Today I have a few good articles to share with you. First I would like to mention the Wooly Mammoth Study. I am always impressed by the way that Theories are changed when new scientific discoveries are made. The intriguing portions of this article were that:
A) Human hunting was not a contributing factor to the extinction of the Wooly Mammoth;
B) The Wooly Mammoth Population was split into two distinct groups.
C) Wooly Mammoths have a more complete mitochodrial genome sequence than Elephants in Africa and India;
D) In case you didn't hear the news last year (I didn't) genes are better protected in hair samples than in other body tissues.
The second article I'd like to mention is about a woman who went into action and saved her two children when her car slid backwards into a river. With the help of a nearby security guard, she was able to get her children out before the car became submerged. Thank goodness for quick thinking moms!
Anyway, here's the line up today. I hope you enjoy these articles!
Today's Top 5:
1. Wooly-Mammoth Gene Study Changes Extinction Theory (Physorg)
2. 3 Internet Providers Agree to Block Child Porn (Yahoo News)
3. Poland Plans Open Air Opera Festivals (Earth Times)
4. River Car Tots Rescued (New York Post)
5. Pleasantville Student's Home Biz Nets Him $40,000 Scholarship (The
Journal News)
Honorable Mentions:
1. Longer Life For Paraplegic Patients With Superman Bicycle (Science Daily)
2. Disabled Teenager Rescues Elderly Woman (WBIR.com)
3. Ancient Cave Found Under Church (MSNBC)
Today's Top 5:
1. Woolly-Mammoth Gene Study Changes Extinction Theory
http://www.physorg.com/news132330361.html
Published: 47 Minutes ago, 15:26 EST, June 10, 2008
A large genetic study of the extinct woolly mammoth has revealed that the species was not one large homogenous group, as scientists previously had assumed, and that it did not have much genetic diversity.
"The population was split into two groups, then one of the groups died out 45,000 years ago, long before the first humans began to appear in the region," said Stephan C. Schuster, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University and a leader of the research team. "This discovery is particularly interesting because it rules out human hunting as a contributing factor, leaving climate change and disease as the most probable causes of extinction." The discovery will be published later this week in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The research marks the first time scientists have dissected the structure of an entire population of extinct mammal by using the complete mitochondrial genome -- all the DNA that makes up all the genes found in the mitochondria structures within cells. Data from this study will enable testing of the new hypothesis presented by the team, that there were two groups of woolly mammoth -- a concept that previously had not been recognized from studies of the fossil record.
The scientists analyzed the genes in hair obtained from individual woolly mammoths -- an extinct species of elephant adapted to living in the cold environment of the northern hemisphere. The bodies of these mammoths were found throughout a wide swathe of northern Siberia. Their dates of death span roughly 47,000 years, ranging from about 13,000 years ago to about 60,000 years ago.
Schuster and Webb Miller, professor of biology and computer science and engineering at Penn State, led the international research team, which includes Thomas Gilbert at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and other scientists in Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The team includes experts in the fields of genome evolution, ancient DNA, and mammoth paleontology, as well as curators from various natural-history museums.
Another important finding for understanding the extinction processes is that the individuals in each of the two woolly-mammoth groups were related very closely to one another. "This low genetic divergence is surprising because the woolly mammoth had an extraordinarily wide range: from Western Europe, to the Bering Strait in Siberia, to Northern America," Miller said. "The low genetic divergence of mammoth, which we discovered, may have degraded the biological fitness of these animals in a time of changing environments and other challenges."
Our study suggests a genetic divergence of the two woolly-mammoth groups more than 1-million years ago, which is one quarter the genetic distance that separates Indian and African elephants and woolly mammoths," Miller said. The research indicates that the diversity of the two woolly-mammoth populations was as low centuries ago as it is now in the very small populations of Asian elephants living in southern India.
"The low genetic divergence of the elephants in southern Indian has been suggested as contributing to the problems of maintaining this group as a thriving population," Schuster said. Intriguingly, the mitochondrial genomes revealed by the researchers are several times more complete than those known for the modern Indian and African Elephants combined.
Whereas studies before this research had analyzed only short segments of the DNA of extinct species, this new study generated and compared 18 complete genomes of the extinct woolly mammoth using mitochondrial DNA, an important material for studying ancient genes. This achievement is based on an earlier discovery of the team led by Miller, Schuster, and co-author Thomas Gilbert, which was published last year and that revealed ancient DNA survives much better in hair than in any other tissue investigated so far. This discovery makes hair, when it is available, a more powerful and efficient source of DNA for studying the genome sequences of extinct animals. Moreover, mammoth hair is found in copious quantities in cold environments and it is not regarded as fossil material of enormous value
like bone or muscle, which also carries anatomical information.
"We also discovered that the DNA in hair shafts is remarkably enriched for mitochondrial DNA, the special type of DNA frequently used to measure the genetic diversity of a population," Miller said. The team's earlier study also showed that hair is superior for use in molecular-genetic analysis because it is much easier than bone to decontaminate. Not only is hair easily cleaned of external contamination such as bacteria and fungi, its structure also protects it from degradation, preventing internal penetration by microorganisms in the environment.
An important aspect of the new study is that the hair samples it used had been stored in various museums for many years before being analyzed by the researchers, yet the scientists were able to obtain lots of useful DNA from them. "One of our samples originates from the famous Adams mammoth, which was found in 1799 and has been stored at room temperatures for the last 200 years," Schuster said. This research technique opens the door for future projects to target interesting specimens that were collected a long time ago and are no longer available from modern species, the scientists said. Even the molecular analysis of entire collections seems now possible, an effort that the team calls "Museomics."
"We plan to continue using our techniques to untangle the secrets of populations that lived long ago and to learn what it might have taken for them to survive," Schuster said. "Many of us also have a personal interest in learning as much as we can about how any species of large mammal can go
extinct."
2. 3 Internet Providers Agree to Block Child Porn
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080610/ap_on_hi_te/tec_cuomo_child_pornography
By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 12:52 PM ET
ALBANY, N.Y. - Internet providers Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to child pornography and eliminate the material from their servers, New York's attorney general said Tuesday.
The companies also will pay $1.1 million to help fund efforts to remove the online child porn created and disseminated by users through their services, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said. The changes will affect customers nationwide.
Investigators said they found 88 newsgroups devoted to child pornography in an investigation over six to eight months. More than 11,000 images were collected using software that identifies child pornography by tracking patterns in the pixels of the images, Cuomo's office said.
Cuomo said the companies acted immediately when told of the concern. He said it was essential to work with the Internet providers rather than trying to prosecute thousands of users."There's no doubt this is a tough issue," Cuomo said at a news conference.
"People are very creative and there is a market for this filth," he said. "We have to work together."
The agreements follow an undercover investigation of child porn newsgroups. Cuomo said in a prepared statement that his investigation of other service providers is continuing. He has used similar probes and the possibility of civil or criminal charges to extract concessions on Internet safety in the past.
Time Warner Cable acted as soon as it learned that users were posting objectionable material and eliminated the newsgroups, a mainstay of the Internet from its early days, said spokesman Alex Dudley.
He emphasized that Time Warner didn't host or provide any of the content and was simply a portal, allowing groups to be created with content provided by the users. "As soon as we were made aware of the issue ... we took steps to correct," Dudley said Tuesday.
Verizon acted immediately to shut down the sites, Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said.
"There are people doing whatever they do on the Internet all the time and we can't possibly scan every use group," he said. "But there are some things we can do and as soon as it's brought to our attention, we work very quickly."
"The tension there is between allowing customers the ability to communicate with their privacy rights protected, and preventing people from doing things that are illegal," Rabe said.
Verizon and Time Warner Cable are two of the five largest internet service providers in the world. Verizon has 8.2 million subscribers and Time Warner Cable's Road Runner has 7.9 million. Sprint is one of the three largest wireless companies in the United States.
"We are doing our part to deter the accessibility of such harmful content through the internet and we are providing monetary resources that will go toward the identification and removal of online child pornography," said Sprint spokesman Matthew Sullivan. "We embrace this opportunity to build
upon our own long-standing commitment to online child safety."
3. Poland Plans Open-air Opera Festivals
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/211239,poland-plans-open-air-opera-festivals.html
Posted : Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:09:01 GMT
Author : DPA
Category : Travel (General)
Berlin - A number of Polish cities are holding open-air opera festivals this summer, the Polish National Tourist Office announced in Berlin. The festival in the southern city of Krakow runs from June 15 to July 11.
Among its highlights will be "The Gypsy Baron" by Johann Strauss, Jr. The operetta will be performed in the hippodrome next to Niepolomice Castle, about 25 kilometres from the city centre.
"Othello" by Giuseppe Verdi is on the programme in Wroclaw, in southwestern Poland. Performances on a floating stage in the Oder River begin at 10 pm on the weekends of June 13-15 and June 20-22. Tickets cost between 20 and 120 zloty (about 9 to 55 dollars).
On June 28, the northwestern city of Szczecin will hold its annual Great Contest of Tenors outside the castle that once was home to Pomeranian dukes. Polish as well as foreign tenors vie for the favour of the audience, whose members are given roses and vote for the one they like best by placing the flower in the singer's basket.
4. River Car Tots Rescued
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06102008/news/regionalnews/river_car_tots_rescued_114869.htm
By CATHY BURKE
June 10, 2008
Watching in horror as her infant twins, strapped in her runaway car, slid into a muddy river yesterday, a Long Island mom dashed into the water, plucked her wailing babies through an open car window, and handed them off to a good Samaritan.
"We pulled 'em right out," James Cariddi, 45, a retired New York City correction officer who works security at Dowling College, said of the heart-racing 3 p.m. drama on the Oakdale campus.
"The mother was right there and went through the window, handing one child to me. Then she said, 'I have twins!' and she reached in and got the other one."
Colleen Charles' 11-month-old boy and girl were crying but unhurt, he said. Charles, 30, who works keeping geese off college property, had inadvertently left the car in neutral or drive, Suffolk cops said.
"Her baby sitter told her she couldn't make it today, so she had to take the kids with her," said Cariddi. "She had put the car in the shade, and then was taking the border collie out to go to work when it started to roll."
Charles screamed for help as she was chasing the car, and Cariddi sprang into action. "Good thing the window was open because the door was locked," Cariddi said. "By the time I left there at 4:30 p.m., that car was submerged in the mud.
"I feel bad for her, but she did great," Cariddi said of the petrified mom. "She helped save them."
5. Pleasantville (NY) Student's Home Biz Nets Him $40,000 Scholarship
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/NEWS02/806100353/1024/RSS0105
By Chris Serico
The Journal News • June 10, 2008
PLEASANTVILLE, NY - Byram Hills High School senior Zachary Lynn has charged customers $1,000 for his video production services, but he happily accepted an additional $40,000 for college through a scholarship rewarding his entrepreneurial spirit.
The New York City-based McKelvey Foundation selected Lynn as one of 100 high school seniors to receive its Entrepreneurial Scholarship, awarded to students who launch a business or nonprofit.
"I was just happy to receive recognition for the work that I was doing," Lynn said last week.
Christine McKelvey, the foundation's president, said about 900 students applied for the scholarship.
"What we want to do is to create a vast network of young entrepreneurs and for them to be able to learn from each other, to grow personally and professionally through this network," she said.
Six years before accepting the scholarship as president of Illusion Montages, Lynn was just another Pleasantville kid making amateur movies with his friends.
Using a small Sony ZR-40 video camera his grandparents gave him for his 13th birthday, Lynn filmed and edited action sequences inspired by movies ("The Matrix" and "Lord of the Rings"), television ("CSI") and video games ("Halo"). He whittled down about 48 hours of this footage into a 10-minute montage that was shown at his bar mitzvah.
When people at the reception learned Lynn produced the segment, they commissioned him to do similar montages. He founded Illusion Montages, which produces videos that combine photos, music and animation for special occasions, and hired classmate Jeremy Blum - an Intel Science Talent Search finalist who also runs a computer repair business.
To improve his product, Lynn upgraded his video camera to a Canon XL1S and trained himself to use computer software, including PhotoShop, 3D Studio MAX and Adobe Premiere.
As his skills improved and word-of-mouth spread, his fee jumped from $400 to about $1,000, Lynn said. Dedicating 12 to 15 hours of labor to an average project, Lynn worked last week on montages inspired by fairy tales and sports. Clients visiting his home-based office sit on his bedroom couch to view works-in-progress on his computer.
"The most fun part is the creative part of it, where I get to use the skills and everything I've learned over the years," he said.
His mother, Pam Lynn, said she was thrilled the McKelvey Foundation rewarded Zachary's efforts with the scholarship."He's one of the hardest-working people I know," Pam said.
The foundation's Entrepreneurial Scholarship awards recipients up to $10,000 per academic year for four years at an accredited American college or university."(Recipients) have to show somewhere and express to us that they're really determined to be lifelong entrepreneurs," McKelvey said.
Lynn said he would continue to fulfill orders for Illusion Montages when he attends Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the fall. There, he plans to major in both computer science and electronic media. He has aspirations to work for Pixar, whose computer-animated feature films include "Ratatouille" and this summer's "Wall-E."
"I'd love to work at an animation studio and get a lot of experience there," Lynn said, "and then, maybe, eventually start my own company."
Another one, that is.
Honorable Mentions:
1. Longer Life For Paraplegic Patients With Superman Bicycle
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080603172558.htm
ScienceDaily
June 10, 2008
A new type of exercise equipment can prevent serious lifestyle illnesses in paraplegic patients. The equipment, which was partly developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, was first designed for the American actor Christopher Reeve.
Patients who are unable to walk after a spinal injury have a poorer quality of life and a shortened lifespan than their non-paralysed counterparts. Sitting passively in a chair makes people susceptible to weight and digestion problems, lower bone density, diabetes – and last but not least, heart and circulation problems.
“It’s the circulation problems that are the most difficult for them, and it’s circulation problems that kill them”, says Jan Hoff, a professor of medicine at NTNU.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. A new type of exercise equipment, partly developed at NTNU, combined with a new training plan, makes it possible for spinal patients to exercise themselves back to health – at least as far as the heart is concerned.
In an exercise study completed last year, patients who were paralysed from the chest or waist down experienced an average increase in their oxygen uptake by 25 per cent and in their heart pumping volume by fully 37 per cent – after just eight weeks of training.
Never before has so much improvement or such impressive results been documented in this patient group.
Not just a stationary bike
This clever training equipment is called Ergys 2, and was originally designed in the United States. It was Christopher Reeve – who himself played Superman in films, but who became a quadrapelgic after a riding accident – who financed the development of the rehab equipment, in the hopes of improving his own health. But that didn’t quite happen, and the actor died of heart failure when he was just 52 years old. Nevertheless, his efforts gave the world’s spinal injury patients a useful piece of rehabilitation equipment.
The Ergys 2 is a stationary training bicycle, where the patient’s legs and feet are strapped to a leg holder and pedals. Electrodes are then fastened to the patient’s thigh and seat muscles, and electrical impulses trigger the muscles to contract and relax. The impulses are computer controlled to guarantee the best possible effect.
Even though it may seem like artificial training, it is real enough – it’s the patient’s own muscles that are working. And it is movement that demands energy: the blood flow increases, and the pulse goes up. The exercise has an effect on muscle mass, muscle strength, oxygen uptake and the heart’s pumping volume.
Hard workouts, few repetitions
But it’s not enough to focus on the legs and buttocks, if this kind of training is going to make a real difference. The more muscle groups that are involved, the greater the blood flow, and the greater the benefits for the heart. That’s where NTNU researchers come into the picture. They’ve found a way to supplement the Ergsys 2 with an arm cycle, intended for patients who can use their arms without help.
The patients who participated in the training study were also able to simultaneously exercise their shoulders, arms, rump and legs, in a high intensity interval 4 x 4 pattern. That translates to four minutes of hard exercise followed by three to four minutes of easier training – with the entire procedure repeated four times per session, three days a week.
NTNU’s Professor Jan Hoff developed this interval approach several years ago, along with his colleague Jan Helgerud. He uses this interval technique for most types of physical training.
“Hard workouts, few repetitions. There is no other training approach that gives better results in improving oxygen uptake or muscle strength than that”, he says.
A preventative approach
Never before has research documented such a significant effect on the heart and circulation in patients with spinal injuries, as the study has shown. There has been relatively little research overall on spinal patients and exercise, in terms of what kinds and how much exercise actually give beneficial results.
The patients in this study were so out of shape when they started that they were unlikely to reach a normal level. But Hoff doesn’t think it’s an impossible goal.
“We really don’t know, but there’s no reason to believe that the improvements will stop where they are now”, he says.
Hoff doesn’t want to speculate on the implications of his research on the treatment of Norwegian patients paralysed from spinal injuries.
“We’re researchers, not therapists” he says. “But it’s clear that what we’re doing has consequences, both for Norway and for the world. And that gives us a great opportunity to prevent lifestyle related illnesses”.
Unplugged?
Under Hoff’s guidance, Berit Brurok conducted the study for her master’s thesis in exercise physiology. Brurok is continuing her work in this area as a part of her PhD research, in cooperation with Dr. Tom Tørhaug at St. Olavs Hospital in Trondheim.
Because the Ergys 2 is expensive, and because it also requires assistance to use, the researchers are looking to see if the results from the study can be transferred to other activities. Would it be possible to do something similar in a wheelchair? Could it be done without electricity?
If they succeed, it could mean a better quality of life and a longer life for many people. In Norway alone there are 5000 spinal injury patients, while in the USA that number may be closer to 500,000.
2. Disabled Teenager Rescues Elderly Woman
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=59182&provider=rss
Posted By: Yvette Martinez
6/9/2008 9:54 PM EDT
11 hrs ago
A tight-knit neighborhood is praying for a neighbor who had a stroke this weekend, while also celebrating a young hero who came to her rescue.
"I was visiting with her, having some Coke and chocolate," Eli Scarborough III remembered. Sixteen-year-old Eli Scarborough III was checking on his neighbor Beverly at her home on Stonewood Drive in Northwest Knoxville on Sunday afternoon.
"All the sudden, she just stood there. I didn't know what she was doing," Eli said. "All the sudden, she moves this foot just a little bit, and then I knew what was happening."
Eli, also known as "Little E" took some big steps to quickly get to his wheelchair and get his dad, who is a former nurse.
"I got him, and he ran over here over to Bev's and called the ambulance," Eli said. "Well, my first thought was she had a stroke, and turns out, I think that's what she diagnosed with," Eli's father, Eli Scarborough Jr. said.
Within minutes, Beverly was on her way to the hospital thanks to Eli. "My heart was racing 55 miles an hour," he said.
Neighbors say "Little E" is well known for his compassion and willingness to help those living in the community around him.
"He came by to check on my mom when she was very ill, to check on her and see how she was doing," neighbor Ron Maples said. In fact, Maples went on to say Eli and his dad are helping him remodel his home this week.
"If he can do it, he will do it, or at least he'll give it a try," Maples said.
Eli's cerebral palsy will not keep him from making the rounds in his neighborhood. He says he's more committed than ever to check on his elderly friends, just in case they need him.
"I just can't say enough about him," Maples said. "He's a good guy. He's an exceptional 16 year old guy."
Eli and his family are hoping for the best for Beverly. Her family members say she is still in intensive care in critical condition.
3. Ancient Cave Found Under Church
Built in 230 A.D., church is one of Christianity's oldest in the world
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25061134/
updated 5:05 p.m. ET June 9, 2008
AMMAN, Jordan - Archaeologists in Jordan said Monday they have discovered a cave underneath one of the world's oldest churches that may have once been an even more ancient site of Christian worship.
Archaeologist Abdel-Qader Hussein, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, says the cave was unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian rituals.
The cave lies under St. Georgeous church, built in 230 A.D., making it one of the oldest churches in the world, along with one unearthed in the Jordanian southern port of Aqaba in 1998 and another in Israel discovered in 2005.
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