Category: Week 1 (Page 1 of 2)

Alloparenting, which is the caring for non-filial young, has been observed in mammal and bird species.  Since sea lion pups have the ability to recognize their mothers and show a strong preference for them, it is likely that incidents of non-filial nursing represent adoption of orphaned pups by females who have miscarried or lost pups.  Adoption events lower  the pup mortality rate and contribute to greater population persistence.   In this study, scientists used markings on pups and took biopsies of the females while they were nursing in order to identify mismatched female-pup genotypes.  It was found that mismatched female-pup pairs accounted for less than 6% of nursing pairs in San Jorge Island.  In Los Islotes Island, however, non-filial pairs accounted for over 17% of the female-pup pairs.  Adoption is the most likely cause for mismatch pairs among these populations.

Source: Flatz, R., & Gerber, L. R. (2010). First Evidence for Adoption in California Sea Lions. PLoS ONE, 5(11).

This research article discussed a new method of gaining long-term information about lemurs, specifically the red-bellied lemur. This new method is known as LemurFace ID: a system that recognizes individual lemurs in the wild. This system was proven to have a high accuracy rate. It removed previous limitation that tagging and manual identification had. LemurFace ID was shown to be safer for the animals and helped researchers learn about the evolution of lemurs more accurately. Once enhanced, this system could be a cheaper way to observe multiple animals, not just lemurs.

Citation:

Baden, Andrea, Crouse, David, Jacobs, Rachel L, Jain, Anil, Klum, Scott, Richardson, Zach, & Teacot, Stacey. “LemurFaceID: a face recognition system to facilitate individual identification of lemurs.” BMC Zoology, BioMed Central, 17 Feb. 2017, bmczool.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40850-016-0011-9. Accessed 29 Aug. 2017.

The article I chose is “Coseasonal sublingual immunotherapy reduces the development of asthma in children with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis.” The objective of this article is to determine the effects of Coseasonal sublingual immunotherapy on the development of asthma in children who have seasonal allergies to pollen. The researchers took one hundred thirteen children who were allergic to environmental factors such as grass pollen and had them receive immunotherapy for the standard 3 years. 59 children were apart of the control group (they received a placebo) and 53 children actually received the immunotherapy. The children who received the immunotherapy showed a significant decrease in the amount of asthma attacks experienced throughout the year as compared to the control group. The experiment was conducted with the informed consent of the parents of the children.

CItation:

Elio, N. (2004, October). Coseasonal sublingual immunotherapy reduces the development of asthma in children with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Retrieved August 29, 2017

Lo, J. C., Chong, P. H., Ganesan, S., Leong, R. F., & Chee, M. L. (2016). Sleep deprivation increases formation of false memory. Journal of Sleep Research, 25(6), 673-682.

The researchers’ objective was to determine what effect sleep deprivation of healthy young adults and adolescents had on the formation of false memories. They found that sleep deprived individuals were more likely to incorporate false information when retrieving memories than those who were well rested.

This article was about building resilience in adults. A lot of studies about resilience study children, but this article discusses the need for it in adults. Middle aged people face setbacks all the time and being able to cope and bounce back is important, thus building resilience is important. Essentially, there is a “resilience muscle” that we have to exercise by practicing healthy stress management skills in our day to day lives.

Source:

PARKER-POPE, TARA. “How to Build Resilience in Midlife.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 July 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/well/mind/how-to-boost-resilience-in-midlife.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FPsychology and Psychologists&action=click&contentCollection=health®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=collection. Accessed 29 Aug. 2017.

The effects of peer-delivered interventions on clinical and psychosocial outcomes for people with serious mental illness and depression were evaluated through the use of superiority trials (Peer-delivered interventions and psychiatric care vs. psychiatric care only) and equivalence trials (peer-delivered interventions vs. mental health professional delivered interventions). Systematic review and meta-analysis showed that peer-delivered intervention positively influenced the clinical and psychosocial outcomes of patients with serious mental illness, but had no effect on patients with depression. Additionally, patients who engaged in peer-delivered interventions were no better or worse off than their counterparts who met with professionals in equivalence trials.

Fuhr, D., Salisbury, T. T., De Silva, M., Atif, N., van Ginneken, N., Rahman, A., & Patel, V. (2014). Effectiveness of peer-delivered interventions for severe mental illness and depression on clinical and psychosocial outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatry Epidemiology, 49, 1691-1702. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4167169/

The article entitled, “Correction of a pathogenic gene mutation in human embryos,” seeks to answer how a disease-causing gene mutation in human embryos can be corrected using specific methods of genetic engineering. Using a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR, the scientists were able to remove a dangerous mutation—called the MYBPC3 mutation—that causes Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a type of heart disease, and create mutation-free zygotes. The researchers used 75 zygotes in which the father had a mutation on the MYBPC3 gene, while the eggs used in the experiment lacked that mutation. What stood out in this experiment was that the zygotes replaced the harmful gene with a healthy gene from the mother, rather than using the healthy DNA template introduced by the scientists. 

Ma, Hong. (2017). Correction of a pathogenic gene mutation in human embryos. Nature, pp. 413-419. < https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v548/n7668/pdf/nature23305.pdf >

The article titled “RTSMate: Towards an Advice System for RTS Games” by Renato Luiz de Freitas Cunha, Marlos C. Machado, and Luiz Chaimowicz explores the creation of an artificial intelligence system that advises players when playing real-time strategy games. The researchers question how effective artificial intelligence is in improving players’ gameplay and decision-making in real-time strategy. This question is tested through the creation of their own AI, which analyzes several resources the player has and uses this information to come up with recommended decisions or actions the player can take to win. They found that players who used their AI named RTSMate won more games than when they did not use it.

Freitas Cunha, Renato Luiz de,  Machado, Marlos C., and Chaimowicz, Luiz . (December 2014). RTSMate: Towards an Advice System for RTS Games. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 11(4), Article 1. Retrieved from http://delivery.acm.org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/

 Edit: fixed citations.

Within this study researchers explored the behavior of the orb spider after its web incurred damage from the wind.  The repair process of the orb spider was evaluated for its effectiveness of restoring the original structure and the behavior of the orb spider in response to wind damage, including response time as well as anticipation of damage, was analyzed. It was concluded that the spiders reacted to the damage of their webs through the same sequence of actions, resulting in a stronger web structure post-construction, and that spiders responded quickly to the damage caused by the winds, lending credibility to the idea that the spiders adapted to the windy environment.

Tew, Adamson, & Hesselberg. (2015). The web repair behaviour of an orb spider. Animal Behaviour, 103, 137-146.