Multimodal signals: enhancement and constraint of song motor patterns by visual display

Many birds perform visual signals during their learned songs, but little is known about the interrelationship between visual and vocal displays. We show here that male brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) synchronize the most elaborate wing movements of their display with atypically long silent periods in their song, potentially avoiding adverse biomechanical effects on sound production. Furthermore, expiratory effort for song is significantly reduced when cowbirds perform their wing display. These results show a close integration between vocal and visual displays and suggest that constraints and synergistic interactions between the motor patterns of multimodal signals influence the evolution of birdsong.     

Grafts of fetal dopamine neurons survive and improve motor function in Parkinson's disease

Neural transplantation can restore striatal dopaminergic neurotransmission in animal models of Parkinson's disease. It has now been shown that mesencephalic dopamine neurons, obtained from human fetuses of 8 to 9 weeks gestational age, can survive in the human brain and produce marked and sustained symptomatic relief in a patient severely affected with idiopathic Parkinson's disease. The grafts, which were implanted unilaterally into the putamen by stereotactic surgery, restored dopamine synthesis and storage in the grafted area, as assessed by positron emission tomography with 6-L-[18F]fluorodopa. This neurochemical change was accompanied by a therapeutically significant reduction in the patient's severe rigidity and bradykinesia and a marked diminuation of the fluctuations in the patient's condition during optimum medication (the "on-off" phenomenon). The clinical improvement was most marked on the side contralateral to the transplant.     

Dentary-squamosal joint and the origin of mammals

The dentary-squamosal jaw joint evolved more than once in advanced cynodont therapsids or their descendants, probably as a buttress against the reaction force created at the articulation by the adductor jaw musculature. The multiple origin of this joint suggests that additional criteria are required to separate early mammals from advanced therapsids.     

Ammonium ion concentration in the primitive ocean

If ion exchange on clay minerals regulated the cationts in the primitive ocean as it does in the present ocean, the pH would have been 8 and the K(+) concentration 0.01M. Since NH(4)(+) and K(+) are similar in their claymineral equilibria, the maximum NH(4) (+) concentration in the primitive ocean would also have been 0.01M. An estimate of the minimum NH(4)(+) concentratin is 1 x 10(-3)M, based on the reversible deamination of aspartic acid and the assumption that aspartic acid is necessary for the origin of life. The rate of this nonenzymic deamnination is rapid on the geological time scale.     

Neotropical mammals and the myth of amazonian biodiversity

Data were compiled on the distribution of mammal taxa (883 species, 242 genera, 45 families, and 10 orders) among South America's six major macrohabitats: lowland Amazon forest, western montane forests, Atlantic rain forest, upland semideciduous forest, southern mesophytic forest, and drylands. The drylands are the richest area in numbers of species supported and are more diverse than the other habitats, including the lowland Amazon rain forest, when endemics are considered. An analysis of number of endemic and nonendemic taxa versus size of area found a simple positive linear relationship: the drylands, almost twice as extensive as the Amazon lowlands, support more endemic taxa. Conservation plans that emphasize the wet tropics and fail to consider the drylands as special repositories of mammal diversity will be unable to preserve a significant number of novel taxa.     

A primitive enantiornithine bird and the origin of feathers

A fossil enantiornithine bird, Protopteryx fengningensis gen. et sp. nov., was collected from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Northern China. It provides fossil evidence of a triosseal canal in early birds. The manus and the alular digit are long, as in Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis, but are relatively short in other enantiornithines. The alula or bastard wing is attached to an unreduced alular digit. The two central tail feathers are scalelike without branching. This type of feather may suggest that modern feathers evolved through the following stages: (i) elongated scale, (ii) central shaft, (iii) barbs, and finally (iv) barbules and barbicel.     

Laonastes and the "Lazarus effect" in recent mammals

The living Laotian rodent Laonastes aenigmamus, first described in early 2005, has been interpreted as the sole member of the new family Laonastidae on the basis of its distinctive morphology and apparent phylogenetic isolation from other living rodents. Here we show that Laonastes is actually a surviving member of the otherwise extinct rodent family Diatomyidae, known from early Oligocene to late Miocene sites in Pakistan, India, Thailand, China, and Japan. Laonastes is a particularly striking example of the "Lazarus effect" in Recent mammals, whereby a taxon that was formerly thought to be extinct is rediscovered in the extant biota, in this case after a temporal gap of roughly 11 million years.     

Quantitative analysis of evolution of the brain in mammals

Empirical equations derived from brain size (E) and body size (P) of archaic-Eocene, Oligocene, and Recent mammals were all of the form, E = kP(2/3); k = 0.03 for the Eocene, 0.06 for the Oligocene, and 0.12 for the Recent groups. It is suggested that k, which has been used as an index of cephalization in contemporary mammals, may be an appropriate measure of brain evolution in the mammals as a class.     

Organ weights in primates and other mammals

In mammals the weight of the heart, kidney, lungs, and other organs can be related to total body weight through power laws (allometry). Weights of primate organs are analyzed by this technique. Allometric coefficients and size-independent organ-weight or body-form ratios may be used to compare primates, including humans, and other mammals.     

三七总皂苷对大鼠脊髓损伤后GS的表达及运动功能恢复的影响

目的探讨三七总皂苷(total panax notoginseng saponins,TPNS)对大鼠脊髓半横断损伤后运动功能恢复的作用以及对谷氨酰胺合成酶(glutaminesynthetase,GS)表达的影响。方法将大鼠随机分为正常组、溶媒对照组和TPNS组,实验组大鼠建立脊髓半横断模型,TPNS组损伤处为脊髓右侧T10段。损伤后15 min,腹腔注射剂量为20 mg/kg的三七总皂苷,每天给药1次,溶媒对照组注射等量生理盐水。术后1、3、7、14、21、28 d进行行为学指标检测;采用免疫生物化学方法检测脊髓损伤远侧端GS表达的变化。结果行为学结果表明,该浓度的三七总皂苷能促进大鼠脊髓损伤后运动功能的恢复,其中损伤后7 d和14 d的BBB评分表明,三七总皂苷组大鼠运动功能恢复程度明显高于溶媒对照组。免疫组化结果表明脊髓半横断损伤后,在损伤脊髓远侧端GS的表达损伤侧强于对侧,损伤侧GS的表达趋势为1、3 d逐渐增强,7 d达高峰,在14 d时GS的表达逐渐下降,至28 d仍略高于正常组。三七总皂苷组和溶媒对照组相比,GS的表达在相同时间点优于对照组,尤其是3 d和7 d。结论三七总皂苷促进大鼠脊髓损伤后运动功能的恢复,这可能与其促进GS表达,从而改善脊髓再生的微环境有关。     

Calibration of the beginning of the age of mammals in patagonia

Beds of the Rio Chico Formation containing the earliest known land mammals in Patagonia, southern Argentina, were calibrated by potassium-argon age determinations and paleomagnetic polarity data. The Riochican land mammal age encompasses the middle and late Paleocene and corresponds in time with Torrejonian and Tiffanian land mammal faunas in North America.     

Evidence of the growth plate and the growth of long bones in juvenile dinosaurs

Histological and ultrastructural evaluation of the ends of long bones of juvenile dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of Montana revealed the preservation of growth plates. Growth plates are discs of cartilage present near the ends of growing long bones that generate bone elongation. Comparison of the fossils with modern taxa demonstrated homology of the growth plate in birds and dinosaurs. The presence of an avian-type growth plate in dinosaurs adds a shared derived anatomical character corroborating inclusion of birds within the Dinosauria. Additionally, possession of a growth plate, which in birds is capable of producing rapid determinate long bone growth, implies that an avian developmental pattern may have been present in these dinosaurs.