Two heads are not always better than one

(Medical Xpress) -- From the corporate boardroom to the kitchen table, important decisions are often made in collaboration. But are two—or three or five—heads better than one? Not always, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“People who make judgments by working with someone else are more confident in those judgments. As a result they take less input from other people”—and this myopia wipes out any advantage a pair may have over an individual, says psychologist Julia A. Minson, who conducted the study with Jennifer S. Mueller. “The collaborative process itself is the problem.” The findings appear in the journal Psychological Science, published by the Association for Psychological Science.

To test the hypothesis that confidence born of collaboration takes a toll on the quality of judgment, Minson and Mueller asked 252 people to estimate nine quantities related to U.S. geography, demographics, and commerce, either individually or in pairs after discussion. They were then offered the estimates of other individuals and pairs and allowed to revise their own; the final estimates therefore could come from the efforts of two to four people. To sweeten the pot, participants earned a $30 bonus for each of two estimation rounds, but lost $1 for each percentage point their answer deviated from correct. Individuals also rated their confidence in their judgments.

The results: People working with a partner were more confident in their estimates and significantly less willing to take outside advice. The pairs’ guesses were marginally more accurate than those of the individuals at first. But after revision (or lack thereof), that difference was gone. Even the combined judgments of four people yielded no better results than those of two or three. Finally, the researchers found that had the pairs yielded to outside input, their estimates would have been significantly more accurate. Their confidence was costly.

So should we toss out teamwork? No, says Minson, but since collaboration is expensive and time consuming, managers should use it efficiently. For one thing, a group of 10 is not 10 times better. “Mathematically, you get the biggest bang from the buck going from one decision-maker to two. For each additional person, that benefit drops off in a downward sloping curve.” Most important is awareness of the costs of teamwork. “If people become aware that collaboration leads to an increase in overconfidence, you can set up ways to mitigate it. Teams could be urged to consider and process each others’ inputs more thoroughly.”

The same goes for a couple choosing a mortgage or a car, Minson cautions. “Just because you make a decision with someone else and you feel good about it, don’t be so sure that you’ve solved the problem and you don’t need help from anybody else.”

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In new book, leading neuroscientist describes your brain on emotion

Building on more than 30 years of cutting-edge brain research, a new book by UW-Madison psychology and psychiatry professor Richard J. Davidson offers an inside look into how emotions are coded in our brains and our power to control them.

Published March 1, “The Emotional Life of Your Brain,” co-authored by Davidson and science journalist Sharon Begley, describes six distinct emotional dimensions, each with a defined and measurable neural signature. Each person’s unique combination of the six dimensions together comprise what Davidson calls “emotional style” – the essence of our personality and the reflection of how we live and respond to our experiences.

The six dimensions – resilience, outlook, social intuition, self-awareness, sensitivity to context and attention – emerged from Davidson’s research on affective neuroscience, the study of the brain basis of human emotion.

Intrigued by the tremendous differences between even closely related individuals, he embarked on a quest to better understand the physical foundations of emotion at a time when such questions were not included in scientific discussions.

“To say that studying emotions was not very popular when I began… is like saying the Sahara is a trifle dry,” he writes in the book.

In the decades since, he has largely redefined how neuroscientists think about emotion, showing that emotions involve brain regions also responsible for complex thought and decision-making. Those findings represent a radical departure from the traditional view: that the brain’s primary job is cognition, and that emotion is an auxiliary role at best and a distraction from the brain’s main function at worst.

The book includes a series of self-assessments to help readers determine where they fall in each of the six dimensions, as well as strategies for shifting their emotional styles.

Davidson describes the book as a personal and professional journey.

“This book will hopefully take readers through my scientific quest for answers and understanding why and how people differ in terms of their emotions and responses to different life experiences,” he says. “But this book was also very much motivated by my personal desire to help people lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.”

He furthered this goal when he founded the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (CIHM), a research center dedicated to the study of positive qualities, at UW-Madison’s Waisman Center in 2008.

“There is a powerful overlap between the concepts of emotional style and the work we’re doing at CIHM,” Davidson says. “In my book, I describe emotional styles, their brain bases and how we can change these for the better, and CIHM is all about how we can change our emotional styles to live a more positive, happier and more fulfilling life.”

One avenue of research at CIHM includes resilience training for preschoolers to help the children deal with stressful situations.

“These children face adversity every day, at many levels. It could be as simple as one child taking a toy away from another – in their world, that’s a major adversity that can bring about negative emotions,” Davidson explains. “We believe that by nurturing resilience within children at a young age, we’re giving them essential tools that can help them throughout life.”

Another area of ongoing research is investigating therapies based in yoga and meditation as alternative treatments for returning veterans, many of whom suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can severely debilitate the outlook dimension of emotional style, Davidson says, hampering the ability to sustain positive emotion over time.

“There are strategies we can harness,” Davidson says. “They can improve our outlook and also help us do a better job of maintaining healthy qualities of mind over time.”

On April 3, Davidson will take part in his first local book talk, a collaborative event with CIHM and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. The public event will be held at Union South, 1308 W. Dayton St., at 7 p.m.

More information about Davidson’s research, CIHM and “The Emotional Life of Your Brain” is available at http://richardjdavidson.com and http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org .

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"In new book, leading neuroscientist describes your brain on emotion." March 6th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-neuroscientist-brain-emotion.html

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Making memories: How one protein does it

Studying tiny bits of genetic material that control protein formation in the brain, Johns Hopkins scientists say they have new clues to how memories are made and how drugs might someday be used to stop disruptions in the process that lead to mental illness and brain wasting diseases.

In a report published in the March 2 issue of Cell, the researchers said certain microRNAs—genetic elements that control which proteins get made in cells— are the key to controlling the actions of so-called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), long linked to brain cell survival, normal learning and memory boosting.

During the learning process, cells in the brain's hippocampus release BDNF, a growth-factor protein that ramps up production of other proteins involved in establishing memories. Yet, by mechanisms that were never understood, BDNF is known to increase production of less than 4 percent of the different proteins in a brain cell.

That led Mollie Meffert, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of biological chemistry and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to track down how BDNF specifically determines which proteins to turn on, and to uncover the role of regulatory microRNAs.

MicroRNAs are small molecules that bind to and block messages that act as protein blueprints from being translated into proteins. Many microRNAs in a cell shut down protein production, and, conversely, the loss of certain microRNAs can cause higher production of specific proteins.

The researchers measured microRNA levels in brain cells treated with BDNF and compared them to microRNA levels in neurons not treated with BDNF. The researchers noticed that levels of certain microRNAs were lower in brain cells treated with BDNF, suggesting that BDNF controls the levels of these microRNAs and, through this control, also affects protein production. Homing in on those specific microRNAS that disappeared when cells were treated with BDNF, the team found all were of the same type, so-called Let-7 microRNAs, and that all shared a common genetic sequence.

"This short genetic sequence has been shown by other researchers to behave like a bar code that can selectively prevent production of Let-7 microRNAs," says Meffert.

To test if the loss of Let-7 microRNAs lets BDNF increase production of specific proteins, Meffert's team genetically engineered neurons so they could no longer decrease Let-7 microRNAs. They found that treating these neurons with BDNF no longer resulted in decreased microRNA levels or an increase in learning and memory proteins.

In measuring microRNA levels in cells treated with BDNF, the researchers also found more than 174 microRNAs that increased with BDNF treatment. This suggested to the research team that BNDF treatment also can increase other microRNAs and, thereby, decrease production of certain proteins. Says Meffert, some of these proteins may need to be decreased during learning and memory, whereas others may not contribute to the process at all.

To confirm that BDNF, via microRNA action, halts the production of certain proteins, the researchers monitored living brain cells to find out where messages go in response to BDNF. Messages that aren't translated into proteins can accumulate inside small formations within cells. Using a microscope, the researchers watched a lab dish containing brain cells that had been marked with a fluorescent molecule that labels these formations as glowing spots. Treating cells with BDNF caused the number and size of the glowing spots to increase. The researchers determined that BDNF uses microRNA to send messages to these spots where they can be exiled away from the translating machinery that turns them into protein.

"Monitoring these fluorescent complexes gave us a window that we needed to understand how BDNF is able to target the production of only certain proteins that help neurons to grow and make learning possible," Meffert says.

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Adds Meffert, "Now that we know how BDNF boosts production of learning and memory proteins, we have an opportunity to explore whether therapeutics can be designed to enhance this mechanism for treatment of patients with mental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease."

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Scientists search for source of creativity: Calling it a 'right brain' phenomenon is too simple, researchers say

It takes two to tango. Two hemispheres of your brain, that is.

USC researchers are working to pin down the exact source of creativity in the brain – and have found that the left hemisphere of your brain, thought to be the logic and math portion, actually plays a critical role in creative thinking.

"We want to know: how does creativity work in the brain?" said Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, assistant professor of neuroscience at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

If you paint or sculpt, you may think of yourself as right-brained. The right hemisphere of your brain is often thought to be the creative half, while the left is thought to be the rational, logical side.

But a new study from a team led by Aziz-Zadeh demonstrates that while the right half of your brain performs the bulk of the heavy lifting when you're being creative, it does call for help from the left half of your brain.

The study, which focuses on how the brain tackles visual creative tasks, supports previous findings about how the brain handles musical improvisation.

Coauthored by USC graduate student Sook-Lei Liew and USC undergrad Francesco Dandekar, the study was posted online in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience in February.

"We need both hemispheres for creative processing," said Aziz-Zadeh.

Aziz-Zadeh and her team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of architecture students, who tend to be visually creative.

While being scanned, the subjects were shown three shapes: a circle, a C, and an 8. They were then asked to visualize images that could be made by rearranging those shapes – for example, a face (with the 8 on its side to become the eyes, the C on its side to become the smiling mouth, and the circle in the center as the nose).

They were also asked to simply try to piece three geometric shapes together with their minds and see if they formed a square or a rectangle – a task that requires similar spatial processing, but not necessarily creativity.

The creative task, even though it was mainly handled by the right hemisphere, actually lit up the left hemisphere more than the non-creative task. The results indicate that the left brain is potentially a crucial supporter of creativity in the brain.

Aziz-Zadeh said she plans to explore more of how different types of creativity (painting, acting, singing) are created by the brain – what they have in common, and what makes them different.

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"Scientists search for source of creativity: Calling it a 'right brain' phenomenon is too simple, researchers say." March 5th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-scientists-source-creativity-brain-phenomenon.html

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Neuroscientist group finds daydreaming uses same parts of the brain as social skills

(Medical Xpress) -- A group of Australian neuroscientists have been reviewing the results of many studies done over the years regarding the parts of the brain that are thought to be used in different real world scenarios and have found that many of them appear to be involved when people go into what is called a default network - more commonly known as daydreaming, or running on auto-pilot. Their findings suggest, as they write in their paper published in Nature Reviews Neurology, that the default network is tied very closely with the same areas of the brain generally thought of as those used for social skills.

To find connections, the team looked at studies of elderly people that had fallen victim to two distinct forms of early onset dementia. One involved damage to the frontal lobe, the other to the temporal lobe. Damage to the frontal lobe, they point out, generally results in patients displaying an inability to understand why they should curb their language. They’re impulsive and aren’t able to understand the repercussions of their words or actions as they pertain to other people. Those with damage to the temporal lobe on the other hand, have trouble understanding the subtle cues that go on between people when interacting. They generally run into trouble in trying to read emotion in others and also tend to have difficulty remembering faces or other everyday objects. Both conditions obviously have a very direct and troublesome impact on social interaction.

They also found that when people without dementia are placed in an fMRI machine and who are allowed to daydream, various parts of their brain light up, indicating that the default network is quite complicated and involved. But of specific interest to this group of researchers was the fact that many of those areas that light up when transitioning to the default network, are the same ones that are used for social interaction, memory and imagination.

This means, they say, that the default network is more than just daydreaming because for it to occur, there needs to be memory of events that have transpired, imagination to guess about things that might happen in the future and the consequences of different happenings. Not coincidentally, they add, all these things are necessary for social interaction as well. This, they say, is why it’s time to stop looking at individual brain functions as separate events and instead to start looking at events as multi-brain activities that all together add up to the richness of thought we all experience as thinking human beings.

More information: Self-projection and the default network in frontotemporal dementia, Nature Reviews Neurology,doi:10.1038/nrneurol.2012.11

Abstract 
Converging evidence suggests that when individuals are left to think to themselves, a so-called default network of the brain is engaged, allowing the individual to daydream, reflect on their past, imagine possible future scenarios, and consider the viewpoints of others. These flexible self-relevant mental explorations enable the anticipation and evaluation of events before they occur, and are essential for successful social interactions. Such self-projective efforts are particularly vulnerable to disruption in frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurodegenerative disorder involving damage to the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. In this Review, we explore how the progressive degeneration of the neural networks in two subtypes of FTD—the behavioral variant and semantic dementia—affects key structures of the default network and putative self-projective functions. We examine the available evidence from studies of autobiographical memory, episodic future thinking, theory of mind, moral reasoning, and economic decision-making in these neurodegenerative diseases. Finally, we propose that the mapping of default-network functions onto discrete subsystems of the default network may need revision in light of neuropsychological and clinical evidence from studies in patients with FTD.

via ABC

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Women happier in relationships when men feel their pain

 

Men like to know when their wife or girlfriend is happy while women really want the man in their life to know when they are upset, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association.

The study involved a diverse sample of couples and found that men's and women's perceptions of their significant other's empathy, and their abilities to tell when the other is happy or upset, are linked to relationship satisfaction in distinctive ways, according to the article published online in theJournal of Family Psychology.

"It could be that for women, seeing that their male partner is upset reflects some degree of the man's investment and emotional engagement in the relationship, even during difficult times. This is consistent with what is known about the dissatisfaction women often experience when their male partner becomes emotionally withdrawn and disengaged in response to conflict," said the study's lead author, Shiri Cohen, PhD, of Harvard Medical School.

Researchers recruited 156 heterosexual couples for the experiment. Of those, 102 came from the Boston area and were younger, urban, ethnically and economically diverse and in a committed but not necessarily married relationship. In an effort to find couples who varied in the ways they resolved conflicts and controlled their emotions, they also looked for couples with a history of domestic violence and/or childhood sexual abuse. The remaining participants, from Bryn Mawr, Pa., were older, suburban and middle-class married couples with strong ties to the community. In all, 71 percent of couples were white, 56 percent were married and their average length of relationship was three-and-a-half years.

Each participant was asked to describe an incident with his or her partner over the past couple of months that was particularly frustrating, disappointing or upsetting. The researchers' audio recorded the participant making a one- to two-sentence statement summarizing the incident and reaction and then brought the couples together and played each participant's statements. The couples were told to try to come to a better understanding together of what had happened and were given approximately 10 minutes to discuss it while the researchers videotaped them. Following the discussions, the participants viewed the videotape and simultaneously rated their negative and positive emotions throughout, using an electronic rating device. The device had a knob that moved across an 11-point scale that ranged from "very negative" to "neutral" to "very positive."

Using these ratings, the researchers selected six 30-second clips from the videotape that had the highest rated negative or positive emotions by each partner. The researchers showed the clips to the participants and had them complete questionnaires about their feelings during each segment as well as their perceptions of their partner's feelings and effort to understand them during the discussion. They also measured the participants' overall satisfaction with their relationships and whether each partner considered his or her partner's efforts to be empathetic.

Relationship satisfaction was directly related to men's ability to read their female partner's positive emotions correctly. However, contrary to the researchers' expectations, women who correctly understood that their partners were upset during the videotaped incident were much more likely to be satisfied with their relationship than if they correctly understood that their partner was happy. Also, when men understood that their female partner was angry or upset, the women reported being happier, though the men were not. The authors suggest that being empathetic to a partner's negative emotions may feel threatening to the relationship for men but not for women.

The findings also show that the more men and women try to be empathetic to their partner's feelings, the happier they are. The authors suggest that this research should encourage couples to better appreciate and communicate one another's efforts to be empathetic.

More information: "Eye of the Beholder: The Individual and Dyadic Contributions of Empathic Accuracy and Perceived Empathic Effort to Relationship Satisfaction," Shiri Cohen, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital; Marc S. Schulz, PhD, and Emily Weiss, Bryn Mawr College; and Robert J. Waldinger, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital; Journal of Family Psychology, online.

Provided by American Psychological Association

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New study finds quality-of-life discussions are important for ICU patients

A new study from Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing emphasizes the importance of having discussions related to quality of life before becoming critically ill.

Barbara Daly and Sara Douglas led a research team that observed, taped and analyzed discussions from 116 family meetings, which took place in five intensive care units (ICUs) at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and MetroHealth Medical Center. The family meetings were for patients who had long ICU stays greater than five days.

"Patients who have long ICU stays (called "chronically critically ill") are usually unable to be involved in discussions of goals and treatment related to their care," Douglas said. As a result, their family decision makers are left with the responsibility of making these decisions. Without information from the patient regarding what aspects of quality of life are important to them, it becomes difficult and stressful for their family decision makers to make these important decisions.

Critical Care Medicine reported findings from this National Institute of Nursing Research-funded study in the article entitled, "Neglect of quality-of-life considerations in intensive care unit family meetings for long-stay intensive care unit patients." In the study, Douglas and Daly found that patient treatment preferences and the kind of life the patient wants after a long stay in intensive care often are missing in many medical team and family discussions.

"Don't confuse quality-of-life discussions with end-of-life ones," says Sara Douglas, associate professor at the nursing school and the lead author on a paper that examines quality-of-life issues for chronically critically ill patients. "This is about the kind of life a patient looks forward to when they leave the ICU, and whether aggressive medical treatments will give them that kind of life."

The researchers found that most meetings with family members were about 24 minutes long, with the majority of time devoted to non-emotional issues – and little on what the patient might want. They also found that deciding what was important in a patient's life (such as being able to return to playing golf or visiting with family or friends), often was not discussed--even when professionals who were trained to bring these topics to the table were present at the meeting.

According to Douglas and Daly, it is difficult for family decision makers as well as many health care providers to discuss quality of life issues because they often associate quality of life with end of life discussions.

The authors concluded that every family decision maker should have the opportunity to discuss and reflect on the quality of life that the patient would want if that person recovered from this critical event. The best way to make appropriate treatment decisions is to have information about what goals are important to the patient.

"Since many of these patients become critically ill very suddenly, it is important to know the wishes of the patient and what contributes the most to quality of life before the patient becomes ill. Just as we have living will discussions with our family members, we should also have quality of life discussions," Douglas said.

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"New study finds quality-of-life discussions are important for ICU patients." March 5th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-quality-of-life-discussions-important-icu-patients.html

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Weekend smoking can damage your memory

(Medical Xpress) -- People who smoke only at weekends cause as much damage to their memory as those who smoke on a daily basis, according to research from Northumbria University. 

Academics from the Collaboration for Drug and Alcohol Research Group tested 28 social smokers – those who smoke around 20 cigarettes once or twice a week, typically when out at the weekend – 28 people who smoke 10-15 cigarettes daily and 28 people who had never smoked on a video-based prospective memory test.

Participants were asked to remember a series of pre-determined actions at specific locations when viewing a short clip of a busy high street. For example, they were asked to remember to text a friend when passing a particular store.

In the first study of its kind, researchers found that both groups of smokers performed worse than those who had never smoked, with no difference according to the pattern of smoking.

Dr. Tom Heffernan, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, who conducted the research with Dr. Terence O’Neill, said: “Smoking-related memory decline in general has been linked with increases in accelerated cerebral degeneration such as brain shrinkage.

“This new research suggests that restricting smoking to weekends makes no difference – smoking damages your memory.”

The study has been published in the Open Addiction Journal.

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"Weekend smoking can damage your memory." March 7th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-weekend-memory.html

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Perceptions of conception

For many women, the decision to get pregnant can take on a life of its own. In fact, according to a survey conducted for SpermCheck Fertility, 42% of those who conceived say they became obsessed with getting pregnant once they started trying. Yet just 10% say their partner shared this obsession.

This year, approximately 7 million couples will experience conception issues and about 50% of these infertility problems will be directly attributed to the male, according to John C. Herr, Ph.D., director of the University of Virginia's Center for Research in Contraceptive and Reproductive Health; most male infertility problems are mainly due to low sperm count, he adds.

Yet women are typically the ones to take action when conception is slow to happen, often undergoing a battery of sometimes invasive and typically costly testing. While -- analyzing the male's sperm count is considered a key first step by infertility specialists -- -- less than one-fifth of men (17%) ever get tested for their sperm count, according to the SpermCheck survey. And just 23% of the women surveyed in the SpermCheck survey who are currently pregnant or who have conceived a child said their partner did everything he could to get himself as healthy as possible before they started trying to conceive.

According to Pamela Madsen, a nationally recognized fertility educator, advocate and founder of the American Fertility Association, "While there is absolutely nothing to be self-conscious about, many men are often reluctant or embarrassed to go to their healthcare provider to take a sperm count test, even if it means that their partner might take it upon herself to start having herself tested and in some cases begin taking fertility treatments. Now, with SpermCheck® Fertility, a new and easy, 10-minute, over-the-counter, FDA-approved, at-home sperm count screening test that men can take in the privacy of their home, they can find out if their sperm count is normal or low – and have an accurate answer, right then."

The SpermCheck survey found that 8 out of 10 women (83%) trying to or planning to conceive say their partner assumes he is fertile, and 43% say their partner would like to know for sure that his sperm count is normal. A much higher number, more than two thirds of women surveyed (67%) say they would like to know their partner's sperm count is normal when they start trying to get pregnant.

The following are highlights of this survey:

Fertility worries: 

• A little less than half (44%) of those trying/planning to conceive are worried that when they actually want to conceive, they won't be able to because they tried hard for years to avoid pregnancy.
• More than half (59%) of those trying/planning to conceive say they won't tell people they are trying to get pregnant in case it doesn't happen.
• Almost half (49%) of women who took longer than expected to conceive indicated their significant other was not eager to have his sperm count tested.
• 23% of women who have conceived/trying to conceive would not seek advice or testing for their significant other if it was taking longer than expected to get pregnant.
• More than a quarter (27%) of those trying/planning to conceive are embarrassed to discuss fertility with friends and family, and a similar number, 23%, say their partner is uncomfortable discussing male fertility issues.

Conception perceptions: How fertility and conceiving a child affect relationships: Perceptions before (trying/planning to get pregnant) and after having a child were quite different on this topic:

• Spouse will be/is supportive 
--(Before) 90% (After)76% 
• Relationship will be/is stronger 
--(Before) 80% (After)64% 
• Partner knows how to support me 
--(Before) 74% (After)61% 
• Partner is excited to be pregnant 
--(Before) 92% (After)80% 
• Partner will leave if don't get pregnant 
--(Before) 11% (After) 4%

Provided by Robin Leedy & Associates, Inc.

"Perceptions of conception." March 8th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-perceptions-conception.html

Comment:
Thinking that you could get pregnant anytime if you want to is very different to discovering that you can't get pregnant ~ the previous comforting thought disappears and one may be left feeling barren, a feeling that the female will naturally want to fight and the same feeling that the male seeks to avoid by clinging to imagined (untested) potentency.

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Chimpanzees Have Police Officers, Too

Mostly high-ranking males or females intervene in a conflict. (Credit: Claudia Rudolf von Rohr)                                      Science Daily — Chimpanzees are interested in social cohesion and have various strategies to guarantee the stability of their group. Anthropologists now reveal that chimpanzees mediate conflicts between other group members, not for their own direct benefit, but rather to preserve the peace within the group. Their impartial intervention in a conflict -- so-called "policing" -- can be regarded as an early evolutionary form of moral behavior.

However, primatologists from the University of Zurich can now confirm that chimpanzees intervene impartially in a conflict to guarantee the stability of their group. They therefore exhibit prosocial behavior based on an interest in community concern.Conflicts are inevitable wherever there is cohabitation. This is no different with our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Sound conflict management is crucial for group cohesion. Individuals in chimpanzee communities also ensure that there is peace and order in their group. This form of conflict management is called "policing" -- the impartial intervention of a third party in a conflict. Until now, this morally motivated behavior in chimpanzees was only ever documented anecdotally.

The more parties to a conflict there are, the more policing there is

The willingness of the arbitrators to intervene impartially is greatest if several quarrelers are involved in a dispute as such conflicts particularly jeopardize group peace. The researchers observed and compared the behavior of four different captive chimpanzee groups. At Walter Zoo in Gossau, they encountered special circumstances: "We were lucky enough to be able to observe a group of chimpanzees into which new females had recently been introduced and in which the ranking of the males was also being redefined. The stability of the group began to waver. This also occurs in the wild," explains Claudia Rudolf von Rohr, the lead author of the study.

High-ranking arbitrators

Not every chimpanzee makes a suitable arbitrator. It is primarily high-ranking males or females or animals that are highly respected in the group that intervene in a conflict. Otherwise, the arbitrators are unable to end the conflict successfully. As with humans, there are also authorities among chimpanzees. "The interest in community concern that is highly developed in us humans and forms the basis for our moral behavior is deeply rooted. It can also be observed in our closest relatives," concludes Rudolf von Rohr.

Oldest Organism With Skeleton Discovered in Australia

The best Coronacollina specimens showing the main body with articulated spicules. Specimens originate from different field localities. Arrows indicate main body of Coronacollina. White/black bars indicate 1 cm. A, C, D and E are photographs of fossil impressions in the rock. B and F are latex casts showing how the fossils would have looked in life, after compression. (Credit: Droser lab, UC Riverside.)                          Science Daily  — A team of paleontologists has discovered the oldest animal with a skeleton. Called Coronacollina acula, the organism is between 560 million and 550 million years old, which places it in the Ediacaran period, before the explosion of life and diversification of organisms took place on Earth in the Cambrian.

The Ediacaran Period, named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia, ranges 630-542 million years ago. The Cambrian Period, marked by a rapid diversification of life-forms on Earth as well as the rise of mineralized organisms, ranges 542-488 million years ago.The finding provides insight into the evolution of life -- particularly, early life -- on the planet, why animals go extinct, and how organisms respond to environmental changes. The discovery also can help scientists recognize life elsewhere in the universe.

The best Coronacollina specimens showing the main body with articulated spicules. Specimens originate from different field localities. Arrows indicate main body of Coronacollina. White/black bars indicate 1 cm. A, C, D and E are photographs of fossil impressions in the rock. B and F are latex casts showing how the fossils would have looked in life, after compression. Image credit: Droser lab, UC Riverside.

"Up until the Cambrian, it was understood that animals were soft bodied and had no hard parts," said Mary Droser, a professor of geology at the University of California, Riverside, whose research team made the discovery in South Australia. "But we now have an organism with individual skeletal body parts that appears before the Cambrian. It is therefore the oldest animal with hard parts, and it has a number of them -- they would have been structural supports -- essentially holding it up. This is a major innovation for animals."

Coronacollina acula is seen in the fossils as a depression measuring a few millimeters to 2 centimeters deep. But because rocks compact over time, the organism could have been bigger -- 3 to 5 centimeters tall. Notably, it is constructed in the same way that Cambrian sponges were constructed.

"It therefore provides a link between the two time intervals," Droser said. "We're calling it the 'harbinger of Cambrian constructional morphology,' which is to say it's a precursor of organisms seen in the Cambrian. This is tremendously exciting because it is the first appearance of one of the major novelties of animal evolution."

According to Droser, the appearance of Coronacollina aculasignals that the initiation of skeletons was not as sudden in the Cambrian as was thought, and that Ediacaran animals like it are part of the evolutionary lineage of animals as we know them.

"The fate of the earliest Ediacaran animals has been a subject of debate, with many suggesting that they all went extinct just before the Cambrian," she said. "Our discovery shows that they did not."

Study results appeared online Feb. 14 in Geology.

The researchers note that Coronacollina acula lived on the seafloor. Shaped like a thimble to which at least four 20-40-centimeter-long needle-like "spicules" were attached,Coronacollina acula most likely held itself up by the spicules. The researchers believe it ingested food in the same manner a sponge does, and that it was incapable of locomotion. How it reproduced remains a mystery.

Coronacollina acula is so named because it translates as "little rimmed hill with needles" (corona -- rim or crown; collis -- hill; acula -- needle). The name describes the fossil organism's morphology, and, specifically, its two components: the truncated cone-shaped body, which appears in the fossils as a pit, and the long brittle spicules, which appear in the fossils as thin grooves.

Ediacaran fossils often show the imprint of the whole body of the organism. With Coronacollina acula, however, skeletal parts were found to have fallen off.

"If you have soft parts holding your body together, then, as they decay, you lose your skeletal parts," Droser explained. "Which is why it's rare to find two clam shells together in fossils. We've now found whole organisms of Coronacollina acula -- the thimble-shaped body in the center, with spicules coming off it like knitting needles. And we have found hundreds of them. They appear to have been a gregarious species, with a lot of them living together."

Droser explained that the spicules had to have been mineralized because the casts show they are ruler-straight. Moreover, they broke.

"We often associate skeletons with predation since skeletons greatly assist animals in their fight against predators," Droser said. "But Coronacollina acula used its skeleton only for support, there being no predators in the Ediacaran."

The research work began as a master's thesis project in Droser's lab. Erica Clites, now a physical science technician at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area for the National Park Service, chose to work on this project because it promised a good challenge with rewarding results.

"Every aspect of the organism's reconstruction had to be backed up by supporting statistics," said Clites, who graduated from UCR in 2009 and is the first author of the research paper. "Through painstaking measurements and detailed descriptions, the pits and needles contained in the rock were revealed as a sponge-like animal."

Droser and Clites were joined in the study by James G. Gehling of the South Australian Museum, Adelaide.

The research was supported by grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation, a UC Riverside John Dunham Field Grant, and an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.

Powerful Tool to Measure Metabolites in Living Cells

ScienceDaily  — By engineering cells to express a modified RNA called "Spinach," researchers have imaged small-molecule metabolites in living cells and observed how their levels change over time. Metabolites are the products of individual cell metabolism. The ability to measure their rate of production could be used to recognize a cell gone metabolically awry, as in cancer, or identify the drug that can restore the cell's metabolites to normal.

"The ability to see metabolites in action will offer us new and powerful clues into how they are altered in disease and help us find treatments that can restore their levels to normal," says Dr. Samie R. Jaffrey, an associate professor of pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Jaffrey led the study, which included three other Weill Cornell investigators.Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College say the advance, described in the March 9 issue of Science, has the potential to revolutionize the understanding of the metabolome, the thousands of metabolites that provide chemical fingerprints of dynamic activity within cells.

"Metabolite levels in cells control so many aspects of their function, and because of this, they provide a powerful snapshot of what is going on inside a cell at a particular time," he says.

For example, biologists know that metabolism in cancer cells is abnormal; these cells alter their use of glucose for energy and produce unique breakdown products such as lactic acid, thus producing a distinct metabolic profile. "The ability to see these metabolic abnormalities can tell you how the cancer might develop," Dr. Jaffrey says. "But up until now, measuring metabolites has been very difficult in living cells."

In the Science study, Dr. Jaffrey and his team demonstrated that specific RNA sequences can be used to sense levels of metabolites in cells. These RNAs are based on the Spinach RNA, which emits a greenish glow in cells. Dr. Jaffrey's team modified Spinach RNAs so they are turned off until they encounter the metabolite they are specifically designed to bind to, causing the fluorescence of Spinach to be switched on. They designed RNA sequences to trace the levels of five different metabolites in cells, including ADP, the product of ATP, the cell's energy molecule, and SAM (S-Adenosyl methionine), which is involved in methylation that regulates gene activity. "Before this, no one has been able to watch how the levels of these metabolites change in real time in cells," he says.

Delivering the RNA sensors into living cells allows researchers to measure levels of a target metabolite in a single cell as it changes over time. "You could see how these levels change dynamically in response to signaling pathways or genetic changes. And you can screen drugs that normalize those genetic abnormalities," Dr. Jaffrey says. "A major goal is to identify drugs that normalize cellular metabolism."

This strategy overcomes drawbacks of the prevailing method of sensing molecules in living cells using green fluorescent protein (GFP). GFP and other proteins can be used to sense metabolites if they are fused to naturally occurring proteins that bind the metabolite. In some cases, metabolite binding can twist the proteins in a way that affects their fluorescence. However, for most metabolites, there are no proteins available that can be fused to GFP to make sensors.

By using RNAs as metabolite sensors, this problem is overcome. "The amazing thing about RNA is that you can make RNA sequences that bind to essentially any small molecule you want. They can be made in a couple of weeks," Dr. Jaffrey says. These artificial sequences are then fused to Spinach and expressed as a single strand of RNA in cells.

"This approach would potentially allow you to take any small molecule metabolite you want to study and see it inside cells," Dr. Jaffrey says. He and his colleagues have expanded the technology to detect proteins and other molecules inside living cells.

He adds that uses of the technology to understand human biology can be applied to many diseases. "We are very interested in seeing how metabolic changes within brain neurons contribute to developmental disorders such as autism," Dr. Jaffrey says. "There are a lot of opportunities, as far as this new tool is concerned."

Co-authors of the study include Dr. Jeremy S. Paige, Mr. Thinh Nguyen Duc, and Dr. Wenjiao Song from the Department of Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the NIH, and the McKnight Foundation. The Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC), on behalf of Cornell University, has filed has filed for patent protection on this technology. Dr. Samie Jaffrey is the founder and scientific advisor to Lucerna Technologies, and holds equity interests in this company. In addition, Lucerna Technologies has a license that is related to technology described here.