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Boozy primates seek out palm nectar rich in alcohol
Konrad Wothe/Minden Pictures
in Brief Urban monkeys get high cholesterol
Boozy primates seek out palm nectar rich in alcohol IT LOOKS wasted, right? Aye-ayes (pictured above) seem to prefer fake nectar with higher concentrations of alcohol – as does the slow loris, a small primate from South-East Asia. Both animals probably encounter fermented palm nectar in the wild. Chimps have been caught gulping fermented sap in the wild before, but it wasn’t clear if primates tolerated the alcohol or actively sought it out, says Robert Dudley at the University of California in Berkeley. “This is the first study – albeit using captive primates – to show that there is a preference for higher levels of alcohol,”
says Dudley, who wasn’t involved in the study, Nathaniel Dominy at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, offered two aye-ayes and one slow loris five cups of sugary water with alcohol content ranging from 0 to 4 or 5 per cent, similar levels to those found in wild flowers. The primates could tell the difference and preferred to drink the boozier liquids (Royal Society Open Science, doi.org/bmwx). “Aye-ayes used their fingers to compulsively probe the cups long after the contents were emptied, suggesting that they were extremely eager to collect all residual traces,” says Dominy. It’s not yet clear why they seek fermented drinks. One idea is that the smell of alcohol might help these animals locate edible fruits and flowers in the wild.
Self-destructing microbes take on cancer BACTERIA could be our new allies in the war against cancer, tearing themselves apart in order to hit tumour cells with poisons. Chemotherapy reaches tumours via the bloodstream, but the innermost parts of a tumour have no blood vessels. Now Jeff Hasty and his team at the University of California, San Diego, have engineered Salmonella strains that can
get to these areas and slow tumour growth in mice. First, the team gave the Salmonella the ability to produce three types of toxins. Then they programmed the bacteria to release these poisons by self-destructing after a certain number of them had reached the same spot. “It’s basically a kamikaze mission,” says Hasty. When fed to mice with liver
tumours, the bacteria travelled directly to the interior of the tumours and stopped them from growing. Used in combination with chemotherapy, the bacteria caused tumours to shrink and increased the mice’s life expectancy by 50 per cent (Nature, doi.org/bmw6). Hasty hopes that bacterial therapies of this kind could eventually be used alongside existing drugs to attack tumours from both the inside and outside.
CITY slicker monkeys have it easy – but with their sophisticated lifestyle come health concerns. Urban white-footed tamarins seem to enjoy a life of few worries, bar traffic and the possibility of lethal shocks from power lines. “There are no predators, and fruit trees like mangoes and guavas are quite common, so tamarins probably don’t have to move as much as rural tamarins,” says Iván Dario Soto, from the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. “People have fun feeding them things like cane sugar, cookies, marshmallows and bananas.” These urban excesses may have a downside. Soto’s team compared the health of 16 adult tamarins living in the city with 20 from rainforests. “The tamarins in the city were overweight, [and] showed a 38 per cent increase in the levels of cholesterol,” says Soto (American Journal of Primatology, doi.org/bmxd).
Water-bottle bees air-condition hives BEES have a cool trick for hot weather. When honeybee hives get too warm, thirsty bees beg their specialised, water-foraging sisters for more liquid, which ends up cooling the colony. These “water collector” bees fly out and fill their bellies with water, then regurgitate it once they’re back at home. Other bees slurp it up and spit it out around the hive, cooling the hive as the water evaporates. Some bees even stock up for later, like living water tanks (Journal of Experimental Biology, doi.org/bmw3). “It’s critical for their cooling,” says Thomas Seeley at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. “Without that, they cannot really control the temperature in the nest on hot days.” 30 July 2016 | NewScientist | 15
in Brief Urban monkeys get high cholesterol
Boozy primates seek out palm nectar rich in alcohol IT LOOKS wasted, right? Aye-ayes (pictured above) seem to prefer fake nectar with higher concentrations of alcohol – as does the slow loris, a small primate from South-East Asia. Both animals probably encounter fermented palm nectar in the wild. Chimps have been caught gulping fermented sap in the wild before, but it wasn’t clear if primates tolerated the alcohol or actively sought it out, says Robert Dudley at the University of California in Berkeley. “This is the first study – albeit using captive primates – to show that there is a preference for higher levels of alcohol,”
says Dudley, who wasn’t involved in the study, Nathaniel Dominy at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, offered two aye-ayes and one slow loris five cups of sugary water with alcohol content ranging from 0 to 4 or 5 per cent, similar levels to those found in wild flowers. The primates could tell the difference and preferred to drink the boozier liquids (Royal Society Open Science, doi.org/bmwx). “Aye-ayes used their fingers to compulsively probe the cups long after the contents were emptied, suggesting that they were extremely eager to collect all residual traces,” says Dominy. It’s not yet clear why they seek fermented drinks. One idea is that the smell of alcohol might help these animals locate edible fruits and flowers in the wild.
Self-destructing microbes take on cancer BACTERIA could be our new allies in the war against cancer, tearing themselves apart in order to hit tumour cells with poisons. Chemotherapy reaches tumours via the bloodstream, but the innermost parts of a tumour have no blood vessels. Now Jeff Hasty and his team at the University of California, San Diego, have engineered Salmonella strains that can
get to these areas and slow tumour growth in mice. First, the team gave the Salmonella the ability to produce three types of toxins. Then they programmed the bacteria to release these poisons by self-destructing after a certain number of them had reached the same spot. “It’s basically a kamikaze mission,” says Hasty. When fed to mice with liver
tumours, the bacteria travelled directly to the interior of the tumours and stopped them from growing. Used in combination with chemotherapy, the bacteria caused tumours to shrink and increased the mice’s life expectancy by 50 per cent (Nature, doi.org/bmw6). Hasty hopes that bacterial therapies of this kind could eventually be used alongside existing drugs to attack tumours from both the inside and outside.
CITY slicker monkeys have it easy – but with their sophisticated lifestyle come health concerns. Urban white-footed tamarins seem to enjoy a life of few worries, bar traffic and the possibility of lethal shocks from power lines. “There are no predators, and fruit trees like mangoes and guavas are quite common, so tamarins probably don’t have to move as much as rural tamarins,” says Iván Dario Soto, from the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. “People have fun feeding them things like cane sugar, cookies, marshmallows and bananas.” These urban excesses may have a downside. Soto’s team compared the health of 16 adult tamarins living in the city with 20 from rainforests. “The tamarins in the city were overweight, [and] showed a 38 per cent increase in the levels of cholesterol,” says Soto (American Journal of Primatology, doi.org/bmxd).
Water-bottle bees air-condition hives BEES have a cool trick for hot weather. When honeybee hives get too warm, thirsty bees beg their specialised, water-foraging sisters for more liquid, which ends up cooling the colony. These “water collector” bees fly out and fill their bellies with water, then regurgitate it once they’re back at home. Other bees slurp it up and spit it out around the hive, cooling the hive as the water evaporates. Some bees even stock up for later, like living water tanks (Journal of Experimental Biology, doi.org/bmw3). “It’s critical for their cooling,” says Thomas Seeley at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. “Without that, they cannot really control the temperature in the nest on hot days.” 30 July 2016 | NewScientist | 15