SEE ENJOYMENT:Female frogs prefer males who can multitask

In a study of gray tree frogs, a team of University of Minnesota researchers discovered that females prefer males whose calls reflect the ability to multitask effectively. In this species (Hyla chrysoscelis) males produce "trilled" mating calls that consist of a string of pulses.

Typical calls can range in duration from 20-40 pulses per call and occur between 5-15 calls per minute. Males face a trade-off between call duration and call rate, but females preferred calls that are longer and more frequent, which is no simple task.

The findings were published in August issue of Animal Behavior.

"It's kind of like singing and dancing at the same time," says Jessica Ward, a postdoctoral researcher who is lead author for the study. Ward works in the laboratory of Mark Bee, a professor in the College of Biological Sciences' Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.

The study supports the multitasking hypothesis, which suggests that females prefer males who can do two or more hard-to-do things at the same time because these are especially good quality males, Ward says. The hypothesis, which explores how multiple signals produced by males influence female behavior, is a new area of interest in animal behavior research.

By listening to recordings of 1,000 calls, Ward and colleagues learned that males are indeed forced to trade off call duration and call rate. That is, males that produce relatively longer calls only do so at relatively slower rates.

"It's easy to imagine that we humans might also prefer multitasking partners, such as someone who can successfully earn a good income, cook dinner, manage the finances and get the kids to soccer practice on time."

The study was carried out in connection with Bee's research goal, which is understanding how female frogs are able to distinguish individual mating calls from a large chorus of males. By comparison, humans, especially as we age, lose the ability to distinguish individual voices in a crowd. This phenomenon, called the "cocktail party" problem, is often the first sign of a diminishing ability to hear. Understanding how frogs hear could lead to improved hearing aids.

40 pythons found in Canadian hotel

The reptiles were found in several plastic storage bins on Thursday night in a room in Brantford, Ontario, where a couple who had been evicted from their home were staying, police said in a statement.

Officers have opened a probe into the incident but they did not say where the couple were at the time or whether the pair would be charged with breaking local laws that prohibit owning pythons.

The snakes, which ranged in length from 30 centimetres to 1.4 metres, were in poor health and have been taken in by the Canadian Society for the Protection of Animals, where a veterinarian is monitoring them.

The find comes 11 days after Connor and Noah Barthe, aged six and four respectively, died in the eastern town of Campbellton, New Brunswick when an African python escaped from its terrarium and killed them.

The boys had been enjoying a sleepover with a friend, whose father's private menagerie of exotic animals included the python.

Animal experts expressed astonishment at the tragedy, many of them noting that, while an African rock python is a dangerous animal capable of killing large prey, it would not normally attack humans.

The initial police investigation found that the snake probably managed to break out of its terrarium and then nosed through a ventilation duct which led into the boys' bedroom.

TECH INVENTION: No Battery Required for This Wireless Device

Sending texts after a phone’s battery dies sounds impossible, right? Soon it might not, thanks to a new technology that not only uses TV and Wi-Fi signals for device communication, it taps those signals as a power source. No batteries required.

Developed by researchers from the University of Washington, the technology is known as “ambient backscatter” and could potentially create networks of devices and sensors that can transmit information by reflecting existing signals to exchange information, without the need for internal batteries.

“We can repurpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of power and a communication medium,” lead researcher Shyam Gollakota, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering, said in a press release. “It’s hopefully going to have applications in a number of areas including wearable computing, smart homes and self-sustaining sensor networks.”

Researchers built small, credit card-sized devices equipped with antennas that detect, harness and reflect those signals to similar devices. The team tested the prototypes in various locations around the Seattle area, including a street corner, inside an apartment building and on top of a parking garage. Locations ranged from less than a half a mile away from a TV tower to about 6.5. miles away.

The receiving devices picked up a signal at a rate of 1 kilobit per second when 2.5 feet away from their outdoor counterparts and 1.5 feet apart when inside. That’s enough to transmit a text message, sensor reading and contact information.

Researchers envision the technology being used in sensors that monitor bridges for hairline cracks. Potentially, the tech could be built in to cell phones to provide emergency power when the battery has died. While the applications are endless, researchers want to advance the capacity and range of the devices.

“Ambient Backscatter” sounds like a fantastic name for an electroclash band, so while you round up your synth-playing posse, check out this video of your band’s namesake device.

via University of Washington

Memory technology breakthrough

Memory devices like disk drives, flash drives and RAM play an important role in our lives. They are an essential component of our computers, phones, electronic appliances and cars. Yet current memory devices have significant drawbacks: dynamic RAM memory has to be refreshed periodically, static RAM data is lost when the power is off, flash memory lacks speed, and all existing memory technologies are challenged when it comes to miniaturization.

Increasingly, memory devices are a bottleneck limiting performance. In order to achieve a substantial improvement in computation speed, scientists are racing to develop smaller and denser memory devices that operate with high speed and low power consumption.

Prof. Yossi Paltiel and research student Oren Ben-Dor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Harvey M. Krueger Family Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, together with researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science, have developed a simple magnetization progress that, by eliminating the need for permanent magnets in memory devices, opens the door to many technological applications.

The research deals with the flow properties of electron charge carriers in memory devices. According to quantum mechanics, in addition to their electrical charge, electrons also have a degree of internal freedom called spin, which gives them their magnetic properties. The new technique, called magnetless spin memory (MSM), drives a current through chiral material (a kind of abundantly available organic molecule) and selectively transfers electrons to magnetize nano magnetic layers or nano particles. With this technique, the researchers showed it is possible to create a magnetic-based memory device that does not require a permanent magnet, and which could allow for the miniaturization of memory bits down to a single nanoparticle.

The potential benefits of magnetless spin memory are many. The technology has the potential to overcome the limitations of other magnetic-based memory technologies, and could make it possible to create inexpensive, high-density universal memory-on-chip devices that require much less power than existing technologies. Compatible with integrated circuit manufacturing techniques, it could allow for inexpensive, high density universal memory-on-chip production.

According to the Hebrew University's Prof. Paltiel, "Now that proof-of-concept devices have been designed and tested, magnetless spin memory has the potential to become the basis of a whole new generation of faster, smaller and less expensive memory technologies."

The technology transfer companies of the Hebrew University (Yissum) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Yeda) are working to promote the realization of this technology, by licensing its use and raising funds for further development and commercialization. With many possible applications, it has already attracted the attention of start-up funds.

The first animal model for sexual transmission of HIV

Infection by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a debilitating disorder in which progressive weakening of the immune system makes affected individuals more susceptible to potentially life-threatening infections and chronic diseases. Despite advances in the treatment and management of AIDS, there is no cure, and HIV infection remains a major global health problem. According to the WHO, there were an estimated 34 million infected individuals in 2011. Over the last three decades, a number of animal models have been developed to study aspects of HIV infection, pathogenesis and control. However, the currently available models do not recapitulate the physiological environment of the most common route of HIV transmission worldwide, vaginal intercourse. Now, Mary Jane Potash and colleagues from St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center and Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY, have developed an approach for modelling heterosexual transmission of HIV in vivo. Their work was published recently in Disease Models & Mechanisms.

The work stems from an earlier collaboration between Potash and David J. Volsky (also from Columbia University); they established a chimeric HIV clone with a genetic modification that allows the virus to propagate in rodents instead of humans. Infection of mice with these viruses has been successfully applied to study aspects of HIV neuropathogenesis and to evaluate antiretroviral drugs and potential HIV vaccines. In their latest study, Potash and colleagues describe the efficient and reproducible transmission of chimeric HIV from infected male mice to uninfected females via mating, providing the first report of HIV transmission by coitus in an animal model. Treatment of females with antiretroviral drugs prior to mating prevented transmission of the virus, in line with observations in humans. Intriguingly, the efficiency of viral transmission declined during estrus in mice, providing evidence that the hormonal environment in the female reproductive tract can impact on host susceptibility to HIV infection. This finding has implications for HIV infection in humans, where it has been suggested that vulnerability to viral infection could vary during the menstrual cycle.

The model described here has several advantages compared with previous experimental approaches for investigating sexual transmission of HIV. For example, transmission occurs during mating, in contrast with earlier systems in which viral stocks need to be applied manually to the vaginal surface; thus, the system preserves features of the male and female reproductive tracts. This is important, as previous work has shown that host factors and cells in the seminal fluid activate cells in the female reproductive tract and enhance HIV infection, yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Similarly, as indicated in this study, the local environment in the female reproductive tract can influence the rate and efficiency of HIV sexual transmission. By preserving the physiological features of coitus, the approach allows the dynamic aspects of viral sexual transmission to be investigated in vivo. Furthermore, the system can be used to investigate the efficacy of new interventive strategies aimed at preventing the most frequent route of HIV transmission.

"We developed this system to study HIV spread by mating in mice with the hope that it can be applied to promote practical approaches to prevent HIV sexual transmission to people at risk" explained Dr Potash, when asked about the goals of this research.

Samsung to unveil 'smartwatch' next month: reports

South Korea's Samsung Electronics will unveil its new Galaxy Gear "smartwatch" early next month, ahead of Apple's iWatch, Bloomberg news and a fan site said Saturday.

The Galaxy Gear, which will allow users to make calls, access email and even surf the Internet, will launch on September 4, said the sammobile.com site.

The world's top handset maker will also launch its new Galaxy Note 3 on that day, the site reported.

Bloomberg said the first version of the smart watch would not have a flexible screen.

Wearable computing, including Google's Glass eyewear, is considered as the next frontier in consumer electronics following smartphones.

In June, Sony unveiled the latest version of its SmartWatch, which links with smartphones to receive alerts about phone calls, emails and updates from social networks and also includes a music function.

Samsung's US rival Apple has long been rumoured to be working on introducing an "iWatch", which would represent the biggest gadget launch by the firm since the iPad mini last year.

Kano University Alumni Slam ASUU Over Strike

THE Alumni Association of Kano University of Technology (AAKUT) rose from its maiden AnnualGeneral Meeting (AGM), yesterday in Kano, and condemned the incessant industrial action by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), saying its negative impact on the nation’s education sector is grossly regrettable.

Secretary of the Association, Alhaji Fahad Ibrahim Danladi, who spoke to newsmen at the Murtala Mohammed Library Complex, urged the leadership of ASUU to device other means of agitation, rather than mutilating academic calendar, a situation which he said contribute immensely to the continuous decline in the nation’s educational standard.

Danladi noted thatindustrial action has never been a point for bargain in the developed world, adding that the academics should be more creative in fighting fortheir cause in this modern era.

“Resort to industrial action as a means of arm twisting the federal Government overtime has not in any way yielded any positive result more especially now that downing of tools has become a bandwagon in resolving industrial distribute in Nigeria,” Danladi stated.

He added that, “We are talking of community of egg heads in Nigeria, I personally believe that their approach should be different from the current practice, which in my opinion, would refocus the strategy in industrial dispute.

“Personally, I don’t subscribe to this whole concept of strike action that has been made notorious, it has not work out anything and I don’t think it’s a panacea to the lingering problem education in Nigeria.”

According to him, Nigerian Students and their Parents are tied and done with the several ASUU strikes maintaining that rather than addressing the problems it has continue to plunge the country educational sector to state of abyss contrary to the principles of development and sound educational system.

“I’m saying with all modesty that the industrial actions of the ASUU has been detrimental to the nation educational sector and has not yielded any positive thing to show as such they should change tactics and adopt new measures that are going to help the education and give a positive direction to as how best things will be improved,”he stated. 

Chrome challenges Firefox, may become No. 2 browser

Mozilla's Firefox browser has lost more than 11 percent of its user share in the last two months, giving Google's Chrome another shot at replacing it as the world's No. 2 browser, according to new data.

Statistics from Web measurement company Net Applications illustrated a rapid decline in Firefox and a corresponding upswing in Chrome during June and July.

At the end of July, Firefox owned a 18.3 percent share of all desktop browsers, down 2.3 percentage points in just two months, a decline of about 11 percent. Meanwhile, Chrome's user share stood at 17.8 percent, up 2 points since May and its highest mark since October 2012.

The half-percentage-point gap between Firefox and Chrome was the smallest since May 2012, when it appeared certain that the latter would overtake Firefox to become the No. 2 browser behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Gunbattle at Cairo mosque as security surrounds Islamists

The clashes came on the fourth day of bloodshed between the two sides, with the government saying 173 had died in the past 24 hours alone.

That brought the country’s toll to more than 750 people since Wednesday, when 578 people were killed in nationwide clashes that erupted after police cleared two camps of Morsi loyalists in the capital.

The standoff at Cairo’s Al-Fath mosque in central Ramses Square began on Friday, with security forces surrounding the building where Islamists were sheltering and trying to convince them to leave.

The Islamists had lined up the bodies of dozens of protesters killed in “Friday of anger” demonstrations inside the mosque-turned-morgue.

One of the protesters told AFP by telephone that they were demanding they not be arrested, or attacked by hostile civilians outside.

By Saturday afternoon, the situation turned violent, with an AFP reporter on the scene saying gunmen inside the mosque were trading fire with police outside.

The correspondent said police stormed the Fath mosque and security forces firing tear gas.

In the process, they managed to drag outside seven or eight men and were then confronted by angry neighbourhood residents who attacked them with sticks and iron bars.

Police fired in the air in a bid to disperse the mob.

INEC registers two more political parties

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday registered two new political parties in  the country.

This was contained in a press statement issued yesterday  by  Mrs Chinwe Ogakwu, Secretary  of the  Commission.

The two parties registered were  the Independent Democrats (ID) and the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM).

Mrs Ogakwu further stated that the two new parties were registered in accordance  with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as Amended) and the Electoral Act 2010 (as Amended).

 The  statement further indicated that the Constitution, Manifesto, Logo, Flag and list of National Executive Officers of  both parties have also been approved by the Commission.

6 killed, 21 injured in Ogun multiple crash

Six unidentified people have been confirmed dead, while 21 others were critically injured in a multiple accident that occurred on the Abeokuta-Lagos Expressway on Friday.

The Itori Unit Commander of the FRSC, Mr Fatai Bakare, who confirmed the incident on Saturday, told newsmen that the accident occurred at Osunpori Village, near Wasinmi in the Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun.

He said that the accident, involving three vehicles occurred at about 11. 45 p.m.

 Bakare said that an Iveco truck with registration number Lagos GGE 200 XC, a Mazda pick-up van (XA 626 AAW) and a Nissan pick-up van marked Lagos XZ 19 EKY were involved in the accident.

The unit commander disclosed that 27 persons, comprising 20 males and seven females were involved in the crash.

“One of the driver lost control of his vehicle and he rammed into the other and there was a serious situation afterwards.

“Those who died so far include two males and four females, while 21 others, made up of 18 men and three women sustained varying degrees of injuries.”

Bakare said that the corpses of the deceased had been deposited at the morgue of the General Hospital in Ifo, near Abeokuta.

He said that those injured in the crash were also being taken care of at the same hospital.

Chris Brown gets 1,000 extra hours community service

Singer Chris Brown was ordered to perform 1,000 hours community service Friday after his probation stemming from the 2009 assault on his then girlfriend Rihanna was restored, officials said.

The 24-year-old R&B star’s probation was revoked last month after he was hit with misdemeanor charges following a minor traffic accident.

Those charges were dismissed on Thursday and on Friday Los Angeles Superior Court judge James Brandlin restored his probation.

The reinstated probation order was conditional on Brown completing 1,000 hours of community labor, in addition to the 180 days he had already been ordered to perform.

Judge Brandlin said Brown would be put to work in one of four programs — highway clean-up, beach clean-up, graffiti removal or a program run by the probation department.

The order came after prosecutors questioned whether Brown had in fact completed the initial 180-day period of community service he was sentenced to. They cited “significant discrepancies” in his work record.

However the singer’s lawyer contested the allegation, saying prosecutors “chose to ignore the actual evidence in an effort to find someone, anyone, to say he was not working.”

In 2009 Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting fellow singer Rihanna earlier that year on the eve of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Female Boko Haram Suspects Arrested With Poisonous Substances in Borno

The residents of Gomari and Bulunkutu wards of Maiduguri metropolis in Borno state; were gripped with "fears and pandemonium," as members of Borno Vigilance Youths Group (BVYG) and the military Joint Task Force (JTF) Thursday, arrested a Boko Haram female terror suspect, along with a 35-year old man, suspected to be an informant of the Islamist sect who engages women in the smuggling and carrying of rifles and ammunitions.

In Borno state, our correspondent observed that 'the fear of women is the beginning of wisdom', as the security agencies and the vigilante youths are searching the females more than the males following series of arrest and discoveries that many of the women arrested were in possession of firearms in the state.

According to JTF sources in Maiduguri, the vigilance youths have already arrested five female Boko Haram terror suspects with rifles and 254 rounds of ammunitions in three wards of the metropolis, before the youths arrested this woman and a man, during their routine "stop and search" operations.