I was going to start this article differently. But that was before my 10-year-old daughter intervened. In fact, I had already started writing when she got up and tried to trick me. She offered to bet me her ten pounds that I could write red with a regular pencil. Unfortunately for this budding entrepreneur, I turned down the bet. She was so confident that she suspected he was up to something. But I let her reveal the trick. She took her lead pencil in her hand and she wrote, “In red color.” Then she laughed like a hyena and went out to fool her mother.
Our bright little sparks have opinions on everything from video games to sports to books. She’s learning basic algebra and coding, but her Taylor Swift expertise far exceeds mine. But even with all this knowledge, she still has many years to go before she reaches adulthood. If she lives out her average lifespan, she will spend a quarter of her year as a minor.
It is truly strange that humans have long childhoods. No other primate takes this long to reach adulthood. During the evolution of our species, childhood has become significantly longer, along with more obvious physical changes. Traditionally, paleoanthropologists have paid little attention to children, but that is now changing. A series of interesting discoveries over the past few years are building a complete picture of human childhood. When did this seemingly unproductive life stage expand, why was it so long, and what did prehistoric children do? This discovery does more than just shed light on a dark corner…
Some zoo animals contracted SARS-CoV-2 from humans
Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty
Animals such as rats are often considered carriers of the disease. But when it comes to the spread of disease, it turns out that other animals have more reason to fear us than we do.
Analysis of the viral genome found that when viruses move between humans and other animals, in 64% of cases they are transmitted from humans to other animals, rather than vice versa.
“We give more viruses to animals than they give us,” he says. Cedric Tan At University College London. For example, after the SARS-CoV-2 virus passed from bats to humans, likely through another species, humans passed the virus on to many other species.
Tan and his colleagues have been using a global database of sequenced viruses to study how viruses move between species. There are nearly 12 million sequences in the database, but many are incomplete or lack data on when and from which host species they were collected.
So the researchers narrowed down the 12 million to about 60,000 high-quality sequences with complete accompanying data. They then created a “family tree” of related viruses.
In total, approximately 13,000 virus lineages and 3,000 jumps between species were identified. Of the 599 jumps involving humans, most were from humans to other animals, not the other way around.
Tan says the team didn't expect this, but in retrospect it makes sense. “Our population size is huge. And our global footprint is basically everywhere.”
In other words, a virus that circulates among humans has many opportunities to spread to many other species around the world, whereas a virus that circulates among non-human species confined to a single region does not. That's far less.
Studies have found that SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and influenza viruses are the viruses most commonly transmitted by humans to other animals. This is consistent with other studies showing, for example, that SARS-CoV-2 spread from humans to pets, zoo animals, domestic animals such as mink, and wild animals such as white-tailed deer.
However, even when SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and influenza viruses were excluded from the analysis, the researchers found that 54 percent of infections were from humans to other animals.
The spread of viruses from humans to other species is a threat to many endangered animal species, Tan said. For example, outbreaks of human metapneumovirus and human respirovirus have killed several wild chimpanzees in Uganda.
Ruins in the Ethiopian lowlands where ancient humans lived 74,000 years ago
John Kappelman
A campsite in what is now Ethiopia may have been used in the years before, during, and after a massive volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago that changed the Earth’s climate.
The eruption of supervolcano Toba on the Indonesian island of Sumatra was the largest eruption on Earth in the past 2 million years. Some researchers believe it may have caused a volcanic winter that lasted several years and wiped out most humans alive at the time, but the magnitude of that effect is debated .
Bones found at Ethiopian ruins suggest people living there had to adapt their diet to survive the dry year or two after the eruption, but the effects were mild It seems like it was.
“It was a pretty lucky discovery,” he says. John Kappelman A team from the University of Texas at Austin discovered the site in 2002. “There’s no question about that.”
Most of the remains of early humans are caves that were inhabited for tens of thousands of years, he says. However, this camp is an outdoor location near the Simfa River, a tributary of the Blue Nile. “Our intuition is that this place has probably been occupied for about five to 10 years,” Kappelman said.
The researchers found thousands of stone fragments from the tool’s manufacture, along with several stone tips believed to be among the oldest arrowheads ever discovered. “We have evidence of archery in the form of these small stone points,” Kappelman says.
Researchers also found ostrich eggshells and numerous animal bones, some with cuts and signs of cooking. Therefore, it is believed that people brought animals back to the site for slaughter and cooking.
The researchers also found volcanic ash in the form of tiny glass shards, known as cryptephra, in the middle of layers of sediment containing stone chips and bones. “They’re just tiny little glass shards,” Kappelman says – and their composition matches other debris from the Toba supereruption.
Isotopic analysis of ostrich shells suggests that the climate became drier after the eruption. This is consistent with a four-fold increase in the amount of fish carcasses identified and a decrease in other types of animal carcasses.
The research team explains that the Shinfa River is seasonal, and during the dry season it dries up to create a water hole. Immediately after the Toba eruption, the dry season was long, making it easier to catch fish in the narrowed water holes. The researchers suggest that this compensated for the decline in terrestrial predators.
Over the next few years, food debris returned to pre-eruption levels and there were no signs of mass mortality, Kappelman said.
Other researchers argue that early humans moved to wetter areas as conditions dried, he says. For this reason, it is also believed that the migration of people from Africa took place during times when the climate was wetter, allowing them to survive in the usually arid region between Africa and Eurasia.
“Our remains show that humans adapted to seasonally dry conditions,” Kappelmann says. He thinks this means that the migration of modern humans from Africa, which may have occurred as recently as 65,000 or 60,000 years ago, may have occurred during a dry period.
However, Kappelman agrees that early migration from Africa by less sophisticated peoples may have been limited to wet periods.
“This is an interesting paper for many reasons: the likely precise link to the Toba supereruption, environmental evidence, survival behaviors including fishing, the possible use of bows and arrows, and the possibility that it facilitated dispersal from Africa. “A certain behavioral adaptation,” says chris stringer At the Natural History Museum in London.
“While each of these proposals will certainly stimulate debate, I think the authors have presented a plausible, if not conclusive, case for each scenario they propose,” he says.
The study also adds to the evidence that the global effects of the Toba supereruption were relatively small and short-lived, Stringer said.
but stanley ambrose One researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign believes that Toba wiped out most humans, but he disagrees. He said the site may represent a much longer period of time than Kappelman’s team thinks, meaning the impact on people could have been much greater. There is.
“Material deposited by humans long before and long after the eruption, perhaps centuries to more than a thousand years ago, was deposited by well-known disturbance processes such as rodent burrowing and cracks forming during desiccation. It could have been juxtaposed with a volcanic ash layer, season,” Ambrose says.
Scientists researching human speech believe that this ability likely evolved in the human brain during our evolution from primates, but the exact process remains unclear. These researchers can compare the human brain to that of other primates to study how it changed over time and gave rise to language.
Previous studies have proposed that groove-like structures in the front of the primate brain may aid humans in learning language. To explore if these and other brain changes are involved in language evolution, an international team of scientists recently compared the speech-related regions of human and primate brains. The primates they studied included baboons and chimpanzees.
Using high-resolution scans from sources like the National Chimpanzee Brain Resource and the Human Connectome Project database, the scientists analyzed specific areas of the human and primate brains to identify differences that may have contributed to the development of language.
They focused on brain regions controlling speech, facial expressions, and language, such as the prefrontal extent of the frontal skull (PFOP). They found that the PFOP is fully developed in humans, partially in chimpanzees, and absent in Old World monkeys.
Another notable difference in the human brain was the presence of a groove called the operculum, which was more pronounced on the left side. This suggests that the left hemisphere of the human brain has a larger PFOP compared to the right hemisphere, a feature not found in other primates.
By comparing chimpanzee brains, the researchers found that the size of the chimpanzee’s PFOP was consistent on both sides, indicating a recent full development of the PFOP in humans.
The scientists also examined the distance between two brain grooves, the circular sulcus and the operculum. Previous studies linked these grooves to communication sounds in chimpanzees, leading the researchers to investigate their role in human language development.
Based on their findings, the scientists suggested that the development of certain brain structures like the D-FO and V-FO grooves contributed to the emergence of human language. They emphasized the need for further research to understand how these structures function in the human brain.
In conclusion, changes in brain structures like the operculum and cerebral sulci likely play a role in human language acquisition, but more research is needed to fully understand this association. Future studies should explore how specific features like the PFOP function in the human brain to better comprehend their role in speech development.
Korolevo Quarry in Ukraine, one of the oldest human remains in Europe
Roman Galba
Molecular dating reveals that an area in Ukraine was occupied by humans 1.4 million years ago, making it one of the oldest human remains in Europe, and possibly the oldest.
The ruins, located in Korolevo in western Ukraine, have been studied since the 1970s. Numerous stone tools were found buried in layers of sediment next to outcrops of volcanic rock suitable for tool making.
“It was like a magnet that drew people to it, and they were camping nearby,” he says. Roman Galba At the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague.
No bones have been found because the soil was too acidic to preserve bones, but hominins homo erectusa species that evolved about 2 million years ago and spread from Africa to Europe and Asia.
It is clear that early humans were present at the Korolevo sites repeatedly over hundreds of thousands of years, but we do not know exactly when they were present. But Garba's team has now used a technique called cosmogenic nuclide dating to date the oldest layer containing the tools to 1.4 million years ago.
This method relies on cosmic rays that are energetic enough to split atomic nuclei and create unusual isotopes. However, these cosmic rays do not penetrate deeply into solid objects, so these isotopes form only in exposed areas.
When an object is buried, the radioactive isotopes produced by cosmic rays decay into other isotopes, making it possible to determine when the object was buried.
Another early human site in Dmanisi, Georgia, is estimated to be 1.7 million years old, and other sites in France and Spain are about 1.2 million years old. This suggests that early humans migrated from Africa through Georgia into Ukraine and then west to other parts of Europe, Galba said, although some crossed the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey. There is a possibility that it was.
Some humans are crossed the Strait of Gibraltar It arrived in Spain when sea levels were lower than it is now, and then migrated east to other parts of Europe, but there is no evidence to support this, Galba said.
While parts of Georgia are geographically in Europe and the entire country is politically considered part of Europe, the Dmanisi site is geographically located in Asia, Garba said. As such, he and his team consider Korolevo to be the oldest reliably dated human site in Europe.
“Korolevo is, to our knowledge, the oldest confirmed human presence in Europe,” the paper says.
“I agree that the new age estimates are important, and they support the idea of an early east-west dispersal,” he says. chris stringer At the Natural History Museum in London.
The lamprey and human hindbrains are built using very similar molecular and genetic toolkits, according to a new study led by the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
These images show an adult lamprey (top and left) and a developing lamprey embryo. Image credit: Stowers Medical Research Institute.
“Our research on the hindbrain (the part of the brain that controls important functions such as blood pressure and heart rate) is essentially a window into the distant past and can serve as a model for understanding the evolution of complexity. “, said Dr. Hugo Parker. Researcher at Stowers Medical Research Institute.
Like other vertebrates, sea lampreys have a backbone and skeleton, but they noticeably lack a jaw, a characteristic feature of the head.
Most vertebrates, including humans, have jaws, so this striking difference in sea lampreys makes it a valuable model for understanding the evolution of vertebrate traits.
“About 500 million years ago, at the origin of vertebrates, there was a split between jawless and jawed animals,” said Dr. Alice Bedois, also of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
“We wanted to know how vertebrate brains evolved and whether there is something unique to jawed vertebrates that jawless vertebrates don't.”
Previous research had identified genes that structure and subdivide the sea lamprey's hindbrain as identical to genes in jawed vertebrates, including humans.
However, these genes are part of an interconnected network or circuit that needs to be initiated and directed to properly build the hindbrain.
In a new study, the authors identify common molecular cues known to direct head-to-tail patterning in a variety of animals as part of a genetic circuit that guides hindbrain patterning in the lamprey. .
“We found that the same genes, as well as the same cues, are involved in hindbrain development in sea lampreys. This suggests that this process is ancestral to all vertebrates. ,” Dr. Bedwa said.
“This signal is called retinoic acid, commonly known as vitamin A.”
Researchers have known that retinoic acid signals the genetic circuits that build the hindbrains of complex species, but they believe it is involved in more primitive animals like sea lampreys. was not considered.
Surprisingly, they discovered that the lamprey's core hindbrain circuit is also initiated by retinoic acid, providing evidence that these sea monsters and humans are much more closely related than expected.
“People thought that because lampreys don't have jaws, their hindbrains don't form like other vertebrates,” says Dr. Rob Krumlauf, a researcher at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
“We showed that this fundamental part of the brain is built exactly the same way as in mice, and even in humans.”
Signaling molecules that signal cell fate during development are well known.
Now, researchers have discovered that retinoic acid plays another key role in signaling important steps in development, such as the formation of the brainstem.
Furthermore, if hindbrain formation is a conserved feature in all vertebrates, other mechanisms must be involved to explain its incredible diversity.
“We all come from a common ancestor,” Dr. Bedwa said.
“The lamprey provided further clues.”
“We now need to go further back in evolutionary time to discover when the genetic circuits controlling hindbrain formation first evolved.”
of study It was published in the magazine nature communications.
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AMH Bedwa other. 2024. Lamprey reveals the origins of retinoic acid signaling and its coupling to vertebrate hindbrain segments. Nat Commune 15, 1538. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45911-x
Early European humans may have hunted mammoths in frozen landscapes
Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images
When modern humans first began to settle in Europe, they headed straight to the cold north. Challenging excavations in Germany have revealed that our species was in the region at least 45,000 years ago, confirming earlier claims that our ancestors were in Britain shortly thereafter.
“They came into a very hostile environment,” he says Jean-Jacques Hublin
At the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. “It felt like northern Finland.” [today]”
Modern people(homo sapiens) were the most recent humans to permanently settle in Europe about 45,000 years ago. Previously, this continent was dominated for hundreds of thousands of years by Neanderthals, who disappeared from the fossil record about 40,000 years ago.Modern humans and Neanderthals may have overlapped in France and Spain Between 1400 and 2900.
“All the ancient humans, homo sapiens“This phenomenon occurred across Eurasia between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago,” Hublin said. This was a critical time, as multiple human species coexisted for millions of years, but only one survives today.
“This is the beginning of species invading every habitable crevice on Earth,” Hublin said. “I know it happened…but I don't know why or how it happened.”
of transitional period
is a mystery. There are several types of stone structures from the period that may have been made by Neanderthals or modern humans. One is found at several archaeological sites in northern Europe. Rincombians, Lanissians, Gerzmanovicians (LRJ) – Features a long leaf-shaped tip that may have been attached to a spear. These have never been found in association with confidently identified hominin bones. “I had no idea who made it,” Hublin said.
To find out, Hublin and his colleagues visited several locations where LRJ artifacts were obtained. Unfortunately, earlier archaeologists destroyed the ruins with shoddy excavation methods. The only exception was a cave called Ilsenhöhle near Ranis, Germany. Having collapsed several thousand years ago, initial excavations in the 1930s were difficult and some of the ruins were left in place. Havlin's team re-excavated and dug deep shafts into the relevant sediment layers.
So-called LRJ stone tools discovered in Germany's Ilsenhöhle Cave
Josephine Schubert, Burg Lanis Museum, (CC-BY-ND 4.0)
The excavation was said to have been “extremely difficult”. Marie Solessi from Leiden University in the Netherlands was not involved in the study.
Havlin's team found many bone fragments buried in the sediment. They also reexamined similar fragments from the original excavations. Analysis of bone collagen proteins revealed that 13 species belong to the hominin family. To identify them more precisely, the research team extracted mitochondrial DNA, which humans inherit only from their mothers, from her 11 fragments. “they are homo sapiens” says Hublin.
The technology used was “first-class,” Solessi said. She also wants to see nuclear DNA. This is because these individuals may be hybrids with their Neanderthal fathers. Because it's not shown in mitochondrial DNA. However, she says this is “very unlikely”.
timing of homo sapiens The occupation of Ilsenhöhle is consistent with existing evidence. Havlin's team previously showed that modern humans lived in the Bacho Kilo cave in Bulgaria about 45,000 years ago. However, Ilsenhöhle is further north.
In the second study, Hublin's colleagues used chemical evidence obtained from preserved horse teeth to determine whether this region of Germany existed at the time, specifically between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago. It showed that the climate was cold. Again, this is consistent with previous evidence. In 2014, Hublin's team showed that modern humans lived in a cold steppe-like environment in Willendorf, Austria, north of the Alps. 43,500 years ago.
A third study examined animal bones collected at Ilsenhelle and revealed that the cave was primarily inhabited by cave bears and hyenas. This means that modern humans only existed intermittently.
This indicates “rapid occupation by a small group of 'pioneers',” Solessi said.
Similar claims have been made for France's Mandolin Cave, which may have been briefly inhabited by modern humans 54,000 years ago, before Neanderthals reclaimed the site.
Since the Ilsenhöhle LRJ tool is associated with modern humans, it is reasonable to assume that other LRJ artifacts were also created by modern humans. homo sapienssays Hublin. This means that modern humans arrived in Britain at an early date. A partial jawbone found in Kents Cave in Devon, England, has been tentatively identified and dated to a modern human. Approximately 43,000 years ago – and was discovered along with the LRJ artifact.
The first members of our species to reach China may have entered this region from the north
Esteban de Armas / Alamy
Modern humans lived in what is now China by 45,000 years ago. This discovery means our species arrived in this region thousands of years earlier than commonly thought, probably via a northern route through present-day Siberia and Mongolia.
A team co-led by Francesco d'Errico Researchers from the University of Bordeaux in France reexamined an archaeological site in northern China called Shiyu. Originally, he was excavated in 1963 during the turbulent period of China's Cultural Revolution. “It couldn't have been a better time to find such an important site,” D'Errico says.
Shiyu is an outdoor site located in a river gorge. There, 30 meters deep, sand and other sediments were deposited, which the first excavators divided into four horizontal layers, from the bottom of which the second layer contained human It was found that there was evidence of residence in
Excavators discovered more than 15,000 stone artifacts and thousands of animal bones. There was also part of a hominin skull, which anthropologist Wu Lukang identified as a modern human.homo sapiens).
Some of the artifacts were later transferred to the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. However, those left behind at the local facility were lost, including the hominin bones. “We own maybe 10 percent of the stone tools,” D'Errico says.
D'Errico and his colleagues re-excavated Shiyu to determine its age. They dated 15 sediment samples using a technique called photostimulated luminescence and carbon-dated 10 animal bones and teeth. The hominid layer is approximately 44,600 years old.
D'Errico believes the excavator was “knowledgeable” and correctly identified the skull.
The Shuyu tribe is probably homo sapienssay Alina Katzenovic from the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology in Novosibirsk, Russia, was not involved in the study.
The new study therefore suggests that modern humans arrived in northern China about 45,000 years ago. This would postpone the arrival of our species to China by about 5,000 years.Derico claims to be the next oldest homo sapiens China's site Tengen Cave 40,000 years ago.
Some researchers argue that our species may have arrived earlier than that, up to 260,000 years ago. However, D'Errico points out that researchers: criticized much of the evidence As for the presence of such early humans in this region.
Humans probably entered Asia from Africa and spread through multiple routes, Katzenovich said. They not only explored the tropical southern regions of Asia, but also headed further north. Katzenovich says there are signs of modern human presence in the area. Obi Rakhmat Cave Uzbekistan 48,800 years ago. Perhaps our species reached Shiyu and then China via this route. north route.
When modern humans reached new areas, they encountered hominids that were already living there, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans further east. Genetic evidence shows that we interbred with them. There may also have been cultural exchanges, and the Shiyu artifacts also include what appear to be more ancient human tools.
There is also evidence of long-distance contact. The Shiyu team identified four fragments of obsidian, a volcanic glass. They were able to track them as far as 800 and 1000 kilometers northeast of Shiyu. D'Errico said it was unlikely that the residents traveled this distance themselves, so they were probably part of the group's network. In line with this, Kazenovich said some of Shiyu's artifacts resemble items found as far east as Korea.
In the late 1990s, when I was studying for my PhD, I read an article touting the “next big thing” in the food sector. To be honest, the next highlight didn’t seem very appetizing. Apparently, within the next 10 years, we’ll all be eating Beetleburgers.
Entomophagy, the eating of insects, is common in many parts of the world. Considering the ethical issues of livestock farming, the article boldly proclaimed that insect farms are the future of food.
Insects raised without welfare issues are excellent at converting foodstuffs that are unavailable to us into proteins that we can use. Additionally, they require far less space than livestock and produce far fewer greenhouse gas emissions than cows.
But despite some obvious benefits, a quarter of a century later, customers in developed countries still aren’t eating flies or baking with beetles. The reason is obvious. More than 1,000 species of insects are eaten around the world, most commonly in the tropics, but Western societies generally do not eat “bugs.”
Like the bushtucker trial I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Eating insects is a repulsive idea to many people.
A piglet eats food made from black soldier fly larvae in the animal house at the University of Bologna. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato
Articles extolling the virtues of eating insects continue to appear frequently in the media. And while the headlines often feature shock values, authors are increasingly focusing on the ethical and climate-friendly aspects of insect farming.
If you look beyond the headline ‘Grasshoppers for Beginners’, you’ll quickly see that insects are already well-positioned to play a more important role in our food chain. Instead of eating fried grasshoppers with a side salad of mealworms, we’re developing better ways than ever to use insects as food for our favorite animals.
Insects could be a protein-rich game changer
The star of this insect animal feed revolution is the black soldier fly (Hermesia Illuscens). Adults are only about 16 mm (about 0.5 inches) long and resemble small, independent wasps. But soldier flies don’t have stingers and don’t sting, so this mimicry is just an evolutionary ploy.
A widely distributed species, the key to the black soldier fly’s importance is its larvae. This is because black soldier fly larvae are “non-selective” feeders. This is a polite way of saying that you will eat almost anything.
Black soldier fly larva. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato
They thrive on all kinds of food, from manure to animal and vegetable food waste. This property makes it excellent for waste disposal. For this alone, the flight of black soldiers is beneficial to us, but only before we turn them into animal feed.
The waste treatment process is called “ento remediation” and uses large chambers called bioconverters that house large numbers of black soldier fly larvae. These larvae consume food and other organic waste, producing soil-like organic residue that can be used as a rich fertilizer.
Inside the bioconverter, the larvae grow rapidly, and more than 50 percent of the weight they gain is protein. Once they reach the pupal stage (the stage of metamorphosis into an adult), they reach their nutritional peak. At this point, it has already helped convert the waste into fertilizer, which can be harvested and used as animal feed.
Bioconverter at the BEF Biosystem facility in Alessandria, Italy. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato
Insect animal feed can replace traditional animal feed, which often relies on soybean meal. Soybeans have a high environmental cost due to the land and water required to grow them and the resources required for transportation.
Although much of the research on animal feed production has focused on feeding livestock such as pigs and chickens, the black soldier fly is also attracting attention as a food source for farmed fish. Currently, the majority of feed for farmed fish often consists of fishmeal. Fishmeal is also used as livestock feed and is made by drying and crushing fish.
While this makes good use of fish parts we don’t eat and bycatch that can’t be returned to the ocean, fishmeal production can promote overfishing and the decline of fragile marine ecosystems.
Replacing fishmeal with sustainably farmed insects could revolutionize this important aspect of marine conservation.
Desert locusts (grasshoppers) raised for animal feed at the Italian Cricket Farm in Turin, Italy – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato
From pet food to human food
However, black fruit flies are not the only species raised as animal feed. Some species of locusts breed very well and are relatively easy to maintain.
Insects are small and do not require much space, so it is possible to keep them under strictly controlled conditions to optimize their growth and reproduction. Those who keep reptiles are probably familiar with house crickets (Aketa Domestic). These light brown crickets are widely grown as pet food, but their potential as a source of protein for livestock is also attracting attention.
These insects may also eventually become a more direct part of our diet. The Italian Cricket Farm in Turin, Italy, is investigating the possibility of processing crickets into a protein-rich “insect flour” that can be incorporated into our food products. Currently awaiting European food safety approval, it is precisely this type of processing that could become a culturally acceptable way for insects to enter our diets.
In fact, crickets are quite delicious even when eaten without being processed into flour. A few years ago I ran an insect-eating workshop at the Cheltenham Science Festival. At that time, a local chef prepared a series of dishes for people to try. Beer-battered fried brown crickets sandwiched between sage leaves were a snack that people tried at first out of curiosity, but were so delicious they returned within seconds.
After digesting organic waste at the BEF Biosystem facility in Alessandria, Italy, black soldier fly larvae are harvested and turned into animal feed. Digested organic waste is used as soil fertilizer – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato
Cricket farms in Italy produce around 200,000 crickets a year, which can be scaled up relatively easily. The production efficiency of crickets is amazing. Every 1 kg (2.2 lb) of crickets requires only 1.7 kg (3.7 lb) of feed to produce. Compare this to the 10 kg (22 lb) of feed required to produce 1 kg of beef and the benefits are clear.
Additionally, the final product is incredibly nutritious, containing twice the protein of beef, as well as a variety of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and other nutrients.
Changing tastes and ethics
As with any new idea in food production, potential disadvantages must be carefully considered.
It is clear that what an animal eats can influence the quality of the meat that is subsequently produced. Research on this is ongoing, but data so far suggests that while insect diets can affect the fatty acid content of meat, these changes have no negative impact in terms of taste and are not noticeable. It has been shown that this is not the case.
Another important issue to ponder is the ethics of raising insects. Ethical concerns about animal use are complex and change in response to changes in society and our scientific understanding.
Over the past few decades, we have seen much higher welfare standards introduced into livestock farming than were thought necessary in the past, but many would argue that there is still a long way to go.
These welfare advances have focused primarily on mammals, secondarily on poultry, and to a lesser extent on fish. However, insects are not mentioned at all in ethical discussions about animal use.
Black soldier flies are kept in an “aviary” at the Bug’s Life farm in Perugia, Italy, to encourage breeding. – Photo credit: Luigi Avantaggiato
In fact, we tend to think that insects cannot feel pain or suffering. However, this view is beginning to change.
We are beginning to learn more about the internal world of insects, and are discovering that they may be able to feel what we perceive as pain. Although this is an emerging field of research, the conclusion is that we may need to rethink the way we think about insects in many cases.
Having said that, I think it is actually very unlikely that we will change our views until insects are given the same welfare measures as “traditional” farm animals. The biggest advantage of using insects for food, either directly or through animal feed, is that they are environmentally friendly.
Dredging oceans for fishmeal and growing soybeans for protein feed are environmentally harmful, associated with high carbon costs and habitat loss or degradation.
On the other hand, raising insects has the potential to significantly reduce environmental impact. They occupy less space, use fewer resources to produce more protein, can utilize waste produced by humans, and do not rely on habitat development or displacement.
Crane fly cakes and locust bread may not be on your plate anytime soon, but insect-raised pork, chicken and beef certainly will be. Maybe that article from 25 years ago was onto something after all. Insects may really be the future of food.
Researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered more than 100 uniquely evolved genes in the human brain, providing insight into human cognitive abilities. This study, using single-cell analysis, contributes to the Human Cell Atlas and provides new perspectives on brain evolution and associated diseases.
The researchers discovered 139 genes that are common across primate groups, but whose expression differs greatly in the human brain.
An international team led by researchers at the University of Toronto has discovered more than 100 genes that are common in primate brains but whose evolutionary divergence only occurred in humans. These genes may be the source of our unique cognitive abilities.
Researchers led by Associate Professor Jesse Gillis from the Donnelly Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and the Department of Physiology at Temerty University School of Medicine found that genes are expressed differently in the human brain compared to four of our relatives, including the chimpanzee, gorilla, macaque, and marmoset.
The survey results are natural ecology and evolution, suggesting that reduced selective pressure, or resistance to loss-of-function mutations, may have enabled the gene to acquire higher levels of cognitive ability. This research is part of the Human Cell Atlas, a global effort to map every human cell to better understand health and disease.
Comparative study of primate brains
“This study not only contributes to our understanding of brain differences between humans and other primates at a cellular level, but also creates a database that can be used to further characterize genetic similarities and differences between primates. I did,” Gillis said.
A team including researchers from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Allen Institute for Brain Science in the US created brain maps for each primate. seed It is based on single-cell analysis, a relatively new technology that allows for more specific gene sequencing than standard methods. They used the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) dataset, which was created from samples taken from the middle temporal gyrus of the brain.
Insights into cognitive evolution
In total, the researchers discovered 139 genes that are common across primate groups but are expressed very differently in the human brain. These genes exhibit a strong ability to tolerate mutations without affecting function, suggesting that they may have evolved under more relaxed selective pressures.
“Genes that diverge within humans must endure change,” says Hamsini Suresh, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Donnelly Center. “This appears to be a resistance to loss-of-function mutations, enabling rapid evolutionary changes in the human brain.”
Our advanced cognitive functions may be the result of human brain cells adaptively evolving into a number of less threatening mutations over time. It is also noteworthy that about a quarter of the human divergent genes identified in this study are associated with various brain diseases.
Brain cell types and gene expression
The diverse genes the researchers identified are present in 57 types of brain cells, grouped by inhibitory neurons, excitatory neurons, and non-neurons. A quarter of the genes were differentially expressed only within nerve cells, also known as gray matter, and half were differentially expressed only within glial cells, which are white matter.
The gray matter of the brain is made up of neurons, while the white matter is made up of other types of cells, such as those responsible for blood vessel structures and immune function.
Expanding the human cell atlas
This research is part of BICCN’s efforts to identify and catalog the diverse cell types in the brains of humans and other species. In 2021, the consortium published in Nature a comprehensive survey of cell types in the primary motor cortex of mice, monkeys, and humans. This effort is to shed light on the evolution of the brain by studying neurotransmission and communication at the highest resolution.
Evolution and disease research
“There are approximately 570,000 cells in the Interprimate Single Cell Atlas of the Middle Temporal Gyrus,” Suresh said. “Defining a catalog of shared cell types in this region of the brain provides a framework for investigating the conservation and divergence of cellular architecture across primate evolution.” , we can study evolution and disease in a more targeted way.”
Reference: “Comparative analysis of single-cell transcriptomes in primate brains reveals human-specific regulatory evolution” Hamsini Suresh, Megan Crow, Nikolas Jorstad, Rebecca Hodge, Ed Lein, Alexander Dobin, Trygve Bakken , by Jesse Gillis, September 4, 2023, natural ecology and evolution. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02186-7
This research was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health U.S. National Research Alliance on Schizophrenia and Depression.
One study found that AI-generated white faces were perceived as more realistic than real human faces, and there were significant differences in the realism of AI faces for people of color. This trend is believed to be due to bias in AI training, raising concerns about reinforcing racial bias and spreading misinformation. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
A study reveals that AI-generated white faces are more realistic than real human faces, raising concerns about potential racial bias and misinformation in AI technology.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has reached a point where white faces created by AI now appear more real than human faces, according to a study conducted by experts at the Australian National University (ANU).
This study found that more people perceived AI-generated white faces as human compared to real human faces, with a different outcome for images of people of color.
Dr. Amy Dowell, the lead author, explained that the disproportionate training of AI algorithms on white faces contributed to this disparity.
Impact of AI Realism
Dr. Dowell expressed concern about the potential impact of consistently perceiving white AI faces as more realistic, especially in reinforcing racial bias online and its impact on people of color.
This image was generated by AI, specifically Midjourney V5.2. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
Understanding AI “Hyperrealism”
Researchers pointed out the problem of AI’s “hyperrealism,” where people often mistake AI faces for real human faces without realizing it.
The study also identified physical differences between AI and human faces that people tend to misinterpret, highlighting the need for transparency in AI technology.
Potential Consequences
This trend has serious implications for the prevalence of misinformation and identity theft, and the researchers emphasize the importance of increasing transparency around AI technologies and raising public awareness. Source: Psychological Science, Journal of the Psychological Science Association.
Reference: “AI Hyperrealism: Why AI faces are perceived as more realistic than human faces” Elizabeth J. Miller, Ben A. Steward, Zach Witkower, Claire AM Sutherland, Eva G. Kramhuber , by Amy Dowell, November 12, 2023; Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/09567976231207095
The multidisciplinary team discovered that AI models, and Transformer in particular, process memories in a manner similar to the hippocampus in the human brain. This breakthrough suggests that applying neuroscience principles like NMDA receptors to AI can improve memory function, advance the field of AI, and provide insight into human brain function. doing. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
Researchers have discovered that memory consolidation processes in AI are similar to those in the human brain, particularly the hippocampus, opening the door to advances in AI and a deeper understanding of human memory mechanisms.
The interdisciplinary team, comprised of researchers from the Center for Cognition and Sociality and researchers from the Data Science Group within the Institute of Basic Sciences (IBS), will study memory processing in artificial intelligence (AI) models and the hippocampus and hippocampus of the human brain. revealed that there are striking similarities between the two. This new discovery provides a new perspective on memory consolidation, the process of converting short-term memory into long-term memory in AI systems.
Evolving AI through understanding human intelligence
Understanding and replicating human-like intelligence has become a key research focus in the race to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), led by influential organizations such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind. At the heart of these technological advances is the Transformer model. [Figure 1]its fundamental principles are now being explored in new depths.
Figure 1. (a) Diagram showing ion channel activity in a postsynaptic neuron. AMPA receptors are involved in the activation of postsynaptic neurons, while NMDA receptors are blocked by magnesium ions (Mg2⁺), whereas calcium ions (Ca2⁺) are activated when postsynaptic neurons are fully activated. Induces synaptic plasticity through influx. (b) Flow diagram representing the computational process within the Transformer AI model. Information is processed sequentially through stages such as feedforward layer, layer normalization, and self-attention layer. The graph showing the current vs. voltage relationship for the NMDA receptor is very similar to the nonlinearity of the feedforward layer. Input-output graphs based on magnesium concentration (α) show nonlinear changes in NMDA receptors.Credit: Basic Science Research Institute
Brain learning mechanism applied to AI
The key to powerful AI systems is understanding how they learn and remember information. The research team focused on the learning principles of the human brain, particularly memory consolidation via the NMDA receptors in the hippocampus, and applied them to the AI model.
NMDA receptors are like smart doors in the brain that facilitate learning and memory formation. The presence of a brain chemical called glutamate excites nerve cells. Magnesium ions, on the other hand, act as small gatekeepers that block the door. Only when this ionic gatekeeper steps aside can substances flow into the cell. This is the process by which the brain creates and retains memories, and the role of the gatekeeper (magnesium ions) in the whole process is very specific.
AI models that mimic human brain processes
The research team made an interesting discovery. The Transformer model appears to use a gatekeeping process similar to the brain’s NMDA receptors. [see Figure 1]. This discovery led the researchers to investigate whether the consolidation of Transformer memories could be controlled by a mechanism similar to the NMDA receptor gating process.
In animal brains, low magnesium levels are known to impair memory function. Researchers have discovered that mimicking NMDA receptors can improve long-term memory in transformers. Similar to the brain, where changes in magnesium levels affect memory, tweaking the transformer parameters to reflect NMDA receptor gating improved memory in the AI model. This breakthrough suggests that established knowledge from neuroscience can explain how AI models learn.
Expert insights on AI and neuroscience
“This research is an important step in the advancement of AI and neuroscience,” said C. Justin Lee, the institute’s director and neuroscientist. This will allow us to delve deeper into how the brain works and develop more advanced AI systems based on these insights.
CHA Meeyoung is a data scientist on the team. kaist
says, “The human brain is remarkable in that it operates on minimal energy, unlike large-scale AI models that require vast amounts of resources. It opens up new possibilities for low-cost, high-performance AI systems that learn and remember information.”
Fusion of cognitive mechanisms and AI design
What makes this work unique is its commitment to incorporating brain-inspired nonlinearity into AI structures, representing a significant advance in simulating human-like memory consolidation. The fusion of human cognitive mechanisms and AI design not only enables the creation of low-cost and high-performance AI systems, but also provides valuable insights into the workings of the brain through AI models.
Greater Honey Guide (indicator indicator)It is a type of African bird. well known To attract other species to the hive. They have even been known to collaborate with ratels, but their closest and most successful collaborators are humans. Several indigenous groups in Africa work with these birds throughout their range. Observing these interactions in Tanzania and Mozambique, scientists showed that honey guides were more responsive to the specific calls of their local honey-hunting partners compared to the calls of honey hunters in other regions. Ta. Honey guides therefore appear to learn the calls of their local partners, and honey hunters maintain these successful calls for generations.
Spottiswood and Wood experimentally showed that honeyguides in Tanzania and Mozambique distinguish between the calls of honeyhunters and are more likely to respond to local calls than to foreign calls. Image credit: Brian Wood.
The animal kingdom is full of interactions between species, but systems in which humans can successfully cooperate with wild animals are rare.
One such relationship involves the greater honeyguide, a small African bird known for guiding humans to wild bee hives.
Humans open the hive to collect honey, and bees eat the exposed beeswax.
Human honey hunters in different parts of Africa may use specialized and culturally distinct calls to signal their search for a honey guide partner and to maintain cooperation while following guided birds. It happens often.
For example, the honey hunters of the Yao culture group in northern Mozambique use a loud trill followed by a grunt (“brrr-hm”).
In contrast, the Honey Hunters of the Hadza cultural group of northern Tanzania use melodic flutes.
These successful calls have been maintained in these groups for generations.
In a series of field experiments across these disciplines, Dr. Claire Spottiswood of the University of Cambridge and the University of Cape Town, and Dr. Brian Wood of the University of California, Los Angeles and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, found that the ecology of honeyguides is We investigated whether it is good or not. They tend to respond more to the signals of their local human culture than to signals from another culture or any human sounds.
The authors found that honeyguides in the Yao region were more than three times more likely to initiate an induced response to honeyguides. Yao’s unique cry than Hadza’s whistle.
Conversely, honey guides in the Hadza region were more than three times more likely to respond to Hadza whistles than to Yao bloom sounds.
“It’s such a privilege to witness the collaboration between people and honeyguides, especially the birds that come looking for us,” Dr Spottiswoode said.
“Their calls sound exactly like a conversation between a bird and a bee as they travel together towards the beehive.”
According to the authors, the geographic variation and coordination between signals and responses observed in this behavioral system suggests that cultural coevolution has occurred between honeyguides and humans.
“What’s remarkable about the relationship between honey guides and humans is that interactions with humans involve free-living wild animals that have probably evolved through hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection,” Dr. Spottiswood said.
“Through learning, this ancient and evolved behavior was refined to fit local cultural traditions, or different human calls.”
“Our research demonstrates the ability of this bird to learn unique vocal signals traditionally used by various honey-hunting communities, opening up possibilities for mutually beneficial cooperation with people.” ,” Dr. Wood said.
Regarding this research, paper in a diary science.
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Claire N. Spottiswood and Brian M. Wood. 2023. Culturally determined interspecies communication between humans and honey guides. science 382 (6675): 1155-1158; doi: 10.1126/science.adh4129
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