Too Young And Too Much June 19, 2010
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Alcohol and Illegal Drugs, Brain Power, Human Body, Nutrition and Health, Think About It.Tags: alcohol, binge drinking, brain, teens
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One drink. Two drinks. Three drinks….seven drinks. Does this sound like you each weekend? It isn’t news that teens can be binge drinkers. Even the wicked hangover the next day isn’t necessarily enough to stop teens – or adults – from going wild on booze. But a new study suggests that binge drinking has some effects on teens that we won’t necessarily see in adults. To understand what researchers discovered, we have to delve into the brain. The monkey brain, that is.
Binge drinkers consume lots of alcohol in a short period of time with the aim of getting drunk. Does this sound like you or someone you know?
Lasting Brain Damage
To find out what binge drinking does to the brain, a group of researchers led by Chitra Mandyam of the Scripps Research Institute in California looked at how the drinking affected normal nerve cell development in the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for long-term memory. They used monkeys, an animal with brain development that is very similar to humans. Their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers gave four adolescent monkeys alcoholic drinks for an hour each day over nearly a year. A couple of months later, the animals were put down so that researchers could compare their brains to monkeys that had not been given alcohol. So, what did they learn?
The binge drinking monkeys had 50 to 90 percent fewer stem cells in their hippocampus compared to the other monkeys. This could leave monkeys struggling with memory and spatial skills, plus loads of other important functions in the brain.
You’re Not Alone
Just how common is binge drinking? In a European study last year, Britain came in as one of the worst offenders. More than half of teens had been binge drinking in the last month. For the United States, around 11 million teens drink and approximately 7 million are binge drinkers. According to MADD, Canadian statistics are very similar.
Getting Support
Binge drinking is harmful at any age and can hurt adults too. But this study suggests that its effects in teens can be especially dangerous because of teens’ brains being quite vulnerable during these years. Fortunately, there are ways to get confidential help, whether it’s through a doctor, substance abuse centre or even a counsellor at school. If you feel like your drinking is a problem or you’re worried about someone you know, talk to a trusted adult.
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Humans Bite Harder Than Vampires April 21, 2010
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Book Reviews, Brain Power, Forensic Science, Human Body, Think About It.Tags: vampires, history, forensics
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Tiko is wide-eyed with fright! What is scaring him? Could it be a vampire?
When National Geographic asked me to review their new book called Vampire Forensics, I had to ask myself if I had the guts to do it! As a self-proclaimed scaredy-cat, I wasn’t sure if learning about the origins of vampires would be something my timid self could take. Worse still was what happened when I attempted to grab Tiko for comfort. Once he heard me say “vampire,” he raced into the wardrobe and refused to emerge.
Like many people, I’m fascinated by popular vampire culture, from entertaining television shows to famous books such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The question that remains is – where did it all start and how did it become what it is today? And maybe the second question I had when I started reading Vampire Forensics was whether this book was a bite I could handle. Let’s find out!
Disease, Death And Burial
Researched and edited by Mark Jenkins, Vampire Forensics traces the history of vampire culture. Early on in the book, Jenkins writes about a mysterious, 16th century skull discovered in Venice that was thought to be the remains of a female vampire. The skull was buried with a brick jammed in its mouth, which people thought would stop the vampire from rising up to feed on others. In other areas of the book, diseases such as the plague or tuberculosis are linked to vampire myths, mostly due to signs of the disease such as paleness and the fact victims would waste away. Jenkins also goes on to merge ideas about burial and death with vampire culture.
While I expected a lot on forensics, this part of the book fell short. Instead, I read about all kinds of folklore that were scattered together without the structure a reader needs to make sense of it all. Where historical facts were relayed, these suggested a possible link to vampires, without the real forensic guts to strengthen the connection. It felt a bit like the writer was grasping at straws by choosing many random stories and trying to tie them in with vampire culture.
Poor Tiko is afraid of vampires. Perhaps if I read Vampire Forensics to him, he will learn they are not real. Now, I just have to figure out how to get him out of the wardrobe!
Still, there are heaps of fun tales and facts that kept the book interesting right to the end. I did shudder at some of the gory bits but in a sense, this is part of the appeal when it comes to vampires. People like to be afraid and they like the intrigue of the unknown.
Can You Handle It?
Who will like this book? Well, it’s not a book for my younger readers and even then, will probably only interest a select group of my teen readers. The graphic prose and macabre tales are gruesome at times. But for those who perhaps truly do fear vampires, this book brings that fear to a much less frightening reality. We learn how events that are most definitely of the human kind fueled the myths and fantasy that make up vampire culture today. While the book didn’t give much of a vampire bite, it left some strong human tooth marks. Ironically, I think readers may be left fearing humans far more than vampires.
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How To Be An Assassin February 21, 2010
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Animals, Brain Power, Insects, Think About It.Tags: assassin bug, prey, spiders
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Credit: Video generously provided by Anne Wignall of Macquarie University.
Imagine you’re a hungry insect. To get your next meal, you need to be a true assassin, using stealthy tactics to capture your prey. Well if you were an assassin bug, then your plan might read like this:
1. Slowly approach your prey
2. Tap the web before each step
3. Bounce around a bit
4. Grab some web strings
5. POUNCE
It might sound like a strange plan but it works! The assassin bug does all these bizarre movements to trick the spider into thinking it has an insect caught in its web. Once the spider is sure that it has its next meal, it scurries over to the assassin bug. But too bad for the spider, it will now become a tasty meal for this sneaky insect. To find out more about this peculiar bug, I chatted with Anne Wignall of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, who had some of her recent work published in the Journal of Ethology. Anne already knew that some bugs would hunt down spiders but she wanted to find out just how they did it! Anne explained to me:
When I heard that there was a bug that seemed to lure spiders toward them, I was instantly fascinated because it seems like such a crazy thing to do, when spiders are such dangerous predators themselves.
In fact, there is actually one more step in the assassin bug’s plan, which could come in at number six. Once the assassin bug grabs the spider, it sometimes will tap the spider with its antennae. Researchers think this might be a way to hypnotize the spider, making it harder to escape.
A World Of Assassins
The assassin bug in the video above is a species known as Stenolemus bituberus. But if you thought it was the only one, think again! Anne describes just how busy our world really is when you get outside:
There’s also lots and lots of other assassin bug species and insects that use stalking, deception, luring and other cool tactics to hunt other invertebrates, and we’re finding more all the time.
So this means there are way more bugs out there with incredible, assassin-like tactics to capture their prey. For example, Todd Blackledge of the University of Akron in Ohio has been investigating how wasps hunt spiders. He found that adult female wasps will capture spiders and sting them. Ouch! But that isn’t all. The wasp then lays an egg on the spider, which allows the wasp larva to eat the spider, helping it grow into an adult.
Your Garden: A Battleground For Bugs
Now that you’ve checked out the video above, you might actually be able to find one of these creepy crawlies in your garden. Anne suggests that if you live along the east coast of Australia, you should explore the trees and webs in your garden, where you might find an assassin bug battling it out with a spider. Just be glad that while those hungry bugs fight it out, you don’t have to go through anything quite so dramatic when you want to have lunch. In fact, make yourself a nice sandwich, grab your camera, then see what you can find in your backyard!
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A Clever Condom August 13, 2009
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Brain Power, Diseases, Human Body, Think About It.Tags: birth control, condom, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases
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Most teens today are probably familiar with how condoms work. If you’re sexually active, you already know that condoms can help to protect you from sexually transmitted diseases and also reduce the likelihood of an unwanted pregnancy.
But, researchers at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, United States, are trying to create a new gel that acts like a condom. Sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it? Yet if all goes well, this new gel could be a surprisingly clever weapon against semen and any bacteria or viruses contained within it! This includes viruses such as HIV.
Creating A Trap
Standard condoms protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. But in developing countries, women need cheaper options that give them control over their sexual health.
When you picture a condom, you likely picture something more solid, while a gel would be softer, wouldn’t it? Not always so. This particular gel is a liquid when it’s in contact with the vagina – a highly acidic environment. Once alkaline semen makes its way in there though, the gel turns solid. In fact, any particles that are bigger than 50 nanometres are trapped. This includes semen, HIV and even viruses such as the herpes virus.
Getting It Right
This research team isn’t the first to try making a gel to combat HIV. Unfortunately, other teams haven’t been successful at creating an effective gel to protect women against HIV. In fact, one study found that the gel actually increased the rate of HIV infection. You can see that it’s a tough task to get it right.
It’s Not For You
Why isn’t this condom for you? It’s not that you shouldn’t be using one, of course. Researchers are working on this new condom mostly for women in countries where HIV is common. They also want this condom to be a low-cost alternative for women to get protection if their partner won’t wear a condom. In this way, women can take control of their sexual health.
Pick and Choose
With most of my readers being in the United States, Canada and Britain, you can pick and choose from a number of birth control options and condoms. For many of you, these will be provided without cost through your school or sexual health clinics. We’re lucky here to have access to all of these choices. We also live in a society where you can say “no” to sex without a condom and generally, our culture is one where your choice is respected.
So, shouldn’t women all around the world have choices too?
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Delaying Death February 8, 2009
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Diseases, Human Body, Science and Politics, Think About It.Tags: death, euthanasia, life, science cartoons
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Cartoon credit: Nick Kim.
We all want to live a long, healthy life. But, this cartoon left me wondering if perhaps, we sometimes go too far in our quest to preserve life. Are there situations where a person’s life is simply so poor in quality due to their health condition – that keeping them alive represents an unfair fight with death?
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The Bullying Brain December 3, 2008
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Human Body, Psychology and Behavior, Think About It.Tags: Bully, Conduct disorder, Victim
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It’s an important question for loads of scientists, parents, victims of bullies and even bullies themselves – what makes someone want to bully another person? A new imaging study in the United States sheds a bit of light on the subject. It found that in aggressive teenage boys, the parts of the brain linked to reward – the amygdala and ventral striatum – light up when the boy views a video of someone inflicting pain. We already know about the effects of bullying but finding out why it happens is super important too.
Wired Up For Bullying
Jean Decety, a researcher at the University of Chicago, used a functional MRI scan to look at the brain of each teenager who participated in the study. Researchers already knew that half of the participants had a ‘conduct’ disorder while the other half had no history of being aggressive. The teens who did have a conduct disorder had done stuff such as starting a fight or stealing from a victim.
To see what happened in the brain of a boy who had a conduct disorder, each teen was asked to look at a video where a person accidentally experienced pain. So, the video would show a person having their foot stepped on or something similar along those lines. What do you think might have happened in the brain of a person with a conduct disorder? If you guessed there was a difference from the participants with no aggressive history, you got it right!
A Fired Up Amygdala
The aggressive boys had a major, intense activation of the amygdala and ventral striatum when they looked at the video clips. Researchers think the results suggest that aggressive boys gain enjoyment from viewing pain.
On the other hand, the control group – teens who didn’t have a history of aggression – showed activation of different parts of the brain. The medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction may sound like complicated words, but they represent areas of our brain that are important in self-regulation.
Let’s Find Out More
While this research study can teach us more about how the brain works and how it is that a teen chooses to bully another person, it was still criticized for being too small. It only looked at sixteen boys between 16-18 years old. This means that we will have to wait and see what kind of results we get from a bigger study.
Also, some scientists are worried this type of study will mean that instead of finding ways to help a bully change his behavior, we will simply use medications to ‘fix’ them. The fear comes from the fact that a study like this shows bullying has a biological basis. It’s like saying that your brain makes you harm another person, so you can’t make the choice to be nicer.
Stop Bullying!
Lots of us have dealt with bullying in school and it can really make the victim’s life miserable. Finding out how and why people bully others will help us to learn better ways to prevent it from happening and it will let us deal with bullying when it strikes. Hyperactive amygdala and ventral striatum or not – bullying has to stop!
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The Bold Traveler October 19, 2008
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Environment, Microbes, Think About It.Tags: bacteria, bold traveler, darkness, discovery
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Imagine a world where you are all alone and surrounded by complete and total darkness. Now, take away all of your oxygen. Sound scary? Not necessarily. For the Desulforudis audaxviator – or bold traveler – this is the normal way of life. This bug relies on some important things for its survival: water, hydrogen and sulphate. It was recently discovered by a group of scientists led by Dr Dylan Chivian of California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The results of the research were published in the journal Science.
Credit: Greg Wanger, J. Craig Venter Institute, and Gordon Southam, University of Western Ontario. This lonely baterium travels in complete darkness.
So, why should we care about this lonely bug that braves its world alone? Well, if we think about how this rod-shaped bacterium can survive without oxygen, we might be able to get some important clues about whether life exists on other planets. If we found life on other planets, we would maybe learn that those bugs and creatures are able to get by without oxygen while still obtaining energy from chemicals such as sulphate.
Excited Scientists
Let me tell you, scientists were really excited when they discovered the bacterium. But, it wasn’t easy! They found it 1.74 miles (2.8 km) below the Earth’s surface near Mponeng mine, which is close to Johannesburg, South Africa. The bug was in total darkness and 60 C (140 F) heat. Now that’s hot! Scientists originally found the bacterium in DNA that was drawn from cracks in the mine – filled with water. Who would have thought that it would be a gold mine where scientists would discover the first ecosystem that only has one biological species? Sometimes, it seems that darkness can be full of special surprises and this is especially true in the case of our bold, lonely traveler.
A Day In The Life Of The Lonely Traveler
Since our isolated bacterium lives all alone, it has to get organic molecules without any help from other species. To do this, it builds what it needs to survive from water, inorganic carbon and nitrogen. These are all sourced from ammonia in the nearby rocks and fluid. But it sure does live deep in the Earth, doesn’t it? Thanks to evolution, our traveling friend can handle all sorts of tough situations and conditions. Over time, it has developed ways to handle stuff like fixing nitrogen straight from elemental nitrogen in the environment.
But wait, it can’t do everything. This smart bacterium can’t handle oxygen, which tells scientists that it has been without oxygen for a really long time. I guess that the lengthy journey into the Earth has toughened it up to lots of harsh conditions. However, without oxygen exposure, there was no need for it to develop any mechanism to resist it. Still, it continues to survive and hints to us that there could be a lot more bugs and creatures out there that manage to get by just fine without oxygen and many of the basic things we associate with life. Now that’s adaptation!
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Be Careful With Confidence July 2, 2008
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Human Body, Psychology and Behavior, Think About It.Tags: confidence, overconfidence, test
4 comments
We all know that confidence can feel amazing. It might give you that great energy where you believe you can accomplish anything at all. Confidence can encourage us to make certain decisions, meet people and take action. But what about overconfidence? Can that do more harm than good? Sometimes, it can. If a person is overconfident, they might miss some of the key details to watch out for when making a change. For example, being overconfident before a test might mean you don’t spend enough time studying. A business executive might assume an investment is a good idea without making an effort to really think the decision through.
Perhaps the important question involves how we would even go about measuring overconfidence. From a scientific standpoint, it’s not easy to assess overconfidence because this kind of study would rely on the participant to explain how they are overconfident. That’s really subjective and not a very reliable or accurate way to provide results.
Let’s Try Something New
But wait! According to Pascal Mamassian, a researcher at CNRS and Université Paris Descartes, France, overconfidence can indeed be accurately measured. Mamassian believes he has come up with a cool way to handle the problems associated with having participants assess their own overconfidence. How? With a very natural and objective visuo-motor task. If you want to get really geeky, you can check out the full version in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Bring On The Visuo-Motor Task
So, what did these participants in Mamassian’s study do? Well, they were asked to sit at a computer and press on a key in synchrony with a ‘blob’ that would pop up on the screen. If they pressed the key in synchrony, they were given points for their success. But if they pressed the key too early or late, they lost points. Mamassian decided to use a mathematical model to analyze the way participants manipulated a key tapping strategy, which would help participants gain the most points and reduce the points lost. Now, let’s see what Mamassian found out from the participants!
The Results Are In
Mamassian discovered that the participants regularly didn’t aim for the best time. Instead, they showed overconfidence in their actions. Mamassian explained:
They underestimated the magnitude of their uncertainty and the cost of their error. Overconfidence is not limited to the realm of subjective beliefs and cognitive judgments but appears instead to reflect a general characteristic of human decision making.
So, this means that overconfidence in their abilities led participants to be less careful in assessing their own uncertainty and the consequences of mistakes when completing the task. Because they were overconfident, they didn’t take the time to think of what they needed to do to ensure no mistakes were made. Since they were so confident, they perhaps figured they would just automatically do well. On top of that, they didn’t properly estimate the points they would lose from these mistakes because – well, their overconfidence might have meant that they didn’t expect to make mistakes in the first place!
Now, I think that a little – or sometimes even a lot – of confidence can go a long way in creating good feelings of self-esteem and accomplishment. At the same time, Mamassian’s experimental model is a new and interesting way to judge if someone is overconfident. For now though, it’s not exactly a practical reality for most of us, which means we can’t just access this test to check whether we’re overconfident. A more cautious approach might be to take those confident leaps, but look where you are going. Ultimately, be confident knowing that you can reach your goals, but don’t be overconfident so that you are blinded by all the challenges along the way!
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Genetic Engineering 101 June 9, 2008
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Diseases, Human Body, Nutrition and Health, Science in the Media, Technology, Think About It.Tags: allergy, biodiversity, cartoons, genetic engineering
3 comments
Credit: Nick Kim.
While the cartoon above by one of my favorite cartoonists – Nick Kim – might suggest I’m against the concept of genetic engineering, that isn’t exactly accurate. I’m more a fan of cautious progress, which means that I think we need to be careful about using this technology. The cartoon is a goofy one because it exaggerates some of the real concerns about genetic engineering. You might be wondering what those concerns are? Well, read on!
A Little Primer On Genetic Engineering
I figured it would be cool to give a brief primer on all of this genetic engineering stuff for those who have heard the term but maybe still aren’t too sure exactly what it means! First, think about your genes. Your genes direct lots of neat traits about you such as your eye and hair color. Genetic engineering works to meddle with the genes in an organism, which allows for control over that organism’s traits. You’re maybe thinking about this concept for humans, but the applications for genetic engineering are really diverse.
Some Potentially Good Stuff
With genetic engineering, there are some important benefits but there are also some aspects that concern scientists, researchers and many members of the public. There are even scenarios that are particularly worrisome and the cartoon above is an extreme representation of one of these consequences. But first, let’s check out some of the positive aspects.
Food is one way that genetic engineering can be used to provide benefits for humans. Through genetic engineering, we can create genetically modified organisms (GMOs). One reason scientists create GMOs is to increase the nutritional value of a food. Think about your own diet. Hopefully, you eat lots of different kinds of foods. Even if you don’t, you probably have access to variety – fruits, vegetables, meats and many more.
For a number of countries, the population there is living on a small range of staple foods. This means that they aren’t getting all of the nutrients they need for good health. However, a food such as a carrot can be engineered to have a nutrient it would not normally have or perhaps the nutrient content could be raised. GMOs can also result in fruits and vegetables that are resistant to pests and the poor weather conditions that can reduce the yields for farmers. Not only that, but genetic engineering has applications in medicine and health. Vaccines have been created by this type of technology and synthetic human insulin was developed through genetic engineering.
Uh Oh
Still, the benefits unfortunately don’t come without problems! The creation of GMOs is thought to potentially harm biodiversity, which means that there is less variety of life in the environment. Think about it – if a vegetable is engineered to be tolerant to a herbicide, the herbicide will kill weeds around the vegetable with less impact on the crop. But wait, if nearby animals feed on those weeds, they lose a valuable source of nutrition and are unable to survive. In this way, the biodiversity is harmed.
The Unexpected
Another fear is that GMOs could have unpredictable results. So, this could mean that the food might trigger allergies in a person allergic to nuts even though that person is eating soybeans. How can this happen? If a gene from nuts is inserted into soybeans – perhaps to increase the nutritional value of the soybean, then people who are allergic to nuts would think the soybean is fine to eat. Nope! The gene could prompt changes that trigger an allergic reaction.
Monsters Or Not?
Now, back to that cartoon! Ever seen the scary movie or read the book ‘Frankenstein?’ One of the perceptions of genetic engineering is that it might create a Frankenstein-like organism – a monster that has all sorts of creepy traits. While it’s true that there are issues around genetic engineering and unexpected or uncontrollable results, the comparison to Frankenstein is considered by some people to be a scare tactic that is far from accurately representing the risks of genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering is a complicated and controversial subject and you might have your own opinion about whether you support some or all of its applications. As with many types of technology, it is rapidly changing and we’re constantly learning new bits about genetic engineering. Whatever you think about it, try to get involved by learning more from the news, school, friends or your parents. One of the most powerful ways to improve the safety of genetic engineering is to be informed and challenge the stuff that worries us!
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Secrets Of Climbing June 1, 2008
Posted by Miss Weird Scientist in Animals, Environment, Evolution, Think About It.Tags: energy, primates, treadmill, trees
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Ever had a favorite tree in your yard that you liked to climb once in a while? You probably scurried up the tree and maybe hung out for a bit before carefully making your way down to your abode on the ground. We all know that some creatures like to live up in the trees but what makes the trees such a cool place to inhabit? Scientists may have found some clues as to why early primates liked to make their home in the forest canopy. It’s all about size!
Apes and monkeys – ancestors of humans – might have ended up in the trees because of their small size. Researchers have been curious for a while now about why early primates happily lived up in the trees. Why so curious? It’s because they thought that climbing used up more energy than walking. When it comes to walking, for example, smaller animals use up more energy in comparison with larger animals. Generally, we would expect the animals to live in a way that conserves energy. So, it has been somewhat of a confusing question as to why primates would make a transition to the trees if it meant that their energy efficiency was compromised.
Using A Treadmill To Investigate
You’re probably reading the word ‘treadmill,’ and wondering to yourself what I’m talking about! Well, treadmills can be useful for many things – not just for us humans to use as exercise equipment. In this case, researchers from Duke University in North Carolina observed primates as they walked and climbed on a special treadmill that was designed for the study. The results were surprising!
The researchers found that there was no difference in how much energy was consumed for small primates whether they walked or climbed the treadmill. This means that climbing didn’t have a higher energy consumption. In this way, the small primates could make good use of the treetop environment without compromising their energy. These early primates would have been approximately the size of a very big rat. The results were published in the journal Science and the information gives us some clues about how the ancestors of these primates ended up in the trees approximately 65 million years ago.
Yummy Food
You might be wondering what was so great about the trees? Well for early primates, moving into this new environment provided them with an abundance of tasty insects and fruits. On top of that, evolutionary changes then occurred, which means that the primates developed characteristics to help them better adapt to this new environment. For these mammals, the changes included the development of nails instead of claws. Jandy Hanna, a Duke graduate student at the time of the study, created the treadmill apparatus and measured primate activity and energy consumption. She explained:
We assumed it would be more energetically expensive for all of them to climb than to walk, so this finding was unexpected. What we have shown is that they could have made this shift into a rich environment with insects and fruits without increased energetic cost.
Ultimately, the small size of the primates meant that they could make the transition into the trees to enjoy the goodies up there. From the perspective of energy consumption, heavier animals had less incentive to climb than walk, so it was the smaller primates who had the competitive edge. Still, even if it does take more energy for humans to climb – that sure never stopped me when I was a kid and I liked climbing the tree to my playhouse.
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