Museum scientists are part of the first research team to show that illegal bushmeat importation into the United States could act as a conduit for the spread of dangerous pathogens.
“Bushmeat” is a general tem for wildlife hunted largely in Africa and often smuggled into the United States for “under the counter” sale in specialty markets. This study—conducted by scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, EcoHealth Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society, Columbia University, the National Wildlife Health Center, and the Museum—focused on bushmeat confiscated at five U.S. airports, including John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
The results, which are published in the journal PLoS ONE, show that the meat contains a variety of retroviruses and herpes viruses, diseases that might be transmitted to humans through exposure during hunting, transportation, and consumption. Current research estimates that 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases affecting people originate from contact with wildlife. Read more »
While researching bacteria found in blood-feeding leeches, Associate Curator Susan Perkins and Curator Mark Siddall have conducted fieldwork around the world, from French Guiana to South Africa.
But one of their most exciting discoveries took place in a Museum lab 10 years ago. DNA sequencing revealed that the symbiotic bacteria in turtle leeches belong to a group of bacteria that were previously found only in plants or as pathogens. As leeches have evolved and diversified, they’ve forged unique partnerships with bacteria at least three different times.
Dr. Perkins and Dr. Siddall confirmed they had sequenced the correct DNA using a technique called fluorescence in situ hybridization, or FISH. This method involves applying fluorescent DNA probes to thin slices of tissue that light up in the case of a DNA match. FISH also showed that symbiotic bacteria were present in young leeches that had never fed on blood, “suggesting the leeches pass the bacteria directly to their offspring,” explains Siddall. Images of glowing bacterial populations in leeches can be seen as part of Picturing Science: Museum Scientists and Imaging Technologies, curated by Siddall and now on view in the Akeley Gallery. Read more »
For the past five years, Museum scientists, in collaboration with the Panthera Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting big cats in the wild, have been tracking tigers, lions, jaguars, and snow leopards through DNA in scat, or fecal specimens, gathered in the field. Now, through a generous grant from the Leslie and Daniel Ziff Foundation, the Global Felid Conservation Genetics Program can accelerate the pace of this important work by expanding the program’s laboratory component.
“We’re very excited about it,” says George Amato, director of the Museum’s Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics and the Center for Conservation Genetics, which is responsible for sequencing the big cats’ DNA and analyzing the results. “In terms of scale, it is now the largest project of its kind in the world.”
Collecting more than 3,000 fecal samples so far and sharing the resulting data free of charge to researchers around the world, the Global Felid Conservation Genetics Program follows animals subject to a variety of threats, from diminished habitat to hunting by traders in body parts. For example, compared to more than 100,000 over a century ago, there are fewer than 3,200 tigers in Asia today, occupying only seven percent of their historic range. The research has yielded some good news—a newly identified population of tigers in Laos; more genetic diversity than expected in some areas—but researchers also found that, in a supposedly protected area in Cambodia, one population of tigers had died out. Read more »
Is it true that children face an uphill battle at the beginning of every school year to regain ground lost in the lazy days of summer?Yes and no,says Rob DeSalle, curator of the exhibition Brain: The Inside Story. “The fact of losing what you’ve learned during the school year is fairly well known and well researched,” says Dr. DeSalle, citing a Johns Hopkins University study that showed children in general “lose” one to two months of learning, especially in math, over the summer. “It’s not a myth. But it’s not as extreme as people think and it’s’ not insurmountable.”
One way to keep brains active before school resumes is to challenge children with a late-summer reading list, says DeSalle, a Museum curator who conducts research in the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics. The John Hopkins study showed, for example, that children in more affluent socio-economic groups fared better in reading because they tended to have more access to books. Games that involve counting and strategy can also stimulate neural pathways. Visitors to Brain: The Inside Story, which closes August 14, can test their ability to strategize and plan ahead, as well as other critical functions, in brain-teasing interactive exhibits, several of which are described by DeSalle in the video below.
Video games aren’t necessarily bad for kids, says DeSalle, especially if they involve a lot of reading. But a game that requires counting spaces or points and keeping a paper tally is even better, making Scrabble the ideal summer pastime for both the language skills involved and the math needed to keep score. Chess is good too, says DeSalle, as are sports like tennis and ping pong, which require strategy and involve exercise, also a benefit for developing brains.
In the long run, however, DeSalle says there is no silver bullet for solving the problem of summer “brain drain.” “We really need to do the hard work,” he says. “Educators have to figure out how kids learn and figure out what happens when reading and math skills are dormant. And when we find that out we can implement a plan of action.”
Inside the brain. Concept of neurons and nervous system. Two neurons transmitting information. Image credit:istockphoto.com/ktsimage
By examining the neural wiring and structure of animal brains, researchers can gain insight into the workings of the human brain, sometimes described as the world’s most complex structure. (The 100,000 neurons of a fly’s brain are easier to track and catalog than the human brain’s one hundred billion.) In the Museum’s current exhibition Brain: The Inside Story, visitors can learn more about the difference — and similarities — between human and animal brains.
Visitors will have also have the chance to view and compare the brains of different animals on Saturday, January 15, at the family-friendly program BRAINFest! The Museum’s Sackler Lab will offer kids and families the chance to learn about how genes work in the brain and look at neurons under a microscope.
In the meantime, check out these recent stories on animal brain research that also provides insight into the human brain.
“Decoding the Human Brain with Help from a Fly”, a story from The New York Times, describes the work of Taiwanese researchers who have constructed an atlas of a fruit fly’s brain by bar coding some 16,000 of its 100,000 neurons. Because human and fly brains are similar in general structure and chemical makeup, biologists view this wiring map as a step toward understanding the human brain.
Another New York Times story, “In Pursuit of a Mind Map, Slice by Slice”, explores a research team’s efforts to build a connectome, essentially a map of neural connections in the human brain. However, researchers are not yet ready to map a human’s 100 billion neurons and are starting with smaller structures. They are in the process of building a connectome of a mouse, taking miniscule slivers of mouse brains and developing detailed images of each slice. Read more »
