Observation of Lemon Sharks in the Bahamas suggest that females somehow remember where they were born and return to this spot to give birth to their offspring after years of wandering the ocean. Salmon and sea turtles are known to do the same thing, but this is the first time scientists were able to get proof that Lemon Sharks do the same thing.The sharks apparently leave the safety of their parents somewhere between 5-8 years old, and will have kids up to a decade later and will still remember how to get back to this spot.

Scientists were able to observe the sharks so closely because a lagoon in Bimimi was similar to a lake that allowed researchers to capture and tag a large percentage of the sharks. Samuel Gruber, the leader of the project, called it a “unique opportunity” because they were able to tag so many of the sharks. Sharks are hard to study when it comes to reproductive behavior because they take a long time to mature and that is why this question went a while without being able to be answered.

I think this article is interesting because any behavior in less-intelligent beings is usually a result of evolution, especially if all the animals of that species take part in the ritual. This kind of thing always makes me wonder what exactly caused this behavior on the evolutionary timeline of the species. There must have been an occurrence that made the sharks believe that returning to their birthplace would give them a better chance of survival. Maybe the lemon sharks were operating with the logical mindset that if they were able to survive to the point of reproduction, their birthplace is a good and safe place for their offspring to do the same.

This kind of behavior can also tell us something about the sharks’ intellectual capacity, like if they are able to understand logic and what not. It is very interesting to look at a small piece of information like this and using it with our knowledge of evolution to see if we can make more inferences about the species. We can also start to make different hypotheses with regards to the Lemon Shark’s memory as well. I know us humans would be unable to remember what hospital we were born at by the time we were having kids in order to return to the same hospital. It is not the same situation by any means but this information does infer that the Lemon Shark may be able to remember things earlier in their life than humans do, as most of us could not remember the first couple years of our life at all.  

This is an interesting article not because it is awe-inspiring that these lemon sharks return to their birthplace to give birth, but all the other things we can learn about the species from this little piece of information. The mind is a very complex and thought-provoking topic, and comparing animals’ thought processes with those of humans can tell us a lot about how we differ from them exactly.

Alzheimer’s disease is a common form of dementia in which the brain begins to deplete as you age. This disease impairs your memory, speech, thought process, etc. and will eventually lead to death. The symptoms usually start when you are a middle aged adult (40-50 yrs. old), but a lot of the time the disease can go unnoticed until you reach an elderly age. There are distinct characteristics of the brain that change when a person has Alzheimer’s. The cause and progression of Alzheimer’s disease are not well understood. Treatments for the disease only prolong the life of the victim, there is no cure for it.

When you have the disease, the gene SORL1 is involved in producing a toxic protein that is associated with Alzheimer’s. It is a huge part of the pathway to Alzheimer’s disease. For years scientist have been trying to figure out the biological pathways that lead to Alzheimer’s.  This article presents the studies that were conducted with two separate groups of people (one with the disease and one without) to examine the difference in the SORL1 gene in each brain.  People were gathered, children and adults to see the changes and progression of the disease from all ages. In their study they were able to see how the SORL1 gene was reacting in these patients bodies. In the first group of healthy individuals, ages 8-86, researchers used a brain imagining technique called diffusion tensor imagining. Every participant shower a reduction in white matter connections in the brain that deals with memory performance. In the second sample it used post-mortem brain tissue from 189 different people without Alzheimer’s disease. Among those with the same copy of SORL1 gene the brain tissue showed disruption during the process because the gene translated the code as a sortilin-like receptor. In the third and final set of post-mortem brains came from 710 individuals, of whom the majority had mild cognitive impairment. In this case the gene was linked with amyloid-beta, which is a protein found in Alzheimer’s disease.

I believe that this test is very beneficial and should continue to be researched, as this is no cure for Alzheimer’s. This test gives you a chance to identify the disease early on and take action. Typically Alzheimer’s isn’t identified until a very later age so I believe it puts you in a spot to be proactive and could be life changing. All this research is moving, step-by-step, to a closer way to finally finding a cure. In the final part of the article it states, “The next stage is to look at the interaction of BDNF and SORL1.” With research they are slowly identifying the underlining cause of Alzheimer’s and because of Dr. Voineskos’ studies the argument that Alzheimer’s can’t be cured will one day be that of the past. I believe they should continue their studies and advancement towards a cure and keep testing subjects using SORL1 as it is proving to be beneficial. In conclusion, with these new studies Alzheimer’s will one day be cured and they should keep up with their studies no matter the cost.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131203133805.htm

In the article “Could a Vaccine Help Ward Off MS?” it talks about recent study that was conducted to test the hypothesis that a vaccine could help rid MS. MS stands for multiple sclerosis and is a disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system. In the article the chose 73 people who had already had their first episode of suggestive MS. Symptoms include numbness of limbs, problems with balance, and vision problems. The rate of developing MS after the first episode is 50 percent will have developments within 2 years. The article says the average rate of people who experience the first episode and do not develop MS is 10 percent. For the study 33 participants received the injection of the vaccine, Bacille Calmette-Guerin, and the other 40 received a placebo. The participants received brain scans once a month for six months and received the MS drug interferon beta-1a for a year. Then took the MS drug recommended by their neurologist. After the first 6 months the people who received the vaccine had fewer signs of MS than the placebo group. By the end of the study 58 percent of the vaccinated people showed no signs of MS and only 30 percent of the placebo group showed no signs of MS. No major side effects were reported. The study author Giovanni Ristori stated “These results are promising, but much more research needs to be done to learn more about the safety and long term effects of this vaccine and that doctors should not start using this vaccine to treat MS.”

I think that doctors should start to use this vaccine. I think that the evidence is strong enough to dispute what the Ristori said. Although we don’t know the long-term effects, there are no short-term effects so that is a good indicator that long-term effects would be minimum. Not to mention this vaccine is being used in other countries as a treatment for tuberculosis so they should know the long-term effect and wouldn’t be using the vaccine unless it was safe. With that said the vaccine was effective seeing how in the vaccine group 28 percent more people can back without any MS signs. That alone is enough to take the risk because there is little chance of a harmful side effect and MS can be very damaging and any chance of stopping it is a chance to take. Even if the vaccine caused problems I’m sure the side effect is less painful than that of MS. I believe the study was conducted and was carried out to its full potential and the only thing to be disputed is that it should not be used to treat MS. With the promising results from the studying, the fact that other countries use this drug, and the 28 percent chance of not having MS, I believe that it is safe to dispute what Ristori said. I believe that the study is conclusive and the vaccine should be inspected by the FDA as soon as possible and be used to treat MS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131204181242.htm

            A recent study done by Professor Martin Kupiec and his team at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology has shed light on possible effects of the popular beverages beer and coffee. It is widely known that coffee and beer are on opposite spectrums when it comes to beverages; coffee picks you up and beer winds you down. Working with a type of yeast with genetic similarities to human genomes, they have found that caffeine and alcohol also have opposite effects on telomeres, which are end points of chromosomal DNA that are linked to aging and cancer. They found that caffeine shortens telomeres and alcohol lengthens them. Kupiec and his team believe these findings may be able to contribute to the prevention and treatment of diseases.

            Tolomeres are made of DNA and proteins and makeup the ends of the DNA present in our chromosomes. They are important in the process of properly repairing DNA and copying it, becoming shorter when chromosomes are copied into a new cell. This process eventually leads to the telomeres becoming too short, killing the cell. Fetal and cancer cells have the ability to avoid the eventual shortening of telomeres, which makes them such steady reproducers. These genetic factors were also addressed in a 2004 study by molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, which focused on human aging. Kupiec’s study, which expands on the subject, exposed yeast cells to twelve environmental stressors that included temperature, pH changes and various drugs and chemicals. Most stressors had no effect on telomere length. However, a small concentration of caffeine (equivalent to a shot of espresso) was found to shorten them and a solution that included approximately five-to-seven percent ethanol lengthened the telomeres.

            The TAU researchers sought to understand these discoveries by scanning six thousand strains of the yeast, each with a different gene deactivated, and then did tests on the strains with the longest and shortest telomeres. They discovered that the genes Rap1 and Rif1 were the main genes involved in determining environmental stressors and telomere length. There are four hundred genes that are known to interact and maintain telomere length, most of them being present in the human and yeast genomes.

            I believe this discovery is fascinating and that these scientists are on to something in further understanding the way our genetics behave. Because the experiment does not set out to make any groundbreaking theories or prove a complex argument, I think that much more research is needed to have a more clear idea of how alcohol and caffeine can affect our genetics. The researchers themselves even said that this experiment only shows a small correlation, not yet a breakthrough link. I also believe that understanding the behavior of these certain parts of our DNA can definitely improve medicine and treatment in the future. For now though, these results aren’t something to base your dietary guidelines or habits on. Due to their role in cancer and aging in the human body I think that continued research on telomeres and their characteristics will become a more valued field in science as time goes on.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205142127.htm

            In recent years, evidence has been growing in the case of rising ocean acidification. Scientists believe this is caused by the absorption of human-produced carbon dioxide into the world’s oceans, which is lowering pH levels thus increasing acidity. This acidification can harm the growth of shells and skeletons in some marine animals. Until a recent study, however, there has been little speculation about the consequences on the behavior of these animals. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B by scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and MacEwan University in Edmonton, Canada. Their study used a camera-tracking system to study the behavior of young rockfish, an important commercial species in California. They used a control group of fish in normal seawater and compared them to a group kept in waters with elevated levels of acidity and measured their preferences to swim in light or dark areas in the tank. The preferences of fish to swim in areas of water with different lighting are widely used to test fish anxiety levels. Previous experiments show that rockfish given an anxiety-inducing drug prefer darker areas and rarely venture into lighter areas of a tank.

            The researchers observed that rockfish exposed to acidified ocean conditions for one week also preferred the dark area of the tank, showing they were significantly more anxious than the control group. They remained anxious even after being placed in normal pH water for a week and did not show normal behavior like that of the control group until their twelfth day in normal seawater. The researchers believe this evident anxiety can be linked to the sensory systems and receptors in the rockfish. It is known that exposure to acidified water can cause changes in ion concentrations like chloride and bicarbonate in the blood. This reverses the flow of ions through the neural gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (or GABA type A) receptors. This results in the sensory changes that are reflected by the altered behavior in the experiment.

            There are a few reasons why the researchers in this experiement claim their discovery is interesting. The results show that ocean acidification can have a negative effect on fish behavior, which can translate into effects on fish population that can affect fisheries. Fish that do not move from shaded areas into areas of light to explore can negatively affect their eating and dispersal behaviors. Researchers from James Cook University of Australia and the University of Oslo found similar results in their study of tropical clown fish. They believe that these findings in this burgeoning field of study may show that ocean acidification can have detrimental effects on important aspects of fish behavior.

            These experiments and their evidence provide a strong argument in the negative effects of ocean acidification. It is already known that these changes in the ocean can physically affect fish, but their psychological effects are still being discovered. I also believe that they probably do have negative effects on fish behavior like this experiment has shown, but we cannot be sure. It has been noted by the researchers that these laboratory tests cannot fully mimic the progression of acidity levels that occurs in the wild over time. Also, these experiments were only done on specific fish species. However, I believe they are a step towards finding more clear evidence on the consequences of ocean acidification.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131204182219.htm