September 5, 2011
Good Morning,
I threw in an extra, more comedic article at the top of his issue. Zoo keepers in Milwaukee have been introducing the popular iPad tablets to some of their residents; the orangutans. Find out how they respond to them in this smile-provoking story.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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Zoo orangutans embrace the iPadMILWAUKEE - Keepers at the Milwaukee County Zoo have discovered orangutans love iPads. The apes love looking at video of themselves and other orangutans, and enjoy apps like finger painting, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday. In fact, keepers say, electronic finger painting works better than the real thing, because orangutans also like to eat paint. "It's like colored pudding," said Claire Richard, the primary gorilla keeper. The orangutans are also fond of Virtuoso, Doodle Buddy, Koi Pond, Magic Piano, Fish Farm and Tap Drums. Mahal, one of the male orangutans, enjoys watching a video made by freelance photographer Scott Engel, who donated the zoo's first iPad, that features the orangutan as a secret agent. While the apes do not get to hold the iPads, they are sometimes allowed to touch the screen. Keepers tried iPads on gorillas and found them less inclined to embrace new technology. "They were all very scared," Richard said. It's a different species. Orangutans are curious about everything. Gorillas are afraid of everything."
Study: Extra genes can make people thinLONDON - British researchers say extra or duplicated genes in about 1 of every 2,000 people can predispose that person's body to be extremely thin. This "overdose" of genes is seen as one of several possible causes for extreme thinness, researchers at Imperial College London said. Normally, people inherit a copy of each of 23 chromosomes from both parents, making a complete set, they said, but sometimes specific parts of chromosomes are duplicated or deleted, creating an imbalance. The researchers said their study found duplication of a part of a certain chromosome can make males 23 times more likely to be very thin and females five times more likely, io9.com reported Wednesday. "In many cases, duplications and deletions have no effect, but occasionally they can lead to disease," head researcher Phillipe Frougel said. "So far, we have discovered a large number of genetic changes that lead to obesity. "This is the first genetic cause of extreme thinness that has been identified. "If we can work out why gene duplication in this region causes thinness, it might throw up new potential treatments for obesity and appetite disorders," he said. "We now plan to sequence these genes and find out what they do, so we can get an idea of which ones are involved in regulating appetite."
Mars rover find rocks of new composition PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has found rocks different from anything else the robot has studied in its first seven years of exploration, the space agency said. Conducting work at it new location at the rim of a 14-mile crater named Endeavour, where it arrived three weeks ago, the rover has examined a footstool-sized rock apparently unearthed by an impact that dug a small crater the size of a tennis court into the larger crater's rim, a NASA release said Thursday. "This is different from any rock ever seen on Mars," said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for Opportunity at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "It has a composition similar to some volcanic rocks, but there's much more zinc and bromine than we've typically seen," he said. "We are getting confirmation that reaching Endeavour really has given us the equivalent of a second landing site for Opportunity." Observations by Mars orbiters suggest rock exposures on Endeavour's rim date from early in Martian history. Analysis has found they contain clay minerals that form in less-acidic wet conditions, possibly more favorable for life, NASA said. Opportunity will remain at Endeavour for extended work, the agency said. "There are miles of exciting geology to explore at Endeavour crater," John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said.
Genetic clue could give 'all-season' crops NEW HAVEN, Conn. - U.S. researchers say manipulating the circadian clock of plants could create "all-season" crops, with broad implications for global agriculture. Yale University researchers have identified a key genetic component of the circadian clock, the internal timekeeper found in almost all organisms that helps synchronize biological processes with day and night. In plants, this clock is crucial for adjusting growth to both time and day and to the seasons, a Yale release said Thursday. "Farmers are limited by the seasons, but by understanding the circadian rhythm of plants, which controls basic functions such as photosynthesis and flowering, we might be able to engineer plants that can grow in different seasons and places than is currently possible," senior study author Xing Wang Deng, a professor of molecular biology, said. In plants the circadian clock operates through the relationship between "morning" genes and "evening" genes that encode proteins that regulate a plant's 24-hour cycle. The Yale researchers identified the gene DET1 as crucial in helping to control the encoding. "Plants that make less DET1 have a faster clock and they take less time to flower," said researcher On Sun Lau, a former Yale graduate student now at Stanford University. "Knowing the components of the plant's circadian clock and their roles would assist in the selection or generation of valuable traits in crop and ornamental plants."
Higgs boson may be found by end of year GENEVA, Switzerland - The hunt for the elusive Higgs particle is well ahead of schedule, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland say, and could be over this year. Scientists had said earlier in the year that either the discovery of the Higgs, or confirmation that it didn't in fact exist, would come by the end of 2012. But the collider is working so well the answer could be known much sooner, LHC spokesman Guido Tonelli told the BBC Thursday. In the space of a few months, he said, the machine has collected half the data it was expected to require two years to collect. "We could discover the Standard Model version of the Higgs boson or exclude it earlier than expected. Could we discover it by Christmas? In principle, yes," Tonelli said. The Higgs boson is the proposed particle that in the current "standard model" of physics allows other particles to have mass. Put forward in theory in 1694, the Higgs boson remains the only major particle in the standard model yet to be observed.
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