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Bladder control helps you tell lies
Andy Rouse/naturepl.com
in Brief Bladder control helps you tell lies
Who’s telling tall tales about nocturnal giraffe noises? LIONS roar, elephants trumpet — but what do giraffes do? Biologists have speculated for years about whether giraffes can vocalise, or whether their long necks prevent them from producing the necessary airflow. After reviewing almost 1000 hours of sound recordings from three European zoos, Angela Stöger at the University of Vienna, Austria, has an answer. Her microphones picked up a low hum from the giraffe enclosures at night. At about 92 hertz, the sound is just within the lower limit of human hearing (BMC Research Notes, doi.org/7rt). Giraffes have a structured social
system, and for a long time scientists have been trying to figure out how they communicate, says Meredith Bashaw at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “This new vocalisation could add a piece to that puzzle,” she says. The recordings might come as no surprise to the residents of Paignton in Devon, UK. Last year some of them complained of a humming or droning noise coming from Paignton Zoo’s giraffe house at night. However, despite the new findings, Paignton Zoo denies any giraffe involvement. “No, definitely not linked to our neighbours’ issue – but the image of our giraffes humming happily to themselves all night is a delightful one,” says Phil Knowling, press and public relations officer at Paignton Zoo.
Weak waves can trigger strong quakes SEISMIC waves unleashed during this month’s magnitude 8.3 quake in Chile could have trigged aftershocks 1000 kilometres away – and a model explains how. We know that major quakes, like 1992’s Landers earthquake in California, can send out seismic waves that spark large tremors far away – even though the waves get weaker as they travel. “We were wondering: how could
a very tiny wave with a very small amplitude trigger earthquakes 1000 kilometres away?” asks Lucilla de Arcangelis of the Second University of Naples in Italy. One idea is that acoustic vibrations from the initial quake lather up the ground-up rock in a geological fault in a way that decreases friction. This then makes the fault more likely to slip and an earthquake to occur. Now
a team including de Arcangelis has built a computer model that shows this process as it happens. They found that seismic waves could trigger an earthquake in the simulated fault only if they came in a narrow range of frequencies. If the fault was just about to slip, the waves would hasten the process by starting acoustic vibrations in that range. Only the frequency mattered – even weak waves could induce a quake (Physical Review Letters, doi.
OVERCOOKED your CV? Drink a large coffee before going into the job interview: people seem to lie more convincingly when they are suppressing the urge to urinate. Iris Blandón-Gitlin of California State University in Fullerton and her colleagues asked students to complete a questionnaire on controversial issues. They were then interviewed by a panel, but instructed to lie about their opinions on two issues. Before the interviews began, half the students drank 700 millilitres of water. The other half drank 50 ml. The interviewers detected lies less frequently among those with a full bladder (Consciousness and Cognition, doi.org/7rx). The findings build on earlier work suggesting that different activities requiring self-control share common mechanisms in the brain, and engaging in one type of control enhances another.
Wasps sever heads in brutal fig war KILL first, ask questions later – if you’re a wasp living inside a fig. James Cook of the University of Reading, UK, and his colleagues found that some male fig wasps go on the rampage when looking for a mate, often decapitating males from different species, as well as beheading rival males from their own species. Fighting to the death is not normal behaviour in the animal kingdom – but circumstances in the figs are unusual. Male wasps live only a few days, and females are rare. It makes sense for males to move fast and risk their lives for an opportunity to mate – even if that means fighting before they identify whether their opponent is a genuine rival (Ecological Entomology, doi.org/7rj). 26 September 2015 | NewScientist | 17
in Brief Bladder control helps you tell lies
Who’s telling tall tales about nocturnal giraffe noises? LIONS roar, elephants trumpet — but what do giraffes do? Biologists have speculated for years about whether giraffes can vocalise, or whether their long necks prevent them from producing the necessary airflow. After reviewing almost 1000 hours of sound recordings from three European zoos, Angela Stöger at the University of Vienna, Austria, has an answer. Her microphones picked up a low hum from the giraffe enclosures at night. At about 92 hertz, the sound is just within the lower limit of human hearing (BMC Research Notes, doi.org/7rt). Giraffes have a structured social
system, and for a long time scientists have been trying to figure out how they communicate, says Meredith Bashaw at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “This new vocalisation could add a piece to that puzzle,” she says. The recordings might come as no surprise to the residents of Paignton in Devon, UK. Last year some of them complained of a humming or droning noise coming from Paignton Zoo’s giraffe house at night. However, despite the new findings, Paignton Zoo denies any giraffe involvement. “No, definitely not linked to our neighbours’ issue – but the image of our giraffes humming happily to themselves all night is a delightful one,” says Phil Knowling, press and public relations officer at Paignton Zoo.
Weak waves can trigger strong quakes SEISMIC waves unleashed during this month’s magnitude 8.3 quake in Chile could have trigged aftershocks 1000 kilometres away – and a model explains how. We know that major quakes, like 1992’s Landers earthquake in California, can send out seismic waves that spark large tremors far away – even though the waves get weaker as they travel. “We were wondering: how could
a very tiny wave with a very small amplitude trigger earthquakes 1000 kilometres away?” asks Lucilla de Arcangelis of the Second University of Naples in Italy. One idea is that acoustic vibrations from the initial quake lather up the ground-up rock in a geological fault in a way that decreases friction. This then makes the fault more likely to slip and an earthquake to occur. Now
a team including de Arcangelis has built a computer model that shows this process as it happens. They found that seismic waves could trigger an earthquake in the simulated fault only if they came in a narrow range of frequencies. If the fault was just about to slip, the waves would hasten the process by starting acoustic vibrations in that range. Only the frequency mattered – even weak waves could induce a quake (Physical Review Letters, doi.
OVERCOOKED your CV? Drink a large coffee before going into the job interview: people seem to lie more convincingly when they are suppressing the urge to urinate. Iris Blandón-Gitlin of California State University in Fullerton and her colleagues asked students to complete a questionnaire on controversial issues. They were then interviewed by a panel, but instructed to lie about their opinions on two issues. Before the interviews began, half the students drank 700 millilitres of water. The other half drank 50 ml. The interviewers detected lies less frequently among those with a full bladder (Consciousness and Cognition, doi.org/7rx). The findings build on earlier work suggesting that different activities requiring self-control share common mechanisms in the brain, and engaging in one type of control enhances another.
Wasps sever heads in brutal fig war KILL first, ask questions later – if you’re a wasp living inside a fig. James Cook of the University of Reading, UK, and his colleagues found that some male fig wasps go on the rampage when looking for a mate, often decapitating males from different species, as well as beheading rival males from their own species. Fighting to the death is not normal behaviour in the animal kingdom – but circumstances in the figs are unusual. Male wasps live only a few days, and females are rare. It makes sense for males to move fast and risk their lives for an opportunity to mate – even if that means fighting before they identify whether their opponent is a genuine rival (Ecological Entomology, doi.org/7rj). 26 September 2015 | NewScientist | 17