Cocaine and lidocaine have similar psychological effects after intranasal application.

Drug experienced subjects were administered three matched doses of intranasal cocaine and lidocaine. For each dose psychological ratings were similar for both drugs. The subjects were unable to discriminate between the drugs.     

In search of behavioral individuality

Living things are not created identical: In sexually reproducing species, individuals—except monozygotic twins—are different. Although widely acknowledged, behavioral individuality has received relatively little empirical or theoretical attention. Yet it seems likely that research focusing on individual differences will yield important insights for evolutionarily minded students of behavioral biology, including those interested in better understanding Homo sapiens.     

The social behaviour of the hoary marmot (Marmota caligata)

The social behaviour of four colonies of hoary marmots (Marmota caligata) was studied in Glacier National Park, Montana, during the summer of 1970. Colony structure involved a dominant male with a few females (3 years or older), 2-year-olds, yearlings and pups. Patterns of burrow use, greetings, play, and aggressive chasing are described, indicating a closely-integrated social structure with reproductive patterns suggesting late dispersal and maturation. A close resemblance to the behaviour of the Olympic marmot (M. olympus) is proposed.     

Shape Similarity Measures for the Design of Small RNA Switches

Abstract

Conformational switching in the secondary structure of RNAs has recently attracted considerable attention, fostered by the discovery of ‘riboswitches’ in living organisms. These are genetic control elements that were found in bacteria and offer a unique regulation mechanism based on switching between two highly stable states, separated by an energy barrier between them. In riboswitches, the energy barrier is crossed by direct metabolite binding, which facilitates regulation by allosteric means. However, other event triggers can cause switching to occur, such as single-point mutations and slight variations in temperature. Examples of switches with these event triggers have already been reported experimentally in the past. Here, the goal is to computationally design small RNA switches that rely on these triggers. Towards this end, our computer simulations utilize a variety of different similarity measures to assess the distances between an initial state and triggered states, based on the topology of the secondary structure itself. We describe these combined similarity measures that rely on both coarse-grained and fine-grained graph representations of the RNA secondary structure. As a result of our simulations, we provide some candidate sequences of approximately 30–50 nt, along with the exact triggers that drive the switching. The event triggers under consideration can be modelled by Zuker's mfold or the Vienna package. The proposed methodology that rely on shape measures can further be used to computationally generate more candidates by simulating various event triggers and calculating their effect on the shape.     

Mother-infant relations in captive woodchucks (Marmota monax)

Mother-infant relations in three litters of captive woodchucks were studied from birth until about one week after dispersal normally occurs in nature. Weaning correlated with dispersal age and with an increase in aggressive mother-infant relations and a decrease in solicitious behaviour.