# s-behav: mama's boys among spotted hyenas

<< Males that stay at home are not second-class males but can breed as successfully as their more adventurous competitors that leave home, a new long-term study on spotted hyenas shows. >>

<< Spotted hyenas live in female-dominated groups of up to 100 individuals and express highly complex social behaviour. >>

Mama’s boys are not losers in spotted hyenas! 17 March 2016 Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB)

http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=162267&CultureCode=en

Eve Davidian, Alexandre Courtiol, et al. Why do some males choose to breed at home when most other males disperse? Science Advances  18 Mar 2016: Vol. 2, no. 3, e1501236 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501236

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/3/e1501236

# s-evol: early life in cold ocean

<< Many researchers  believe  that  Earth’s  early  oceans  were  very  hot,  reaching  80° Celsius,  and  that  life  originated  in  these  conditions.  New  findings  may  prove the  opposite  to  be  true >>

<< “We have found evidence  that  the  climate  3.5  billion  years  ago  was  a  cold environment,”  says  Furnes >>

Jens Helleland  Adnanes. Early  Earth  may have been ice cold Early. 14.03.2016.

http://www.uib.no/en/news/96628/early-earth-may-have-been-ice-cold

Maarten J. de Wit, Harald Furnes. 3.5-Ga hydrothermal fields and diamictites in the Barberton Greenstone Belt—Paleoarchean crust in cold environments. Science Advances  26 Feb 2016: Vol. 2, no. 2, e1500368 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500368

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/2/e1500368?_ga=1.19892027.2008468667.1440057899

# s-brain-behav: an aesthetically rewarding function

<< (..) white matter connectivity between sensory processing areas in the superior temporal gyrus and emotional and social processing areas in the insula and medial prefrontal cortex explains individual differences in reward sensitivity to music >>

The << (..)  findings provide the first evidence for a neural basis of individual differences in sensory access to the reward system, and suggest that social-emotional communication through the auditory channel may offer an evolutionary basis for music making as an aesthetically rewarding function in humans >>

Sachs ME, Ellis RJ, et al. Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2016 Mar 10. pii: nsw009. PMID: 26966157

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26966157

# s-tech: coping with disaster, future directions

<< Here is our list of disaster-related research that provides constructive lessons for the future >>

<< Choose from your area of interest for access >>

springer@news.springer.com Ven 18 Marzo, 2016 06:00

http://www.springer.com/gp/marketing/coping-with-disaster

# s-gene: about music-related creative behaviours

<< This study gives preliminary evidence for the molecular genetic background of creative activities in music >>

<< There is evidence that human music perception and practice share a common genetic background with the vocalization of songbirds >>

<< Pathway analysis of the genes suggestively associated with composing suggested an overrepresentation of the cerebellar long-term depression pathway (LTD), which is a cellular model for synaptic plasticity >>

AA << also propose a common genetic background for music-related creative behaviour and musical abilities at chromosome 4 >>

Oikkonen J., Kuusi T. et al. Creative Activities in Music - A Genome-Wide Linkage Analysis. PLoS One. 2016 Feb 24;11(2):e0148679. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148679. eCollection 2016.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26909693

more:

long-term depression pathway (LTD)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=long-term+depression+(LTD)

# s-math: hijacking news: unexpected, surprisingly erratic biases inside PI

<< the distribution of the last digit of prime numbers are not as random as has been thought, which suggests prime's themselves are not >>

Bob Yirka. Mathematician pair find prime numbers aren't as random as thought. March 15, 2016

http://m.phys.org/news/2016-03-mathematician-pair-prime-random-thought.html

Robert J. Lemke Oliver, Kannan Soundararajan. Unexpected biases in the distribution of consecutive primes, arXiv:1603.03720 [math.NT]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.03720

# s-lang: the compositional syntax of Tits

<< Here  we  report  the  first  experimental  evidence  for  compositional  syntax  in  a  wild  animal  species,  the Japanese  great  tit  (Parus  minor).  Tits  have  over  ten  different  notes  in  their  vocal  repertoire  and  use them  either  solely  or  in  combination  with  other  notes.  Experiments  reveal  that  receivers  extract different  meanings  from  ‘ABC’  (scan  for  danger)  and  ‘D’  notes  (approach  the  caller),  and  a compound  meaning  from  ‘ABC–D’  combinations.  However,  receivers  rarely  scan  and  approach when  note  ordering  is  artificially  reversed  (‘D–ABC’).  Thus,  compositional  syntax  is  not  unique  to human  language  but  may  have  evolved  independently  in  animals  as  one  of  the  basic  mechanisms of  information  transmission. >>

Toshitaka  N.  Suzuki,  David  Wheatcroft  &  Michael  Griesser. Experimental  evidence  for  compositional  syntax  in bird  calls. Nature Communications 7, Article number: 10986 doi:10.1038/ncomms10986. Published  08  March  2016

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160308/ncomms10986/full/ncomms10986.html