World Association of Young Scientists

Established in April 2009 through an agreement between RIKEN and Keio University, the Research Centre for Human Cognition (CHC) held its first international symposium on December 14 and 15, 2009.

See original: KEIO-RIKEN center hosts conference on sustainable social systems

A microchip fabricated with femtosecond lasers at RIKEN allows the rare observation of microalgae behavior

See original: Nano-aquarium opens up a new realm of research into microorganisms

See original: More bang for your bond

In the previous articles we looked at the distribution and phylogenetic position of babirusas, and also at a bit of their behaviour, biology and morphology. While babirusas are famous for the bizarre upper canines that emerge from the dorsal surface of the snout in males, the function of these teeth remains uncertain. As we saw in the previous article, it's been proposed that they function in display, in fighting, or in helping the animal to push its way through dense vegetation. The latter idea is least likely and is unsupported by observations. The fighting idea might seem logical and indeed MacKinnon (1981) proposed that a fighting male might hook one of his upper canines over one of the lower canines of his opponent, thereby both disarming the opponent and allowing unprotected access to his throat and face.

Incidentally, the picture above is one of Charles Tunnicliffe's paintings from his Asian Wild Life Brooke Bond picture card set (for previous musings on this volume see my article on the most fantastic jerboa).

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See original: When babirusas fight (babirusas, part IV) [Tetrapod Zoology]

Vienna, Feb. 22-24

It might seem a little early to say this but I honestly think that next week could be one of the most interesting weeks of 2010. Why? Because the "New Millenium Learners Conference 2010" which is organized by the Austrian Ministry of Education, The World Bank, OECD and the Inter-American Development Bank will take place right here in Vienna, Austria.

Since the conference's sub-title is "Internationale Conference on 1-to-1 Computing in Education: Current practices, international comparative research evidence and policy implications" I was basically expecting One Laptop per Child to be mentioned somewhere along the way. What I however did not expect is to see so many people and projects involved in OLPC being represented at the conference.

See original: New Millenium Learners Conference 2010

Vienna, Feb. 22-24

It might seem a little early to say this but I honestly think that next week could be one of the most interesting weeks of 2010. Why? Because the "New Millenium Learners Conference 2010" which is organized by the Austrian Ministry of Education, The World Bank, OECD and the Inter-American Development Bank will take place right here in Vienna, Austria.

Since the conference's sub-title is "Internationale Conference on 1-to-1 Computing in Education: Current practices, international comparative research evidence and policy implications" I was basically expecting One Laptop per Child to be mentioned somewhere along the way. What I however did not expect is to see so many people and projects involved in OLPC being represented at the conference.

See original: New Millenium Learners Conference 2010

Last night, it came to light from a posting on the Thoughtful House Yahoo! discussion group that Andrew Wakefield has apparently resigned from Thoughtful House. I have yet to see confirmation anywhere, although Brian Deer has chimed in that this comes as no surprise to him and that he suspects that Dr. Arthur Krigsman, Anyssa Ryland, and Jane Johnson are behind Wakefield's ouster. However, more interesting is this comment from Liz Ditz. In it, she points out a couple of interesting bits of background.

Tidbit #1 from 2008:

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See original: Andrew Wakefield: Pushed out by the board of directors at Thoughtful House? [Respectful Insolence]

Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. 2010 January/February; 10(1): 69-75
Galdan B, Baatar U, Molotov B, Dashdavaa O

Abstract Mongolia is a country of Central Asia that occupies 1,564,116 km(2) and has a population of 2.7 million people. The geography of Mongolia is varied and has a continental climate. Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is enzootic in wild rodent populations over large rural areas of Mongolia. Natural plague foci have occurred over 28.3% of Mongolia, and 47.1% of these foci are highly active. Highly active plague foci exist mainly in the western part of Mongolia. A total of 27% of all plague cultures were isolated from ectoparasites of 12 species of endemic mammals and 1 species of bird. Most plague cultures isolated from ectoparasites of mammals were from fleas (91.5%). The majority of cultures isolated from fleas were from marmot fleas (64.5% of all fleas). The marmot flea (Oropsylla silantiewi) is considered the primary vector of plague. Human cases of plague have been recorded in Mongolia since 1897 and more than 3000 plague cultures were isolated from natural foci. Plague foci occur between 50 degrees 00-43 degrees 00 longitude and 88 degrees 00-120 degrees 00 latitude and at altitudes between 640 and 3500 m.

See original: Plague in Mongolia.

Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. 2010 January/February; 10(1): 85-92
Bearden SW, Brubaker RR

Abstract Despite the widespread presence of bubonic plague in sylvatic reservoirs throughout the world, the causative agent (Yersinia pestis) evolved in its present form within the last 20,000 years from enteropathogenic Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. Comparison of the genomes from the two species revealed that Y. pestis possesses only a few unique plasmid-encoded genes that contribute to acute disease, whereas this organism has lost about 13% of the chromosomal genes that remain active in Y. pseudotuberculosis. These losses reflect readily detectable additions, deletions, transpositions, inversions, and acquisition of about 70 insertion sequence (IS) inserts, none of which are likely to promote increased virulence. In contrast, major enzymes of intermediary metabolism, including glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (Zwf ) and aspartase, are present but not catalytically functional due to the presence of missense mutations. The latter are generally not detectable by the technology of bioinformatics and, in the case of Y. pestis, result in radical changes in the metabolic flow of carbon. As an important consequence, plague bacilli exhibit a stringent low-calcium response characterized by conversion of L-glutamate (and metabolically related amino acids) to L-aspartate with secretion of the latter into supernatant fluid at 37 degrees C in culture media containing Na(+) but lacking added Ca(2+). This phenomenon also occurs in vivo and likely adversely affects the bioenergetics of host amino acid pools. Curiously, aspartase is functional in all tested enzootic (pestoides) strains of Y. pestis. These isolates are typically restricted to the ancient plague reservoirs of Central Asia and Africa and are fully virulent in members of the rodent Superfamily Muroidea but avirulent in guinea pigs and man. The implications of these findings for the distribution and ecology of Y. pestis could be significant.

See original: Recent Findings Regarding Maintenance of Enzootic Variants of Yersinia pestis in Sylvatic Reservoirs and Their Significance in the Evolution of Epidemic Plague.

I got a great letter from Reggae Roger Wikell, which I publish in translation with the permission of Roger and Mattias Pettersson with the awesome metal hair. For context, note that these two scholar friends of mine are the area's foremost authorities on Mesolithic sites that have ended up on mountaintops due to post-glacial shoreline displacement. The lithics there are mainly quartz.

Not all that glitters is quartz.

Yesterday we had a planning meeting with Dr. Risberg [quaternary geologist and the Stockholm area's main shoreline displacement guy]. We're going to core bogs at high elevations and target some critical bits of stratigraphy. Our goal will be to catch datable material (thank you, the Berit Wallenberg foundation, for generous funding). Thanks to Accelerator Mass Spectrometry [a radiocarbon method] we can now date birch pollen and the pretty little forewings of beetles. We know they're there. I saw them myself in the 90s when we got our first cores from the bogs.

Isn't it just too awesome to catch a glimpse of an Early Mesolithic summer -- the glinting of the blue-green forewing that's been resting in the sediment for 10 000 years. Those bugs buzzed for a summer and the sun glinted then too in their chitinous armour. A clear blue Ancylus summer whose sea-breeze soughed in the birches, the golden seeds of which are also common in the deepest sections of the sediment core...

Not all that glitters is quartz.

Let's roll / Roger

[More blog entries about archaeology, Mesolithic, Sweden, beetles, radiocarbon; arkeologi, mesolitikum, skalbaggar, kol-14.]

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See original: Ancient Beetles Will Date Mesolithic Shorelines [Aardvarchaeology]

Conservationists say a captive Sumatran rhino is due to give birth in May, raising hopes for the critically endangered species.

See original: Rare Sumatra rhino expecting calf

The hidden life of the banded mongoose is revealed by a BBC natural history documentary.

See original: In pictures: Banded brothers

Münster Haus Rüschhaus 2006 hinten.jpg
from commons.wikimedia.org,
provided by Tobiasrad

See original: Münster Haus Rüschhaus 2006 hinten.jpg [POTD for February 18 from de.wikipedia.org]

The language families of Europe fall into a few broad categories. There are the Indo-European languages, which include the Romance, Germanic, Slavic and Celtic subgroups, along with Greek and Albanian. The Iranian languages and most of the languages of India are also Indo-European. Then there are the languages of Finland and Hungary, which are hypothesized to be of a broader Finno-Ugric family. Whatever the validity of this cluster, the relationship of Hungarian and Finnish to languages which are extant deep into Eurasia, beyond the Urals and into Siberia, are not disputed. Turkic and Semitic families have a toehold in Europe via Turkish and Maltese. And finally, you have the Basque dialects. Basque is not related to any other language in the world; it is a linguistic isolate. There have been attempts to connect Basque to languages in the Caucasus, but these are highly speculative conjectures.

So where did Basque come from? A common assumption is that Basque is the autochthonous speech of the Iberian peninsula, perhaps related to the pre-Latin dialects extant to the south and east of the peninsula (the Romans arrived on the scene at a time when Spain was also partially dominated by Celtic tribes). Many go further and assert that the Basques are the pure descendants of the first modern humans to arrive on the European continent, heirs of the Cro-Magnons. Even if this claim is a bit much, many would cede that the Basque populations derive from the hunter-gatherers who were extant on the continent when the Neolithic farmers arrived from the Middle East, and Indo-European speakers pushed in from the east.

In terms of historical genetics these assumptions result in the Basque population be used as a "reference" for the indigenous component of the European ancestry which reaches back to the Last Glacial Maximum, and expanded from the Iberian refugium after the ice retreated. One of reasons for the assumption of Basque antiquity & purity are genetic peculiarities of the Basques. Foremost among them is that the Basque seem to have the highest frequency of Rh- in the world, primarily because of the high frequency of the null allele within the population (it is a recessively expressed trait). Rh- is very rare outside of Europe, but its frequency exhibits a west-east gradient even within the continent. It has been suggested that the mixing of Rh- and Rh+ blood groups reflects the mixing of hunter-gatherers and farmers in after the Ice Age. The map above the illustrates the frequencies of this trait, and you can see how the Basque region is cordoned off. It's an old map because blood group were widely collected in the early 20th century. Because of the early knowledge of this heritable trait you have a lot of weird anthropological theories which hinge around blood group genetics having emerged in the early 20th century. But even as late as the mid-90s L. L. Cavalli-Sforza reported in The History and Geography of Human Genes using classical markers that the Basques exhibited some distinctiveness. Over the years with the rise of Y and mtDNA phylogenetics this distinctiveness has taken a hit. I think the data have a tendency of confirming expectations, or it is often interpreted as such. But the recent story of the R1b haplogroup strongly implied that the Basques are no different from other west Europeans, and are likely the descendants of Neolithic farmers themselves!

A new paper in Human Genetics supports the contention that the Basque are just like other Europeans, A genome-wide survey does not show the genetic distinctiveness of Basques:

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See original: The Basques may not be who we think they are [Gene Expression]

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See original: 2010 February 18