16 | NewScientist | 31 July 2010

DOG owners are said to resemble their pets – and perhaps with good reason. It seems dogs naturally match human gestures in a phenomenon known as automatic imitation.

People unconsciously copy the gestures of those around them. For example, a yawn will induce yawning in an observer, and a person looking skywards encourages passers-by to do the

same. Friederike Range of the University of Vienna, Austria, and colleagues wanted to see whether dogs’ actions, too, were influenced by humans. They trained dogs to open a sliding door with either their paw or mouth. One group of dogs were rewarded when they used the same method as their trainer, another when they used a different method to the trainer. The team found that the second

Unravelling RNA link to Parkinson’s

A TINY, gene-regulating snippet of RNA may play a role in Parkinson’s disease. Bingwei Lu, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in California, has shown that a microRNA sequence which suppresses certain genes is linked to the death of brain cells in fruit flies.

Lu and his team studied a gene called LRRK2. A mutant form of LRRK2, common in Jews of European descent and people from north Africa, is known to be involved in the development of Parkinson’s, but exactly how was unclear.

Fruit flies with the mutant form of LRRK2 also had a disrupted microRNA pathway associated with the gene, and accumulated toxic proteins that killed motor-coordinating neurons in the brain. Adding the microRNA back in helped to correct this process (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09191).

Spots on the sun? You’re risking a wet one

IF YOU want to see Venice while keeping your feet dry, don’t go when the sun has lots of spots. Peaks in solar activity cause the city to flood more often, apparently by changing the paths of storms over Europe.

Several times a year, but most commonly between October and December, Venice is hit by an exceptional tide called the acqua alta. David Barriopedro at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and colleagues were intrigued by studies showing the tides followed an 11-year cycle, just like the sun, showing peaks when the sunspots were most abundant. They looked at hourly

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Why dogs and their owners are so alike group took more attempts to get the task right, suggesting that dogs are indeed subject to automatic imitation (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.1142).

The findings support the idea that social animals automatically imitate others. However, Thomas Zentall of the University of Kentucky, Lexington, cautions that training is needed to bring out the trait. “It doesn’t happen automatically,” he says.

observations of sea level between 1948 and 2008, which confirmed that the number of extreme tides followed peaks in the solar cycle (Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1029/2009JD013114).

Records of air pressure over Europe over the same period revealed “acqua alta years” saw a lot of low-pressure systems over the north Adriatic Sea, while in quiet years these systems were further south.

This make sense, because flooding events in Venice are known to be triggered by low-pressure systems from the Atlantic. These systems allow sea levels to rise, while stormy winds blow from south to north, piling up seawater around Venice. In quiet solar years, the storms are shifted to the south, but it remains unclear exactly how solar activity has these affects on the weather.

BUCKYBALLS have been a source of fascination ever since they were made in the lab in 1985. Now it seems they may be found throughout the cosmos.

Previous studies of impact craters on Earth hinted that these 60-atom balls of carbon might exist in space. And when Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, and colleagues analysed infrared radiation from the dust around a white dwarf star about 6500 light years away from Earth, they found buckyballs’ signature (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1192035).

Abundant carbon and a lack of hydrogen in the area could provide perfect conditions for buckyballs. Hydrogen stops their formation by combining with the carbon.

Buckyballs found in space dust

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