Making Science More Better For You on 09/03/08

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Taser ends emu scamper on Pennsylvania Turnpike
(Pittsburgh Tribune Review)

Well yeah, if you stay in base ten they do ok.

Elephants show flair for arithmetic

Leo Lewis in Tokyo (Times Online.UK)

The elephant's memory is legendary, but in a large, grey surprise to science the mighty Asian elephant turns out to have a distinct flair for maths as well

Under carefully controlled experimental conditions — essentially comprising a large cage and two buckets of assorted fruit — one elephant at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo managed to get its sums right 87 per cent of the time. A slightly less gifted pachyderm across the country in Kyoto scored a still respectable 69 per cent.

The curiously accurate adding skills of Elephas maximus have been discovered by Naoko Irie, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Tokyo putting the finishing touches to her doctoral thesis. In her tests, three apples were dropped into one bucket and five into a second one next to it. Two more apples were added to each bucket, leaving the first with five and the second with seven apples.

Unable to see inside the buckets or probe them with her trunk, 30-year old Ashiya selected the bucket with the more apples having, apparently, counted the contents of each as it was being loaded-up with fruit. Nothing spectacularly rare about that, say scientists – plenty of animals have been shown to possess basic counting abilities but most animals fail when the numbers get much bigger than three or four or the margin of difference between the available choices become too narrow.

“I couldn’t believe it at first,” said Irie, “They could instantly compare numbers like six and five."

The elephants she subjected to the fruit-based arithmetic tests were as good at telling the difference between five and six as they were at spotting that five is greater than one, she said.

Speculation among scientists over why the elephant should have developed its limited but nonetheless impressive mathematical ability centres on the way in which the lumbering creatures move in herds. A basic counting ability, say experts, might act as a guarantee that no calf is left behind.



To be on the safe side, we suggest you don’t eat the ones with three eyes.

Clones' offspring may be in food supply: FDA

By Christopher Doering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Food and milk from the offspring of cloned animals may have entered the U.S. food supply, the U.S. government said on Tuesday, but it would be impossible to know because there is no difference between cloned and conventional products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in January meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe as products from traditional animals. Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary moratorium on the sale of clones and their offspring.

While the FDA evaluated the safety of food from clones and their offspring, the U.S. Agriculture Department was in charge of managing the transition of these animals into the food supply.

"It is theoretically possible" offspring from clones are in the food supply, said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman.

Cloning animals involves taking the nuclei of cells from adults and fusing them into egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother. There are an estimated 600 cloned animals in the United States.

Proponents, including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, say cloning is a way to create more disease-resistant animals that produce more milk and better meat. The cloning industry and the FDA say cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as their traditional counterparts.

Critics contend not enough is known about the technology to ensure it is safe, and they also say the FDA needs to address concerns over animal cruelty and ethical issues.

"It worries me that this technology is out of control in so many ways," said Charles Margulis, a spokesman with the Center for Environmental Health. The possibility of offspring being in the food supply "is just another element of that," he said.

FDA and USDA have said it is impossible to differentiate between cloned animals, their offspring and conventionally bred animals, making it difficult to know if offspring are in the food supply.

"But they would be a very limited number because of the very few number of clones that are out there and relatively few of those clones are at an age where they would be parenting," said Bruce Knight, USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.

As the FDA unveiled its final rule, USDA in January asked producers to prolong the ban on selling products from cloned animals. That ban did not extend to meat and milk from the clone's offspring.

Major food companies including Tyson Foods Inc, the largest U.S. meat company, and Smithfield Foods Inc have said they would avoid using cloned animals because of safety concerns.

The list grew on Tuesday after the Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth said 20 food producers and retailers vowed not to use ingredients from cloned animals.

The list, provided by the two groups, included Kraft Foods Inc, General Mills Inc, Campbell Soup Co, Nestle SA, California Pizza Kitchen Inc and Supervalu Inc.

In a letter to the Center for Food Safety, Susan Davison, director of corporate affairs with Kraft, said product safety was "not the only factor" the company considers.

"We must also carefully consider additional factors such as consumer benefits and acceptance ... and research in the U.S. indicates that consumers are currently not receptive to ingredients from cloned animals," she said.

"It is theoretically possible" offspring from clones are in the food supply, said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman.

"Theoretically possible" is spokesperson speak for , "oh yeah, it happened."