A comparison of the activation and structural connections of brain areas during the processing of simple or complex linguistic rules.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig have discovered that two areas in the human brain are responsible for different types of language processing requirements. They found that simple language structures are processed in an area that is phylogenetically older, and which apes also possess. Complicated structures, by contrast, activate processes in a comparatively younger area which only exists in a more highly evolved species: humans, reports nature.com
One characteristic that clearly distinguishes us from non-human primates is our ability to understand and produce language. In particular, the human ability to apply complex linguistic rules has been held responsible for the fact that, in contrast to other species, we can produce and understand long sentences. When analyzing language rules (syntax), one discovers two fundamentally different grammatical patterns.
However, to understand longer sentences, a complex structural model is required - what is called a “hierarchy“. Hierarchical dependencies serve to connect parts of a sentence. The Max Planck study aimed to compare brain activities during the processing of both models - simple “local probability“ and complex “hierarchy“.
In a behavioral experiment, US scientists previously demonstrated that non-human primates are able to process local probability-based rules, but not hierarchical ones. This result led the researchers from Leipzig to hypothesis that complex grammatical rules are processed by brain areas that are “phylogenetically younger“. The researchers investigated this assumption in an experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with humans.
The participants were trained with both types of grammars two days before the scanning session. One group learned “local probability“, the other “hierarchy“. During the fMRI session, new syllable sequences were presented on a monitor that were either syntactically “right“ (correct sequences) or “wrong“ (incorrect sequences).
In the processing of both rule types, the researchers were able to show activity in a phylogenetically older brain area, the frontal operculum. As they had suspected, a younger brain structure, Broca’s Area, showed activity only when the participants processed hierarchical rules.
In the second step, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used to investigate the structural connectivity of the two brain regions. The result was that both areas were again clearly differentiated from each other. The frontal operculum is connected to the anterior portion of the temporal lobe via special fiber connections (fasciculus uncinatus). By contrast, Broca’s area is connected to posterior portions of the temporal lobe through the fasciculus longitudialis superior.
Using two different procedures (fMRT and DTI), the researchers were thus able to distinguish the two brain areas from each other in structure and function. When simple rules were processed - a task that apes can apparently also perform - the evolutionarily older area of the brain was activated. With more complex rules, on the other hand - which apes cannot apply - Broca’s area became active.

Gestures that complement rather than simply illustrate verbal instructions can boost children’s ability to complete problems in mathematics, researchers report.
“The teachers are giving the kids two different approaches to the problem - one by hand and one by mouth - and somehow they seem to complement one another,“ says Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago, US. She adds that early findings also show that students who copy the gestures of their teachers are more likely to learn.
Goldin-Meadow and her colleagues gave 160 children between the ages of eight and ten a set of mathematical problems to solve. The students were randomly assigned to receive either verbal instructions alone or also with gestures. Those in the latter group either received gestures that copied or complemented the spoken guidance, reports newscientist.com.
As part of the experiment students had to complete the equation “7+6+5=?+5“. Teachers told the youngsters that they had to make one side of the equation match the other side.
The gestures simply duplicating these directions involved the instructors pointing to the left-hand and then the right-hand sides of the equation. When using complementary gestures, however, the teachers pointed to each of the numbers on the left and then signaled the subtraction of the five on the right side by scooping their hand away from the number.
Children who saw the complementary gestures did best, solving three of the four addition problems correctly, on average. By comparison, those children who witnessed simple illustrative gestures typically solved fewer than two of the problems correctly. And students who received only verbal instructions solved only one of the four problems correctly, on average.

Human saliva contains telltale markers of breast cancer, diabetes, and an autoimmune disease, according to new results presented at annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. If the findings are validated in clinical trials, spit tests could make up a new non-invasive way to quickly diagnose these diseases, science.com writes.
To form saliva, the salivary gland uses the soluble component of blood, known as serum, as its starting material. Physicians have dreamed for years of using saliva-based tests instead of blood tests. Among other conveniences, such a shift would remove the need for needles. Last year, oral biologist David Wong of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues reported progress toward one saliva test, showing that levels of four of the 3000 messenger RNA molecules typically found in human saliva were consistently elevated in oral cancer patients, but not in healthy patients. Recently, the UCLA team had an accuracy of 94% when attempting to diagnose oral cancer in 320 patients using these 4 RNAs as markers.
But oral cancer was just the beginning. At the meeting, Wong reported that his team has also examined the saliva from groups of 10 people with either type II diabetes, breast cancer, or Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease that afflicts mostly women and destroys the salivary gland and pancreas. By using a gene chip to compare the salivary RNA of people in each disease group to that of 10 healthy people, the researchers found candidate RNA markers linked to Sjogren’s syndrome (26 RNAs), type II diabetes (126 RNAs), and breast cancer (103 RNAs). Each set of candidate markers now needs to be tested in larger groups of patients to see if it can be used to accurately diagnose the corresponding disease.
The researchers have also developed a prototype hand-held device that uses nanotechnology to test tiny droplets of saliva for the presence of specific saliva RNA molecules. Wong plans to find a company to help develop a hand-held device that could test saliva in 20 minutes for Sjogren’s syndrome, oral cancer, breast cancer, and type 2 diabetes.
“It’s very exciting,“ says oral biologist James Melvin of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York State. “It means that potentially any disease will have biomarkers in saliva.“

This artist's concept shows delicate greenish crystals sprinkled throughout the violent core of a pair of colliding galaxies. The white spots represent a thriving population of stars of all sizes and ages.

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has observed a rare population of colliding galaxies whose entangled hearts are wrapped in tiny crystals resembling crushed glass.
The crystals are essentially sand, or silicate, grains that were formed like glass, probably in the stellar equivalent of furnaces. This is the first time silicate crystals have been detected in a galaxy outside of our own.
“We were surprised to find such delicate, little crystals in the centers of some of the most violent places in the universe,“ said Dr. Henrik Spoon of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. “Crystals like these are easily destroyed, but in this case, they are probably being churned out by massive, dying stars faster than they are disappearing.“
According to science.com, the discovery will ultimately help astronomers better understand the evolution of galaxies, including our Milky Way, which will merge with the nearby Andromeda galaxy billions of years from now.
“It’s as though there’s a huge dust storm taking place at the center of merging galaxies,“ said Dr. Lee Armus, a co-author of the paper from NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The silicates get kicked up and wrap the galaxies’ nuclei in giant, dusty glass blankets.“ Silicates, like glass, require heat to transform into crystals. The gem-like particles can be found in the Milky Way in limited quantities around certain types of stars, such as our sun. On Earth, they sparkle in sandy beaches, and at night, they can be seen smashing into our atmosphere with other dust particles as shooting stars. Recently, the crystals were also observed by Spitzer inside comet Tempel 1, which was hit by NASA’s Deep Impact probe.
The crystal-coated galaxies observed by Spitzer are quite different from our Milky Way. These bright and dusty galaxies, called ultraluminous infrared galaxies, or “Ulirgs,“ are swimming in silicate crystals. While a small fraction of the Ulirgs cannot be seen clearly enough to characterize, most consist of two spiral-shaped galaxies in the process of merging into one. Their jumbled cores are hectic places, often bursting with massive, newborn stars. Some Ulirgs are dominated by central super massive black holes.
So, where are all the crystals coming from? Astronomers believe the massive stars at the galaxies’ centers are the main manufacturers. According to Spoon and his team, these stars probably shed the crystals both before and as they blow apart in fiery explosions called supernovae. But the delicate crystals won’t be around for long. The scientists say that particles from supernova blasts will bombard and convert the crystals back to a shapeless form. This whole process is thought to be relatively short-lived.
Spitzer’s infrared spectrograph spotted the silicate crystals in 21 of 77 Ulirgs studied. The 21 galaxies range from 240 million to 5.9 billion light-years away and are scattered across the sky. Spoon said the galaxies were most likely caught at just the right time to see the crystals. The other 56 galaxies might be about to kick up the substance, or the substance could have already settled.

Tissue fragments from a T Rex femur are shown at left,Êwhen it is flexible and resilient and when stretched (arrow) returns to its original shape. The middle photo shows the bone after it is airÊdried. The photo at right shows regions of bone that exhibit a fibrous character not normally seen in fossil bone.

Someday, biochemists will be able to figure out what dinosaurs ate, what diseases afflicted them and how they were related to each other Ñ all by analyzing a bit of organic goo.
At least those are the kinds of tests that could theoretically be carried out in a new field dubbed “paleoproteomics.“ Paleontologists are becoming increasingly intrigued by the possibilities in the wake of last year’s discovery that some of a Tyrannosaurus rex’s soft tissues Ñ perhaps its blood cells, blood vessels or fibrous cells Ñ could survive the process of fossilization intact.
No one is saying yet that the DNA of a dinosaur could be reconstructed, as it was in the fictional “Jurassic Park“ movies. DNA molecules are made up of long chains that degrade over time. Under the best circumstances, it’s hard for DNA to survive thousands of years, let alone millions. It’s more likely that shorter-chain protein molecules could be recovered from the soft tissues. But even those molecules could tell a lot about how dinosaurs lived.
Ostrom and the researcher behind the soft-tissue discovery, Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, discussed how protein-based biochemistry could revolutionize the study of long-gone species.
The two researchers are coming at the issue from different directions: Ostrom has been working to analyze the proteins found in bones of animals that lived tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ago. Most recently, she and her colleagues were able to extract a protein sequence from the bones of a 500,000-year-old musk ox.
“Protein sequences may very well last longer than DNA,“ she told MSNBC.com.
She said those protein sequences could confirm the organic signature of a particular species, provide the molecular evidence for telltale vitamin deficiencies, even indicate “who ate who“ in a prehistoric ecosystem. That’s the way it works for analysis of modern-day animal and human specimens as well.