pennsylvania

Southeastern Asian forests harbor a small-bodied line of apes, known as gibbons, that sing like rainforest Pavarottis। These animals' full-throated refrains reverberate through dense vegetation. http://louis3j3sheehan.blogspot.com

A research team has now gone behind the music and gleaned the first evidence that singing gibbons rearrange notes to communicate with their comrades. This simple system, or syntax, for recombining sounds to convey messages represents a step toward human language that had not previously been demonstrated in apes, says psychologist Esther Clarke of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Researchers have traditionally held that syntax arose only as the vocabulary of prehistoric people grew large and unwieldy. "We're finding the opposite in gibbons," says psychologist Klaus Zuberbühler, also of the University of St. Andrews. "One way of escaping the constraints of their limited vocal abilities is to combine signals into more-complex sequences, which carry meaning."

Gibbons evolved complex vocal skills as a tool for finding long-term mates in a competitive social scene, the scientists theorize. In the December 2006 PLoS ONE, a new online journal, Clarke, Zuberbühler, and a colleague outline basic rules for gibbon songs stimulated by a predator's presence versus those crooned with a mate.

From April 2004 to August 2005, the researchers studied 13 groups of white-handed gibbons living in Thailand's Khao Yai National Park. Each group consisted of two to six members—usually an adult pair, its offspring, and occasionally another adult male.

Clarke elicited predator songs by placing realistic models of threatening animals in trees where an entire group of gibbons could see them. Models included a fake fur–wrapped sack representing a leopard and a painted, papier-mâché, crested serpent eagle covered in feathers.

The team recorded predator-induced songs, which began with series of soft "hoo" notes and included many instances of another note. Each predator tune lasted roughly 30 minutes.

Pairs of adult males and females that mate for life perform duets, often adjusting the tunes over time. In the new experiment, adult pairs of each group spontaneously produced duets that were captured by the audio recordings. These songs lacked introductory "hoo" notes and the repeated extra note of the predator songs, and duets lasted only 10 minutes.

Gibbons within earshot of singing comrades discriminated between duets and predator songs. Nearby females emitted a characteristic brief call after hearing any song, but they delayed this response for 2 minutes or more following predator tunes. All members of neighboring groups responded to predator-induced crooning by loudly repeating the sequence of notes.

Although a substantial gap separates human language from ape communication, the new study shows that "in gibbons, the difference in degree of vocal complexity and sophistication is not as large as some have been tempted to think," remarks biological anthropologist Barbara J. King of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

Biologist Dorothy Cheney of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia recommends that recordings of the two song types be played to gibbons in the same setting। She adds that syntax in gibbon songs falls short of that in language, which uses words to serve specific functions in sentences as well as to refer to features of the world. http://louis3j3sheehan.blogspot.com

vanilla

Scientists have ascertained the pedigree of Tahitian vanilla, the orchid whose rarity and rich, sweet flavor distinguishes it from the widely used commercial vanilla। The discovery of the plant’s heritage could set off a custody battle between nations, researchers say। http://louisdjdsheehan.blogspot.com

The new analysis, reported in the August American Journal of Botany, places Tahitian vanilla’s origin in Central America, although today the plant is grown only in French Polynesia and doesn’t exist in the wild। http://louisdjdsheehan.blogspot.com

“I am concerned that this altogether could dispossess Polynesia of a patrimonial genetic resource,” comments Pascale Besse, a plant geneticist at the joint research center PVBMT Cirad and University of Reunion. Now that Tahitian vanilla’s parents have been identified, people could create “Tahitian” vanilla anywhere, diluting its value in the luxury and gourmet markets, Besse says. But that flavor doesn’t arise from genes alone, she adds, and the Tahitian environment may be central to the orchid’s distinctive bouquet.

As with wine and coffee, environmental factors, such as climate or soil quality, and processing methods are important, she says.

PROUD PARENTSScientists identified Tahitian vanilla’s ancestors as V. planifolia (left) and V. odorata (right).Lubinsky; M. Van Dam

The pods or “beans” of Tahitian vanilla (Vanilla tahitensis) are much richer in oils known as oleoresins and have a fruitier scent than Vanilla planifolia, the species that provides roughly 95 percent of the vanilla beans sold worldwide each year, says economic botanist Pesach Lubinsky of the University of California, Riverside, who led the new study.

Scientists had established that Vanilla planifolia is native to Mesoamerica, but the heritage of Vanilla tahitensis remained a riddle. The 50 to 100 species in the orchid genus Vanilla are found all over the globe, but only the Western Hemisphere species bear fragrant pods, Lubinsky says.

“Only the New World species are aromatic — that was a big clue. If we are looking for its ancestors, let’s look in the New World,” he says.

Most hypotheses about Tahitian vanilla’s origins implicated good old V. planifolia. But there were two contenders for the other parent. V. pompona, which Tahitian vanilla tends to smell like, and V. odorata, which Tahitian vanilla tends to looks like.

To investigate, Lubinsky and colleagues examined DNA from chloroplasts, the plant’s light-harvesting factories, and from the nuclei of several species of vanilla. The chloroplast genome is passed on only by mothers; it doesn’t tango with paternal DNA the way nuclear DNA does. Tahitian vanilla’s chloroplast DNA was indeed identical to V. planifolia, confirming plain vanilla as its mom. The nuclear DNA was a mixture of V. planifolia and V. odorata, as would be expected from a hybrid, the researchers report.

Tahitian vanilla was probably born between 1350 and 1500, says Lubinsky, perhaps bred intentionally by farmers in the lowlands of Central America and then used as a flavoring in chocolate. “For my money, that’s where Tahitian vanilla originated — in some Maya forest garden,” he says. “It’s pretty clear its first use was by the ancient Maya who were drinking chocolate.”

“Vanilla is the secret of chocolate,” says Lubinsky, author of an analysis in the current issue of Economic Botany on the origins and dispersal of commercial vanilla.

Because the new finding demonstrates a Mesoamerican origin of what is now a solely French Polynesian crop, it does raise an interesting genetic resources dilemma regarding what nation owns rights to the plant’s genes, Lubinsky says.

Today, to safeguard the crop, growable plant parts of V. tahitensis are not allowed to be imported or exported from Tahiti. “It would be disastrous for Tahiti if other places started producing this vanilla,” Lubinsky says.

monroe

MAY 24TH.—Clear and warm.

No fighting yesterday besides small collisions near Hanover Junction. It is said to-day that Grant threatens the Central Railroad, on Lee’s left. This is regarded as a serious matter. We want men। http://louis8j8sheehan8.blogspot.com

An armed guard is now a fixture before the President’s house.

Peas were in market on the 18th inst।; price $10 a half peck. Strawberries are $10 per quart. http://louis8j8sheehan8.blogspot.comThere has been no meat in market for a long time, most of the butchers’ stalls being closed during the last three months. Unless government feeds the people here, some of us may starve.

Nothing especial at the Cabinet. The condition and position of the armies canvassed. Chase was not present. He seldom attends of late.

Seward urges the departure of the Niagara. I have no doubt that Sanford, our Minister at Belgium, one of Seward’s pets, who is now here, has been instrumental in urging this matter. He wants a public vessel to carry him abroad, and has cajoled Seward . . . to effect this object. I do not like to be bamboozled, as Colonel Benton says, by such fellows as Sanford.

There are, however, some reasons to influence action.

Seward sent to my house on Saturday evening a bundle of dispatches from Mr. Dayton, and also from Mr. Bigelow, our consul at Paris, relative to the conduct and feelings of the French Government. That breaking through the blockade for tobacco looks mischievous, and one or more vessels ought doubtless to appear in European waters.

Bigelow, in his confidential dispatch, tells Seward that it was not judicious to have explained to the French Government in regard to the resolution of our House of Representatives that they would maintain the Monroe Doctrine.