Monkeys See Selves in Mirror, Open a Barrel of Questions | Wired Science. Monkeys may possess cognitive abilities once thought unique to humans, raising questions about the nature of animal awareness and our ability to measure it. In the lab of University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Luis Populin, five rhesus macaques seem to recognize their own reflections in a mirror. Monkeys weren’t supposed to do this. “We thought these subjects didn’t have this ability. The indications are that if you fail the mark test, you’re not self-aware. This opens up a whole field of possibilities,” Populin said. Populin doesn’t usually study monkey self-awareness. So-called mirror self-recognition is thought to indicate self-awareness, which is required to understand selfhood in others, and ultimately to be empathic. It was once thought that only humans could pass the mark test. Indeed, macaques — including those in Populin’s study — have repeatedly failed the mark test.
Marino, who helped demonstrate self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins, disagreed with Gallup. See Also: Intelligent Individuals Don’t Make Groups Smarter | Wired Science. An early effort at defining general intelligence in groups suggests that individual brainpower contributes little to collective smarts. Instead, it’s social awareness — the ability to pick up on emotional cues in others — that seems to determine how smart a group can be. “We lack a shared criterion in predicting which groups will perform well and which won’t,” said psychologist Anita Woolley of Carnegie Mellon University. “There’s an underlying factor that seems to drive how individuals perform in multiple domains. I wondered if that was true of groups as well.” In individuals, general intelligence is a measure of each person’s tendency to perform similarly on different types of cognitive tests, suggesting an underlying — general — intellectual competence.
Exactly what produces those smarts, and how they correlate with biological and environmental factors, is controversial. But even if the causes are unclear, the evidence of individual general intelligence remains. Idaho’s Sand Dunes Tell Ancient Climate Story | Wired Science. From the ground, in an everyday rush, it’s easy to forget that the landscapes beneath our civilization are part of an epic geological narrative.
But through the perspective-altering intervention of satellite imagery, that narrative is revealed, as in this photograph of sand dunes in Idaho’s Snake River valley. The dunes were formed 10,000 years ago, when the last Ice Age ended and what is now eastern Idaho warmed, causing lakes to shrink and exposing sediments carried aloft by wind until hitting a line of extinct volcanoes. The sands accumulated at their base, forming crescent-shaped dunes with tips pointing in the ancient wind’s direction. Taken by NASA’s EO-1 satellite, the photograph underscores what’s so marvelous about both geology and Earth imagery from space: They expand consciousness in time.
Image: NASA See Also: Anger Management for Online Trolls | Wired Science. Neanderthals Had Feelings, Too | Wired Science. For decades, Neanderthal was cultural shorthand for primitive. Our closest non-living relatives were caricatured as lumbering, slope-browed simpletons unable to keep pace with nimble, quick-witted Homo sapiens. However, anthropologists have found evidence in recent years suggesting considerable Neanderthal sophistication, and not only in tool-making and hunting, but in their ability to feel.
“We don’t know that their compassion is exactly the same thing that early humans had. But at the broadest level, in the connection to others, the ability to extend ourselves beyond our own skin, Neanderthals would have shared that,” said archaeologist Penny Spikins of England’s University of York. Wired.com talked to Spikins, co-author of The Prehistory of Compassion, about the feelings of humanity’s closest nonliving relative. Wired.com: What do you think Neanderthals felt? Penny Spikins: We see compassion in our nearest living relatives, chimpanzees. Wired.com: What’s the evidence? See Also:: Exclusive: First Autistic Presidential Appointee Speaks Out | Wired Science.
When Ari Ne’eman walked onstage at a college campus in Pennsylvania in June, he looked like a handsome young rabbi presiding over the bar mitzvah of a young Talmudic scholar. In truth, Ne’eman was facilitating a different kind of coming-of-age ceremony. Beckoning a group of teenagers to walk through a gateway symbolizing their transition into adult life, he said, “I welcome you as members of the autistic community.” The setting was an annual gathering called Autreat, organized by an autistic self-help group called Autism Network International.
Ne’eman’s deliberate use of the phrase “the autistic community” was more subversive than it sounds. The notion that autistic people — often portrayed in the media as pitiable loners — would not only wear their diagnosis proudly, but want to make common cause with other autistic people, is still a radical one. Ne’eman spoke to Wired.com in July in his first interview with the media since his appointment. Ari Ne’eman: No. Ne’eman: I was, actually. Drunks More Likely to Think You’re a Jerk | Wired Science. By Kate Shaw, Ars Technica If you’ve ever had one (or 10) too many drinks at a bar, you’re probably familiar with this scenario: a drunk guy stumbles past you, spills a beer all over you, and you get angry. You’re convinced he did it on purpose, and you start fuming. According to a new study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, you’ve probably fallen victim to one of the many side effects of booze: assuming that others’ actions are intentional.
[partner id=”arstechnica” align=”right”] The 92 male participants in the study were led to believe that they were participating in a taste test. Within each group, half the participants were told that the drink contained alcohol, and half were not. Once they’d finished the drink and spent some time on unrelated tasks while the alcohol was being absorbed, the subjects were given a series of 50 action statements. Nearly all the participants, no matter what condition, judged all the unambiguous statements correctly. See Also: Lab-Sized Earthquakes Challenge Basic Laws of Physics | Wired Science. A model earthquake on a lab bench shows that a basic assumption of introductory physics doesn’t hold up at small scales. The finding could have a wide variety of implications for materials science and engineering, and could help researchers understand how earthquakes occur and how bad they might be.
“Our group has recently devised a way to look at laboratory generated earthquakes as they take place,” said physicist Jay Fineberg of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “On the way, we found out that many of the assumptions people have used historically in investigating this stuff… are basically wrong. They don’t work.” For centuries, physicists have thought that the amount of force needed to start a book sliding across a table is equal to the force from friction that keeps book and table stuck together. These laws were first described by Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century, and re-derived by Guillaume Amontons and Charles Coulomb a few hundred years later. See Also: Autism Plays Hide-and-Seek in Family Genes | Wired Science. Autism seems to play a genetically inspired hide-and-seek game in some families. Undiagnosed siblings in families that include two or more children with autism often grapple with language delays, social difficulties and other mild symptoms of the disorder, a new study suggests.
Genes prompt autism symptoms of varying intensity among members of these families, including in some kids who don’t qualify as having an autism spectrum disorder, say psychiatrist John Constantino of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and his colleagues. Researchers have generally limited their search for DNA peculiarities to children diagnosed with autism or related disorders, a strategy that overlooks those with mild autism signs, Constantino’s group asserts in a paper published online October 1 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
“Subtle aspects of the autistic syndrome have not been accounted for in most studies of its intergenerational transmission,” Constantino says. See Also: Black Death’s Daddy Was the Bubonic Plague | Wired Science. Cool Evolution Trick: Platinum Turns Baby Snails Into Slugs | Wired Science. Evolution doesn’t have to operate at a snail’s pace, even for snails. In experiments designed to simulate the evolutionary transition that produced slugs, researchers exposed baby snails to the metal platinum, causing the animals to develop without external shells. The research illustrates how a big leap on the evolutionary path of animal body plans might have occurred. It also reopens a can of worms concerning the development and evolution of an entire class of shelled creatures. Scientists reared Marisa snails, best known for cleaning up algae and other debris in home aquariums, in petri dishes containing varying concentrations of platinum.
“This shows that you can get really dramatic changes that could be similar to the genetic mutations that drive evolution, without worrying about doing everything in small incremental steps,” says comparative physiologist Roger Croll of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. See Also: Image: Goethe University. Birthplace of Modern Astronomy Faces Uncertain Future | Wired Science. Uncertain FutureIn the late 1990s, the Yerkes staff considered registering the building as an official historical site. But at that time the observatory was still an active research center, and gaining historic building status would make it difficult to continue the pace of research.Ironically, research slowed down so much over the next 15 years that in March 2005, the University of Chicago announced plans to sell the observatory and its land to a developer who wanted to build a resort on the shores of Lake Geneva.
A public outcry followed, and the village of Williams Bay refused to allow the necessary rezoning. A focus group of University of Chicago astronomers wrote up a proposal to shift Yerkes' main purpose from a place of research to an education and outreach facility. "It's an interesting question, where will this place be in 10 years? " Berthoud said. Giant Pterosaurs Could Fly 10,000 Miles Nonstop | Wired Science. PITTSBURGH — Predating jet travel by at least 65 million years wasn’t a problem for the biggest pterosaurs. These prehistoric creatures might have been able to fly up to 10,000 miles nonstop, according to research presented Oct. 10 at the annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology.
The original elite flyers included four species of what biomechanist Michael Habib, of Chatham University in Pittsburgh, calls supergiant pterosaurs: flying reptiles such as Quetzalcoatlus northropi from Texas. Appearing in the fossil record 70 million years ago, they stood about as tall as a modern giraffe and launched into the air spreading membrane wings to a total span of roughly 10 meters [33 feet]. These supergiants “are big by pterosaur standards,” Habib said. “They are truly gruesomely huge by bird and bat standards.” As for merging any currently misunderstood species, though, he’s less sanguine. Image: PLoS One See Also: Bloody Gourd May Contain Beheaded King’s DNA | Wired Science. Sick of taxes, a lack of rights and living in poverty, French revolutionists condemned Louis XVI to the guillotine on the morning of January 21, 1793. After a short but defiant speech and a menacing drum roll, one of the last kings of France lost his head as a crowd rushed the scaffold to dip handkerchiefs into his blood as mementos.
Or so the story goes. Lending new life to the demise of Louis XVI, scientists performed a battery of DNA tests on dried blood inside a decorative gunpowder gourd that purportedly contained one such handkerchief. The results, described Oct. 12 in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics, show the blood belongs to a blue-eyed male from that time period: a possible dead-ringer for the executed king. “The next step is find a descendant either of the king or his mother,” said Davide Pettener, a population geneticist at the University of Bologna in Italy who helped with the analysis.
“It’s a very strange story,” Pettener said. Culture Evolves Slowly, Falls Apart Quickly | Wired Science. Societies come together slowly, but can fall apart quickly, say researchers who applied the tools of evolutionary biologists to an anthropological debate. Using archaeological records and linguistic analyses rather than fossils and genes, they created an evolutionary tree of political forms once found in Pacific islands. The study, published October 13 in Nature, was intended to illuminate an issue of contention among archaeologists, anthropologists and historians: whether societies become more complex in incremental steps or sudden bursts, and whether they dissolve in similar fashion.
“The evolution of complex societies since the end of the last ice age has long been a major topic of investigation and debate,” wrote researchers led by anthropologists Thomas Currie and Ruth Mace of University College, London. “These debates have continued largely in the absence of rigorous, quantitative tests.” To some scholars, however, this narrative is deterministic. See Also: “Political evolution.” Will there be a cheap solar cell that can compete with grid electricity? | Wired Science. Thoughts on a Smarter Planet is a special blogger series in partnership with leading IBM experts. Join the conversation as these experts discuss the innovations in science, business and systems like transportation that are helping build a Smarter Planet.
About this program. Modern solar cells are based on a design and prototype that was reported by Bell Labs scientists in 1954. It made the front page of The New York Times, which predicted solar cells would eventually lead “to the realization of one of mankind’s most cherished dreams—the harnessing of the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.”
How are we doing on that dream? Compared to the past, solar panel prices have plunged, but they contribute to less than 0.1% of the world’s electricity production because solar electricity still isn’t cheap enough to compete with grid electricity. There is certainly plenty of sunlight available to bring us close to this utopia. Let’s look at some numbers. The Year’s Best Fossil Finds | Wired Science. Human Genome Still Chock-Full of Mysteries | Wired Science. BOSTON — No one really knows all the genetic parts needed to make a human being. Exactly how many genes make up the human genome remains a mystery, even though scientists announced the completion of the Human Genome Project a decade ago. The project to decipher the genetic blueprint of humans was supposed to reveal all of the protein-producing genes needed to build a human body. “Not only do we not know what all the genes are, we don’t even know how many there are,” Steven Salzberg of the University of Maryland in College Park said October 11 during a keynote address at the Beyond the Genome conference, held in Boston.
Most estimates place the human gene count in the neighborhood of 22,000 genes, which falls between the number of genes in a chicken and the number in a grape. Grape plants have 30,434 genes, by the latest count. The most accurate estimate of the human gene count is the RefSeq database maintained by the U.S. Image: Flickr/ ott1mo See Also: How to Make a White Hole in Your Kitchen Sink | Wired Science. Love Makes You Increasingly Ignorant of Your Partner | Wired Science. Science - News for Your Neurons | Wired.com - Part 37. Antarctic Ice Sheet Preserves Invisible Mountain Range | Wired Science. Inside the Soviets’ Secret Failed Moon Program | Wired Science. Ancient Grains Show Paleolithic Diet Was More Than Meat | Wired Science. Metal Chunk Ditched for Silicon Sphere to Measure Kilogram | Wired Science. Twitter Can Predict the Stock Market | Wired Science. Most Distant Galaxy Ever Confirmed | Wired Science.
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Digital Creatures Evolve Firefly Flashing | Wired Science. Radiation Rings Hint Universe Was Recycled Over and Over | Wired Science. Senate Passes Historic Food-Safety Reform | Wired Science. Space Shuttle Images Reveal Ancient Egyptian Lake Bed | Wired Science. NASA Unveils Arsenic Life Form | Wired Science. Glacial Silt Encased Some of Earth’s Best-Preserved Fossils | Wired Science. X Particle Explains Dark Matter and Antimatter at the Same Time | Wired Science. Republican Congressmen Crowdsource Attack on Science | Wired Science. Doubts Brew About NASA’s New Arsenic Life | Wired Science.
Evolution Survives Assault on Louisiana Textbooks | Wired Science. Dark Matter Rush: Physics Gives Gold Mine New Life | Wired Science. Fake Watchful Eyes Discourage Naughty Behavior | Wired Science. Leaked Memo Shows EPA Doubts About Bee-Killing Pesticide | Wired Science. How to Test What Really Happened After the Big Bang | Wired Science. Massive Volcanism May Have Caused Biggest Extinction Ever | Wired Science. Video: Physics Getting Freaky on Bed of Nails | Wired Science. Lost worlds: New species found in Ecuador | Environment | guardi. Dinosaurs were killed by Isle of Wight-sized asteroid | Science.
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