Marmosets use specific vocal labels to address other individual members of their species. When researchers separated pairs of marmosets with a barrier, they found that they used distinct ‘phee calls’ for the monkey on the other side.

Besides humans (who can also speak in an ancient bird language like this unusual village in Turkey), only dolphins and elephants have been recorded using similar labels for their fellow animals:

“We think that this behavior is important for [marmosets’] social cohesion and therefore it’s crucial for their survival,” says neuroscientist and co-author David Omer.

Omer published his research in Science, along with a team of researchers from the Hebrew University. The researchers, led by graduate student Guy Oren, recorded natural conversations between pairs of marmosets, as well as interactions between monkeys and a computer system. They found that these monkeys use their “phee-calls” to address specific individuals.

Even more interestingly, the marmosets could discern when a call was directed at them and responded more accurately when it was.

“This discovery highlight the complexity of social communication among marmosets,” explains Omer. “These calls are not just used for self-localization, as previously thought— marmosets use these specific calls to label and address specific individuals”.

The study revealed that family members within a marmoset group use similar vocal labels to address different individuals and employ similar sound features to code different names, resembling the use if names and dialects in humans.

This learning appears to occur even among adult marmosets who are not related by blood, suggesting that they learn both vocal labels and dialect from other members of their family group.

“Marmosets live in small monogamous family groups and take care of their young together, much like humans do,” says Omer. “These similarities suggest that they faced comparable evolutionary social challenges to our early pre-linguistic ancestors, which might have led them to develop similar communicating methods.”

This research provide new insights into how social communication and human language might have evolved. The ability of marmosets to label each other with specific calls suggests they have developed complex brain mechanisms, potentially analogous to those that eventually gave rise to language in humans.

The post Call me by your marmoset name appeared first on Green Prophet.

The Nesher Ramla Homo type was an ancestor of both the Neanderthals in Europe and the archaic Homo populations of Asia

Humans as we are today are quite different from our stalky Neanderthal cousins. But how did we evolve from them to us? Archaeologists from Israel have found the missing link.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified a new type of early human at what’s called the Nesher Ramla site, dating from 140,000 to 120,000 years ago.

According to the researchers, the morphology of the Nesher Ramla humans shares features with both Neanderthals (especially the teeth and jaws) and archaic Homo (specifically the skull). At the same time, this type of Homo is very unlike modern humans – displaying a completely different skull structure, no chin, and very large teeth.

Following the study’s findings, researchers believe that the Nesher Ramla Homotype is the ‘source’ population from which most humans of the Middle Pleistocene developed. They suggest that this group is the so-called ‘missing’ population that mated with Homo sapiens who arrived in the region around 200,000 years ago.

Two teams of researchers took part in the dramatic discovery, published in the prestigious Science journal: an anthropology team from Tel Aviv University headed by Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, Dr. Hila May and Dr. Rachel Sarig from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research and the Shmunis Family Anthropology Institute, situated in the Steinhardt Museum at Tel Aviv University; and an archaeological team headed by Dr. Yossi Zaidner from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Prof. Israel Hershkovitz:  “The discovery of a new type of Homo” is of great scientific importance. It enables us to make new sense of previously found human fossils, add another piece to the puzzle of human evolution, and understand the migrations of humans in the old world. Even though they lived so long ago, in the late middle Pleistocene (474,000-130,000 years ago), the Nesher Ramla people can tell us a fascinating tale, revealing a great deal about their descendants’ evolution and way of life.”

The important human fossil was found by Dr. Zaidner of the Hebrew University during salvage excavations at the Nesher Ramla prehistoric site, in the mining area of the Nesher cement plant near the city of Ramla. 

Digging down about 8 meters, the excavators found large quantities of animal bones, including horses, fallow deer and aurochs, as well as stone tools and human bones. An international team led by the researchers from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem identified the morphology of the bones as belonging to a new type of Homo, previously unknown to science. This is the first type of Homo to be defined in Israel, and according to common practice, it was named after the site where it was discovered – the Nesher Ramla Homo type.

Dr. Yossi Zaidner: “This is an extraordinary discovery. We had never imagined that alongside Homo sapiens, archaic Homo roamed the area so late in human history. The archaeological finds associated with human fossils show that “Nesher Ramla Homo” possessed advanced stone-tool production technologies and most likely interacted with the local Homo sapiens”. 

The culture, way of life, and behavior of the Nesher Ramla Homo are discussed in a companion paper also published in Science journal today. 

Prof. Hershkovitz adds that the discovery of the Nesher Ramla Homo type challenges the prevailing hypothesis that the Neanderthals originated in Europe.

“Before these new findings,” he says, “most researchers believed the Neanderthals to be a ‘European story’, in which small groups of Neanderthals were forced to migrate southwards to escape the spreading glaciers, with some arriving in the Land of Israel about 70,000 years ago.

“The Nesher Ramla fossils make us question this theory, suggesting that the ancestors of European Neanderthals lived in the Levant as early as 400,000 years ago, repeatedly migrating westward to Europe and eastward to Asia. In fact, our findings imply that the famous Neanderthals of Western Europe are only the remnants of a much larger population that lived here in the Levant – and not the other way around.”

The post Chinless, missing “source” between humans and Neandrethals found in Israel appeared first on Green Prophet.

New research by Hebrew University of Jerusalem details the complex mathematical calculations that animals perform to locate their next meal. Turns out that even the simple earthworm constantly computes new scent data to see if they are on right track to food. Can humans learn from these tubular hermaphrodites?

Animals often rely on their sense of smell to locate food, and the ability to consistently find food increases survival rates. But how exactly do animal brains translate scent into navigational action? Neuro-geneticist Alon Zaslaver and his team tackled this topic, with their findings published this week in Nature Communications.

Think of the game “Hot or Cold” said Zaslaver in a statement released by the university. “Imagine you’re in a huge dark house and a chocolate cake has just been taken out of the oven. To find the cake, you’ll probably sniff around to see what direction the cake scent is coming from and begin walking in that direction.”

Worms use this same strategy in their hunt for food, but with an added twist. As explained by Shoshanna Solomon in the Times of Israel, a neural cell picks up the food scent and sets the worm on a course of travel. The neural cell remains active and directs the worm to keep moving forward, as the scent intensity keeps getting stronger. If the scent is lost, the cell instructs the worm to stop and look for a better path.

Now a second neural cell activates, operating much like a your car’s navigational device, “recalculating route”  to keep the worm on the right route. This second cell calculates odor intensity, constantly computing data to detect whether the odor is getting stronger or weaker. Negative indicators prompt recalculations, positive ones reinforce forward travel.

This combination is a winning one, according to Zaslaver and Hebrew University graduate students Eyal Itskovits and Rotem Ruach. The two-part system of charting a course based on an initial scent measurement and then conducting followup checks to validate progress towards goal is a smart and effective method in the search for food, they said.

“These worms teach us an important lesson,” Zaslaver said, “When looking to solve a problem, a quick solution is often attractive. However, we need a backup system in place that monitors whether we are indeed moving in the ‘right’ direction, even if that new path differs from the one we originally set out on.”

Image: C. elegans worm performing a math calculation by Alon Zaslaver/Hebrew University

The post Israeli study show worms can perform math appeared first on Green Prophet.

Unless you are a really big fan of tornadoes and hailstorms, it’s time to ditch the car (or at least carpool), grab a bus, or pick up your bicycle.

For so long scientists were reluctant to draw relationships between increased pollutants in our atmosphere and certain climate change events. Bill McKibben and others started warning us decades ago, but even the slightest slip up and those unwilling to accept that human beings have altered the planet’s weather mechanism close in on researchers who typically have nothing to profit from their work.

Which may explain why it has taken this long for scientists to conclude that tornados and hailstorms are more likely to occur (in wet countries) when pollution levels are high. It’s not clear that knowledge alone will save us from climate change, but we have to give it a try.

Stormy weather

According to the National Geographic, “Scientists analyzed summertime storm activity in the eastern U.S. from 1995 to 2009 using data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center.”

They discovered in the densely populated eastern United States that hailstorms and tornadoes are 20% more likely to occur in the middle of the week. And then on the weekend, the chance that storms will occur drops by 20%.

These findings are “statistically significant” and  in line with other storm cycles, according to the study.

Mid-week woes

The research group then analyzed data from the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which shows that air quality deteriorates in the middle of the week when more cars are on the road, and improves on the weekend when traffic is considerably reduced.

Although increased pollutants in the atmosphere cause heavy storms in the Eastern United States, the same phenomenon has the opposite effect in dry areas.

Ditch the car

According to a press release issued by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which worked with University of Maryland researchers, “increases in air pollution and other particulate matter in the atmosphere can strongly affect cloud development in ways that reduce precipitation in cool and relatively dry regions, such as Israel in winter, but can also increase rain and the intensity of severe storms in warm and moist regions or season.”

Few studies have shown so unequivocally the direct relationship between fossil-powered vehicles and weather events, giving us yet another reason to ditch the cars, catch a bus or train, or pick up our bicycles.

:: National Geographic

image via Fanndango, Morguefile

More on climate change:

Can Knowledge Save us from Climate Change?

Wintertime Droughts Increase Due to Climate Change

#COP17Fail: Climate Change is a One Size Fits All Problem

The post It’s Official: Pollution Contributes to Tornadoes and Hailstorms appeared first on Green Prophet.

You would be forgiven for thinking that Green Prophet has some kind of illicit connection with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem given all the attention we’re giving them this week. Professor Oded Shoseyov from there developed Ashpoopie – a real-life version of “Vapoorizer” that turns animal and human poop into ash within seconds, and yesterday we learned that Ph.D student Shaul Lapidot has invented a new eco-friendly industrial foam comprised of the discards of paper mills, cutting down on both paper waste and fossil fuel consumption in one fell swoop.

Runaway mill

Paper mills are inherently inefficient: smaller than the forming fabric mesh, 50% of the fibers used are washed away as sludge resulting in an accumulation of 11 million tons of paper waste in Europe alone.

Lapidot has discovered that these waste fibers are perfect for the production of nano-crystalline cellulose (NCC) which gives the foam the same kind of industrial strength associated with conventional foams.

PET be gone

Used to make furniture and car interiors, most foams on the market are made from polymers such as polyurethane, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene terphthalate (PET) – strong petroleum-based materials that reinforce our addiction to fossil fuels.

Mixed with furan resin, a byproduct of raw crop production such as sugar cane and oat hulls, the NCC-foam becomes even stronger, without causing undue environmental harm.

In fact, this product has the ability to clean up paper sludge and reduce our consumption of harmful plastics.

Melodea Ltd., an Israeli-Swedish startup, hopes to manufacture and sell Lapidot’s award-winning invention on an industrial scale. We hope that in time, there will emerge even more applications for the latest green material to emerge from the Middle East.

More on green materials:

Egypt May Survive Climate Change Thanks to AUC Students

Ecco Ukka Weaves Love, Magic, and Recycled Materials into Fabric Jewelry

Foster & Partners Finishes Gorgeous Green Building in Morocco

The post Axing Paper Waste and Nasty PET in One Fell Bio-Foam appeared first on Green Prophet.

Given the choice between a roach-free house or one filled with scattering critters, most people will take the former. But in some parts of the Middle East, such as the UAE, pests are becoming more pernicious – attributed to rising temperatures and deepening the challenge to get rid of them.

Unfortunately, chemical concoctions used to exterminate pests can be harmful to their “unintended targets,” such as cats, dogs, and pregnant women. So the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s recent findings – that pregnant women in Israel’s capital had high levels of various pesticides in their plasma and urine – is particularly alarming.

Although certain pesticides have proven to be harmful to the neurodevelopment of laboratory animals and humans, to date, no one in Israel has studied their effects on pregnant women. So the Hebrew University collected plasma and urine samples from twenty pregnant Jerusalemites.

Their urine samples were tested for levels of organophosphates (OP) and insecticide metabolites, while their plasma was used to determine OP concentrations. Demographic details were also collected in order to determine what kinds of products the participants were using.

Then, using the Mann-Whitney U-test, the researchers compared the “geometric mean concentrations.”

What essentially emerged is that the creatnine-adjusted total dimethyl (DM) metabolite concentrations were on average four to six times higher than in pregnant American women. It also turns out that women with graduate degrees (smarter?) had greater mean concentrations than lesser educated women.

The mean plasma concentration of bendiocarb and chlorpyrifos (the former responsible for “acute effects” to non-target species and the latter potentially responsible for disturbances in cells’ ability to manage calcium – according to the Dept. of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Washington) was roughly four times higher than amounts present in American women tested for the same.

Although 63% of women surveyed had recently used pesticides and 26% had used them within one month of testing, scientists are unable to speculate why the concentrations are so much higher in Israel than in NYC or the Netherlands.

However, they do raise concerns that pregnant Jerusalemites may not be properly protected from pesticides, after discovering that one woman who was moved from laboratory to administrative work upon becoming pregnant still had considerable levels of pesticide floating through her body.

:: PMID

More pesticide news from the Middle East:

Israeli Company Makhteshim-Agan Industries Invests $1 Billion in Pesticides

High Incidence of Parkinson’s Disease in Baqa al-Gharbiyeh Linked to Pesticide Exposure

Make Bugs, Not Pesticides

image via superbez

The post Pesticides In Pregnant Jerusalemites Higher Than NYC Counterparts appeared first on Green Prophet.