Scientists from the Australian National University have proved what many have thought for years — platypuses are really weird. Professor Jennifer Graves says platypus have five X and five Y chromosomes, determining sex, not one, and when sperm are made it gets even stranger. What we’ve discovered is that these five Xs and five Ys line up in a great big long chain, that go XY XY XY XY XY XY, and then all the X chromosomes move to one pole, and all the Y chromosomes move to the other,
she said. Professor Graves says there is another unexpected finding. One end of the chain looks like human sex chromosomes but the other end of the chain looks like bird sex chromosomes, so the chain is actually linking a very ancient system of sex determination in birds and probably reptiles too.
The unique status of the Australian mammal is now unassailable
London started charging people to take their cars into central London, and guess what? It worked. Fewer cars now enter the charging zone, public transport use is up, travel time is quicker for all road users and the money made from charging drivers is going towards improving public transport even more. What is wrong with this picture? Nothing, which is why other countries are looking at the London experience as a way forward for car-choked cities — via journoz
University of Florida scientist, Thomas DeMarse, has grown a living brain that can fly a simulated plane, giving scientists a novel way to observe how brain cells function as a network. The brain
— a collection of 25,000 living neurons, or nerve cells, taken from a rat’s brain and cultured inside a glass dish — gives scientists a unique real-time window into the brain at the cellular level. By watching the brain cells interact, scientists hope to understand what causes neural disorders such as epilepsy and to determine noninvasive ways to intervene — via BoingBoing
Australians are among the biggest offenders of using the world’s resources faster than it can regenerate them. Conservation group the World Wide Fund for Nature says in its regular Living Planet Report [PDF] that humans currently consume 20% more natural resources than the earth can produce
Babies could be born with a third biological parent under planned research by British scientists to prevent mothers passing degenerative genetic diseases to their children. Newcastle University experts want to implant part of an embryo taken from an affected mother in an egg from another woman to ensure the child is free from such conditions
An international study has found a rapid decline in the world’s amphibians with the extinction of more than 120 species over the past 24 years
The European Patent office in Munich had granted a patent to Monsanto on 21 May 2003. The patent covered wheat exhibiting a special baking quality that Monsanto claimed to be its invention. However, Greenpeace proved in its opposition that the wheat variety was bred by Indian farmers for improving its baking quality and it was not a genetically-engineered invention as claimed by Monsanto
Australian and British scientists have achieved a technical breakthrough to help control insects that have developed resistance to common agricultural pesticides. Developed by the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Rothamsted Research in the UK, the technique relies on the use of naturally occurring enzyme inhibitors to disarm an insect’s defence system. The enzyme inhibitor acts first to shut down an insect’s resistance mechanisms. A few hours later, while the bug’s defences are still low, the pesticide kicks in
An elusive giant ape [BugMeNot] has been spotted in remote forests in central Africa, sparking theories that it could be a new species of primate — a finding that would be the most astonishing wildlife discovery in decades. The mysterious creatures have been seen in forests around the towns of Bondo and Bili, in the far north of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Scientists are warning that the earth’s climate could be changing more rapidly than anyone thought because of a sudden and unexplained rise in the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide
Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan who created a women’s movement which has planted more than 30 million trees in 20 countries, became the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — known as MRSA — an antibiotic-resistant germ is increasingly causing skin infections and pneumonia in otherwise healthy children and adults. What’s particularly worrisome is that these infections are being acquired in the community — not the hospital, as has been the usual case until now. Michael Levey’s team at Pharmaceutica in Worcestershire, UK, claims to have discovered a compound that renders the MRSA superbug vulnerable to the antibiotic it normally resists
The Ig Nobel awards for 2004 were presented at Harvard University.
The Russian government’s decision to approve the Kyoto climate change treaty has been hailed by the European Union and environmental groups. The cabinet has sent it to parliament to be ratified, where President Putin’s supporters hold a two-thirds majority
Biological heart pacemakers made from human embryo cells have been successfully tested in pigs, raising the possibility that tissue transplants could replace electronic pacemakers. Because they would be natural, the cell implants would need no power source and, over time, would integrate naturally with the heart. They could even be genetically engineered or manipulated to enhance or alter their function
The Biomod company in Montreal has released plans for building your own solar scooter for only CA$1600. Hopefully the engineering community will take an interest, and add brakes to the blueprints
Australian purebred dogs will soon need genetic identity papers to prove their pedigree and show if they carry hereditary diseases. Only dogs used for breeding stock will need this genetic stud book
and not purebred show dogs or the average pet poodle, according to the Australian National Kennel Council. Testing will be introduced in stages, before it becomes mandatory in January 2008. The move towards genetic testing, which was made at the ANKC’s recent annual conference in Sydney, is aimed at confirming dogs’ parentage and reducing the incidence of hereditary disease in purebreds
University of Washington scientists plan to infect monkeys with a killer flu virus grown from tissue exhumed from victims of the 1918 epidemic. They hope the insight they gain will unravel the mystery of why tens of millions of people worldwide died from the virulent flu strain and lead to development of better vaccines and drugs that may save lives in the future
Scientists in the United States have found that the right ear is better at picking up speech-like sounds and the left is more attuned to music, after studying the hearing of babies. It has long been known that the right and left halves of the brain process sound differently. However, those differences have been thought to stem from cellular properties unique to each brain hemisphere. The new research suggests that the differences start at the ear
Cannabis-based treatments may have longer-term benefits for multiple sclerosis patients. The findings of a short, 15-week trial of MS patients published last year were inconclusive because although patients reported relief in muscle stiffness, rigidity and mobility, the findings could not be confirmed by physiotherapists. But Dr John Zajicek, of the Peninsula Medical School at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth in southwestern England who headed the study, told a conference there seemed to be further benefits for patients who continued treatment for a year
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