Two worms, same brains – but one eats the other

IF TWO animals have identical brain cells, how different can they really be? Extremely. Two worm species have exactly the same set of neurons, but extensive rewiring allows them to lead completely different lives.

Ralf Sommer of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, and colleagues compared Caenorhabditis elegans, which eats bacteria, with Pristionchus pacificus, which hunts other worms. Both have a cluster of 20 neurons to control their foregut.

Sommer found that the clusters were identical. "These species are separated by 200 to 300 million years, but have the same cells," he says. P. pacificus, however, has denser connections than C. elegans, with neural signals passing through many more cells before reaching the muscles (Cell, doi.org/kbh). This suggests that P. pacificus is performing more complex motor functions, says Detlev Arendt of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.

Arendt thinks predators were the first animals to evolve complex brains, to find and catch moving prey. He suggests their brains had flexible wiring, enabling them to swap from plant-eating to hunting.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Identical brains, but one eats the other"

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Football: Ronaldo's own goal condemns Real Madrid to defeat

MADRID: Real Madrid's dismal season went from bad to worse when Cristiano Ronaldo scored an own goal to hand relegation-threatened Granada a shock 1-0 win on Saturday.

Real coach Jose Mourinho announced he had already given up winning the league before Christmas and this latest blow means that Barcelona can increase their lead over them to 18 points if they win away to Valencia on Sunday.

There were doubts over whether or not Ronaldo would play as he is struggling with an ankle injury and his mood didn't improve when he headed a Granada corner into his own goal after 22 minutes.

Real had scored nine goals in their last two league games but they lacked the necessary drive perhaps as a result of a draining El Clasico in midweek where they scraped a 1-1 draw in the first leg of their King's Cup tie with Barcelona.

With Iker Casillas injured, Mourinho once again put his confidence in Diego Lopez in goal rather than youth product Antonio Adan while Raphael Varane also kept his place after an inspirational performance against Barca.

It was a baptism of fire for Granada coach Lucas Alcaraz who only had a few training sessions with the team after being appointed this week with the side only a place above the relegation zone.

He decided against making sweeping changes but did play new signing Nolito from Benfica on the left wing, with Dani Benitez injured, while Diego Buonanotte, who moved from Malaga, waited his chance on the bench.

Madrid started with plenty of the ball but they were sluggish in their passing and with Granada defending in numbers they were able to close them down without any alarms.

The home side set out their stall to allow Madrid to keep possession in the middle of the pitch while Ronaldo and Angel Di Maria struggled to make any inroads down the wings and they lacked the in-form Mesut Ozil through suspension.

Inigo Lopez headed over for Granada from a corner after 13 minutes and they looked dangerous on several breaks but they lacked a quality final ball.

Eventually Carlos Aranda sent over a telling cross with the Madrid defence stretched after 20 minutes and Alvaro Arbeloa arrived just before Nolito at the far post to knock it behind.

From the resulting corner Granada took the lead as Nolito's cross was flicked into his own net by Ronaldo jumping at the near post.

Madrid offered little in response with shots from distance from Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso.

After the break a 25-yard strike from Ronaldo forced a good save from Tono Rodriguez and they gradually raised the pace of their game in the final half hour.

Substitute Karim Benzema had a glaring miss from a few yards out in the final minutes.

Earlier bottom side Deportivo La Coruna's plight got worse as they lost 3-1 away to Getafe despite going ahead through a Luis Pizzi penalty after eleven minutes and having a man extra with the dismissal of keeper Miguel Moya.

Getafe responded with a penalty of their own through Diego Costa and scored further goals from Alvaro Vazquez and Adrian Colunga while Depor's Abel Aguilar was also sent off in the second half.

Osasuna moved out of the relegation zone with a 1-0 win over Celta Vigo and Espanyol continued their improvement under coach Javier Aguirre with a 3-2 victory over Levante.

- AFP/de

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For Valentine's Day, Cupid ditches arrows, opts for e-cards

Admit it. You've always wanted to love like John Travolta.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Romance isn't dead.

It's merely been reduced to the level of a friend request, a poke, and a privacy control.

Often in that order.

How else can one interpret the staggeringly predictable research -- performed on behalf of SOASTA, the oddly named company that performs cloud and mobile testing -- that suggests more than a third of American human beings will send an e-card for Valentine's Day?

It's true that some e-cards can be amusing, uplifting, even offering an instant surprise on an otherwise moribund day. But can they truly incite a loving feeling on America's most commercially amorous day of the year?

You will be stunned into loving only yourself for the rest of your days when I tell you that -- of the 2,474 American adults surveyed -- men seem a little keener on Valentine e-cards than women.

Indeed, this research offered that 47 percent of men between the ages of 35 and 44 indicated that the love of their life deserved merely a few clicks and a canned expression of love.

Next in enthusiasm were men aged 18-34, 41 percent of whom will let their fingers do the loving.

But let's not besmirch these men any more than they deserve. 41 percent of women aged 18-34 also claimed that e-cards were their chosen method to stroke their chosen one.

Clearly, convenience is at the heart of this e-card enthusiasm, just as it is at the heart of modern romance.

Respondents were radiant at the idea that e-cards are free. 35 percent beamed at the fact that they offer the possibility of animation. And a deeply serious 34 percent felt the need to point out they were environmentally friendly.

A surprisingly paltry 6 percent admitted that they loved e-cards because you could happily include NSFW content.

More Technically Incorrect

Because ours is an acquisitive society, those who send these free, convenient things to express their temporarily undying love actually expect something in return.

A kiss is expected by 8 percent. A fulsome 10 percent expect sex. They must be among those who believe you can get something for nothing.

There will be those who reach for their Latin and mutter: "Sic transit tragoedia mundi." (Oh, look it up, e-carders.)

But when a whole new personal version of oneself is being created and spun online, who can be surprised that other expressions of love might seem not merely passe but also downright unexpressive?

E-cards surely allow you a far greater breadth than paper cards or balloons to display precisely what you really feel about the most important person in your life.

Which, in the case of 3 percent of the respondents in this moving survey, is "the hot receptionist at work."

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Body of Missing Mom Reportedly Found in Turkey

The body of an American woman who went missing while on a solo trip to Turkey has been pulled from a bay in Istanbul, and nine people have been held for questioning, according to local media.

Sarai Sierra, 33, was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due to board a flight home to New York City.

The state-run Andolu Agency reported that residents found a woman's body today near the ruins of some ancient city walls in a low-income district, and police identified the body as Sierra.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who with his staff had been assisting the Sierra family in the search, said he was "deeply saddened" to hear the news of her death.

"I urge Turkish officials to move quickly to identify whomever is responsible for her tragic death and ensure that any guilty parties are punished to the fullest extent of the law," he said in a statement.

Courtesy Sarai Sierra's family

Footage Shows Missing New York Mom in Turkish Mall Watch Video

NYC Woman Goes Missing While Traveling In Turkey Watch Video

New York Mother Goes Missing on Turkish Vacation Watch Video

The New York City mother, who has two young boys, traveled to Turkey alone on Jan. 7 after a friend had to cancel. Sierra, who is an avid photographer with a popular Instagram stream, planned to document her dream vacation with her camera.

"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul last Sunday to aid in the search.

Steven Sierra has been in the country, meeting with U.S. officials and local authorities, as they searched for his wife.

On Friday, Turkish authorities detained a man who had spoken with Sierra online before her disappearance. The identity of the man and the details of his arrest were not disclosed, The Associated Press reported.

The family said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.

She took two side trips, to Amsterdam and Munich, before returning to Turkey, but kept in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.

Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey.

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Astrophile: A scorched world with snow black and smoky

Astrophile is our weekly column on curious cosmic objects, from the solar system to the far reaches of the multiverse

Object: Titanium oxide snow
Location: The hot-Jupiter planet HD 209458b

There is something magical about waking up to discover it has snowed during the night. But there's no powdery white blanket when it snows on exoplanet HD 209458b. Snow there is black, smoky and hot as hell – resembling a forest fire more than a winter wonderland. Put it this way: you won't be needing mittens.

HD 209458b belongs to a family called hot Jupiters, gas-giant planets that are constantly being roasted due to their closeness to their sun. By contrast, the gas giants in our immediate neighbourhood, including Jupiter, are frigid, lying at the solar system's far reaches.

HD 209458b is also noteworthy because it is tidally locked, so one side is permanently facing towards its star while the other is in perpetual night. On the face of it, these conditions wouldn't seem to invite snow: temperatures on the day side come close to 2000° C, while the night side is comparatively chilly at around 500° C.

Snow made of water is, of course, impossible on this scorched world, but the drastic temperature differential sets up atmospheric currents that swirl material from the day side to night and vice versa. That means that any substances with the right combination of properties might be gaseous on the day side and then condense into a solid on the night side, and fall as precipitation. Say hello to titanium oxide snow.

Stuck on the surface

Although oxides of titanium make up only a small component of a hot Jupiter's atmosphere, these compounds have the right properties to fall as snow. But there was a snag that could have put a stop to any blizzards. Older computer models of hot Jupiters suggested that titanium oxides condensing in the air on the night side would snow – and remain on the relatively cool surface forever. "Imagine on Earth if you had no mechanism to evaporate water, it would never rain," says Vivien Parmentier of the Côte d'Azur Observatory in Nice, France.

Now he and colleagues have created a more detailed 3D computer model that shows that the snow can become a gas again as it falls and the temperature and pressure increase. Strong updraughts can then blow the titanium oxides back to the upper atmosphere. "The gas can come back on the top layers and snow again and again," says Parmentier.

Snowfall on HD 209458b would be like none you've ever seen. Though titanium dioxide is white and shiny, for example, the snowflakes would also contain silica oxides from the atmosphere, making them black. Since the atmosphere is also dark, snowstorms on the planet would be a smoky affair, the opposite of the white-outs we get on Earth. "It would be like being in the middle of a forest fire," says Parmentier.

Although the team studied a particular hot Jupiter, their model should apply equally to other planets of this type, suggesting hot snow is a common occurrence. Parmentier says we may have already spotted snow clouds on another hot Jupiter, HD 189733b, as spectral analysis of the planet suggests the presence of microscopic particles in its atmosphere.

David Sing of the University of Exeter, UK, who helped identify such particles on HD 189733b, says the team's new model goes a long way to explaining how titanium oxides behave on hot Jupiters. "We're pretty used to water condensing on Earth; there it is titanium because the temperatures are so much hotter."

Hot, black snow – now that would be something to wake up to.

Reference: http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4522

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Israeli raid hit Syrian missiles, buildings: US official

WASHINGTON: An Israeli air raid in Syria this week struck surface-to-air missiles and a nearby military complex on the outskirts of Damascus, as Israel feared the weapons would be transferred to Hezbollah, a US official said Friday.

Earlier reports had suggested Israeli warplanes may have targeted two separate locations in Wednesday's raid in Syria: a military site outside of the capital and a weapons convoy near the Lebanese border.

But the US official said the strike was confined to one location.

"It was in the suburbs of Damascus," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

"There were surface-to-air missiles on vehicles" that were targeted by the Israel aircraft, he said, adding that they were believed to be Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles.

The planes also bombed an adjacent military complex of buildings suspected of housing chemical agents, the official said.

The Israelis suspected the weapons would be transferred to Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group, he said.

The Syrian regime has accused Israel of launching a dawn strike Wednesday on a military research centre in Jamraya, near Damascus, and threatened to retaliate.

But the Israeli government has maintained a public silence on the strike.

Israel has repeatedly expressed concern that Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group, which is an ally of the Damascus regime, or other militant organisations.

- AFP/jc

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Rarified Retina MacBook Pros get priced closer to earth

13.3- and 15.4-inch Retina MacBook Pros

(Credit:
Apple)

MacBook Pros equipped with a Retina display are not exactly priced to move. Best Buy and Amazon are trying to change that.

Best Buy, for example, is now selling the 128GB version (model MC975LL/A) of the 13.3-inch
MacBook Pro Retina for $1,549.99, $150 off the regular $1,699.99 price.

Need 256GB of solid-state storage with that gorgeous Retina screen? That model (MD213LL/A) is now $1,799.99, $200 off the regular price of $1,999.99.

The pricier 15.4-inch models with 256GB and 512GB solid-state drives (MC975LL/A and MC976LL/A, respectively), also got $200 lopped off their regular prices.

Amazon is going even lower, pricing the 128GB 13.3-inch model at $1,515.59, for example.

The online retailer is offering identical discounts to Best Buy on the 15.4-inch models.

These sales may be short-lived (the Best Buy sale is for two days only) but expect more of this kind of discounting from retailers in the future. Apple's Mac sales sank last quarter to 4.1 million compared to 5.2 million in the same quarter last year.

Some of that is because consumers are opting for the cheaper
iPad, but the Retina MacBook Pros may be a factor too. When Apple sells configurations that push the least expensive Retina model to $1,700 ($1,699) at the regular price, that's not going to win over a lot of buyers.

Best Buy sale: For two days, the 13.3-inch Retina MacBook Pro now starts at $1,549.99.

(Credit:
Best Buy)

[Via 9to5Toys ]

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Best Science Pictures of 2012 Announced

Image courtesy Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert and Christopher E. Killian, U.W. Madison via Science/AAAS

A micrograph, or microphotograph, of a sea urchin's crystalline tooth won first place and people's choice for photography in the 2012 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

Colors applied with Photoshop reveal the interlocking crystals that form the choppers of Arbacia punctulata. The biomineral crystals, captured by biophysicists from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, grow and intertwine to reinforce and sharpen a sea urchin's teeth. Made of calcite, which is also found in limestone and seashells, the crystals are tough enough to grind holes in rocks to create shelters.

"These winners continue to amaze me every year," said Monica M. Bradford, executive editor of the journal Science, in a statement. "The visuals are not only novel and captivating, but they also draw you into the complex field of science in a simple and understandable way."

Sponsored by Science and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the international competition honors recipients who use visual media to promote understanding of scientific research. Judging criteria included visual impact, effective communication, freshness, and originality. (See some of the 2011 winners.)

—Lacey Gray and Katia Andreassi

Published February 1, 2013

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Arias Trial Puts Mormon Sex Rules in Spotlight

The murder trial of Jodi Arias has been filled with salacious details of phone sex, graphic text messages, and an erotic sexual relationship between her and her devout Mormon ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

Arias, 32, converted to Mormonism when she began to date Alexander, then 29, in 2006. Though they were both outwardly devout, they immediately developed a sexual relationship.

The trial has cast a spotlight on the tight-knit Mormon community in Mesa, Ariz., and its strict social mores, including a ban on premarital sex. According to Patrick Mason, a professor of religion who specializes in Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, the trial shows the difficulty Mormons face in coping wiith the church's demand for chastity.

"The LDS church puts a really high priority on complete chastity," Mason said. "They define that as no sexual relations of any kind outside of marriage between a man and a woman, no premarital sex and no extramarital sex either, and there's actually a lot of time and attention paid to this."

Arias is on trial for murdering Alexander, whom she dated for a year and then continued to have sex with for a year after that. Prosecutors allege she killed him in a fit of jealousy in June 2008, after taking graphic sexual photos with him and having sex earlier in the day.

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Former Boyfriend Takes Stand Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Defense's First Day of Witnesses Watch Video

Arias claims she shot and stabbed Alexander in self defense, and her attorneys have focused on Alexander's secret sex life as proof that he was a "sexual deviant" who was abusive and controlling toward Arias.They claim Alexander, who was considered a church elder, kept Arias his "dirty little secret" because sex outside of marriage was against church rules.

See Full Coverage of Jodi Arias Trial

See Jodi Arias Trial Videos
More than anything, Mason said, this case shows the shockwaves sent through Arizona's Mormon community when those values were breached so flagrantly with a violent killing and the web of lies surrounding it. "Mesa is one of those concentrated areas of historic Mormon settlement."

"Were you shocked to learn (Alexander) was not a virgin?" defense attorney Jennifer Willmott asked Lisa Daidone, who dated Alexander after he broke up with Arias. Alexander and Arias continued to sleep together while he dated Daidone.

"Yes," Daidone said on the stand Wednesday. "I believed he was a virgin."

"Was Mr. Alexander living in accordance with his Mormon principles?" defense attorney Kirk Nurmi asked another witness, Daniel Freeman, a Mormon friend of Alexander's in Arizona.

"Yes," Freeman said on the stand Thursday.

"Was there any reason to believe Mr. Alexander was not living up to his Mormon principles as a church elder?"

"No," Freeman said.

Freeman said that Alexander never told him or other church members that he had a sexual relationship with Arias. In fact, Freeman's sister, Desiree Freeman, testified that Alexander made it known he was a virgin when in social settings, and "he joked about it."

The stakes are high for Mormons who choose to have sex, Mason said. They can face excommunication or a tarnished reputation among their closest friends and family members.

"In Mormonism, if you're not married, your social capital is largely defined by preserving your virginity. If it is known that you've had sex before marriage, even if people try to be compassionate and not judgmental, there is no doubt that in Mormon communities and the eyes of other Mormons... it lessens your social standing."

The conflict between Alexander's outer appearances and his secret sexual trysts with Arias is key to the defense's strategy of painting him as an abusive lover. But the testimony has also shown, conversely, how sexually conservative and pure many young Mormons in America are.

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