Woolly Mammoth DNA Successfully Spliced Into Elephant Cells

A group of researchers are getting closer to bringing the extinct woolly mammoth back to life. Geneticist George Church’s lab at Harvard University successfully copied genes from frozen woolly mammoths and pasted them into the genome of an Asian elephant.

Using a DNA editing tool called CRISPR, the scientists spliced genes for the mammoths’ small ears, subcutaneous fat, and hair length and color into the DNA of elephant skin cells. The tissue cultures represent the first time woolly mammoth genes have been functional since the species went extinct around 4,000 years ago.

The research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal “because there is more work to do,” Church told the U.K.’s Sunday Times, “but we plan to do so.”

The work is part of an effort to bring extinct species back from the dead, a process called “de-extinction”. The recent breakthrough shows that one proposed de-extinction method--which involves splicing genes from extinct animals into the genomes of their living relatives--just might work. But don't believe the headlines suggesting woolly mammoth cloning is just around the corner. Church explained to Popular Science that there’s a lot more research to be done.

“Just making a DNA change isn’t that meaningful,” says Church. “We want to read out the phenotypes.” To do that, the team needs to figure out how to take the flat hybrid cells from a petri dish and coax them into becoming specialized tissues--such as blood cells or liver organoids--then test to see if they behave properly. For example, do the mammoth hair genes lead to hair that's the right color, length, and woolliness?

If those tests go well, the team hopes to turn the elephant/mammoth skin cells into hybrid embryos that can be grown in artificial wombs, devices that allow for pregnancies outside of an animal's uterus. Artificial wombs are pretty speculative at this point, but the alternative--implanting the hybrids into the wombs of female elephants--is unsavory to animal rights activists as well as geneticists. “It’s going to be more humane and easier if we can set up hundreds of [embryos] in an incubator and run tests,” says Church.

If they can get the hybrid creatures to survive, the project's first goal will be to engineer an elephant that can survive in cold temperatures. The team thinks that expanding the elephant’s range into colder climates could help keep it away from humans and the conflicts that are threatening to make Asian and African elephants extinct. Later, after the engineered elephants gain a foothold, Church says the team will try to revive the mammoths by integrating higher amounts of mammoth DNA into the hybrids.

Of course, it's possible the mammoth genome will never be completely reconstructed, and the creatures will only remain elephant/mammoth hybrids. But if it looks like a mammoth and fulfills the same ecological functions as a mammoth, is it a mammoth? What even is a mammoth, anyway?

Scientists Resurrect Bonkers Extinct Frog That Gives Birth Through Its Mouth

It's been gone since 1983, but the Lazarus Project has brought it back to life. Gastric-Brooding Frog Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this--it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes--parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime. Except--what if they didn't? Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog--the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it's wearing sunglasses--deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog. Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it's possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage. The embryos didn't survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog--that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a "technical, not biological" problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals--the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they've learned. Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog's stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!

FLY PARASITE TURNS HONEY BEES INTO 'ZOMBIES' The parasites that cause the transformation may provide a clue to the mysterious colony collapse disorder

American scientists have discovered that a fly parasite can turn honey bees into confused zombies before killing them, in an advance that could offer new clues to why bee colonies are collapsing.

So far, the parasite has only been detected in honey bees in California and South Dakota, American researchers reported in the open access science journal PLoS ONE this week.


But if it turns out to be an emerging parasite, that "underlines the danger that could threaten honey bee colonies throughout North America," said the study led by San Francisco State University professor of biology John Hafernik.

Hafernik made the discovery by accident, when he foraged some bees from outside a light fixture at the university to feed to a praying mantis he'd brought back from a field trip.

"But being an absent-minded professor, I left them in a vial on my desk and forgot about them. Then the next time I looked at the vial, there were all these fly pupae surrounding the bees," he said.

Soon, the bees began to die, but not in the usual way by sitting still and curling up. These bees kept trying to move their legs and get around, but they were too weak, said lead author Andrew Core, a graduate student in Hafernik's lab.

"They kept stretching them out and then falling over," said Core. "It really painted a picture of something like a zombie."

Further study showed that bees that left their hives at night were most likely to become infected with the fly parasite, identified as Apocephalus borealis.

Once bees were parasitized by the fly, they would abandon their hives and congregate near lights, a very unusual behavior for bees.


"When we observed the bees for some time -- the ones that were alive -- we found that they walked around in circles, often with no sense of direction," said Core.

The parasite lays its eggs in the bee's abdomen. About a week after the bee dies, the fly larvae push their way into the world, often exiting from between the bee's head and mid-section.

The research, which has also confirmed that the same flies have been parasitizing bumblebees, won local excellence awards when it was first presented last year.

Next, the team hopes to find out more about where the parasitization is taking place, and whether the "zombie bees" leave the colony of their own accord or if their disease is sensed by comrades who then push them out.

Researchers plan to use tiny radio tags and video monitoring to find clues to the mystery.

"We don't know the best way to stop parasitization, because one of the big things we're missing is where the flies are parasitizing the bees," Hafernik said.

"We assume it's while the bees are out foraging, because we don't see the flies hanging around the bee hives. But it's still a bit of a black hole in terms of where it's actually happening."

Experts have theorized that the huge die-off of bees worldwide since 2006, a major threat to crops that depend on the honey-making insects for pollination, is not due to any one single factor.

Parasites, viral and bacterial infections, pesticides, and poor nutrition resulting from the impact of human activities on the environment have all played a role in the decline.

The mysterious decimation of bee populations in the United States, Europe, Japan and elsewhere in recent years threatens agricultural production worth tens of billions of dollars.

Bandages Made of Edible Starch Could Dissolve On Your Skin Once You're Healed

No need to peel them off Duct Tape Bandage There is a better way. Finely spun starch fibers woven into a bandage could dissolve on your skin and be absorbed by your body, eliminating the sting and hassle of ripping it off in one fast motion. Starch fibers could also be used to produce toilet paper, napkins and other biodegradable products, according to researchers at Penn State. Food science researchers dissolved starch into a fluid, then spun it into long strands that can be woven into mats, according to a university news release. Anyone who has ever dissolved starch in water knows it can have some awesome physical properties, but the resulting thick paste is not that useful beyond a fun experiment or maybe thickening some soup. To spin it into thin threads, the Penn State researchers added a solvent to help the starch break down more readily. The solvent allowed it to maintain its molecular structure, and the researchers used an electrospinning device to spin the material into long strands. The fibers could then be woven like any other fiber into a wide range of materials, from bandages to paper. If they're used as a bandage, the starch fibers could simply degrade into glucose after some time and be absorbed by the body, according to grad student Lingyan Kong, who led this research. No more ripping off a Band-Aid. The fibers could serve other functions where other polymers, like cellulose or petroleum-based plastics, are typically used. The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and now the Penn State team is applying for a patent.

ZEBRA FINCH BRO-MANCE TRUMPS MATING

For zebra finch males, having a partner can be more important than having a mate.

Zebra finches form life-long relationships, usually with members of the opposite sex. But a study published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology found that male birds raised together form bonds with each other that are just as strong.

Sixteen male finches were raised to adulthood together. Upon reaching maturity, the males coupled up and showed signs of affection, like singing, preening and nuzzling beaks. When females were then introduced to the finches' cage, five of the eight male-male pairs stayed together and ignored the females.

“Relationships in animals can be more complicated than just a male and a female who meet and reproduce, even in birds,” said lead researcher Julie Elie of the University of California Berkeley in an interview with the BBC.

The researchers did not report any sexual activity between the paired males, only that they formed cooperative bonds. This suggested to the researchers that the survival advantages of having a pair bond can be more complex than simply having a reproductive partner.

"A pair-bond in socially monogamous species represents a cooperative partnership that may give advantages for survival," said Elie. "Finding a social partner, whatever its sex, could be a priority."

Although some have reported this as evidence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, the lack of any observed sexual behavior means there is an important piece missing from that argument. Just because males are affectionate to each other and live together doesn't mean their “bro-mance” is homosexual.

Same sex pair bonds have been observed in birds before. Elie noted the case of female albatross, who will bond with another female, then mate with a male from another pair bond in order to raise a chick with her female partner.

"Female partners copulate with a paired male then rear the young together," Elie said.

In the zebra finch study, females were not raised together, so it is unknown if female finches will form pair bonds as well.

The famous relationship of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, at Manhattan's Central Park Zoo is another example of same-sex pair bonding in birds. The two male chinstrap penguins formed such a strong bond that they were even able to incubate and hatch a fertilized egg that a keeper placed in their nest.

In situations like these, humans are quick to put their own sexual definitions on animals. But it is important to remember that our own sexual definitions of hetero- vs. homosexual are set by our cultures, and the labels we put on each other and on animals are based in our culture as well. Cultural sterotypes in some human societies about male-male affection may make people inclined to label affection between male animals as evidence of homosexuality.

Putting our labels on animal behaviors runs the risk of anthropomorphic interpretation, or seeing human characteristics in animal behaviors.

Hooking a 9-Volt Battery To Your Brain Improves Your Video Game Skills, Researcher Finds

(But don't try this at home)

9-Volt Battery Wikimedia Commons

We’ve already seen how magnets hovering close to a person’s head can affect speech, behavior and learning patterns. Now it appears zapping your brain with a 9-volt battery will make youbetter at video games, at least according to one researcher. Don’t try this yourself, though.
Neuroscientists at the University of New Mexico asked volunteers to play a video game called “DARWARS Ambush!”, developed to help train American military personnel. Half of the players received 2 milliamps of electricity to the scalp, using a device powered by a simple 9-volt battery, and they played twice as well as those receiving a much tinier jolt. The DARPA-funded study suggests direct current applied to the brain could improve learning.
This type of brain stimulation, called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is controversial but could show promise for treatment of various neurological disorders and cognitive impairments. Click through to Nature News for a thorough overview.
It’s different from transcranial magnetic stimulation, in which a magnetic coil running at high voltage is positioned close to the head. The magnets stimulate electrical responses in the brain. Transcranial direct current stimulation is just what it sounds, applying the current directly to the brain.
We’ve been hearing quite a lot about these methods lately, and the scientific literature indicates the fields — tDCS in particular — are experiencing a revival, Nature News points out. Scientists hope the methods could be used to treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, stroke and autism, as well as to improve learning by increasing the brain’s plasticity.
Researchers are beginning to understand how an external electrical current affects brain function, including by inducing changes to the flow of electricity across neurons and increasing the expression of certain synapse proteins.
Apparently, it takes very little electricity to do all this. But please, don’t start hooking up 9-volt batteries to your brain — leave that to the scientific studies.

SCIENTISTS CAN TRICK YOU INTO THINKING YOU’RE INVISIBLE

THE ILLUSION COULD ONE DAY HELP PEOPLE CONQUER THEIR FEARS

Bringing Hogwarts to Life

Staffan Larsson

Ph.D. student Zakaryah Abdulkarim, M.D., shows how to create the illusion of invisibility in the lab.

It looks like Muggles have finally caught up with the wizarding world. Neuroscientists from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet gave 125 study participants the illusion of being invisible.

The researchers described the invisibility illusion in the journal Scientific Reports. For the experiment, a participant stands and wears a head-mounted display, which plays a real-time video feed from a camera pointed down at an empty space nearby. So when the participant looks down, she sees an empty space instead of her body. The scientist touches various locations on the participant’s body with a large paintbrush. At the same time, with a paintbrush in his opposite hand, he imitates these motions in mid-air beneath the camera. The participant simultaneously feels the brush poke and sees the brush poking into empty space. The trick leads to a Harry Potter-like sensation of invisibility. Off to Hagrid’s!

Arvid Guterstam, the lead author of the study, explains in a press release, “Within less than a minute, the majority of the participants started to transfer the sensation of touch to the portion of empty space where they saw the paintbrush move and experienced an invisible body in that position.”

To test how well the illusion worked, the researchers made stabbing motions with a knife toward the empty space that represented the invisible body. When participants were under the spell of the illusion, they perceived these jabs as threats to their invisible bodies, and their sweat and heart rates were elevated. But when the illusion was broken--for instance, when the brushstrokes they felt and those they saw weren't in sync--they weren't unnerved by the knife.

Interestingly, the illusion of being invisible changed participants' responses during stressful situations. The researchers positioned the participants in front of a virtual audience of strangers, measuring their heart rate and self-reported stress levels. Unsurprisingly, participants were less stressed when they thought they were invisible.

So basically, pretending you’re invisible seems to be a more effective way to handle stage fright than imagining everyone in their underwear.

Looking ahead, the researchers hope to find out what else an illusion of invisibility might affect. This study might be useful for social anxiety disorder therapies or to examine decision-making. The study’s principal investigator Henrik Ehrsson says, “Follow-up studies should also investigate whether the feeling of invisibility affects moral decision-making, to ensure that future invisibility cloaking does not make us lose our sense of right and wrong, which Plato asserted over two millennia ago.”