Science news, Anthropology, Physics, Agriculture - Scicornwall

Facial Reconstruction Will Soon Be A Quick And Easy Process

A researcher from the Physical Anthropological Laboratory of the University of Granada has created the most complete database to date to identify human remains and bodies in the advanced states of decomposition using a 3d computerised technique for facial reconstruction. The method will reduce the time and cost associated with the identification process and will almost dismiss the need to perform expensive DNA testing. This is because the facial reconstruction will give additional details that can be used to decide whether is is necessary to carry out a DNA test or not

Thanks to Lorena Valencia Caballero , the author of this technique, forensic doctors will be able to determine the general and individual facial features of the person. Miguel Botella López , the director of the Physical Anthropological Laboratory, has led this study; and since it has produced a complete database, the researchers are now looking for a company or research group to develop the relevant computer software.

Check out this video from Science News site of the UGR

Electrocution Shows Moths Remember Their Caterpillar Memories

Recently scientists trained tobacco hornworm caterpillars to avoid a nail polish-like odor delivered in association with a mild shock in the lab. After the caterpillar entered the pupal stage and changed into a moth they still avoided the nail-polish odor, this showing that they retained the memory of their youth.

"We concluded that indeed the association does persist and is accessible to the adults in this artificial scenario," said study senior author Martha Weiss, a biologist at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The finding also supports the idea that a piece of the caterpillar brain persists through metamorphosis, she added.

Scientists have long wondered whether memory could survive the dramatic reorganization of the moth brain during metamorphosis, Weiss noted. "The transition from a caterpillar to a moth or butterfly is really very dramatic," she said. For example, caterpillars and moths move, eat, and sense the world differently—not to mention appear nothing alike. (see previous post: Bird Poop Bugs)

Caterpillars younger than three weeks old learned to avoid the nail-polish odor but could not recall the information as adults. However caterpillars trained to avoid the nail-polish odor in the final stages before puation retained the lessons.

Larvae trained during the mid stage of caterpillars growth showed that in the final stages before pupation, they would avoid the odor. However this was not the case when they grew to moth adults.

The research may help explain how adult female moths that can eat a variety of food choose to lay their eggs on the same type of plant they fed on as larvae. If the moths retain some memories from their larval stage, as this research shows, then they could remember what they ate as "kids."

Study author Weiss describes it as an "if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for my kids" type of selection. 

Old Growth Crystals shows planetary evolution record

Three billion year old zircon microcrystals found in Ontario are proving to be a new record of the processes that formed continents and their natural resources, including gold and diamonds.

The recent discovery was made by an international team of researchers led by Earth Sciences professor Desmond Moser at The University of Western Ontario. Measuring no more than the width of a human hair, the 200-million-year growth span of these ancient microcrystals is longer than any previously discovered.

The findings provide a new record of planetary evolution and contradict previous experimental predictions that the crystals would change when exposed to heat and pressure upon burial in the deep Earth. Instead, they have an incredible 'memory' of their time below volcanoes, of transport to the shores of ancient oceans and of their
burial beneath now-extinct mountain ranges billions of years before the time of dinosaurs.

Containing trace amounts of uranium, the crystals continued to grow over hundreds of millions of years, even as the planet evolved and underwent a series of dramatic shifts. "The oldest pieces of our planet are crystals of zircon," says Moser. "These crystals are the memory cells of the Earth and with our study we can now say they are an accurate recorder of planetary evolution over eons -- in the same way that rings on an old tree can record changes in a forest over hundreds of years."

Keeping with the tree analogy, Moser found that these crystals had roughly circular growth zones that he was able to date and analyze with specialized equipment, ion probes. These zones track the formation of the early North American continent, from its beginning as a series of volcanic island chains, to its eventual fusion into a large, thick continental plate that became the core of North America.

As the crystals formed around the same time as gold, diamond and other metal deposits, this research provides not only insight into the formation of Earth itself, it can also help answer the question, "Did plate tectonics operate early in our planet's history or did some other process create the large metal and diamond deposits of the Canadian Shield?" "It also provides a new tool for dating the appearance of oceans on other rocky planets like Mars, where Rover results indicate zircon crystals should exist" says Moser.

Over the course of millions of years, the crystals have been pushed back to the surface from depths of 30 kilometres by a series of pushes on the edges of the original continent, which give us globally-rare exposures in northern Ontario. "It's not every day you find a piece of the deep Earth that you can walk around on and explore," Moser says.

Moser's findings are further detailed in the March issue of Geology, published by the Geological Society of America.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Western Ontario.