The only science news thread you'll ever need

cactus flower wrote:

Any more news of the Wino?

Maybe the Higgs bozo is a wino? We'll have to wait 'til they unmelt all those superconductors that went pear-shaped under the mountain in Switzerland.

Mouse clone boosts hopes of resurrecting extinct species

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scientists have cloned mice whose bodies were frozen for as long as 16 years and now say it may be possible to use the technique to resurrect mammoths and other extinct species.

Mouse-cloning expert Teruhiko Wakayama and his colleagues at Japan's RIKEN research institute in Yokohama, managed to clone the mice even though their cells had burst.

"Thus, nuclear transfer techniques could be used to 'resurrect' animals or maintain valuable genomic stocks from tissues frozen for prolonged periods without any cryopreservation," they wrote in the 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mr Wakayama's team used the classic nuclear transfer technique to make their mouse clones. This involves taking the nucleus out of an egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus of an ordinary cell from the animal to be cloned.

Many animals have been cloned, starting with sheep, and including pigs, cattle, mice and dogs.

Mammoths may be the extinct animals that scientists would be most likely to try to clone, as many have been found preserved in ice.

In July 2007 Russian scientists discovered the body of a baby mammoth frozen in the Arctic Yamalo-Nenetsk region for as long as 40,000 years.

The researchers believe it could be possible to collect nuclei from these sepciments and 'generate offspring'.

Pink Tentacle

Auditor #9 wrote:

from the London Indo today:

Why women really do love self-obsessed psychopaths-link

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Bad boys, it seems, really do get all the girls. Women might claim they want caring, thoughtful types but scientists have discovered what they really want – self-obsessed, lying psychopaths.

So, if you want to spread your genes around, some eggheads believe that you'll have less of a chance of doing it if you're a Good Guy ..

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A study has found that men with the "dark triad" of traits – narcissism, thrill- seeking and deceitfulness – are likely to have a larger number of sexual affairs. Peter Jonason, of New Mexico University in Las Cruces, believes that these traits may have an innate, genetic component that explains why some men seem unable to stop themselves behaving badly.

The dark triad of traits are the self-obsession of narcissism, the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behaviour of psychopaths and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism. "We have some evidence these traits may represent a successful evolutionary strategy," Dr Jonason told New Scientist magazine.

Dark triad of self-obsession, psychopathology and deceit... So we should ditch the good behaviour and lie, exploit and threaten to kill women in order to get them into the sack

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Many famous men – from James Dean to Pete Doherty – could be said to show elements of the dark triad of traits, but perhaps the best fictional example is James Bond. "He's clearly disagreeable, very extrovert and likes trying new things – including killing people and new women," Dr Jonason said.

How did the eggheads find out this invaluable piece of information which could prove more effective than the litres of eau de toilette I've been using not to mention the diction lessons, hair transplants and adoption of pain in the arse beliefs like New Ageism and vegetarianism, in order to appear sophisticated and interesting ?

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The study subjected 200 college students to personality tests designed to rank them in terms of the dark triad. They were also asked about their sexual relationships, including their attitude towards brief affairs.

Dr Jonason said those with the highest rating in terms of the dark triad tended to have more partners and a greater desire for short-term affairs.

With this rigorous and positively definitive scientific exploration they came to the reason why women love these types of men:

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The dark triad approach is one way of maximising a man's reproductive potential by having sex with many females, while not bothering to stick around to help with the children. "The strategy seems to have worked. We still have these traits," Dr Jonason said.

David Schmitt, of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, surveyed 35,000 people in 57 countries and found a similar link. "It is universal across cultures," he said.

I think I used the word 'reason' wrongly there. They gave no explanation for this crackpot theory which seems to be true - is there one ?

so liars and cheats have more sexual partners. maybe they are lying and cheating to the researchers?

Apparently this is true - there is a smell off fear ! Guardian article today on it ... This is how the scientists measured it. They got 20 people and put sweat-soaking pads on their armpits one morning for two hours. They they made them take them off and they stored the pads in a special lab.

They then told the 20 people that they were about to go up on plane ride. While up there they put clean armpit-sweat-soakers on them again. This time they told them that they would have to jump out of the planes ! They let them sweat it out for a couple of hours. When there was enough sweat full of fear they put the pads in a different lab to the non-fear pads.

Later they hooked people up to brain photography machines and let them smell the different sweats ... there was a difference in the brain responses that apparently indicates we are capable of smelling fear ... There are immediate military applications to this of course.

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The smell of fear, one of the most terrible cliches of pulp fiction, is founded in fact, scientists claim today.

People can unconsciously detect whether someone is stressed or scared by smelling a chemical pheromone released in their sweat, according to researchers who have investigated the underarm secretions of petrified skydivers.

= No Fear

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The team found that the smell of fear triggered a heightened response in brain regions associated with fear when inhaled by volunteers in a brain scanner. The research suggests that like many animal species, humans can detect and subconsciously respond to pheromones released by other people.

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The research was funded by the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency – the Pentagon's military research wing – raising speculation that it is a first step to isolating the fear pheromone for use in warfare, perhaps to induce terror in enemy troops. But DARPA denied that it had any military plans for fear pheromones or plans to fund further research into the field.

Maybe this is how recessions happen ? Very gradually the level of fear rises and rises and then consumes everybody except all the people with blocked noses....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/03/fear-smell-pheromone

from today's Irish Independent:

New TV footage shows elephant 'smacking' its young

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/new-tv-footage-shows-elephant-smacking-its-young-1600537.html

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A female elephant is shown "smacking" its wayward offspring to discipline it in a new BBC documentary revealing animal behaviour never before witnessed.

Researchers spent a year following one family, led by a elephant matriarch called Harmattan, in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya.

"We have rarely been able to spend such a concentrated time with one group and we saw some amazingly strong emotional behaviour that we have not seen before," said Saba Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants. Harmattan had lost a calf soon after birth and her only other son, named Buster, had reached the age of six with no siblings to divert his mother's attention. When she eventually had another calf, Buster became a very jealous mummy's boy and kept trying to get between his mother and the baby," said Ms Douglas-Hamilton."She eventually rounded on him and gave him an almighty prod with her tusks. He was clearly very confused and shocked because she'd never done this before.

"This kind of aggressive admonishment, not enough to really hurt, but enough to show she meant business, is very rare in mother-calf elephant behaviour. Buster certainly learnt his lesson and is now off getting into trouble with other boys." The Secret Life of Elephants' starts on BBC 1 at 9pm today. (© Daily Telegraph, London)