New refrigerator

Mari got new refrigerator in this June. In the previous June, she bought an automatic washer-dryer. It seems that June is the month of shopping for Mari.

That is the most recent model of eco-friendly fridge from SHARP. Though the price will drop down in autumn, she could not wait until then. I set the old one in my laboratory.

The new fridge is too big and heavier than me. Will I be able to carry it to next place?

Best dads

FATHER'S DAY PICTURES: "Best" Animal Dads

The "best" fathers in animals are: seahorse, giant water bug, marmoset, South America's greater rhea, barking frog, cockroach, emperor penguin, and me.

The word "cockroach" implies deadbeat dads, but some kinds of cockroach fathers nurse their young. Male seahorses carry babies in their specialized pouch during their "pregnancy". Male marmosets in South America act as "midwives" during birth, and carry, feed, and groom their twin babies. Emperor penguin fathers endure below-freezing temperatures and forgo food to incubate their eggs for several months. Finally, I dedicate myself to care for Mari and Ken and feed them for some decade (probably).


Ken drew a picture of my face on father's day at his daycare. He points the picture and says me everyday, "dad, you are so small!" What's that all about?

Laughter

"Human Laughter Echoes Chimp Chuckles"
Does only human animal laugh? Though Aristotle observed so, researchers at the University of Hannover in Germany concluded that laughter has been evolving in primates over the last 10 to 16 million years, since at least the last common ancestor of humans and modern great apes.

Current Biology,

published online on June 4, 2009.

"Reconstructing the Evolution of Laughter in Great Apes and Humans"
The researchers analyzed the acoustics of tickle-induced vocalizations from infant and juvenile orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos, as well as tickle-induced laughter produced by human infants. The phylogenetic trees reconstructed from the acoustic data matched the well-established trees based on comparative genetics. The authors concluded that tickling-induced laughter is homologous in great apes and humans, and support the more general postulation of phylogenetic continuity from nonhuman displays to human emotional expressions.

The Wired Vision article says that the laughter continuously tells an animal's playmates that he is happy and merely fooling around, with no intention of picking a fight. This type of play builds social bonds in many mammals, including other primates and mammals like dogs and rats, which are also thought to emit sounds while being tickled.
(See "Laughter in animals" in Wikipedia.)

I will try to tickle animals for taming.


An adorable slow loris who loves getting tickled.

Glowing animals

Attractive photos of animals expressing green fluorescent proteins (GFP).

A report in the April issue of journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
"Amphioxus encodes the largest known family of green fluorescent proteins, which have diversified into distinct functional classes."
Amphioxus (lancelets, Branchiostoma floridae) is a primitive chordate that provides indications about the origins of the vertebrates. It is known that Amphioxus has GFP gene and shows intense fluorescence mainly in the head region.
In the report, researchers at the University of California San Diego discovered that the amphioxus genome encodes 16 closely-related GFP-like proteins. Some GFPs with low fluorescence capacity have different characteristics, such as light production and antioxidant capacity to protect the animal in times of illness or stress.

My head glows in time of stress. Sometimes I fire a missile from my head.

FOXP2

Why Can We Talk? 'Humanized' Mice Speak Volumes About Evolutionary Past

An article in the May 29th issue of the journal Cell reported that mice carrying a "humanized" gene showed changes in brain circuits where linked to speech and language in humans.
"A humanized version of Foxp2 affects cortico-basal ganglia circuits in mice"

This gene, FOXP2, is a transcription factor that is expressed in the brain as well as in a wide variety of other tissues.
It has been hypothesized that two amino acid substitutions (T303N, N325S) of the gene product became fixed after the human lineage split from chimpanzees, and the differences underwent selection due to effects on some aspects of speech and language.
In addition, individuals having an allele with missense mutations on FOXP2 gene suffer from a developmental impairment especially affecting speech and language.

In the study, the researchers introduced these substitutions into the Foxp2 gene in mice.
Mice having the humanized FOXP2 are generally healthy, but showed qualitatively different ultrasonic vocalizations, decreased exploratory behavior and decreased dopamine concentrations in the brain.

Furthermore, these mice had altered cortico-basal ganglia circuits and increased synaptic plasticity and dendrite length in the striatum, which have been linked to human speech.
Interestingly, mice carrying one nonfunctional Foxp2 allele showed opposite effects to the humanized FOXP2 knock-in mice.

The authors concluded that the effects on cortico-basal ganglia circuits seen in the humanized Foxp2 mice model aspects of speech and language evolution in humans.
"It will now be important to further explore the mechanistic basis of these effects and their possible relationship to phenotypic differences between humans and apes", they say.

This is an amazing report about evolution of speech and language capacity in humans. In addition, I was surprised at the number of the authors: 54 researchers.

Conan

On Sunday, we watched an animated film "Case Closed" (Meitantei Conan) in a theater.
It amused Mari, but was too difficult to Ken. I confused it with "Future Boy Conan" by Hayao Miyazaki.
Ken rather enjoyed watching usavich on my MacBook.

At the night, I gave Mari a haircut. I did fine, but she was upset. She calmed down the next day, because her coworkers flattered her on her haircut.

Stamp and stump

On Saturday. Mari and I went to Ken's daycare and watched his activity in there. We went to nearby square with Ken and daycare staff and did a "stamp rally". Ken got stamps from the staff through doing predetermined acts.
A staff called me "Ken's Grandpa". Maybe she needs to renew her glasses.



After that, I went to my lab and tried to dig up the stump again. I did it with a chainsaw, but failed cut off a thick root extended downward.

Surrender? No.

Telecoil

My hearing aids support a telecoil (t-coil) input system. Telecoil is a simple induction coil that can create electrical current from magnetic field. The telecoil pick up electromagnetic signals emanated from an induction device and output them as sounds. So you can hear sound via telecoil instead of ordinary microphones.

I had thought that the telecoil was only compatible with some "hearing aid compatible" telephones. But there are a variety of induction devices that can put out magnetic signals to the telecoil.

I got two types of induction devices, a neckloop (left) and behind-the-ear wires (right). These devices can be plugged into an earphone jack of listening systems, including iPod. That is so great to me.

Niigata ramen expo

I went to "Niigata ramen expo", which was held at the Toki-Messe building on the last weekend of May, with my family.
It took 750 yen for a bowl of ramen, and 710 yen for another one. We shared five ramens obtained from distinct shops together.

Toki-Messe building (left) and the exhibition of the ramen expo (right).


(Left) People tasted various ramens. (Right) The best ramen among those we tested.


Ken opened a ramen shop in a booth.

Gardening

(Left) On Saturday, I and Ken tried to dig up and haul out a stump in the way. But the roots were too thick to cut off, so we gave up to do at the time.
I will try it again next weekend.

(Middle) Mari started to grow a variety of vegetables in planters. But she found an aphid infestation last weekend and bothered with it.

(Right) Sprouted peas.
An undergrad in the Dr. S lab is growing them for her thesis.

Tickling

I got a cactus, namely Cereus peruvianus, which I referred in a previous ently. "Fight against electromagnetic wave", says the description. It is said that the cactus eats electromagnetic wave from electronics. I put it in front of the monitor on my desk.
The producer termed cactuses "tickling", which sounds like both "pinprick" and "funny" in Japanese. It says that cactuses exert "tickling power" and are versatile as a panacea.

In addition, I set a Weeping Fig tree, a popular house plant, near my desk.
Because the tree is a tropical plant sensitive to cold, I worry about whether it can survive winter in Niigata.

Get a friend

Another version of the proverb.

If you want to be happy for a day, get a date.
If you want to be happy for a week, get a lover.
If you want to be happy for a month, get married.
If you want to be happy forever, get a friend.

Last Thursday, I saw a bike parking near the window of my lab. The rider told me that he is traveling around Japan to get friends. He appeared to be happy.