Insects Have 'Personalities' Too, Research On Novelty-Seeking Honey Bees Indicates

A new study in Science suggests that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. Some honey bees, too, are more likely than others to seek adventure. (Credit: L. Brian Stauffer)                                                                Science Daily — A new study inScience suggests that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. Some honey bees, too, are more likely than others to seek adventure. The brains of these novelty-seeking bees exhibit distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be associated with thrill-seeking in humans, researchers report.

The findings offer a new window on the inner life of the honey bee hive, which once was viewed as a highly regimented colony of seemingly interchangeable workers taking on a few specific roles (nurse or forager, for example) to serve their queen. Now it appears that individual honey bees actually differ in their desire or willingness to perform particular tasks, said University of Illinois entomology professor and Institute for Genomic Biology director

Gene Robinson, who led the study. These differences may be due, in part, to variability in the bees' personalities, he said.

"In humans, differences in novelty-seeking are a component of personality," he said. "Could insects also have personalities?"

Robinson and his colleagues studied two behaviors that looked like novelty-seeking in honey bees: scouting for nest sites and scouting for food.

When a colony of bees outgrows its living quarters, the hive divides and the swarm must find a suitable new home. At this moment of crisis, a few intrepid bees -- less than 5 percent of the swarm -- take off to hunt for a hive.

These bees, called nest scouts, are on average 3.4 times more likely than their peers to also become food scouts, the researchers found.

"There is a gold standard for personality research and that is if you show the same tendency in different contexts, then that can be called a personality trait," Robinson said. Not only do certain bees exhibit signs of novelty-seeking, he said, but their willingness or eagerness to "go the extra mile" can be vital to the life of the hive.

The researchers wanted to determine the molecular basis for these differences in honey bee behavior. They used whole-genome microarray analysis to look for differences in the activity of thousands of genes in the brains of scouts and non-scouts.

"People are trying to understand what is the basis of novelty-seeking behavior in humans and in animals," who Robinson, who also is affiliated with the Neuroscience Program at Illinois. "And a lot of the thinking has to do with the relationship between how the (brain's) reward system is engaged in response to some experience."

The researchers found thousands of distinct differences in gene activity in the brains of scouting and non-scouting bees.

"We expected to find some, but the magnitude of the differences was surprising given that both scouts and non-scouts are foragers," Robinson said.

Among the many differentially expressed genes were several related to catecholamine, glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling, and the researchers zeroed in on these because they are involved in regulating novelty-seeking and responding to reward in vertebrates.

To test whether the changes in brain signaling caused the novelty-seeking, the researchers subjected groups of bees to treatments that would increase or inhibit these chemicals in the brain.

Two treatments (with glutamate and octopamine) increased scouting in bees that had not scouted before. Blocking dopamine signaling decreased scouting behavior, the researchers found.

"Our results say that novelty-seeking in humans and other vertebrates has parallels in an insect," Robinson said. "One can see the same sort of consistent behavioral differences and molecular underpinnings."

The findings also suggest that insects, humans and other animals made use of the same genetic "toolkit" in the evolution of behavior, Robinson said. The tools in the toolkit -- genes encoding certain molecular pathways -- may play a role in the same types of behaviors, but each species has adapted them in its own, distinctive way.

"It looks like the same molecular pathways have been engaged repeatedly in evolution to give rise to individual differences in novelty-seeking," he said.

The National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Illinois Sociogenomics Initiative supported this research.

Collaborators on this study included researchers from Wellesley College and Cornell University.

Captured: The First-Ever Images of Atoms Moving Inside a Molecule

By Clay Dillow

First-Ever Images of Atoms Moving in a Molecule Image courtesy of Cosmin Blaga, Ohio State University

Ohio State University researchers have captured the first-ever images of atoms moving within a molecule using a novel technique that turns one of the molecules own electrons into a flash bulb. The technique has yielded a new way of imaging molecules, but could one day help scientists to intimately control chemical reactions at the atomic scale.

The images were snapped using an ultrafast laser, which fired 50 femtoseconds (a femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second) pulses at the molecule to knock a single electron outside of the molecules outer shell. This electron, having been knocked out of its proper place, comes crashing back into the molecule, and in doing so it provides the kind of illumination the researchers need to image the molecule itself.

By measuring the scattered signal of the electron as it collides with the molecule, they were able to reconstruct the inner workings of the molecule, including things like the positions of the atoms nuclei. Moreover, because there is a very short lag between when the electron is knocked out and when it comes crashing back, the researchers are able to capture the movement of the atoms within that period, essentially allowing them to make a frame-by-frame film of atomic motion within molecules.

For their experiments the researchers used oxygen (O₂) and nitrogen (N₂) molecules because their molecular structures are well understood. The next steps will involve imaging more complex molecules and, eventually, figuring out the potential for precisely controlling chemical reactions right down to the atomic level.

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures a Twister on the Martian Plains

By Clay Dillow

A Twister on Mars NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Pictured: a Martian dust devil twisting across the Martian Amazonis Planitia region. The 100-foot-wide column of swirling air was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter last month as it passed over the northern hemisphere of Mars.

Unlike an actual tornado, dust devils--which also occur on Earth--are generally spawned on clear days when warm air along the ground begins to spiral as it moves through cooler air above it. They are visible because of the dirt they kick up (hence the name), and against the monotone background Martian soil this massive devil sticks out. It may look tiny in the pic above, but the column towers half a mile high.

Just another day at the office for the NASA’s Mars orbiter, which has been in service since 2006. Fun fact: though it is the youngest Mars orbiter flight to date, SPACE reports that it has delivered more data back home to Earth than all other interplanetary missions combined. When you’re recording that much imagery, you’re bound to get an amazing shot like this one every once in a while.

[SPACE]

Electron Ptychography Could Create Tiniest, Sharpest Images Ever

By Rebecca Boyle

Lily Anther, Still Alive Using a new microscopy technique, scientists can see living cells clearly without the need to stain them, a process which usually kills the cells. These cells are from a lily anther, the pollen-carrying reproductive portion of the flower. University of Sheffield

A new microscopy method that ditches lenses altogether could create the highest-resolution images ever seen. The system reconstructs an image from the electron waves scattered by a sample, and has no fundamental experimental limits imposed by constraints like blurry glass or wavelengths of visible light. It can even be used to image live cells without harming them.

It’s called electron ptychography, and it enables a dramatic improvement in the resolution of the best-available microscopes. Transmission electron microscopes fire a beam of electrons to enable scientists to see atomic features, but they have limitations, especially at high magnifications. Wavelength-scale imaging is not possible, unlike with visible-light microscopes, because the images are inevitably blurred by tiny aberrations in the lenses.

To get around imperfect lenses, this new method measures the diffraction patterns of electrons, X-rays or even visible light waves. The researchers who developed it, led by John Rodenburg of the University of Sheffield in the UK, say it is a new paradigm in electron imaging.

“Provided the correct phase structure can be assigned to this diffraction data, it can then be inverted to realize a completely aberration-free image,” Rodenburg and colleagues write. This is what they’ve figured out: How to calculate the intensity and phase of the imaging wavelength.

The recorded image represents the pattern of electrons or light waves scattered by the object you’re looking at through the microscope. Working backward, the team can figure out exactly what scattered the waves, creating a blur-free image. The goal is to create the highest-resolution transmission image ever, about one-tenth of an atomic diameter, Rodenburg said in a Sheffield news release. The team is apparently already working with the European Space Agency to send an electron ptychograph microscope to the moon in 2018 to study lunar dust.

“This approach will enable us to look at how atoms sit next to one another in a solid object as if we´re holding them in our hands,” he said in a statement.

The paper appears in Nature Communications.

Diffraction Pattern: This is what the microscope image looks like before it is reconstructed.  University of Sheffield

[via Science Daily]

Discovery of hair-cell roots suggests the brain modulates sound sensitivity

The hair cells of the inner ear have a previously unknown "root" extension that may allow them to communicate with nerve cells and the brain to regulate sensitivity to sound vibrations and head position, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered. Their finding is reported online in advance of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The hair-like structures, called stereocilia, are fairly rigid and are interlinked at their tops by structures called tip-links.

When you move your head, or when a sound vibration enters your ear, motion of fluid in the ear causes the tip-links to get displaced and stretched, opening up ion channels and exciting the cell, which can then relay information to the brain, says Anna Lysakowski, professor of anatomy and cell biology at the UIC College of Medicine and principal investigator on the study.

The stereocilia are rooted in a gel-like cuticle on the top of the cell that is believed to act as a rigid platform, helping the hairs return to their resting position.

Lysakowski and her colleagues were interested in a part of the cell called the striated organelle, which lies underneath this cuticle plate and is believed to be responsible for its stability. Using a high-voltage electron microscope at the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at the University of California, San Diego, Florin Vranceanu, a recent doctoral student in Lysakowski's UIC lab and first author of the paper, was able to construct a composite picture of the entire top section of the hair cell.

"When I saw the pictures, I was amazed," said Lysakowski.

Textbooks, she said, describe the roots of the stereocilia ending in the cuticular plate. But the new pictures showed that the roots continue through, make a sharp 110-degree angle, and extend all the way to the membrane at the opposite side of the cell, where they connect with the striated organelle.

For Lysakowski, this suggested a new way to envision how hair cells work. Just as the brain adjusts the sensitivity of retinal cells in the eye to light, it may also modulate the sensitivity of hair cells in the inner ear to sound and head position.

When the eye detects light, there is feedback from the brain to the eye. "If it's too bright the brain can say, okay, I'll detect less light -- or, it's not bright enough, let me detect more," Lysakowski said.

With the striated organelle connecting the rootlets to the cell membrane, it creates the possibility of feedback from the cell to the very detectors that detect motion. Feedback from the brain could alter the tension on the rootlets and their sensitivity to stimuli. The striated organelle may also tip the whole cuticular plate at once to modulate the entire process.

"This may revolutionize the way we think about the hair cells in the inner ear," Lysakowski said.

Provided by University of Illinois at Chicago

"Discovery of hair-cell roots suggests the brain modulates sound sensitivity." March 8th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-discovery-hair-cell-roots-brain-modulates.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Watch Me

“Offering obeisances to the Vasus and the Rudras, as well as to the Adityas, Ashvins and Maruts, I shall proceed, increasing the sorrow of the Rakshasas in the process.” (Hanuman, Valmiki Ramayana, Sundara Kand, 13.56) vasūn rudrāmḥ tathā ādityān aśvinau maruto api ca || namaḥ kṛtvā gamiṣyāmi rakṣasām śoka vardhanaḥ | Shri Hanuman is so resplendent that he doesn’t need to call attention to himself. Should his particular surroundings be dark, he can still be seen by those who are deserving of tasting the sweet visual nectar that is the transcendental activities of Shri Rama’s most trusted and beloved messenger. Hanuman is known as Ramadutta, because he carries the message of the Supreme Lord. While an ordinary messenger, be he on a bike, truck, or train, is not given much importance, to be enlisted in any direct service to God puts one in such an exalted position that others who are pure at heart delight in every activity taken up by that messenger. With devotional service, the position of servant can put one in such high standing that even the Supreme Lord will direct others to worship such a person. Why such importance given to a position that usually goes to those who aren’t as capable? Typically, the messenger isn’t a prestigious post because the occupant doesn’t have to do much. The brains of the operation, the boss, brings forth the ideas. Since they don’t want to get bogged down with the process of distributing those ideas to others, they hire workers to help them out. The proprietor doesn’t need to adopt a superior attitude; simply by their stature they become unworthy of menial tasks. What will others think of the head of the company should they show up one day to clean the floor or work the reception desk? They will think that the boss has either lost a bet or is spying on his workers. The heads of state, even in a small community like an office, need to be respected if their orders are to be followed. The messenger carries whatever information has been given to him to the notable parties. Yet since the dynamic of the relationship between individual living entity and supreme living entity is one where both parties are not on an equal footing, if the subordinates play their roles perfectly, they sometimes achieve a status greater than the superior. How does this work exactly? One wonderful example is ShrimatiRadharani, the eternal consort of Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If there is a God, He must have a form; otherwise He would be inferior to the living entities. We are all formless in the sense that our bodies are constantly changing. Within a specific body our attributes are also limited. A human being cannot survive in water and a fish can’t live on land. They both have forms, but their abilities are tied to the type of dwelling they occupy. Every living being is formless because their identity comes from the soul resting within the heart. At the same time, the fact that a form is accepted indicates the presence of a person, a distinct personality who can be identified by the features shown in a particular lifetime. With the Supreme Lord, there are features as well; otherwise He would be inferior to those species that do have features, albeit temporary ones. The difference between God and the living entities is that He never assumes any particular form. The material energy works at His direction, so if He wishes He can appear in the manifestation of a fish and still talk. If He roams the earth as a bow warrior, He can shoot just one arrow and destroy the entire creation. In the body of a small child, He can lift a gigantic hill and hold it over His head without a problem. In the form of a boar, He can uproot the earth and save it from a disastrous flood. He can even mix the species up and look like a combination of a man and a lion. There are no limits to what His attributes can do; thus His formlessness means something completely different than what we would tie to the absence of a form. In His original spiritual body He is described as Krishna because He is all-attractive. Attraction guides the living entity into so many activities like the bright light in the darkness catches the eyes of the insects and flies. Just like the flies, we sometimes follow lights that bring us closer towards peril, things that bring so much punishment that we later wonder why the earth even exists. Yet this tendency to follow attractive things is there for a reason. The original person is the most attractive, and thus we have an inherent link to Him, a desire to bask in His transcendental sweetness. Since this tendency is already there, whoever recognizes it and acts on it without inhibition would have to be considered the role model for everyone, a person to worship, honor and remember on a daily basis. Shrimati Radharani best embodies this loving, devotional spirit. She loves Krishna so much that He is completely sold to her. In this sense she is considered greater than God. The Lord loves everyone and seeks their intimate association, but Radharani loves Him so much that even Krishna, with His limitless attributes, can’t repay that love. It is seen in India that Radharani’s birthday is celebrated with more pomp by the devotees than is Krishna’s birthday. Shri Hanuman operates with a similar mentality, except his mood of devotion involves service, or dasya-rasa. We tie this specific transcendental mellow to him only in an attempt to understand the mood driving his activities. In his love for Rama, Hanuman is not limited by any technical terms. Whatever he does, he thinks of Rama, and so Rama always thinks of him as well. As service for a messenger must involve a task, Rama kindly provides one. Rama is the very same Krishna, though in a different spiritual manifestation. The different energies of nature, the position of the Supreme Lord, the reality of reincarnation and its effects on the living entities, and so many other topics of spirituality form the basis of the vast Vedic literature, which extends to the boundaries of time and space. One needn’t think the Vedas are sectarian or sentimentalist; they describe devotion to God as being the highest scientific discipline, a system of education aimed at providing the highest benefits. Hanuman’s task was to find Sita, Rama’s wife. She was being kept on an island called Lanka. Since the beginning of time, the forces of good and evil have clashed. The good earn their title from their devotion to God; their acknowledgment of His existence. From this mindset, other good qualities arise within them. The bad are just the opposite. They don’t believe in God. As a result, their primary aim in life is to enjoy the senses as much as possible, to facilitate happiness through their temporary body. Because of this, their dharmas, or occupational duties, are always changing. Moreover, one person’s system of regulation doesn’t necessarily have to be the same as another’s. Even a thief follows a dharma, albeit one that is not authorized. The thief’s religion is to take other people’s property and enjoy it for himself. As someone else’s dharma is to work hard to secure their own possessions, there are clashes between systems. The sense enjoyers clash with one another and also with the good. Those who act directly on behalf of God have respect for the good guys and always seek to please them, even though this explicit distribution of honor is not necessary. Those choosing to reside in the material world governed by karma can get benedictions from many exalted “good” guys. These personalities are known as demigods, or devas, and they manage different departments of the creation. The asuras always fight with the devas, as the demons wish to stamp out any influence of goodness. During Rama’s time, the Rakshasa influence was very strong. These were a species lower than asuras. The asuras just deny the existence of God and look to satisfy their own senses and thus compete with others for resources. The Rakshasas live in ignorance and try to kill even the saintly people who don’t bother anyone. The asuras may clash with the devas, but the Rakshasas also go after the bhaktas, those who don’t want to have anything to do with the material creation and its dualities of good and bad. A good result is not absolutely good. As a farmer it may be beneficial for me if it rains, but that same rain can cause flooding and disrupt other people’s lives. In the material world there is duality, with no situation being universally good or bad. Duality is present in everything except bhakti, or devotion. God is the fountainhead of all energies, so His association and those activities which help bring it about and maintain it are considered pure, or punya. Those following bhakti don’t favor either the good or the bad explicitly, but to the Rakshasas this doesn’t matter. Sita Devi, Rama’s wife, is the very same Radharani but in the form of a beautiful princess. Ravana thought he could have her by stealing her away from Rama when the Lord was temporarily away from her side. What he didn’t count on was Rama sending Hanuman to his kingdom of Lanka. In the above referenced verse from the Ramayana, Hanuman is about to enter the Ashoka wood, a park of trees that the Vanara had yet to search. He was a little despondent over not having found Sita, as that was the mission assigned to him. He was seriously contemplating quitting, running through what would happen should he return home and tell everyone that he had failed. As Hanuman never stops loving Rama, he couldn’t abandon the mission without at least exhausting all options. Seeing the Ashoka wood, Hanuman decided he would continue on with his search and see where it would lead him. We see that Hanuman here mentions the Vasus, Adityas and Rudras. These are three principle types of demigods. They are in charge of so many aspects of the creation, and they are devoted to God, though not in the purest sense. Any person who is associated with material nature has some contamination, as they must have some deviation in God consciousness to be out of the company of the Supreme Lord, who is situated in the transcendental realm. In this respect the demigods take on a thankless task, as they act on the direct orders of God but are not allowed to always think of Him in a mood of pure devotion. They must distribute rewards to anyone who pleases them properly. Typically, anyone who approaches the demigods shows at least a modicum of piety, as the grossly foolish carry on in life thinking that the wonderful benedictions offered by nature just come about on their own, without an intelligent, guiding force. “Men of small intelligence worship the demigods, and their fruits are limited and temporary. Those who worship the demigods go to the planets of the demigods, but My devotees ultimately reach My supreme planet.”  (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 7.23) In the higher stages of devotional practice, approaching the demigods is not necessary. This truth is validated by Krishna Himself in the Bhagavad-gita, the Song of God describing the ins and outs of spirituality in a concise manner. Hanuman also saluted the Ashvins and the Maruts. The Ashvins are the twin-physicians of the demigods and the Maruts are the deities of the wind. The invocation of the Maruts was significant because Hanuman’s father was the principle deity of the wind, Vayu. Hanuman had used his inherited abilities to fly over the massive ocean separating Lanka from land. Hanuman always remembered his heritage, and he never disrespected it. Vayu was related to all the demigods, so Hanuman made sure to think of his father and honor his associates. Hanuman was honoring the important demigods prior to the important task of going into the Ashoka wood, but what he was really doing, though he may not have been consciously aware of it, was sending a signal to the inhabitants of the heavenly realm to pay attention. The devotees delight in thinking about God and hearing about His pastimes. This loving attitude extends to God’s devotees. And no one can be more delightful than Hanuman. What he would do in the Ashoka wood would be magical, as he would finally find Sita and temporarily allay her fears. On his way out of Lanka, he would lay waste to a beautiful grove as a way to show Ravana and his men that destruction would soon be coming their way. Hanuman even hints at this in the above referenced verse. He salutes the demigods before his journey into the woods, which will cause grief to the Rakshasas. Their taking of Sita and hiding her had caused Hanuman grief. Sita wasn’t his wife, but she was Rama’s beloved. Since Hanuman loved Rama so much, he automatically loved all of the Lord’s family members. Since the Rakshasas kept Hanuman from fulfilling Rama’s mission, they had caused him pain. Rather than sulk and sit on the sidelines, Hanuman was determined to find Sita and then return some of that grief back to the Rakshasas. As the demigods are always fighting with the demons, Hanuman asked them to be favorable to him during his own fight with the demoniac race. Hanuman sent a signal to the heavenly realm to pay special attention to what he was going to do next. For this the demigods were actually benefitted, and not the other way around. What temporary reward could Shri Hanuman need from anyone? He is promised success in his missions because he works directly for Shri Rama, with his only motivation being the pleasure of his master. Our gifts are due to Shri Rama’s mercy in the first place, so anyone who knows how to properly use those gifts and direct them in the right direction will be guaranteed of success by God Himself. The demigods were able to watch Hanuman when he called out to them, thus proving that Hanuman’s glory is meant for the pious class. He is the sweetheart of sweethearts, and he looks best when he is fighting for Rama in the most difficult situations. In Closing: That success upon him they will confer, The principle demigods Hanuman remembers. With desire to succeed for Rama he burns, To unsearched Ashoka wood he will now turn. Devotee of Rama, Shri Hanuman stands tall, His prayer the attention of celestials it called. Powerful demigods Rama’s servant to see, Who shines bright from desire to please. Position of messenger typically the lowest, But Ramadutta in esteem held the highest.

Bias in decision-making leads to poor choices and possibly depression

When faced with making a complicated decision, our automatic instinct to avoid misfortune can result in missing out on rewards, and could even contribute to depression, according to new research.

The results of a new study, published today in the journal PLoS Computational Biology, suggest that our brains subconsciously use a simplistic strategy in order to filter out options when faced with a complex decision. However, the research also highlights how this strategy can lead to poor choices, and could possibly contribute to depression – a condition characterised by impaired decision-making.

In the study, researchers at UCL looked at how people make chains of several decisions, where each step depends on the previous one. Often, the total number of possible choices is far too large to consider them each individually. One way to simplify the problem is to avoid considering any plan where the first step has a seriously negative association – no matter what the overall outcome would be. This 'pruning' decision-making bias, which was demonstrated in this paper for the first time, can result in poor decisions.

Lead author Dr Quentin Huys from the UCL Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, explained: "Imagine planning a holiday - you could not possibly consider every destination in the world. To reduce the number of options, you might instinctively avoid considering going to any countries that are more than 5 hours away by plane because you don't enjoy flying.

"This strategy simplifies the planning process and guarantees that you won't have to endure an uncomfortable long-haul flight. However, it also means that you might miss out on an amazing trip to an exotic destination."

In the study, the researchers asked a group of 46 volunteers with no known psychiatric disorders to plan chains of decisions in which they moved around a maze – on each step they either gained or lost money. The volunteers instinctively avoided paths starting with large losses, even if those decisions would have won them the most money overall. Interestingly, the amount of pruning the volunteers showed was related to the extent to which they reported experiencing depressive symptoms, though none were actually clinically depressed.

Neir Eshel, co-author of the paper, formerly at the UCL Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience and now at Harvard Medical School, said: "The reflex to prune the number of possible options is a double-edged sword. Although necessary to simplify complicated decisions, it could also lead to poor choices."

The researchers link the surprising association with depressive symptoms to the brain chemical serotonin, which is known to be involved in both avoidance and depression, and may also contribute to the optimism bias. However, this role for serotonin in pruning needs to be confirmed in further studies.

Dr Tali Sharot, also from UCL but not involved in the study, said: "This is a fascinating study linking "pruning" to depressive symptoms. The novel finding may have important implications for understanding and treating depression."

More information: Huys QJM, Eshel N, O'Nions E, Sheridan L, Dayan P, et al. (2012) Bonsai Trees in Your Head: How the Pavlovian System Sculpts Goal-Directed Choices by Pruning Decision Trees. PLoS Comput Biol 8(3): e1002410. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002410

Provided by University College London

"Bias in decision-making leads to poor choices and possibly depression." March 8th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-bias-decision-making-poor-choices-possibly.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek