. Boodman, Through repeated painful experience, Shannon Bream had learned to keep her eyedrops close at hand wherever she went — even in the shower. Although they did little to quell the near-constant thrum of pain, the lubricating drops were better than nothing. She clutched the bottle while working out at the gym and kept extras in her purse, car and desk. At night, she set her alarm clock to ring every few hours so she could use them; failing to do so, she had discovered, meant waking up in pain that felt “like someone was stabbing me in the eye,” she said. “Daytime was okay, I could function, but nights had become an absolute nightmare,” said Bream, who covers the Supreme Court for Fox News. But a doctor’s suggestion that she was exaggerating her worsening misery, coupled with the bleak future presented on the Internet message boards she trolled night after night searching for help, plunged her into despair. “I didn’t think I could live like this for another 40 years,” she recalled thinking during her 18-month ordeal. Ironically, it was those same message boards that helped steer Bream to the doctor who provided a correct diagnosis and a satisfactory resolution. In the middle of one night in February 2010, Bream, then 39, awoke suddenly with pain in her left eye “so searing it sat me straight up in bed.” She stumbled to the bathroom, where she frantically rummaged through the medicine cabinet and grabbed various eyedrops, hoping to dull the pain. Her eye was tearing profusely; after about three hours, both the pain and tearing subsided. © 1996-2013 The Washington Post

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Vision
Link ID: 18256 - Posted: 06.11.2013

By Melissa Hogenboom Science reporter, BBC News Activity observed in the brain when using a "mind machine" is similar to how the brain learns new motor skills, scientists have found. Participants' neural activity was recorded by using sensors implanted in their brain, which were linked to a computer that translated electrical impulses into actions. The researchers believe people will be able to perform increasingly complex tasks just by thinking them. The study is published in PNAS journal. The subjects in the study moved from thinking about a task to automatically processing a task, in a similar way to how other motor movements are learnt - like playing the piano or learning to ride a bicycle. This was shown by the areas of neurons that were active in the brain, which changed as subjects became more adept at a mental task. Scientists analysed the results of a mind control task on a brain-computer interface (BCI) of seven participants with epilepsy. They were asked to play a computer game where they had to manipulate a ball to move across a screen - using only their mind. Recent studies using BCIs have shown that our minds can control various objects, like a robotic arm, "but there is still a lot of mystery in the way we learn to control them", said Jeremiah Wander from the University of Washington in Seattle, US, who led the study. BBC © 2013

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 18255 - Posted: 06.11.2013

by Marta Paterlini Tourists visiting the famous Spanish Steps in Rome on Saturday were treated to an unusual spectacle: Some 30 researchers suddenly showed up, unfolded banners and placards in different languages, and stood motionless on the steps for several minutes. Their flash mob was part of an unprecedented series of events across Italy to protest what organizers say is an antiscientific attitude in Italy and widespread "misinformation" about science in the media. Saturday's event, called Italy United for Correct Scientific Information, was organized by young researchers in response to an attack against an animal facility at the University of Milan in April, in which animal rights activists released mice and rabbits and ruined experiments. Some 300 researchers had already demonstrated on 1 June in Italy to defend animal experimentation; the new protests, which included flash mobs and conferences in 15 cities, were aimed more broadly. "We want to show that we do not live in an ivory tower," says organizer Dario Padovan, a biologist at the University of Trieste. "We are not afraid to defend our research and understand the need of communicating it correctly." Press coverage of April's attack showed again that in Italy, important scientific topics "are often addressed and reported by the media in a superficial, or even wrong, way" says Federico Baglioni, one of the organizers of Saturday's events. Previous examples were the conviction of Italian researchers for their failure to warn about the risk of a deadly earthquake in L'Aquila and the recent debate about the Stamina Foundation, which offers stem cell therapies that many scientists say aren't scientifically proven. In such debates, Italian media tend to focus on the emotional side of the story and fail to delve into the scientific facts, Baglioni says. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 18254 - Posted: 06.11.2013

Scientists have discovered more about the role of an important brain protein which is instrumental in translating learning into long-term memories. Writing in Nature Neuroscience, they said further research into the Arc protein's role could help in finding new ways to fight neurological diseases. The same protein may also be a factor in autism, the study said. Recent research found Arc lacking in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Dr Steve Finkbeiner, professor of neurology and physiology at the University of California, who led the research at Gladstone Institutes, said lab work showed that the role of the Arc protein was crucial. "Scientists knew that Arc was involved in long-term memory, because mice lacking the Arc protein could learn new tasks, but failed to remember them the next day," he said. Further experiments revealed that Arc acted as a "master regulator" of the neurons during the process of long-term memory formation. The study explained that during memory formation, certain genes must be switched on and off at very specific times in order to generate proteins that help neurons lay down new memories. The authors found that it was Arc that directed this process, from inside the nucleus. Dr Finkbeiner said people who lack the protein could have memory problems. BBC © 2013

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Alzheimers
Link ID: 18253 - Posted: 06.10.2013

By Tara Haelle A long overdue and growing body of research on concussions is providing today’s young athletes, parents and coaches with more information about identifying and treating head injuries—but not all of that research is reliable. For instance, one new study on youth concussions offers valuable information about recovery time, whereas potentially flawed conclusions in a second new study illustrate one of the biggest challenges in studying youth concussions—missed diagnoses. An estimated 170,000 children go to the emergency room for concussions annually, but this number does not capture the millions treated outside of hospitals by athletic trainers, family doctors or specialists. The sports with the most reported concussions are boys’ football and girls’ soccer, but bicycling, basketball and playground activities are also among the most common ways children sustain these head injuries. Symptoms can include dizziness, fatigue, nausea, headache and memory or concentration problems. After a concussion is identified, the primary treatment is physical and cognitive rest, although the amount of rest needed is not always medically clear. The first study, published June 10 in Pediatrics, found that recovery takes up to two or three times longer if a child has sustained one or more concussions within the past year, further supporting reasons “to be cautious about returning young athletes to sports after a concussion,” says lead author Matthew A. Eisenberg of Boston Children’s Hospital. Eisenberg’s study notes. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 18252 - Posted: 06.10.2013

By ROBERT J. ZATORRE and VALORIE N. SALIMPOOR MUSIC is not tangible. You can’t eat it, drink it or mate with it. It doesn’t protect against the rain, wind or cold. It doesn’t vanquish predators or mend broken bones. And yet humans have always prized music — or well beyond prized, loved it. In the modern age we spend great sums of money to attend concerts, download music files, play instruments and listen to our favorite artists whether we’re in a subway or salon. But even in Paleolithic times, people invested significant time and effort to create music, as the discovery of flutes carved from animal bones would suggest. So why does this thingless “thing” — at its core, a mere sequence of sounds — hold such potentially enormous intrinsic value? The quick and easy explanation is that music brings a unique pleasure to humans. Of course, that still leaves the question of why. But for that, neuroscience is starting to provide some answers. More than a decade ago, our research team used brain imaging to show that music that people described as highly emotional engaged the reward system deep in their brains — activating subcortical nuclei known to be important in reward, motivation and emotion. Subsequently we found that listening to what might be called “peak emotional moments” in music — that moment when you feel a “chill” of pleasure to a musical passage — causes the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, an essential signaling molecule in the brain. When pleasurable music is heard, dopamine is released in the striatum — an ancient part of the brain found in other vertebrates as well — which is known to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli like food and sex and which is artificially targeted by drugs like cocaine and amphetamine. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 18251 - Posted: 06.10.2013

By Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld By now you’ve seen the pretty pictures: Color-drenched brain scans capturing Buddhist monks meditating, addicts craving cocaine, and college sophomores choosing Coke over Pepsi. The media—and even some neuroscientists, it seems—love to invoke the neural foundations of human behavior to explain everything from the Bernie Madoff financial fiasco to slavish devotion to our iPhones, the sexual indiscretions of politicians, conservatives’ dismissal of global warming, and even an obsession with self-tanning. Brains are big on campus, too. Take a map of any major university, and you can trace the march of neuroscience from research labs and medical centers into schools of law and business and departments of economics and philosophy. In recent years, neuroscience has merged with a host of other disciplines, spawning such new areas of study as neurolaw, neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuromarketing, and neurofinance. Add to this the birth of neuroaesthetics, neurohistory, neuroliterature, neuromusicology, neuropolitics, and neurotheology. The brain has even wandered into such unlikely redoubts as English departments, where professors debate whether scanning subjects’ brains as they read passages from Jane Austen novels represents (a) a fertile inquiry into the power of literature or (b) a desperate attempt to inject novelty into a field that has exhausted its romance with psychoanalysis and postmodernism. Brains are in demand. Once the largely exclusive province of neuroscientists and neurologists, the brain has now entered the popular mainstream. As a newly minted cultural artifact, the brain is portrayed in paintings, sculptures, and tapestries and put on display in museums and galleries. © 2013 The Associated Press

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 18250 - Posted: 06.10.2013

by Emily Underwood The mushroom clouds produced by more than 500 nuclear bomb tests during the Cold War may have had a silver lining, after all. More than 50 years later, scientists have found a way to use radioactive carbon isotopes released into the atmosphere by nuclear testing to settle a long-standing debate in neuroscience: Does the adult human brain produce new neurons? After working to hone their technique for more than a decade, the researchers report that a small region of the human brain involved in memory makes new neurons throughout our lives—a continuous process of self-renewal that may aid learning. For a long time, scientific dogma held that our brains did not produce new neurons during adulthood, says Pasko Rakic, a neuroscientist at Yale University who was not involved in the study. In 1998, however, a group of Swedish researchers reported the first evidence that neurons are continually born throughout the human lifespan. The researchers injected a compound normally used to label tumor cell division into patients who had agreed to have their brains examined after death. When the scientists examined the postmortem brain tissue, they found that new neurons had indeed sprung forth during adulthood. The cells were located in a part of the hippocampus—a pair of seahorse-shaped structures located deep within the brain and involved in memory and learning. The compound was later found to be toxic, however, and the experiment was never repeated. Since 1998, a number of studies have demonstrated that new neurons are generated in the same small region of the hippocampus in mice and appear to play an important role in memory and learning, says Kirsty Spalding, a molecular biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead author of the new study. Because the 1998 work was never confirmed by independent research, however, scientists have fiercely argued over whether the neuron birth seen in mice also occurs in people. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Neurogenesis; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 18249 - Posted: 06.08.2013

Kerri Smith Researchers have both created and relieved symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in genetically modified mice using a technique that turns brain cells on and off with light, known as optogenetics. The work, by two separate teams, confirms the neural circuits that contribute to the condition and points to treatment targets. It also provides insight into how quickly compulsive behaviours can develop — and how quickly they might be soothed. The results of the studies are published in Science1, 2. Brain scanning in humans with OCD has pointed to two areas — the orbitofrontal cortex, just behind the eyes, and the striatum, a hub in the middle of the brain — as being involved in the condition's characteristic repetitive and compulsive behaviours. But “in people we have no way of testing cause and effect”, says Susanne Ahmari, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York who led one of the studies. It is not clear, for example, whether abnormal brain activity causes the compulsions, or whether the behaviour simply results from the brain trying to hold symptoms at bay by compensating. “There’s been a big debate in the field,” says Satinder Kaur Singh of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies molecules involved in OCD-like disorders but was not involved in the new studies. “What the Ahmari paper shows is that it is causative.” © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 18248 - Posted: 06.08.2013

by Tia Ghose, LiveScience Ape and human infants at comparable stages of development use similar gestures, such as pointing or lifting their arms to be picked up, new research suggests. Chimpanzee, bonobo and human babies rely mainly on gestures at about a year old, and gradually develop symbolic language (words, for human babies; and signs, for apes) as they get older. The findings suggest that “gesture plays an important role in the evolution of language, because it preceded language use across the species," said study co-author Kristen Gillespie-Lynch, a developmental psychologist at the College of Staten Island in New York. The idea that language arose from gesture and a primitive sign language has a long history. French philosopher Étienne Bonnot de Condillac proposed the idea in 1746, and other scientists have noted that walking on two legs, which frees up the hands for gesturing, occurred earlier in human evolution than changes to the vocal tract that enabled speaking. But although apes in captivity can learn some language by learning from humans, in the wild, they don't gesture nearly as much as human infants, making it difficult to tease out commonalities in language development that have biological versus environmental roots. © 2013 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 18247 - Posted: 06.08.2013

Helen Shen The case of the missing bird penis is a long-standing mystery in evolutionary biology. But the identification of a molecular mechanism that controls penis loss in birds goes some way to solving this conundrum. Roughly 97% of avian species sport little or nothing in the way of a phallus, despite reproducing by internal fertilization. A study published today in Current Biology1 shows that the development of chicken penises is cut short by signals that promote cell death. “This paper would be in Nature or Science if it were about people,” says Richard Prum, an evolutionary ornithologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. “The whole result is entirely novel.” Male chickens, which possess only a rudimentary phallic nub, pump their sperm into females using a 'cloacal kiss' — a move that presses together the male and female cloacas, openings used for waste excretion and copulation. By contrast, ducks boast large and elaborately coiled penises that can measure about half the length of their bodies2. To better understand the signals that control penis growth, researchers led by Martin Cohn, a developmental biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, looked for differences between developing duck and chicken embryos. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 18246 - Posted: 06.08.2013

By Jason G. Goldman Within the wildlife conservation community, both in the field (“in situ“) as well as in captive settings (“ex situ“), there is a great deal of folk knowledge about the best methods for animal care as well as species protection and restoration. Increasingly, however, empirical knowledge from psychology and cognitive science can be brought to bear on husbandry, management, and conservation-related issues and can inform best practices. Here’s one small example. At the Los Angeles Zoo, I recently participated in a study with on the effects of environmental enrichment on meerkat behavior. Thoughtfully designed environmental enrichment programs, it is thought, allow captive animals to display a wider variety of naturalistic behaviors. A wealth of evidence suggests that when animals exhibit their natural behaviors, zoo visitors have a better and more educational experience, and animal welfare is increased. Unfortunately, one side effect of captivity is the possible emergence of non-naturalistic repetitive or stereotypic behaviors. Stereotypic behaviors vary according to the species, but might include swaying, coprophagy, regurgitation and reingestion, or pacing. When combined with stereotypic swimming patterns, pacing may actually be the most common form of stereotypy across species in modern zoos. While these behaviors may in fact be more stressful for zoo visitors than for the animals themselves, zoos still have a responsibility to minimize them as much as possible. Other stereotypies may feature or result in various forms of self-harm, which are of course more dangerous. Birds pluck their feathers, horses nip at their flanks, canids, felids, and bears over-groom themselves, turtles may bite their legs, and snakes may chew on their tails. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 18245 - Posted: 06.08.2013

By Susan Milius Lyrebirds are famous for the mimicked sounds they sing, but they now have another claim to fame: They dance to their own songs. “Just as we waltz to waltz music but we salsa to salsa music, so lyrebirds perform different dance movements to different types of songs,” says Anastasia Dalziell of the Australian National University in Canberra. She and her colleagues scrutinized videos of male superb lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae) showing off in the wild for possible mates. The males’ combinations of hums, clicks, trills and other sexy syllables fell into four distinctive song types, the researchers say. At least the first three types are not mimicry but lyrebird originals, Dalziell says. In courtship, males sing the songs in a fairly predictable order and usually match each to its own mix of dance moves and postures. The birds side-step, turn and flare their outsized lyre-shaped tails. Matching a type of music with a style of gesture is not unique to humankind, the researchers report June 6 in Current Biology. Performing for females, a male lyrebird dances to the music he makes. And yes, the bird makes the noises heard in the video. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2013

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Language
Link ID: 18244 - Posted: 06.08.2013

By Susana Martinez-Conde This week’s illusion was discovered by Dartmouth College neuroscientist Peter Tse, author of “The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation“, and presented as a Top 10 finalist at the recent Best Illusion of the Year Contest. The Knobby Sphere Illusion tricks your sense of touch. To experience it, you will need a regular pencil (for instance, with a hexagonal cross-section, and a small hard sphere (such a marble or ball bearing). Squeeze the pencil lengthwise very hard between your thumb and first finger for a full minute, until you can see deep indentations in your skin. Now feel the sphere by rolling it around against the parts of your fingers where the indentations are. The sphere no longer feels round, but bumpy. Your brain assumes that the touch receptors in your skin lie on a flat sheet, and misattributes the skin deformations to the sphere. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 18243 - Posted: 06.08.2013

by Debora MacKenzie YOUR eye colour is a product of your DNA, but what about your IQ? The biggest-ever search for genes that affect intelligence, and the first to give reproducible results, has found 10 variations in DNA that seem to influence intelligence – but not by much. Studies of families show intelligence is 40 to 50 per cent inherited, and otherwise depends on environment. Since mass-analysis of DNA variations became possible, a number of studies have sought the genes involved in this inheritance, and some papers have claimed strong associations between particular genes and IQ. Yet results have varied widely and none have been replicated. "Many of the published findings of the last decade are wrong," says John Hewitt of the University of Colorado in Boulder, who was not involved in the new study. So if intelligence is inherited, where are the genes hiding? The research may have hit problems because each gene linked with IQ has only a tiny effect on overall intelligence. This means you need data on a large number of people to reliably distinguish such effects from measurement error. Most studies have involved between 100 and 2000 subjects. Now, some 200 researchers have assembled 54 sets of data on more than 126,000 people who have had their genomes analysed for 2.5 million common, small mutations called SNPs. Information was also available for how long they spent in education and the level they reached. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Intelligence; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 18242 - Posted: 06.06.2013

by Jennifer Viegas Dogs with obsessive compulsive disorder show nearly the same brain abnormalities of humans who have OCD, a new study finds. The discovery, published in Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, adds another notch to the dog-human connection and holds promise for better treatments for OCD. “While the study sample was small and further research is needed, the results further validate that dogs with CCD (Canine Compulsive Disorder) can provide insight and understanding into anxiety disorders that affect people,” Nicholas Dodman, a professor of clinical sciences at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University who worked on the study, said in a press release. Dodman said that, in addition to having the same structural brain abnormalities as people with OCD, dogs also show similar behaviors, respond to the same medications and seem to have similar genetic roots to the disorder. Dogs with CCD engage in repetitious and destructive behaviors, such as flank and blanket-sucking, tail chasing and chewing. The main thing — and this is true for humans as well — is that the activity or thought is repetitive and persistent, such that it’s time consuming and interferes with normal daily routines. For dogs, Dobermans appear to be a breed that is most at risk, likely due to their genetics. © 2013 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 18241 - Posted: 06.06.2013

Sid Perkins The near-complete fossil of a tiny creature unearthed in China in 2002 has bolstered the idea that the anthropoid group of primates — whose modern-day members include monkeys, apes and humans — had appeared by at least 55 million years ago. The fossil primate does not belong to that lineage, however: it is thought to be the earliest-discovered ancestor of small tree-dwelling primates called tarsiers, showing that even at this early time, the tarsier and anthropoid groups had split apart. The slender-limbed, long-tailed primate, described today in Nature1, was about the size of today’s pygmy mouse lemur and would have weighed between 20 and 30 grams, the researchers estimate. The mammal sports an odd blend of features, with its skull, teeth and limb bones having proportions resembling those of tarsiers, but its heel and foot bones more like anthropoids. “This mosaic of features hasn’t been seen before in any living or fossil primate,” says study author Christopher Beard, a palaeontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By analysing almost 1,200 morphological aspects of the fossil and comparing them to those of 156 other extant and extinct mammals, the team put the ancient primate near the base of the tarsier family tree. The creature is dubbed Archicebus achilles, in which the genus name Archicebus roughly translates as 'original long-tailed monkey', while the species name achilles is a wry nod to the primate's anthropoid-like heel bone. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 18240 - Posted: 06.06.2013