Category: Science & Technology

Finally an answer I can live with, from Scientific American.  It’s GENETIC, baby:

During a study of linguistic and genetic data from 49 distinct populations [two linguists have] discovered a striking correlation between two genes involved in brain development and language tonality.  Populations that speak nontonal languages (where the pitch of a spoken word does not affect its meaning) have newer versions of the genes, with mutations that began to appear roughly 37 thousand years ago.

[…]

In English, the pitch at which a word is spoken conveys emotion but usually does not affect its meaning.  But in many sub-Saharan African, Southeast Asian and Latin American languages[,] tone changes the meaning of words…

The new research, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA ties this difference to two genes, ASPM and Microcephalin.    The exact functions of both genes are still open to debate, but they are known to affect brain size during embryonic development.  "They presumably have something to do with brain structure, because there are deleterious mutations of the genes that lead to microencephaly (a condition in which a person’s brain is much smaller than the average size for his or her age), says senior study author Robert Ladd, a professor of linguistics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Ladd and colleague Dan Dediu…focused on one particular variation of each of the new genes.  "They’re versions of these genes that are not only newer, but also show signatures of strong natural selection in modern humans," Ladd says.  In their report, the authors note that previous studies indicate these popular new mutations do not appear to affect intelligence, brain size or social ability.  But based on their strong correlation with language tone, they surmise that they may contribute to slight differences in the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the brain, which, among many other functions, plays a role in our ability to understand language.

Ladd and Dediu compared 24 linguistic features…with 981 versions of the two genes found in the 49 populations studied.  Most of the language contrasts could be explained by geographic or historical differences.  But tone seemed to be inextricably tied to the variations of ASPM and Microcephalin observed by the authors.  The mutations were absent in populations that speak tonal languages, but abundant in nontonal speakers.  [emphasis added throughout]

(The piece doesn’t mention the flip side of the coin, which is that the ABSENCE of the new mutations in tonal language-speaking populations suggests that these mutations provide a comparative DISADVANTAGE in that particular milieu.)

John Derbyshire at The Corner writes:

This sort of thing is the most fascinating stuff going on in science now:  the slow uncovering of human nature in all its meaty & molecular actuality—the territory formerly squabbled over by philosophy, literature, and folklore yielding to cold biological fact.  It’ll be a long time happening, and it will turn up things we—liberals and conservatives both—won’t like, but it’s starting.

Wild stuff, if it’s true.

…for more advanced whale-sinking technology.

Hat tip to TheExplodingWhale.com

(A previous post on a similar topic can be found here.)

Kinda cool, and kinda creepy at the same time.  But really, people want to take this to court, saying it’s discriminatory?  Yeah, well, so’s rap music, but I don’t see old codgers suing over it.

I love it!

Retro Phone Handset from ThinkGeek.

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The Taiwan News today had an incredible story that Taiwanese scientists have developed a mass spectrometer that can identify the weight of unicellular organisms.*  Up until now, mass spectrometers could only be used to analyze compounds containing about fifty carbon atoms at most – making them useless for identifying proteins, let alone viruses or eukaryotic cells.  The story describes how the researchers did it:

…the team at Academia Sinica refined their mass spectrometer by targeting the laser on a silicon wafer to cause acoustic waves, which can "push" the cell or virus out of the sample without destroying it.

Then, a quadruple ion trap is applied to catch the subject of interest for mass determination.

The story concludes by suggesting practical applications:

…if there is an epidemic, doctors can now isolate the suspected pathogen and weigh it, then compare the weight to the entries in the database to identify what it is.

"Since the database will also show the normal weight of a particular cell, the doctor can also identify if there is cancer metastasis by noticing that the weight of certain cells are changing," [head researcher Chang Huan-Cheng] added.

What the story neglects to tell the reader is how fast the process is liable to be.  Got a sore throat?  Forget having it swabbed and then letting the lab techs spend a day or two growing up a culture in an incubator to find out what it is.  With the new mass spec, they’d merely have apply the sample to the silicon wafer and flip on the laser.  Within minutes (maybe less!), they’d know what ails you.  I’m going to guess that the time-limiting step of the procedure will end up being sample preparation.

If this isn’t some kind of hoax, then it’s literally Star Trek-level technology.

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* A mass spectrometer works by ionizing a particle, and then running the ionized fragments through a magnetic device.  The weight of the fragments are then determined by the speed by which they travel through the acceleration chamber – small fragments of a given charge reach the ion detector at a faster rate than larger fragments containing the same charge.

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UPDATE (Apr 26/06):  A Taiwanese government publication describes the technique (and goes a bit above my head in doing so).  The relevant material is on page 4 of the pdf file.

Seriously.

[A study in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior] argues that blond hair originated in [Europe] because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Until then, humans had the dark brown hair and dark eyes that still dominate in the rest of the world. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses. Finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men.

Lighter hair colours, which started as rare mutations, became popular for breeding and numbers increased dramatically, according to the research, published under the aegis of the University of St Andrews.

“Human hair and eye colour are unusually diverse in northern and eastern Europe (and their) origin over a short span of evolutionary time indicates some kind of selection,” says the study by Peter Frost, a Canadian anthropologist. Frost adds that the high death rate among male hunters “increased the pressures of sexual selection on early European women, one possible outcome being an unusual complex of colour traits.”

Blonde prehistoric cavegirls.  Mmmmm.  But what does the future hold?

A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

A world without blonde jokes.  I think the living will envy the dead.

[UPDATE (Jan 25 / 2013):  Turns out the study claiming that blondness gene would disappear within 200 years was a hoax.  –The Foreigner]

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Winds of Change had a post about the US military granting money for the development of adaptive lenses that can flex by themselves, granting the wearer better than 20/20 vision at near, mid and long ranges.  I’d heard of something like this for future camera cellphones, but not for glasses.

Sure wish I had super-vision.

(While searching for the photo, I ran into If Dr. Seuss wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation.  It’s pretty good.)

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Three, to be precise.  Here’s a photo of one of them:   

Taiwan breeds fluorescent green pig

NTU successfully produces three green fluorescent pigs

Apparently, this has been done before by labs in other countries, but this is the first time that the fluorescence gene has expressed itself throughout the animals’ body.  It’s not really mad scientist stuff, because for genetics studies it’s very useful to have a fluorescence gene inserted into the organism.  When subsequent genes are added, it becomes easy to tell if the insertion worked because the animals stop glowing.  However, the two reports above state that the purpose is for stem cell and regenerative tissue studies.

They don’t really explain how it’s supposed to help in these studies, but here’s how fluorescent mice are used for cancer studies:

A fluorescent mouse under normal light:

And under a black light:

Whoa, that reminds me of The Kryptonite Man!  Anyone remember him?

Anyways, here’s the same kind of mouse with cancerous cells containing a red fluorescence gene:

The real pay-off is when tissue samples are taken and viewed under fluorescent light.  Healthy blood vessels glow green, and cancer cells glow red thanks to the added genes:

They can now have a clear view when studying cancerous tissues, and can better understand what’s going on under different chemotherapy regimes.

I suppose that’s why it’s such a breakthrough that the gene is expressed in EVERY tissue of this new pig.  Heart, lungs, intestines – they’re all green under UV.  It would be difficult to get a good picture of a brain tumor if only the snout glowed.

(Other uses for this technology can be found here.)

Taiwan’s new transgenic pigs bring to mind the fluorescent fish that were first produced here for sale in pet stores in 2003.  I’ve considered buying a few, along with the obligatory "black-lit tank, fluorescent plastic coral and ‘fluorescent fish pellets’ for food."  But I don’t like the idea of going on holidays and bothering other people to take care of them.

A Fluorescent Pet

Back in 1990, the possibility of using genetic engineering for entertainment purposes was one of the big themes in Michael Crichton’s novel, Jurassic Park.  Obviously, the concept seems to work for fish, but there probably isn’t a market for green-glowing pet pigs.  These guys will be for medical and scientific use only.

UPDATE (Jan 14/06): Wandering to Tamsui has a great photo of the three little pigs exposed to UV light.  With tongue planted in cheek, he points out the political significance of their green fluorescence.  (For those not in the know, the party colors for Taiwan’s independence camp and the coalition of its pro-communist rivals are green and blue, respectively.)

UPDATE (Feb 26/06):  I think I have a clearer understanding of why the scientists would want to do this with pigs.  Recall the example of the green fluorescent rat.  Suppose then, that you had a fluorescent green pig instead of a rat, and you injected it with red fluorescent STEM CELLS rather than cancer cells.  Now, you can easily monitor stem cell regeneration of damaged organs, merely by taking tissue samples and exposing them to UV light.

UPDATE (Apr 09/08):  More cool pics on this from a Thai website.

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