Eggselent News...

Although strictly speaking they are not furry, chickens are nonetheless pretty super too. Turns out too, that it's never been easier to accessorize our new austerity lifestyles with the latest hi-tech and hi-style chicken coup. And you gets the eggs for free.

A British company is now selling their sci-fi designer "eglus" in the US and you can even choose amongst four exciting colors: green, red, orange and pink. Omlet US will even fed-ex the necessary hens too. Feeling Broody? Grab your credit card... http://www.omlet.us/

In this weeks New Yorker (September 28th), Susan Orleans discusses the chicken craze sweeping the nation's backyards and her own experience as a mother hen:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/28/090928fa_fact_orlean

Btw, Omlet also make rabbit hutches too.



Personally, I can't wait for a one-bedroom studio apartment version...

Rattus, Felix and Toxo - a Bizarre Love Triangle

[Media Treat]

NYC's Radio Lab is essential listening for anyone interested in science or the best in documentary radio. Its quirky subject matter, innovative sound design and offbeat humor could rather lazily be called a This Life American for Geeks. Although surely far from faint praise, Radio Lab is even even better than that might sound.

The first episode of the new season on "Parasites" is a fascinating topic of the wild and wonderous world of the oft-maligned little creatures. Of special interest for animal lovers is a segment on love-struck rodents, bohemian cats and dare I say it cat scratch fever?

It is almost worth listening to the short piece (11 mins) just for the soothing and purr-fect introduction by the reporter's cat Moose...

The Scratch

When executive producer Ellen Horne was expecting a baby, she really had no particular intention of becoming a self-made expert on a parasite named Toxoplasma Gondii. Robert Sapolsky explains to us why Ellen had reason to worry when she was scratched by her cat, and he traces the unlikely path that the parasite might follow, right up to the point that it rewires a rat's brain. Fuller Torrey details Toxoplasma's potential associations with other human disorders, possibly even schizophrenia.

Look for Radio Lab on the schedule of your local NPR affiliates, subscribe at Itunes or listen to it here:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2009/09/25

...and remember to support your local public radio station.

"Toxo"

Monkey See Monkey Do

Color Me Impressed
[Dept. of Mice and Men]

In a recently released Science magazine article, medical researchers report promising results for the potential treatment of colorblindness and other vision problems with new gene therapy approaches. With the aid of six squirrel monkeys, the innovative research project by University of Washington researchers has enabled previously color-blind males to literally see red for the first time!

In the world of squirrel monkeys, seeing colors is for girls. Whereas some females enjoy full color vision, males of the South American genus see only blues and yellows (see picture). They lack a gene that allows color-sensitive cells in the eye, called cones, to distinguish red and green from gray--the same distinction that confounds most colorblind humans.

Seeking a possible treatment for the human condition, vision scientist Jay Neitz and colleagues at the University of Washington, Seattle, assembled six adult squirrel monkeys, four colorblind males and two female controls. The researchers tested them daily for a year, using a computer program that presented the primates with colorful clumps of dots on a screen of similarly varied gray dots (see video). The results established each monkey's color vision, revealing that the female controls could see colors as a normal human would, while the male monkeys could not distinguish green and red clumps from the gray background. The team then injected the retinas of two of the colorblind monkeys with a virus that introduced the human gene for the red-detecting pigment in cone cells.

The researchers were not optimistic. Unlike the malleable brains of young animals, adult brains are far more rigid and tend to have a harder time rewiring themselves. Many patients blinded in childhood, for example, remain blind when their eyes are repaired in adulthood, because their brains never developed the circuitry for processing what they see.

Twenty weeks after the gene therapy, however, the monkeys began to spot red and green dots in the computer color tests, and soon after they were regularly acing the trials. Now, 2 years later, the monkeys remain able to distinguish all colors, almost on par with their female counterparts. The monkeys' adaptability is partly attributed to the fact that colorblind animals still have color-processing circuitry in their brains. The introduced gene simply gives them the ability to feed new information into the circuitry, "hijacking" a pathway previously used by blues and yellows for reds and greens as well.

For information and a video demonstration of the males squirrel at work with their new found skills go to:

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/916/1

A Spot is a Spot is a Spot by any other name...

Name versus nature - it's an age old issue. Whether it's your newborn babe or a super cute puppy, sooner or later you have to choose on a name. Often we put off the inevitable decision to savor the shock of the new with its seemingly endless possibilities and improbabilities.

It's easy to imagine that your first gift to this young 'un will have some fundamental effect on their future. It probably says more about our mistaken sense of our own importance that we think that their given name will make some difference to who they become and how they will live. But there's no denying that it is a responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly. Most of us have that friend with the 12 year old cat called "Kitty" or a retriever named Goldie or Sunny. It's OK if you're an eight year-old but twenty-somethings ought to be able to do better.

However, sometimes though it really isn't that easy - especially if it's a family pet. When my Dad flew an eight week old Westie from England to her new home with us in Philadelphia, it was a particularly tough Christmas for all of us. I was sorely missing my girlfriend and school mates who were enjoying their newly won independence of student rental housing. My 16 year old sister had weathered her first four months hazing as a as Junior at suburb High School poorly prepared to accept their new British import. As for my parents, they had confidently chosen to return convinced that opportunity beckoned back at the corporate HQ in suburban Philadelphia. But the realities of Reaganomics and corporate consolidation soon showed them how much had changed in the county they had left ten years earlier.

Surrounded by seemingly endless swarms of boxes in a new home, I know we were all more than a little culturally shell shocked. However, thanks to our new fellow ex-pat pup, it was hard not to focus on the newness of it all. White and fluffy with attitude, she seemed to have few qualms about her latest discoveries of snow and the endless entertainment possibilities that packing materials offer.

But when it came to the naming game, we were hit an impasse. As I remember it, Monty and Winston were two top contenders vying for a consensus. Looking back, both seem shockingly gender inappropriate but I think we were trying to retain some sense of the old country heritage for our brave new puppy. But in our hearts, we all knew that it wasn't quite right. This wasn't a stodgy bulldog or an aristocratic corgi sitting before us in our new home. She was a terrier - smart, playful and a larger personality than her tiny bundle of fur could contain.

As I like to remember it, I was first to half jokingly suggest "Spot" as a possibility. Well strictly speaking, her name was to be "Spotless" and we would call her Spot for short. This was all back in the depths of the mid eighties - long before the scourge of trucker-hatted hipster irony might make such a private joke seem laughably affected. No, instead it was a common name for a special dog. Soon enough, the decision seemed obvious and settled. Perhaps she cocked her head knowingly to our first call out and I'd like to think it was her decision after all. But in fact, it really didn't matter at all because, well Spot was Spot and she would have been Spot by any other name...