the-BA : Science News Digest

Elephant family (image copyright: istockphoto.com)

In the science news this week: evidence to suggest that elephants can count, astronomers solve a 100 million year old puzzle and facial dimensions linked to male aggressiveness. Plus, new species for sale on eBay…

The staggering extent of the UK’s water consumption has been revealed this week in a WWF study to be presented at the World Water Week forum in Stockholm. An average Briton’s ‘water footprint’ has been calculated at 4,656 litres of water per day. This figure combines the actual volume of water used for drinking and washing, about 150 litres, with the volume needed to feed and clothe them, known as ‘virtual water’. Virtual water usage is about 30 times greater than that actually consumed by an individual.

The UK is the 6th largest importer of water in the world, with only China, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and Japan importing more. Many of the countries that provide the UK with water, such as Spain, Morocco and Pakistan, are facing water shortages themselves.

Stuart Orr, WWF's water footprint expert told the Guardian: ‘What's particularly worrying is that huge amounts of the food and cotton we consume are grown in drier areas of the world where water resources are either already stressed or very likely to become so in the near future.’

The charity warns that excessive consumption is threatening some of the world’s most important rivers and will soon render water ‘the new oil’ - in that it is a scarce finite resource with the potential to shape the global economy.

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Elephants never forget and now there is evidence to suggest that they can count too. Researchers from the University of Tokyo tested a small group of the animals for their mathematical capabilities by distributing different numbers of apples between two buckets. The West African elephants went for the bucket with the greatest number of apples 74 per cent of the time.

Elephants join chimps, salamanders and pigeons in the ranks of mathematically smart animals but what is surprising is that elephants are even capable of distinguishing between small differences, something that even humans can struggle with. The elephants picked out the bucket with six apples over the bucket with five just as easily as they chose six apples over one.

So why would mathematical prowess be an evolutionary advantage? An ecologist from Cornell University in New York, where the paper is being presented, believes that since elephants live in small tight-knit herds, counting is important to make sure none of the family get left behind. The Japanese team speculates that being able to do simple sums could simply be a by-product of having a larger brain. Read more at the Telegraph.

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New evidence was published this week to strengthen the theory that certain cancers can be detected by the odours they give off. Chemists from the Monell Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia analysed the chemicals given off by the skin of healthy volunteers and those suffering from basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer, to determine the cancer’s characteristic odour.

They were inspired by stories that dogs could sniff out tumours. Michelle Gallagher, one of the scientists involved told the Guardian: ‘We’re the first to identify and quantify the compounds involved. This research opens doors to potential new approaches to skin cancer diagnosis based on the profile of skin odours, hopefully leading to more rapid and non-invasive detection and diagnosis.’

The team is now trying to determine the smell profile for all types of cancers and eventually plan to combine the techniques with an electronic nose to aid diagnosis.

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Beautiful images from the Hubble Space Telescope have helped astronomers unravel how filamentary structures can withstand gravitational destruction, reported the Independent. A paper published in the journal Nature shows pictures of 100 million-year-old filaments of gas in unprecedented detail, extending from a galaxy known as NGC 1275 into the Perseus cluster, almost 235 million light years from Earth.

For years, astronomers have puzzled over how these filaments have survived for so long when the gravitational forces from the star cluster should have ripped them to shreds, causing them to collapse into stars. From the Hubble images and data, astronomers from the University of Cambridge conclude that a strong magnetic field existing between the home galaxy and the Perseus cluster enabled the filaments to form strong skeletal structures that are able to withstand the destructive gravitational forces.

Professor Andrew Fabian who led the study said that the level of detail revealed by the Hubble telescope was the key factor. ‘We can see that the magnetic fields are crucial for these complex filaments, both for their survival and integrity. Without them, these beautiful structures would be unable to withstand their surroundings and would collapse into stars.’

The astronomers have also found out that the filaments contain about one million times the mass of our Sun, can be 200 light years wide and can extend for up to 20,000 light years. Detailed images like these are useful to interpret other more distant filamentary systems and are important to black hole research.

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Studies on ice hockey players have revealed a link between facial shape and a bad temper in men. According to the study which involved 90 men from university and professional teams, as well as a control group, found that the rounder your face is the more aggressive you are likely to be, reported the Independent.

Researchers from Brook University in Ontario compared the ratio of the distance between the hockey player’s cheekbones and the height of their face with the number of penalty minutes incurred for hostile behaviour. In all three groups, there was a ‘statistically significant’ link between facial dimensions and the propensity of a player to act aggressively.

‘We chose ice hockey players because there is a lot of aggressive behaviour in the games and it's usually an acceptable way of performing successfully. We could measure this aggression in terms of the number of penalty minutes,’ said Justin Carre of Brock University in Ontario.

Previous work has shown that there are significant differences between the dimensions of the male and female face. This sexual ‘dimorphism’ may have had an evolutionary purpose to help females judge which males would make the best father.
‘Together, these findings suggest that people can make accurate inferences about others' personality traits and behavioural dispositions based on certain signals conveyed by the face,’ the scientists said. The next step is to determine whether people are able to accurately read a person’s facial ratio.

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Other news in brief;

An American lab has converted embryonic stem cells into human blood for the first time. Researchers are predicting that the blood could be trialed for use in transfusions within the next two years. At present, supplies for transfusions are reliant upon donations from the public. Only blood group O-negative is compatible with every other type of blood and so supplies often run low.

Blood derived from stem cells also has the advantage of being free from pathogens that could pass on fatal diseases, such as hepatitis, HIV and CJD. Read more at Times Online.

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Just two years after the world’s second and third ever face transplants, the recipients are happy and are integrating back into society, the Guardian reports. Before the pioneering surgery, the doctors were worried about the immune rejection response and the psychological damage the patients could suffer. Both patients’ bodies initially rejected their new faces but this was dampened with immunosuppressant drugs and the patients report that their lives have been enormously improved by the operation.

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And finally...

It is well known that pretty much anything can be found on the virtual treasure trove that is eBay; vintage shoes, bikes, gig tickets, extinct aphids… Entomologist Dr Richard Harrington got more than he bargained for when he paid £20 for the fossilised insect encased in amber. It turned out to be a long extinct type of aphid which became trapped in the resin as it seeped from a tree millions of years ago, reports the Telegraph.
Unable to identify it himself Dr Harrington sent his new purchase to a colleague in Denmark who confirmed that it was a new species. The aphid has now been named after Dr Harrington, who is the vice-president of the UK's Royal Entomological Society and, rather fittingly, specialises in aphids.

‘I had thought it would be rather nice to call it Mindarus ebayi,’ said Dr Harrington. ‘Unfortunately using flippant names to describe new species is rather frowned upon these days.’ Instead, they settled on the more traditional Mindarus harringtoni.