Chloé Sharrocks

Research published today in Science Express has discovered why Scotland’s Soay sheep have become smaller despite the evolutionary benefits of having a large body.

The study was unveiled at the 2009 World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) today and links climate change to the shrinking sheep.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Scientists first reported that the wild breed of Soay sheep had become smaller in 2007, but the reason behind the shrinking on the Scottish island of Hirta was a mystery.  Now researchers from a range of British Universities have collaborated to discover that due to climate change, the conditions on Hirta are becoming less challenging.

This means that slower-growing, smaller sheep are now more likely to survive the harsh winters than before – climate change has effectively changed the evolutionary process.  When this is combined with the newly discovered ‘young-mum effect’ in which young ewes are producing smaller offspring the scientists were able to fully understand why the average sheep size was falling.

According to traditional evolutionary theory, over time sheep size should increase since larger animals are more likely to survive and reproduce than smaller sheep and their offspring usually inherit their larger size.  But researchers found that among the Soay sheep their average body size has decreased by 5% over the last 24 years.

Professor Tim Coulson, from Imperial College London, believes the shrinking sheep are a direct result from the shorter, milder winters caused by global climate change.  The warmer weather means that lambs no longer need to put on as much weight in their first months of life to survive to their first birthday.

“In the past, only the big, healthy sheep and large lambs that had piled on weight in their first summer could survive the harsh winters on Hirta.  But now, due to climate change, grass for food is available for more months of the year and survival conditions are not so challenging.”

This work was carried out in collaboration with scientists from the Universities of Leeds, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Standford and was funded in the UK by the National Environment Research Council.

One of my dogs - does she look guilty?

New research has suggested that the “guilty look” on a dog’s face is purely the imagination of the human owner.

Researchers at Barnard College in New York believe their new research shows that dog-owners wrongly claim they can read the tell-tale guilty look on their pet’s face when it has done something wrong.

The scientists  found that they were able to trick owners into thinking their innocent pets has misbehaved and then the owners would claim to see this guilty look.  They also discovered that pet owners are not able to read their dogs’ body language as well as they themselves might have thought.

The study, led by Alexandra Horowitz’s, assistant professor at Barnard College, looked at how dog owners interpreted their pets’ expressions when they were led to believe that the dog had stolen and eaten a forbidden treat.  The researchers found that owners projected human values onto their pets and their perception of this ‘guilty look’ had to link with whether the dog had really stolen the treat.  If the owners were informed their dog had stolen the treat, even when they had not done anything wrong, they claimed to see this guilty expression.

When there was any change in the dogs’ expression it was seen to be a subsequent reflection of changes to the human’s emotions and if the dog was told of (despite being innocent) then some dogs seemed to show an “admonished” look which their owners mistakenly took as an admission of guilt.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

A University student has created a pillow which is able to record people’s worries when they cannot fall asleep.

Nekani Guezala, 23, is a student at Edinburgh Napier University, and created the specially designed pillow as part of her master’s project.

As people are trying to get to sleep, they can say their worries out loud, while the pillow records their rambling using its built in voice recognition software.  The following morning, the machine prints out all of the problems worrying the person just before the fell asleep.

Ms Guezala was inspired after lying awake at night worrying about things and did a survey in which she found out that on average people spend 40 minutes each night worrying before falling asleep.  She told the BBC News Website: “I also spoke to a psychologist who said that when his patients come to him complaining about sleep problems then he recommends they write down at the time what they are worrying about, whereas now they could just talk out loud and the sleep microphone would pick it up and print it all out in the morning.”

The pillow recording device was unveiled at a special exhibition in Edinburgh showcasing work by design students.

I’ve never understood why people dislike the appearance of wind farms so much.  Maybe it’s just I’m a bit of a fan of modern architecture anyways, but to me there is nothing obtrusive about the view of turbines over the British countryside (although I can understand concerns with noise etc if built too close to people’s homes) and I often wonder if they looked a bit more like windmills, if they wouldn’t be more welcomed.

Thankfully, however, developments in wind turbine technology have allowed the very first world’s floating wind turbine to be created out at sea.  ‘Hywind’ is the name of the floating turbine which is shortly to be towed out to sea just off the coast of Norway.  Like other future floating wind turbines, it will be connected to mainland grids via cables run along the sea bed.  However, this can be expensive – the longer the cable, the more costly – and is likely to be a restrictive factor.  But, wind turbines out of sea offer a wealth of advantages – stronger and more consistent wind, no problems for bird life and tourism and benefits for military radar operations and the shipping industry.  What’s more, the offshore wind farms will be out-of-sight for those people who feel they are a blight on the landscape.

A more traditional static off-shore wind turbine

The Hywind is capable of generating 2.3 megawatts (enough to power approximately 1600 homes for a year) and will be tested for 2 years.  Like an iceberg, it is partly hidden below the sea – with a 100 metre draft anchored to the sea bed with cables as long as 700 metres.  Although, such floating turbines are currently more expensive than static offshore installations, it is hoped that over time as the technology becomes more common-place the price will fall in-line with the static turbines.

It is hoped that floating wind farms can later be established off the coasts of North America, the Iberian peninsula and the UK as well as further developments of the coasts of Norway.

‘Seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses’ has finally been proved to be more than just a metaphor.  Now scientists at the University of Toronto have found evidence that our mood can change the way in which we see the world around us.

Their study suggests that the way we feel, can affect the way our visual system filters our perceptual experience, although they found that wearing the rose-tinted glasses of a good mood is more about how much we see, rather than the colour.

Image courtesy of Jersyko from Wikipedia

Adam Anderson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, found that when people are feeling happy and positive about life then their visual cortex absorbs more information, whilst being in a negative frame of mind can make us blinkered or have tunnel-vision.

Their results were achieved by firstly showing images to their subjects which were designed to first generate a good, neutral or bad mood.  Their testers were then shown a composite image featuring a face in the centre surrounded by “place” images such as a house.  By asking their testers to specify the gender of the face, they focused their tests attention on the faces in front of them.

The scientists then removed the images from view and asked the testers if they could remember what else was shown in the image other than the face.  Those subjects in a good mood took in more information and remembered the surrounding pictures of houses , whereas those in a bad mood failed to recall these.

Taylor Schmitz, a graduate student of Prof Anderson and lead author of the study, said: “Under positive moods, people may process a greater number of objects in their environment which sounds like a good thing, but it can also result in distraction”.  It thus seems like being in a positive frame of mind literally expands the window upon which we look at the world.  But this in itself can lead to problems, especially when we need to concentrate on critical tasks requiring a narrow focus such as operating dangerous machinery or in the airport screening of passenger luggage.

So bad moods might not always be such a bad thing – they can keep us narrowly focused on the task at hand and prevent us from absorbing useless outside information.

Photo by Christian Gidlöf, courtesy of Wikipedia

Cola soft drinks may soon carry health warnings on their packaging if doctor’s warnings are listened to.

A report in the International Journal of Clinical Practice suggests that excessive drinking of cola drinks can lead to profound muscle paralysis.  This news comes after an Australian ostrich farmer required emergency treatment for lung paralysis after consuming between 4 and 10 litres of cola a day and a pregnant woman complained of tiredness, appetite loss and persistent vomiting after drinking as much as 3 litres of cola daily for six years.  Tests showed that she was suffering an irregular heartbeat.

Scientists now believe that cola soft drinks cause potassium levels in the blood to fall dangerously low, leading to hypokalaemia.  Caffeine-free cola fans should not rest on their laurels either.  Dr Moses Elisaf from the University of Ioannina in Greece, and author of the research paper, warned that caffeine-free cola products could also cause hypokalaemia because of the fructose they contain can cause diarrhoea.

This news has got me thinking.  In a world where health and safety is a significant issue and people have tried suing McDonald’s for making them obese, will most food and drink products one day have to carry health warnings akin to those on cigarette’s packaging?  Will chocolate one day say: “Warning, may cause tooth decay and obesity”, packets of nuts say warn that they “May cause allergies” and alcohol (in addition to its current advice) be labelled with notices that it “Can cause irresponsible behaviour, crazy dancing, addiction and in some cases death”?

I’m all for pointing out the truely harmful effects that cigarettes can cause, but am worried that the current prevalence of the ’suing culture’ could lead to rather obsessive labelling.  The point regarding cigarettes is that even a limited amount of smoking can cause severe harm, whereas the occaisional can of Coke or chocolate bar (as a treat) is unlikely to kill anyone.

As a keen horse-rider, I’ve always advocated that riding is good for your health and fitness, but now it seems research carried out on horses could have real impact on the world of injured sportsmen and women.

Researchers at Cambridge have discovered that a revolutionary stem cell treatment for equine tendon injuries could have some impact on human injuries.

VetCell Bioscience in Cambridge carried out tests on more than 1,500 horses with tendon problems and found that half of them were less likely to re-injure themselves over a three-year period.  Traditional treatments, involving box rest, icing and anti-inflammatory drugs were not found to be as effective.

The stem cells used in the treatment come directly from the patient themselves and do not carry the same controversy as those generated from embryos.  Millions of the patient’s stem cells are injected directly into the injured tendon or ligament to aid the body’s natural healing process.

If human trials in 2011 are found to be successful, the development could mean that footballers and other athletes will be able to come back to full fitness more quickly following injury.  David Mountford, chief operating officer of VetCell Bioscience in Cambridge also hopes that “the treatment could alleviate or cure long-term tendon injuries in older human patients, such as prolonged shoulder injuries.”

Professor Nicola Maffulli, a sports medicine and orthopaedic consultant believes it is inspiring that clinical veterinary science is providing novel approaches for human medicine.  She told Horse & Hound:

“We normally see the translation happening the other way around.  I am very excited to be involved in the human studies and hope that the results will herald a new era in the treatment of musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries.  At present the management of human tendinopathy [tendon injury] is more an art than a science but this approach could potentially reverse that situation.”

As part of my MSc Science Communication course at Imperial we spent some lectures focusing on semiotics (the science of signs) and how science is frequently incorporated in science advertising.  The use of seeminly-scientific buzz words (eg. Nivea’s face-cream “DNAge“) and selectively chosen images that denote nature-vs-man-made/good-vs-evil all connote the essence of science, – the appealing values of truth, certainity and control – indirectly transferring these onto the product being advertised.  And is it any wonder that marketing brand managers are so keen to latch on to science?  In 2008, Danone saw sales of their yoghurt Activia, rise by more than 25% – surely some of their success is the way they market it as scientific, with it’s aptly named “Bifidus ActiRegularis®” culture.

So I can’t say I was surprised when I came across the article “The genius of Wii Fit” on the guardian’s website earlier today.  This piece by Keith Stuart emphasises how even the world of videogame marketing is no longer distinct from science.  His article is an enjoyable read (although it’s a shame about the abundance of typos he has made!) and I recommend reading his piece in full.

However, to quickly summarise: he discusses how Wii Fit is being marketed very much in the same way as “low cholesterol dairy spreads and pro-biotic yoghurt drinks”, using a documentary-style influenced advert, road-shows around the country and a website with the unanticipated name of “Feel Great Britain”.

One other thing we learnt in our course is the use of rhetoric in science.  Pieces of revolutionary science (such as Einstein’s great theories of relativity) don’t follow the normal – they buck the trend.  Einstein wrote his academic paper in a refreshing way, employing his own method of rhetoric and staying away from the passive third-person style of many journal articles.  Other scientists too have bucked the trend and even if their findings have since been disproved, we still remember their work as classical piecesof science, because of their enthralling writing style.

Wii Fit is following suit – instead of using marketing techniques akin to movies or music the way other video games have done, they’re being maverick.  They’re using science and branding commonly used for products advertised in women’s magazines to make them stand out.  And with Wii Fit still enjoying being top of the videogame charts, their new approach seem to be working.

With Britain having one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe, it could be argued that things are looking pretty dire.  A couple of months ago several British male teenagers (one of whom was still a ‘tweenager’ at the date of the intercourse) were fighting over newspaper space claiming that they had fathered the child of a 15 year old girl.  Alfie Patten the now 13 year old was declared the “the exploited face of broken Britain” by the Telegraph.

At the same time, many older couples are still having unwanted pregnancies, whether through carelessness or as a result of pure accident.  Now scientists have found a possible way to improve contraception and shift the responsibility of contraceptive preparation onto both sexes.

Researchers in China have found an effective, reversible method for male contraception that is thought to have no serious short-term harmful side-effects.

Copyright of Armin Kübelbeck

Publishing their work in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), Dr. Yi-Qun Gu from the National Research Institute for Family Planning in Beijing, China, carried out the largest multi-centre male hormonal contraceptive efficacy clinical trial.  Using healthy fertile men between the ages of 20-45 (all of whom had fathered at least one child within the preceding two years), they injected for 30 months the 1,045 participants with 500 mg of a formulation of testosterone undecanoate (TU) in tea seed oil.

The men all had partners aged between 18-38, and results showed a cumulative contraceptive failure (pregnancy) rate of 1.1 per 100 men in the 24-month efficacy phase.  There was no serious adverse effects reported and after the injections were stopped normal reproductive function returned in all but two of the 1,045 participants.

Further experiments are required to ensure there are no long-term side-effects (either on the cardiovascular system, prostate or changes in behavior), but this work is surely promising news for both ‘broken Britain’ and couples worldwide.

Researchers in South Korea announced at the end of last week that they had successfully created four beagle puppies that can glow red after using cloning techniques.

An innocent looking Beagle

Each of the four dogs is named “Ruppy” (a combination of the words “ruby” and “puppy”) and initially look like normal beagle puppies. On closer inspection it can be seen that the dogs’ nails and thick-skinned abdomens look red to the naked eye and when under ultraviolet light glow red.

Although previous experiments have accomplished the same feats in rats, mice and cats the researchers at Seoul National University are the first to create transgenic dogs carrying fluorescent genes.

Using skin cells from a normal beagle, the scientists added fluorescent genes and then inserted the cells into eggs which were implanted in a surrogate mother (a mixed breed bitch).

The significance of this experiment is that it shows scientists are capable of successfully inserting genes with a specific trait. This could lead to them being able to manipulate their knowledge of genetic engineering so that they can implant other (non-fluorescent genes) to treat specific diseases.

However this experiment raises many questions. As well as the ethical concerns of engineering animals in seemingly pointless and humorous ways it leads to concerns of the ways in which scientists can engineer living creatures. In years to come will it be possibly for quirky parents to not only make their children clever, tall and healthy, but will quirky characteristics – maybe glowing green so that they can spot them amongst their friends easier? As farcical as it may sound, it may indeed be possible in years to come – humans may start looking less human-like and more alien.

There are already some concerns about the dog breeding industry (look at the BBC’s retraction of television coverage of Crufts) – will this piece of research be the start of more breeding manipulation – will pink Labradors soon be the latest fashion with the likes of Paris Hilton?