UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Macaque interactions with newborns studied

PARMA, Italy, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Italian scientists say they've discovered mother macaques and their newborn infants have early interactions that are similar to those of humans.

"What does a mother or father do when looking at their own baby?" asked researcher Pier Francesco Ferrari of Italy's University of Parma. "They smile at them and exaggerate their gestures, modify their voice pitch -- the so-called 'motherese' -- and kiss them. What we found in mother macaques is very similar: They exaggerate their gestures, 'kiss' their baby and have sustained mutual gaze."

Ferrari also noted in humans, the communicative interactions go both ways. Newborns are sensitive to their mother's expressions, movements and voice, and they also mutually engage their mothers and are capable of emotional exchange.

"For years, these capacities were considered to be basically unique to humans," the researchers said, "although perhaps shared to some extent with chimpanzees." They said their findings extend those social skills to macaques, suggesting the infant monkeys may "have a rich internal world" that we are only now beginning to see.

"Our results demonstrate that humans are not unique in showing emotional communication between mother and infant," the researchers wrote. "Instead, we can trace the evolutionary foundation of those behaviors, which are considered crucial for the establishment of social exchange with others, to macaques."

The study appears in the online early edition of the journal Current Biology.

Anti-oxidants may increase diabetes risk

VICTORIA, Australia, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Anti-oxidants may help fight aging but Australian researchers suggest they may also increase diabetes risk.

The report, published in Cell Metabolism, found mice with a deficiency that prevented them from eliminating physiological reactive oxygen species -- free radicals linked to aging -- did not become insulin resistant on a high-fat diet as they otherwise would have. When those animals were given an anti-oxidant that fights those reactive oxygen species, those benefits were lost, leaving the mice with more signs of diabetes.

The researchers suggest low levels of reactive oxygen species -- in particular hydrogen peroxide -- might protect against diabetes by improving the body's response to insulin signals.

"Our studies indicate that 'physiological' low levels of reactive oxygen species may promote the insulin response and attenuate insulin resistance early in the progression of type 2 diabetes, prior to overt obesity and hyperglycemia," study leader Tony Tiganis of Monash University, Victoria, Australia, said in a statement. "In a way, we think there is a delicate balance and that too much of a good thing -- surprise, surprise -- might be bad."

Banded rocks reveal early Earth conditions

MADISON, Wis., Oct. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say banded rocks found across upper Midwest states and elsewhere offer clues about the Earth's environment of more than 2 billion years ago.

University of Wisconsin scientists say such rocks, called banded iron formations or BIFs, formed between 3.8 billion and 1.7 billion years ago at what was then the bottom of the ocean. The stripes represent alternating layers of silica-rich chert -- a variety of silica -- and iron-rich minerals like hematite and magnetite.

Although BIFs are a rich source of information about the geochemical conditions that existed on Earth when the rocks were made, interpreting the clues has produced controversy for decades, Professor Huifang Xu said.

He said previous hypotheses about band formation involved seasonal fluctuations, temperature shifts or periodic blooms of micro-organisms -- but all of those theories left many open questions.

Now Xu and colleagues from Indiana University and the Sandia National Laboratory have developed a BIF formation model offering a more complete picture of the environment when the rocks developed, including interactions of the rocks with water and air.

The new theory of how the bands developed and what they reveal about the early ocean floor's composition, seawater and atmosphere appears in the early online edition of the journal in Nature Geoscience.

Cancer suppressing genes found

COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., Oct. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they have discovered a group of genes that act as barriers against cancer development.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory researchers said they used a powerful technology called RNA interference, which suppresses gene activity, to screen hundreds of candidate tumor suppressors in living mice, using small hairpin-shaped molecules that attach to specific genes and switch them off.

The researchers said they discovered more than 10 genes whose deactivation accelerated the development of lymphomas -- tumors of the immune system -- in the mice. The study is said to be one of only a few RNA-based screens that have been carried out in living animals to date.

In addition to finding new cancer-suppressing genes, the scientists said the screen also revealed some information about tumor growth that will impact how cancer therapies are designed. For example, they said their study showed genes that act as tumor suppressors in lymphoma do not act as tumor suppressors in certain other cancer types, such as liver carcinoma.

"These findings imply that genes can act as pro- or anti-cancer genes depending on genetic or cellular context," said Professor Scott Lowe, who led the research.

That suggests drugs that might inhibit the activity of a protein that is a tumor promoter in patients with one type of cancer might be dangerous to administer to patients with another type of cancer.

The findings appear in the journal Cancer Cell.