Cognition in insects

A traditional view of cognition is that it involves an internal process that represents, tracks or predicts an external process. This is not a general characteristic of all complex neural processing or feedback control, but rather implies specific forms of processing giving rise to specific behavioural capabilities. In this paper, I will review the evidence for such capabilities in insect navigation and learning. Do insects know where they are, or do they only know what to do? Do they learn what stimuli mean, or do they only learn how to behave?     

Legal aspects of genetic information

The federally funded Human Genome Initiative will lead to the development of new capabilities to learn about an individual''s genetic status. Legal issues are raised concerning patients'' and other parties'' access to that information. This article discusses the effect of existing statutes and case law on three pivotal questions: To what sort of information are people entitled? What control should people have over their genetic information? Do people have a right to refuse genetic information? The article emphasizes that the law protects a patient''s right to obtain or refuse genetic information about oneself, as well as the right to control the dissemination of that information to others.     

Caging and Uncaging Genetics

It is important for biology to understand if observations made in highly reductionist laboratory settings generalise to harsh and noisy natural environments in which genetic variation is sorted to produce adaptation. But what do we learn by studying, in the laboratory, a genetically diverse population that mirrors the wild? What is the best design for studying genetic variation? When should we consider it at all? The right experimental approach depends on what you want to know.     

Is It Oscar-Worthy? Children’s Metarepresentational Understanding of Acting

Although it is an essential aspect of one of the most common forms of entertainment, psychologists know almost nothing about how children understand the act of portraying a character in a realistic manner—realistic acting. Do children possess the sort of meta-theory of acting that adults possess? In two studies we find that, unlike adults, children between the ages of 3–5 do not think that a realistic actor is better at portraying a characteristic than a nonrealistic actor, nor do they prefer one to the other. As they develop, they come to understand that realistic acting is different from nonrealistic acting, but unlike adults, children think that a nonrealistic, pretense-like portrayal is more difficult to achieve than a realistic representation of an emotional or physical state. These findings show that children’s metarepresentational understanding of acting is relatively immature at age 5, and that their understanding of this specific domain of pretense lags behind their understanding of pretense in general.     

Signalling shortcuts: cell-surface receptors in the nucleus?

Do cell-surface growth-factor receptors and their ligands accumulate in the nucleoplasm under physiological conditions? And, if so, how do they get there and what function do they serve in this location? Recent advances have provided tantalizing hints to the answers to these questions, and hold the key to identifying a new mode of signal transduction.     

What’s a Weed? Knowledge,Attitude and Behaviour of Park Visitors about Weeds

Weeds are a major threat to biodiversity globally degrading natural areas of high conservation value. But what are our attitudes about weeds and their management including weeds in national parks? Do we know what a weed is? Do we consider weeds a problem? Do we support their management? Are we unintentionally spreading weeds in parks? To answer these questions, we surveyed visitors entering a large popular national park near the city of Brisbane, Australia. Park visitors were knowledgeable about weeds; with >75% correctly defining weeds as ‘plants that grow where they are not wanted’. About 10% of the visitors, however, provided their own sophisticated definitions. This capacity to define weeds did not vary with people’s age, sex or level of education. We constructed a scale measuring visitors’ overall concern about weeds in parks using the responses to ten Likert scale statements. Over 85% of visitors were concerned about weeds with older visitors, hikers, and those who could correctly define weeds more concerned than their counterparts. The majority think visitors unintentionally introduce seeds into parks, with many (63%) having found seeds on their own clothing. However, over a third disposed of these seeds in ways that could facilitate weed spread. Therefore, although most visitors were knowledgeable and concerned about weeds, and support their control, there is a clear need for more effective communication regarding the risk of visitors unintentionally dispersing weed seeds in parks.     

When is a parasite species a species?

Regrettably, 140 years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, we face the grotesque situation that we still do not know what is a species whose origin Darwin wanted to explain. A generally applicable species definition is not available. Is there a basic unit of biodiversity above the level of individuals? Do we try to define something that does not exist in reality? The strong potential for the evolution of genetic variability in parasites together with the importance of species diagnosis for applied fields of parasite research make biodiversity research a key role in parasitology. Frequent occurrence of sympatric speciation, clonal reproduction, selfing, sib mating or parthenogenesis imply exceptional conditions for the evolution of gene pool diversities in parasites.     

Mechanism of action of biological antioxidants.

More and more diseases have been proposed to have a radical or oxidant involvement. Although in most cases we do not know if this involvement is a cause or a result of the disease process, it is still valuable to learn about those compounds or enzymes that might block, inhibit, or prevent radical-initiated reactions. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to understand which compounds can function as antioxidants, where they are located in the body, and what their mechanism of action might be. As we increase our knowledge in these areas, we will have a better opportunity to propose interventions that might suppress or even reverse some of the ravages of oxidant-based diseases in humans.     

Conditions Complicating Parallel Recognition Processing

The issue in this paper is currently widely debated among American experimental psychologists concerned with the general problem of "information processing": Do human adults take in and process visual information one piece at a time (serial processing), or do they "chunk" information so that several stimuli may be processed simultaneously (parallel processing)?     

Learn from the Best

What is more inspiring than a discussion with the leading scientists in your field? As a student or a young researcher, you have likely been influenced by mentors guiding you in your career and leading you to your current position. Any discussion with or advice from an expert is certainly very helpful for young people. But how often do we have the opportunity to meet experts? Do we make the most out of these situations? Meetings organized for young scientists are a great opportunity not only for the attendees: they are an opportunity for experts to meet bright students and learn from them in return. In this article, we introduce several successful events organized by Regional Student Groups all around the world, bridging the gap between experts and young scientists. We highlight how rewarding it is for all participants: young researchers, experts, and organizers. We then discuss the various benefits and emphasize the importance of organizing and attending such meetings. As a young researcher, seeking mentorship and additional skills training is a crucial step in career development. Keep in mind that one day, you may be an inspiring mentor, too.     

Normal and pathological oscillatory communication in the brain

The huge number of neurons in the human brain are connected to form functionally specialized assemblies. The brain's amazing processing capabilities rest on local communication within and long-range communication between these assemblies. Even simple sensory, motor and cognitive tasks depend on the precise coordination of many brain areas. Recent improvements in the methods of studying long-range communication have allowed us to address several important questions. What are the common mechanisms that govern local and long-range communication and how do they relate to the structure of the brain? How does oscillatory synchronization subserve neural communication? And what are the consequences of abnormal synchronization?     

Wild justice and fair play: cooperation,forgiveness, and morality in animals

In this paper I argue that we can learn much about ‘wild justice’ and the evolutionary origins of social morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living animals, and that interdisciplinary cooperation will help immensely. In our efforts to learn more about the evolution of morality we need to broaden our comparative research to include animals other than non-human primates. If one is a good Darwinian, it is premature to claim that only humans can be empathic and moral beings. By asking the question ‘What is it like to be another animal?’ we can discover rules of engagement that guide animals in their social encounters. When I study dogs, for example, I try to be a ‘dogocentrist’ and practice ‘dogomorphism.’ My major arguments center on the following ‘big’ questions: Can animals be moral beings or do they merely act as if they are? What are the evolutionary roots of cooperation, fairness, trust, forgiveness, and morality? What do animals do when they engage in social play? How do animals negotiate agreements to cooperate, to forgive, to behave fairly, to develop trust? Can animals forgive? Why cooperate and play fairly? Why did play evolve as it has? Does ‘being fair’ mean being more fit – do individual variations in play influence an individual's reproductive fitness, are more virtuous individuals more fit than less virtuous individuals? What is the taxonomic distribution of cognitive skills and emotional capacities necessary for individuals to be able to behave fairly, to empathize, to behave morally? Can we use information about moral behavior in animals to help us understand ourselves? I conclude that there is strong selection for cooperative fair play in which individuals establish and maintain a social contract to play because there are mutual benefits when individuals adopt this strategy and group stability may be also be fostered. Numerous mechanisms have evolved to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of social play to keep others engaged, so that agreeing to play fairly and the resulting benefits of doing so can be readily achieved. I also claim that the ability to make accurate predictions about what an individual is likely to do in a given social situation is a useful litmus test for explaining what might be happening in an individual's brain during social encounters, and that intentional or representational explanations are often important for making these predictions.     

Possible Roles for Cognin in Chick Embryo Neural Retina

In this review, we discuss current information about a cell-cellrecognition protein present in chick embryo neural retina. Thisprotein, retina cognin, has cell adhesion or aggregation promotingpropertiesin vitro. We discuss five questions. First, what isretina cognin (R-cognin)? Second, what do we know about cogninin chick retina? We discuss its histological distribution inretina and how that distribution changes during embryonic andearly post-hatching development. Third, where is cognin withincells? We review light microscopy evidence for its localizationin plasma membranes of somas and neurites of selected retinalneurons as an intrinsic membrane protein. Fourth, how is cognindistributed in membranes? We summarize evidence that cogninmight not be uniformly distributed over cellsurfaces and thatit might bind to specific proteins on the surfaces of otherretina cells. From the available information, we ask what wecan deduce about cognin's biological role in the neural retina.     

Mouvances des familles et réponses aux besoins des enfants I. L’amour et la confiance de base

There are a lot of different models of family structures apart from the traditional nuclear family which is why they have been grouped together under the generic termrestructured families. Do they satisfactorily meet — to paraphrase Winnicott — the psychic needs of children that live inside them? The answer cannot be simplyyes or no as it is obviously impossible to study each individual case. Like all human institutions, these families have specific failures and successes, which may be momentary during a crisis or a highly productive period while others may be more structural. In the first of these two articles dedicated to this subject, the question of love given in response to the child’s expectations will be discussed, followed by a discussion of what happens to his self-confidence, which is in the process of being formed.     

Epigenetic gene regulation in stem cells and correlation to cancer

Through the classic study of genetics, much has been learned about the regulation and progression of human disease. Specifically, cancer has been defined as a disease driven by genetic alterations, including mutations in tumor-suppressor genes and oncogenes, as well as chromosomal abnormalities. However, the study of normal human development has identified that in addition to classical genetics, regulation of gene expression is also modified by ‘epigenetic’ alterations including chromatin remodeling and histone variants, DNA methylation, the regulation of polycomb group proteins, and the epigenetic function of non-coding RNA. These changes are modifications inherited during both meiosis and mitosis, yet they do not result in alterations of the actual DNA sequence. A number of biological questions are directly influenced by epigenetics, such as how does a cell know when to divide, differentiate or remain quiescent, and more importantly, what happens when these pathways become altered? Do these alterations lead to the development and/or progression of cancer? This review will focus on summarizing the limited current literature involving epigenetic alterations in the context of human cancer stems cells (CSCs). The extent to which epigenetic changes define cell fate, identity, and phenotype are still under intense investigation, and many questions remain largely unanswered. Before discussing epigenetic gene silencing in CSCs, the different classifications of stem cells and their properties will be introduced. This will be followed by an introduction to the different epigenetic mechanisms. Finally, there will be a discussion of the current knowledge of epigenetic modifications in stem cells, specifically what is known from rodent systems and established cancer cell lines, and how they are leading us to understand human stem cells.     

Intentionality and Expertise: Learning from Observations of Children at Play in Multilingual, Multicultural Contexts

This article draws from three ethnographic studies of children playing sociodramatically in multilingual, multicultural contexts. Countering a deficit perspective that focuses on what children from nondominant cultures do not know, we use the concept of syncretism to illuminate children's expertise and intentionality as they blend knowledge from multiple worlds to reinvent cultural practices and create new spaces for learning. Findings encourage educators to learn from the syncretic nature of children's teaching and learning through play.     

Investigating high school students' conceptualizations of the biological basis of learning

Students go to school to learn. How much, however, do students understand about the biological basis of this everyday process? Blackwell et al. (1) demonstrated a correlation between education about learning and academic achievement. Yet there are few studies investigating high school students' conceptions of learning. In this mixed-methods research study, written assessments were administered to 339 high school students in an urban school district after they completed their required biology education, and videotaped interviews were conducted with 15 students. The results indicated that the majority of students know little about the biological basis of learning, even with prompting, and they recall having learned little about it in school. Students appear to believe that people control their own ability to learn, and some have developed personal hypotheses to describe the learning process. On written assessments, 75% of participants demonstrated a nonbiological framework for learning, and, during interviews, 67% of participants revealed misconceptions about the biological basis of learning. Sample quotes of these interviews are included in this report, and the implications of these findings are discussed.     

Social Awareness in Monkeys

Tests of self-awareness in nonhuman primates have to date beenconcerned almost entirely with the recognition of an animal'sreflection in a mirror. By contrast, we know much less aboutnon-human primates' perception of their place within a socialnetwork, or of their understanding of themselves as individualswith unique sets of social relationships. Here we review evidencethat monkeys who fail the mirror test may nonetheless behaveas if they recognize themselves as distinct individuals, eachof whom occupies a unique place in society and has a specificset of relations with others. A free-ranging vervet monkey,baboon, or macaque recognizes other members of his group asindividuals. He also recognizes matrilineal kin groups, lineardominance rank orders, and behaves as if he recognizes his ownunique place within them. This sense of "social self" in monkeys,however, is markedly different from self-awareness in humans.Although monkeys may behave in ways that accurately place themselveswithin a social network, they are unaware of the knowledge thatallows them to do so: they do not know what they know, cannotreflect on what they know, and cannot become the object of theirown attention.