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First mammals lived like reptiles, recent analysis finds
Analysis of teeth dating back 200 million years suggests that the earliest mammals functioned like reptiles – leading less active but much longer lives. The research, led by the University of Bristol and University of Helsinki in Finland, is the first time palaeontologists have been able to study the physiologies of early fossil mammals directly. Fossils of teeth from two of the earliest mammals, Morganucodon and Kuehneotherium, which roamed the earth alongside early dinosaurs, were scanned using X-rays.
Researchers studied growth rings in the tooth sockets – deposited each year like tree rings – that could be counted to reveal how long the animals lived. The results, published in Nature Communications, indicated a maximum lifespan of up to 14 years for the animals. This is much older than their similarly sized furry successors such as mice and shrews, which tend to only survive for a year or two in the wild.
Dr Pam Gill, senior research associate at the University of Bristol, was inspired to use advanced imaging technology on the teeth after a colleague had a tooth removed. They told Dr Gill the X-rayed could reveal information about a person’s life history. “That got me wondering whether we could do the same to learn more about ancient mammals,” Dr Gill said.
Children felt ‘shame’ over abuse, Lord Janner inquiry told
Children in care homes allegedly abused by the late Lord Janner did not immediately contact police because they felt “fear, shame, embarrassment and confusion”, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has heard. Brian Altman QC, counsel to the inquiry, said complainants were worried they “would not be believed”, while another said social care staff were “very dismissive” when their concerns were raised.
Lawyer David Enright said one alleged victim described how it felt like “poor children are on a conveyor belt to abuse, and that nobody seems to believe them”.
The latest strand of the IICSA began yesterday, examining institutional responses to allegations of child sexual abuse against Lord Janner dating back half a century.
Lord Janner, a Labour MP from 1970 until 1997 when he was made a peer in the House of Lords, died in 2015 while awaiting trial for 22 counts of child sexual abuse offences, relating to nine different boys. He denied the allegations. Ex-Blue Peter star laughed after groping woman, court hears
Former Blue Peter presenter John Leslie has gone on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman at a Christmas party in London more than a decade ago. The 55-year-old is accused of “grabbing” the woman’s breasts and laughing shortly after arriving at the West End gathering, a jury at Southwark Crown Court heard. He denies sexual assault by intentionally touching a woman without her consent on 5 December 2008. Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said Leslie grabbed the complainant’s breasts “quite deliberately for a period of a few seconds” before walking off. Ms Ledward said: “The woman was stunned but did not report it to the police.
“He [Leslie] denies he did any such thing and if there was any physical contact between them, then it must have been an accident.” The woman had recognised Leslie at the bar and went over to him, the court heard. He smiled at her, Ms Ledward said. The prosecutor added: “She smiled back. Without saying anything further he grabbed both of her breasts with both of his hands and laughed as he did so.” This went on for about three seconds, according to Ms Ledward. Mr Leslie appeared on Blue Peter between 1989 and 1994 and also presented Wheel Of Fortune and This Morning. The trial continues. PA Farmer who laced baby food with metal jailed for 14 years
A sheep farmer has been jailed for 14 years for a cryptocurrency blackmail plot that saw him plant baby food laced with shards of metal in Tesco stores. Nigel Wright, 45, hatched a plot to get rich by deliberately contaminating jars of Heinz baby food between May 2018 and February 2020. He sent dozens of letters and emails to the supermarket giant in a bid to extort £1.4m in bitcoin. Two mothers – one in Lockerbie and the other in Rochdale – were just moments away from feeding their infants the food before they spotted the potentially lethal contaminants.
Wright spiked the jars with broken-up blades of a craft knife and iron filings. At trial, Wright denied masterminding the plot – claiming instead that he was himself being blackmailed by a group of travellers who had threatened to kill his children and rape his wife.
Justice Warby said Wright had been “remorseless” and “clearly revelling in the process”. He jailed Wright for 11 years for the plot against Tesco, with a further three years for the anonymous letter sent to the driver,
in which he threatened to execute him with a rifle and murder his wife and children. Scientists find what makes human blood tasty to mosquitoes A team of scientists in the US has figured out the compounds in human blood that attract mosquitoes – potentially paving the way for a drug that could mask our tempting flavour. A team of researchers at The Rockefeller University in New York City used genetically-modified females to see which neurons fire when they tasted blood. Only female mosquitoes feed on blood, which they need for their eggs to develop, but they survive primarily on nectar like thousands of other insect species. But their blood sucking habits make them the deadliest animal on the planet to humans, killing around half a million people every year through disease like malaria, dengue and yellow fever.
The researchers tricked the mosquitoes into switching from nectar feeding mode to blood feeding mode by offering them a mix of four compounds developed to mimic the flavour of blood. Only one subset of neurons were activated by blood, including both real blood and the researchers’ synthetic mix.
Veronica Jove, one of the lead researchers in the study, said: “If mosquitoes weren’t able to detect the taste of blood, in theory they couldn’t transmit disease.” But she said it might be impossible to ever understand exactly what humans taste like to mosquitoes.