What the scientists are saying…
A penguin as tall as a human
Earlier this month, palaeontologists revealed evidence that New Zealand was once home to a super-sized parrot. Now it can add a giant penguin to its catalogue of extinct megafauna. Amateur fossil-hunter Leigh Love discovered the fossilised leg bones of the previously unknown species last year, while searching in a river on New Zealand’s South Island. An analysis has now confirmed that the bird weighed around 80kg and stood 1.6 metres (5ft 3in) tall – meaning it would have towered above the biggest of today’s penguins, the 4ft emperor penguin. Giant penguins aren’t entirely new to science, however: the remains of another species were discovered in Antarctica in 2000. Scientists believe they emerged following the extinction of dinosaurs and the disappearance of marine reptiles from the oceans of the southern hemisphere. “The oceans were ripe for the picking with the lack of mega-predators,” said Paul Scofield, senior curator at Canterbury Museum and co-author o the new paper. But, he added, having exploited this “niche”, the birds disappeared when large ocean mammals arrived on the scene around 30 million years later. New Zealand’s land-based mega-birds fared much better: some thrived until the arrival of humans to the islands, in around 1,300AD.
Busting the multitasking myth
Is the idea that women are better multitaskers than men a convenient myth, to help men avoid the domestic burden? That is the implication of a new study by scientists at Aachen University in Germany, which found that the two sexes are equally good – or rather equally bad – at performing different tasks at the same time. For the study, 48 men and 48 women took part in a computer-based challenge that required them to identify letters as either consonants or vowels, and numbers as either odd or even, as they flashed up on a screen. In the first part of the experiment, the participants were presented with the letters and numbers separately. In the second, they were asked to categorise them at the same time, or to switch rapidly between the two – mimicking the kind of mental shifts involved in multitasking in other settings. While both sexes were equally adept at the first part, they found the second stage equally challenging – suggesting, says the team in PLOS One, that “there are no substantial gender differences in multitasking performance”.
Ecstasy treatment for alcoholics?
Doctors in England are holding one of the first-ever trials to test whether MDMA can be an effective treatment for alcohol addiction, says The Guardian. In the trial’s safety and tolerability phase, 11 people were given a few doses of the drug (also known as ecstasy) in conjunction with psychotherapy, and were monitored over nine months. Just one suffered a full relapse during this period, while five remained “completely dry”. Scientists described the results as highly encouraging: “With the very best that medical science can work with, 80% of people are drinking within three years post-alcohol detox,” said trial leader Dr Ben Sessa, a psychiatrist at Imperial College London. He added that MDMA is “the perfect drug for trauma-focused psychotherapy”, as it “allows recall of painful memories without being overwhelmed”. In the next phase of testing, there will also be a control group who receive a placebo in place of the drug.
No sex for British stick insects
A colony of stick insects that was transported from New Zealand to the Scilly Isles in the early 20th century has converted to asexual reproduction during its relatively brief time in Britain. The Clitarchus hookeri is native to New Zealand, but was accidentally migrated to the Scilly Isles 100 years ago on plants destined for Tresco’s famed Abbey Garden. Now, scientists at Massey University have traced the allfemale colony’s ancestry to a population on New Zealand’s west coast, which still reproduces sexually. The scientists are unsure if, in just 100 generations, the insects became asexual because no males made it to Britain, or because it for some reason proved advantageous in their new home. Such transitions to asexual reproduction have often been observed among stick insects, but the researchers say they usually take place over rather more than 100 generations.