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You Not-So-Dirty Rat
It's time to re-evaluate your prejudices against one of nature's most misunderstood vermin. Rats, it turns out, are empathetic, sensitive, and altruistic -- at least to other rats. Rats, like many mammals, are sensitive to the emotional state of other rats - a phenomenon known as "emotional contagion."
Dr. Peggy Mason, a Neurobiologist at the University of Chicago, and her colleagues, wanted to investigate whether this emotional contagion would lead to altruism - helping behaviour. So they imprisoned one rat in a cage that only a second helper rat could open. The helper rat learned to do so quickly, which suggested powerful motivation, and once the trick was learned, the helper would reliably free the imprisoned rat at the first opportunity, even if it meant sacrificing a food treat.
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Oldest Bedding Stopped the Biting
 Bedding leaves in a plaster jacket, courtesy Marion Bamford
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The oldest known "bedding" used by humans was recently found by archaeologists at a site north of Durban in South Africa. The bedding is 77,000 years old and comprised of stems and leaves of sedges, rushes and grass. But the biggest surprise to
Dr. Lyn Wadley from the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of The Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, was that the top layer of leaves contains chemicals that are insecticidal. It is believed the early humans were aware of the medicinal properties of plants and used the River Wild-quince leaf in their bedding to repel the mosquitoes that infest the area.
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Yeti Crab
In 2005, the first of a new family of deep sea crab was discovered near Easter Island. Then a year later, a second species of the same crab was found in the waters near Costa Rica. Large numbers of these crabs were living near sites on the ocean floor called methane seeps. This time, scientists were able to bring them to the surface to study. They were named Yeti crabs because of the hairy bristles that cover its body, including the large lobster-like claws. New research by
Dr. Andrew Thurber, an oceanographer from the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, has determined that the hairs on the claws are covered in gardens of bacteria that the crab has cultivated in the nutrients emitted by the seeps. The crab uses the comb-like hair around its mouth to extract the bacteria, thereby feeding itself a home-grown meal.
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Scared Chickless
Proverbially, you have nothing to fear but fear itself, but it turns out fear itself is pretty bad.
Dr. Liana Zanette, a biologist from the University of Western Ontario, and her colleagues, have been investigating the impact of fear on songbirds. In a natural environment, they made songbird nests safe from predators with fencing and nets. However, they used speakers to supply the noise of predators around some of the nests. Birds whose nests were near these predator sounds laid fewer eggs, fewer of those eggs hatched, and fewer of those hatchlings survived. This has significant implications for the survival of songbirds, especially in urban and suburban environments where humans help maintain large populations of predators, like cats, rats and raccoons.
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Soy Source
 4200 year old charred soybean from South Korea. courtesy Gyoung-Ah Lee
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Soy is one of the world's most important crops, providing feed for domestic animals, and oil and protein for people. There has, however, been a long debate about how humans first came to grow soy. It certainly came from Asia, where wild soy is native, and many thought that Northern China was the ultimate source. However,
Dr. Gary Crawford, a professor of Archeology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, and his colleagues, have recently found evidence that suggests that soy might have been domesticated independently in as many as three different countries - China, Korea and Japan.
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Underwater Silk
 C. bonelli spins sticky silk underwater, courtesy K Kronenberger and D Johnson
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Crassicorophium bonellii is a small shrimp-like animal - 1 to 5 mm in size - that spins silk to create tube-shaped structures in which it lives. New research by
Dr. Katrin Kronenberger from the Department of Zoology at The University of Oxford has determined that this previously unknown material may be the first marine silk. It is as strong as spider silk and as sticky as the glue substance barnacles use to adhere themselves to rocks and boats. This tiny amphipod creature uses the silk as mortar between grains of sand and mud to create its tubular protective home. The most impressive quality of this natural silk is that it sets underwater, yet remains flexible. In the future, it is hoped that this material may have biomedical applications.
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Theme music bed copyright Raphaël Gluckstein, Creative Commons License by-nc-nd-2.0
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We're coming to Halifax in early June for our annual Quirks Question Roadshow, and we want to see you there. Stay tuned to this space for details.
Saturdays at noon, Mondays at 11:00 p.m., Wednesdays at 3:00 p.m. and Fridays at 5:00 a.m. (ET)
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