Scientists show how the brain "reads" nouns

A new study in Science says the human brain links persons, places and things (think: nouns) with their associated actions. That is, says study co-author Marcel Just, a Carnegie Mellon University psychologist, "an apple is what you do with it," and, so, when you see the word "apple," the brain processes it in regions that control what one ordinarily does with it: taste, smell or chew. Researchers uncovered this little nugget by scanning the brains of nine subjects as they thought about 60 nouns ranging from different parts of the body to fruits and vegetables. Those nouns had been categorized according the verbs most associated with them in the English language, be it eat, run, pull or whatever. "Door," for instance, would be associated with push, pull or open. The team fed the semantic links, along with the associated fMRI data, into a computer algorithm and was able to correctly predict 77 percent of the time how a person's brain scan would look when presented with certain new nouns.

Using baking soda to spot cancer earlier

It's supposed to be good for scrubbing your teeth and keeping your fridge sweet smelling. But now researchers from the University of Cambridge report in Nature that they used sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) to locate malignant tumors in mice. The finding paves the way for a new, noninvasive way of detecting tumors earlier, potentially sparing thousands of lives. The way it works: bicarbonate, an alkaline, rushes to areas in the body that are unnaturally acidic—including cancer cells—to try to balance them. Cancer cells release carbon dioxide when exposed to bicarbonate, which reduces the acidity. Knowing this, the researchers injected diseased mice with baking soda and were able to pinpoint tumors by their CO2 release, which was captured by an MRI machine 20,000 times more powerful than those commonly used. Study co-author and Cambridge biochemist Kevin Brindle told the BBC that the new technique also holds promise for showing how well tumors are responding to treatment. Human clinical trials are set to begin next year.

Dead Planet? Mars water may have been to salty for life

Microbial life on Mars may have died off as quickly as it evolved—a victim of over-seasoning, perhaps. NASA's Opportunity rover identified minerals on the Red Planet's Meridiani Planum that were most likely deposited by liquid water, long since evaporated. Now researchers have used geochemical models to calculate how salty that water would have been. They report in Science that those ancient ponds were far saltier than the vast majority of Earthly organisms could have tolerated, suggesting that life on Mars might never have had a chance.

Anonymous donor bails out Fermilab

Work furloughs instituted at the nation's sole surviving particle physics laboratory—Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., home to the massive Tevatron particle accelerator—will no longer be necessary, the lab's director told employees last week. An anonymous donation of $5 million to the University of Chicago should counteract the unexpected 2008 budget cuts that forced all employees to take off one week per month, although the lab says it will still have to lay off about 140 employees. It's not the first bailout of a U.S. particle physics lab; theoretical physicist and hedge-fund billionaire James Simons donated $13 million to Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., in 2006 to keep the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider running.

7 Comments

1. 1. Carl Zimmer 09:32 PM 5/30/08

   Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. They were a separate lineage of reptiles. Flying dinosaurs are called birds.

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2. 2. Hugh Jones 06:02 PM 5/31/08

   There seems to be some ambiguity in the word dinosaur. Pterosaurs had long thin bones like birds, but unlike birds didn't have the anatomy for sustained flight. Sauropods, a distant relative of the Ptreosaurs in the Cretaceous period are now generally recognized as the ancestors of modern day birds. Snakes, alligators and lizards are reptiles, but I think Ptersaurs deserve a better definition. The study of paleontology would be better served if they could somehow drop the antiquated term "dinosaur", and come up with a more definitive description.
   
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   Edited by Hugh Jones at 05/31/2008 11:46 AM

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3. 3. onleyone 04:39 AM 6/2/08

   Hugh--
   
   I'm afraid the ambiguity here is not where you claim.
   
   > There seems to be some ambiguity in the word
   > dinosaur. Pterosaurs had long thin bones like
   > birds, but unlike birds didn't have the anatomy for
   > sustained flight. Sauropods, a distant relative of
   
   I think if you do the research you'll find that pterosaur anatomy is at least as exquisitely adapted for flight as modern birds. (Try a Google search for "birds", "flocculus", and "pterosaur".)
   
   > sustained flight. Sauropods, a distant relative of
   > the Ptreosaurs in the Cretaceous period are now
   > generally recognized as the ancestors of modern day
   > birds. Snakes, alligators and lizards are reptiles,
   
   Being direct descendants of (probably Jurassic) theropods (of the Saurischian lineage, which includes sauropods and prosauropods, but not Ornisthischian stegosaurs or "duckbill" dinos), birds are much closer relatives of dinosaurs than are pterosaurs (which are of a separate archosaurian line altogether), as Mr. Zimmer succinctly commented earlier.
   
   > birds. Snakes, alligators and lizards are reptiles,
   > but I think Ptersaurs deserve a better definition.
   
   Taken altogether, I don't see the ambiguity; if crocodilians (also of the Archosauria) and their extinct kin are "reptiles", then so too are pterosaurs. I'm fairly certain most paleontologists would agree.

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4. 4. Hugh Jones 06:41 PM 6/2/08

   onleyone, I enjoyed your feedback. Of course my observations that there exists some ambiguity in the word dinosaur were merely subjective, and only voiced in hopes that there might someday be a more appropriate term. Although I'm intensely interested in the subject, I certainly wouldn't pass myself off as any kind of expert in this field. That being said however, a couple of Nova programs and other books on the subject I have read point out that the Pterosaur type animals didn't have "wishbones" or otherwise developed breast muscles necessary for sustained flight. This fact seems consistent with the Azhdarchid article. This study is always evolving, as example; in Nova "Four Winged Dinosaur", the scientists couldn't agree on at what level of the evolutionary scale the specimen belonged because it's remains were so badly crushed. Although I clearly have my favorites among theories in this evolving study, I'm very interested in listening to different viewpoints.
   
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   Edited by Hugh Jones at 06/02/2008 11:46 AM
   
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   Edited by Hugh Jones at 06/02/2008 11:49 AM

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5. 5. isaacmeirn 11:58 PM 6/2/08

   Pterosaurs were dinosaurs?
   Hornbills and storks are their relatives today? Can this crap really be on SI's web site?

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6. 6. Hugh Jones 02:46 AM 6/3/08

   You obviously have the wrong website, the "SI" website is down the hall and to your right.

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7. 7. jacomus d'paganus-fatuus 08:32 PM 6/9/08

   Great concept, a knuckle-walking pterosaur (not a dinosaur but a flying lizard) on the direct evolutionary route leading to geckos and airline pilots.

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