Scientists Try To Make Mice Puke
Rodents are unable to vomit, a response which is seen in almost all other mammalian species. Researchers at the University of Pittsburghnoted this, and looked it to the phenomenon.
A range of rodents (from mice and rats to mountain beavers) were given chemicals that would induce vomiting in other mammals. However no retching or vomiting was seen.
It is thought that a mixture of anatomical constraints (the rodent aesophagus is very long and not fully muscled) and an absent neurological component is behind this odd trait.
An Alternative Approach Against MRSA
Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest challenges modern medicine is going to have to face. New antibiotic drugs are expensive to develop and few have been produced in recent years.
Scientists at the Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology have shown that the use of bacteriophages (think viruses that attack bacteria) as a means of infection control.
So far, they have seen success in curing mice infected with either MRSA or Anthrax using this approach without development of antibacterial resistance being seen. Whilst human clinical trials are a long way off at this time, this is a very promising step towards the next generation of antimicrobial drugs.
Paranoid? So is Everyone Else.
In a paper published in Current Biology, researchers observed that people would assume that the gaze of others was directed at them, especially in low lighting or when the other was wearing sunglasses.
This is possibly because we have evolved, as a species, to utilise gaze to determine if we are being faced by friend or foe. The direction of another's gaze is used to provide insight into their focus of interest, and simple ego assumes that we are the most interesting thing around.
What's wrong, honey?
Using fMRI scans, researchers have seen that men are, in fact, less able to read a woman emotional states that they are another man's. It seems that this may be due to a difference in brain activity between the genders.
Participants in the study were shown different faces and asked to judge the mood that that person was feeling as their brains was watched for activity. The function of the amygdala is thought to be key in empathy, but when men looked at women's faces, there was not as much neural activity seen in that location. Yet when they looked at men's images, activity was seen and more correct answers were given.
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