Abierto el plazo de inscripción para los Talleres de la Casa de Porras que se impartirán en julio

Incluye talleres de senderismo y de buceo con duración y horario especiales

El Centro Cultural universitario “Casa de Porras”, situado en el Albaicín de Granada, en la Placeta de Porras, mantiene una intensa actividad cultural a través de talleres, exposiciones, conciertos, tertulias, conferencias, etc. Se ubica en una casa-palacio mudéjar como muchas de las que se encuentran en esta zona, del siglo XVI. Su portada es renacentista, la configura un patio central, bajo el que hay un aljibe y pilar adosado. Tiene un amplio jardín posterior. En este centro se realizan diversas actividades culturales, promovidas desde el Vicerrectorado de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Granada.

Entre estas actividades destacan por su variedad los talleres de la Casa de Porras, que se organizan cada trimestre. La matrícula para el módulo intensivo que se impartirá en el mes de julio se puede realizar hasta el próximo 27 de junio de 2014, para los cursos que darán comienzo en la semana del 30 de junio.

TALLERES CASA DE PORRAS

MÓDULO IV INTENSIVO JULIO 2014

  • Matrícula: 2 al 27 de junio.
  • Inicio talleres: 30 de junio.
  • Duración: 24 horas repartidas en 4 semanas.
  • Los talleres de senderismo y de buceo presentan duración y distribución horaria especiales.
  • Precios: 52.50 €
  • Teléfono: 958 22 44 25

Resumen talleres: http://sl.ugr.es/038n

Contacto: Francisco Javier Garrido Carrillo. Director del CCU. Casa de Porras. Teléfono 958-224425. Correo elec: fjgc@ugr.es

 

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Granada Hoy

Pág. 23: El nuevo decreto de becas sólo beneficiará a 62 universitarios

La UGR busca jóvenes para un estudio sobre la ‘grasa marrón’

Un experimento en ratas demuestralos efectos delamelatonina contrala diabetes

Pág. 56: Publicidad. Libro del MES eug. Guía de Granada. Manuel Gómez-Moreno

Descarga por URL: http://sl.ugr.es/06zi

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Ideal

Págs. 16-17: «¿Está suficientemente aclarada la muerte de Lorca?»

Pág. 22: Libro del MES eug: Guía de Granada. Manuel Gómez-Moreno

Descarga por URL: http://sl.ugr.es/06zg

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Científicos de la UGR buscan personas de más de 60 años para participar en un experimento sobre la memoria humana

Los investigadores, pertenecientes al Centro ‘Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento’, pretenden analizar cómo evoluciona la memoria con la edad

Los participantes deberán tener el español como lengua materna, ser diestros, no tener ningún tipo de metal en el cuerpo (prótesis, tornillos, marcapasos, puentes dentales, etc.), y no sufrir de claustrofobia o problemas cardíacos, entre otros requisitos

Científicos de la Universidad de Granada necesitan la colaboración de personas de más de 60 años, tanto hombres como mujeres, para participar en un experimento que pretende analizar cómo evoluciona la memoria humana con la edad.

Además de tener más de 60 años, los participantes deberán cumplir los siguientes requisitos: tener el español como lengua materna; ser diestro; no tener ningún tipo de metal en el cuerpo (prótesis, tornillos, marcapasos, puentes dentales, etc.), y no sufrir de claustrofobia o problemas cardíacos. Asimismo, deben tener estudios mínimos de Bachillerato.

Para esta investigación, los científicos emplearán la técnica de Resonancia Magnética Funcional (RMf). Hasta la fecha, se han realizado más de 150 millones de estudios de resonancia magnética en todo el mundo. Esta técnica utiliza campos magnéticos y ondas de radio para obtener imágenes del cerebro, y ha demostrado ser extremadamente segura mientras se toman las precauciones de seguridad adecuadas.

Durante el experimento, los participantes tendrán que memorizar varias listas de palabras e intentar recordarlas posteriormente. Al hacerlo, mientras se encuentra dentro de una máquina de RMf, los investigadores podrán comprobar la activación cerebral generada por la realización de la tarea.

Aquellas personas que cumplan todos estos requisitos y estén interesados en participar, pueden escribir al correo csferreira@ugr.es

El experimento se realizará en el Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento (Campus de Cartuja) y tendrá una duración de alrededor de 1,5 horas. Los participantes recibirán una remuneración de 15 euros.

Contacto:
Catarina Ferreira
Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento de la UGR
Correo electrónico: csferreira@ugr.es

 

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Varios experimentos en ratas demuestran que el consumo crónico de melatonina combate la obesidad y la diabetes

73418 Científicos de la Universidad de Granada, en colaboración con el Hospital Universitario La Paz de Madrid y la Universidad de Texas (San Antonio, Estados Unidos), han demostrado en varios experimentos realizados con ratas obesas diabéticas Zucker que el consumo crónico de melatonina ayuda a combatir la obesidad y la diabetes mellitus tipo 2.

Su investigación ha comprobado que la administración crónica de melatonina en ratas jóvenes obesas con diabetes mellitus tipo 2 parecida a la humana mejora la disfunción mitocondrial (es decir, las funciones homeostáticas mitocondriales) de forma muy eficiente, ya que es capaz de mejorar el consumo de oxígeno, disminuye los niveles de estrés de radicales libres y previene la destrucción de la membrana mitocondrial.

Estos resultados, publicados en el último número de la prestigiosa revista Journal of Pineal Research, vienen a confirmar otros estudios similares realizados por estos investigadores en los últimos tres años.

Este trabajo ha sido llevado a cabo por un equipo multidisciplinar de investigadores con base en el departamento de Farmacología y el Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universidad de Granada, liderados por el profesor Ahmad Agil, en colaboración el Dr. Gumersindo Fernández, del Servicio de Endocrinología y Nutrición del Hospital Universitario La Paz de Madrid, y el profesor Rusell Reiter, del Departamento de Biología Estructural de la Universidad de Texas, en San Antonio (Estados Unidos).

Como explica el investigador principal Ahmad Agil, cada vez son más frecuentes los problemas de sobrepeso y diabetes de tipo II en los países desarrollados o en vías de desarrollo como consecuencia de una mala adaptación del genoma humano al entorno actual, la vida sedentaria, el aumento de la comida hipercalórica y una excesiva exposición a la luz artificial, que reduce los niveles endógenos de la melatonina.

En la obesidad, las mitocondrias (centrales energéticas celulares) no funcionan correctamente (desequilibrio homeostático) y su destrucción programada está acelerada (apoptosis). Ello induce resistencia a la insulina y el posterior desarrollo de diabetes mellitus.

Hay que dormir a oscuras

La melatonina «es una sustancia natural presente en la propia naturaleza, desde las plantas hasta los animales, incluidos humanos, y funciona como señal hormonal liberada durante la noche para entronizar los ritmos circadianos», destaca el profesor Agil.

Actualmente este proceso se interrrumpe con bastante frecuencia a causa de una excesiva exposición a la luz artificial durante la noche, que reducen los niveles endógenos de melatonina, ya que son muchas las personas con el hábito de dormir con la televisión o el ordenador encendido, las persianas abiertas o las lámparas encendidas. «Por este motivo, para que no haya interferencias en la generación de melatonina, es importante tratar de dormir completamente a oscuras», destaca Agil.

La melatonina es un potente antioxidante y anti-inflamatorio, propiedades que están en la base de su efecto protector metabólico. «La melatonina es especialmente abundante en alimentos de origen vegetal, como especias, hierbas, té, café, semillas y frutos secos, frutas y verduras u hortalizas. Esta especial riqueza en melatonina contribuye a los efectos saludables de estos grupos de alimentos», apunta el profesor de la UGR.

Los tratamientos en general con acción específica sobre el tejido adiposo, más específicamente en la mitocondria, y el aumento de su eficiencia podrían tener efectos beneficiosos en estas enfermedades.

Este estudio ha sido financiado y apoyado parcialmente por proyectos del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España) (Ref: SAF2013-45752); MCI-Campus de Excelencia Internacional GREIB del Vicerrectorado de Investigación y Política Científica de la Universidad de Granada y el grupo de investigación CTS-109 (Junta de Andalucía), España.

Referencia bibliográfica:
Melatonin improves mitochondrial function in inguinal white adipose tissue of Zucker diabetic fatty rat.
A Jimenez, G. Fernández, M Mohammed, R. Reiter, and A Agil.
Journal of Pineal Research. 2014. 2014. May 27. doi: 10.1111/jpi.12147

En la imagen, el profesor Ahmad Agil, del departamento de Farmacología de la UGR, y su equipo de investigación.

grupoinvestigacionagil2014

Contacto:
Ahmad Agil
Departamento de Farmacología de la UGR
Teléfono: 958 243 538
Correo electrónico

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La revista de la UGR “Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez” dedica un número a “Ciencia de la legislación”

La profesora de la Universidad de Granada, Juana María Gil, analiza, en uno de los trabajos de este monográfico, el impacto normativo y género en “Nuevos instrumentos vinculantes para una ciencia de la legislación renovada”

La profesora de la Universidad de Granada Juana María Gil parte en su estudio “Nuevos instrumentos vinculantes para una ciencia de la legislación renovada: impacto normativo y género” del compromiso adquirido en el ámbito internacional y europeo con otra forma de hacer Derecho, incorporando el vinculante y complejo principio del “gender mainstreaming”. Este compromiso afecta a los órdenes nacional, autonómico y local, y obliga a urgentes e importantes modificaciones orgánicas y funcionales. En este proceso están comprometidos los tres poderes del Estado y los altos mandatarios, responsables de políticas sectoriales, para que desde una formación adecuada y compleja en Derecho antidiscriminatorio, implementen esta nueva técnica legislativa de obligado cumplimiento.

El trabajo de Juana María Gil, profesora del Departamento de Filosofía del Derecho de la UGR, se publica en el número 47 de la revista de la UGR “Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez” (Editorial Universidad de Granada), dentro del monográfico dedicado a “Ciencia de la legislación”, en el que la autora denuncia las insuficiencias e incumplimientos internacionales de los compromisos contraídos internacionalmente en materia de igualdad y aboga por un esfuerzo y compromiso conjuntos de todos los poderes del Estado para que, desde una formación adecuada y compleja en derecho antidiscriminatorio, apliquen esta nueva técnica legislativa.

Interpretación y aplicación del derecho

Según Pedro Mercado Pacheco, editor de la revista y autor de la presentación con que se abre este número, “una de las lagunas más fuertemente denunciadas en los ámbitos de la teoría y de la ciencia jurídica ha sido su focalización casi exclusiva en el momento de la interpretación y aplicación del derecho. El modelo de jurista y de enseñanza del derecho continúa centrado en el momento aplicativo del derecho en que la ley, la norma, es considerada un dato previo, un material básico a partir del cual el jurista despliega sus artes interpretativas, exegéticas, sistematizadoras, argumentativas y retóricas. Los juristas se formaron y se siguen formando en nuestras facultades de derecho para resolver problemas de lege data y no de lege ferenda, están entrenados para aplicar e interpretar normas jurídicas pero no para crearlas o evaluarlas.

Durante mucho tiempo, nuestra cultura jurídica ha desdeñado el estudio y el cultivo de una “ciencia de la legislación” que vaya más allá del estudio de los tradicionales problemas de técnica legislativa, para explorar las condiciones y posibilidades de la argumentación racional en el ámbito legislativo. En paralelo a este anhelo teórico y a los esfuerzos por fundamentar una nueva teoría de la legislación, en las dos últimas décadas se ha despertado en el ámbito internacional un enorme interés por la “calidad de la ley” hasta convertirse en un objetivo fundamental de la agenda política de numerosos gobiernos y organizaciones internacionales.

El monográfico reúne un conjunto de trabajos en los que se combina la reflexión sobre los modelos, el alcance y las características de la teoría y de la ciencia de la legislación con aproximaciones a algunos de sus aspectos más concretos y prácticos. Así, las contribuciones de Gema Marcilla y Leonor Suárez coinciden en un mismo punto de partida: la concepción de la teoría de la legislación como una práctica de justificación racional sensu largo de la producción normativa.

Las otras dos aportaciones recogidas en la sección se situarían en las que podrían llamarse cuestiones de teoría de la legislación aplicada, en que se abordan dos temáticas de indudable actualidad. Por un lado, la aportación de Juana María Gil, y por otro la de Leonor Suárez Llanos “El juicio legal. ¿Tienen razón las leyes?”.

Asimismo, la revista cuenta con los apartados “Sección Abierta”, en la que participan los investigadores Nuria Belloso Martín, Andrés Gascón Cuenca, Juan Antonio Gómez García, Noelia Igareda González, José Juan Moreso, Albert Noguera Fernández, y Ramón Ruiz Ruiz.

Además, la publicación se completa con sus habituales apartados de “Documento” y “Crítica bibliográfica”. Y se cierra con una relación y breve reseña de los autores.

Web: http://revistaseug.ugr.es/index.php/acfs/index

 

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The Bird That Paints Its Eggs With Bacteria

74249 It’s spring. A female hoopoe—a bird that looks like a pickaxe painted in a tiger’s colours—lays her eggs in a hole within a tree. The eggs come out milky blue, but they soon change colour to a mucky brown. That’s not just because the nests are dirty, as Wikipedia currently claims. It’s also because of a liquid that the female produces.

 

Look under the tail feathers of any bird and you’ll find the uropygial gland, or preen gland. It secretes oils and waxes that birds use to clean and waterproof their feathers. But during breeding season, a female hoopoe’s uropygial gland becomes exceptionally large, and it makes a weird dark brown fluid that smells of rotting meat. This is the stuff that discolours the eggs.

The nature of this pungent secretion became clearer a decade ago, when scientists injected the hoopoe’s gland with antibiotics. Suddenly, it produced fluids that were similar to those made by other birds—lighter in colour, thinner in consistency, and weaker in smell. The gland turned out to be full of bacteria—mostly Enterococcus, but other species too.

Manuel Martin-Vivaldi and Juan Soler from the University of Granada have been studying the hoopoe’s bacteria for many years. They found that the microbes produce powerful antibiotics, and that hoopoes uses these chemicals to keep feather-eating bacteria from destroying its pristine plumes.

Now, they’ve found evidence that these birds use the same bacteria to protect their young before they’re even born. By filming nesting females, they confirmed that the birds actively paint their eggs with their uropygial secretions.

That’s unusual in itself: bird eggs usually have smooth shells, and preening oils wouldn’t normally stick to them. But when Martin-Vivaldi and Soler looked at freshly laid hoopoe eggs under a powerful microscope, they found a multitude of tiny pits. These are new—no one has ever seen anything like them on bird eggs before. By the time the chicks hatch, almost 90 percent of these pits have been filled with a doughy material that’s loaded with Enterococcus bacteria.

Left: Pits in a hoopoe’s eggshell. Right: Close up of the pits, with bacteria lining them.
Left: Pits in a hoopoe’s eggshell. Right: Close up of the pits, with bacteria lining them.
It’s the female who fills the pits. When Martin-Vivaldi and Soler stuck catheters into the hoopoes’ uropygial glands to stop them from reaching their own secretions, the birds couldn’t fill the pits in their eggs, which ended up with fewer bacteria on their surfaces. The eggs, however, had more bacteria inside them. It seems that the microbes in the pits, and the antibiotics they produce, act as a living shield. They stop harmful bacteria from colonising the eggs, and from travelling through pores in the shell to reach the chicks inside.

How does that benefit the chicks? Here, the researchers’ results become a bit more ambiguous. They found that normally, when females had more bacteria in their glands, their eggs had more bacteria in their pits and were more likely to hatch. When the females couldn’t reach their glands, these correlations disappeared. However, the two groups of females—the normal ones and those that couldn’t reach their glands—were just as likely to raise successfully hatching eggs.

The team think that if the gland bacteria really are protecting the chicks, it might take a larger study to detect any benefits. It’s possible that these bacteria only matter depending on the levels of other disease-causing microbes in the hoopoes’ nests. It’s also possible that harmful microbes that manage to travel into the eggs doesn’t change the odds that the chicks will hatch, but affects them later in life.

For now, we know that the hoopoes are painting their eggs in bacteria. Why? That’s still not fully clear. And why are hoopoes the only birds that have these pits on their eggs? Martin-Vivaldi and Soler suspect that it’s because of their unusually dirty nests.

Hoopoe nestlings can defend themselves by squirting streams of faeces at intruders and, unlike other birds, they don’t clean their waste from their nests. Their slovenliness might save their lives but it also comes with a high risk of infection. Perhaps they have evolved to cope with this extra risk by forming partnerships with defensive microbes, and laying eggs that are full of bacterial condos.

Hoopoes might be the only birds with such structures, but they’re far from the only animals with them. Leafcutter ants keep Streptomyces bacteria in special chambers on their bodies that kill parasitic fungi. Rove beetles carry Pseudomonas bacteria that make pederin—a toxin that deters spiders and can even irritate human skin. We typically think of bacteria as ‘germs’ that cause illness. They’re just as likely to be guardians that protect us from disease.

Reference: Martin-Vivaldi, Soler, Peralta-Sanchez, Arco, Martin-Platero, Martinez-Bueno, Ruiz-Rodriguez & Valdivi. 2014. Special structures of hoopoe eggshells enhance the adhesion of symbiont-carrying uropygial secretion that increase hatching success. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12243

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The Bird That Paints Its Eggs With Bacteria

74249 It’s spring. A female hoopoe—a bird that looks like a pickaxe painted in a tiger’s colours—lays her eggs in a hole within a tree. The eggs come out milky blue, but they soon change colour to a mucky brown. That’s not just because the nests are dirty, as Wikipedia currently claims. It’s also because of a liquid that the female produces.

 

Look under the tail feathers of any bird and you’ll find the uropygial gland, or preen gland. It secretes oils and waxes that birds use to clean and waterproof their feathers. But during breeding season, a female hoopoe’s uropygial gland becomes exceptionally large, and it makes a weird dark brown fluid that smells of rotting meat. This is the stuff that discolours the eggs.

The nature of this pungent secretion became clearer a decade ago, when scientists injected the hoopoe’s gland with antibiotics. Suddenly, it produced fluids that were similar to those made by other birds—lighter in colour, thinner in consistency, and weaker in smell. The gland turned out to be full of bacteria—mostly Enterococcus, but other species too.

Manuel Martin-Vivaldi and Juan Soler from the University of Granada have been studying the hoopoe’s bacteria for many years. They found that the microbes produce powerful antibiotics, and that hoopoes uses these chemicals to keep feather-eating bacteria from destroying its pristine plumes.

Now, they’ve found evidence that these birds use the same bacteria to protect their young before they’re even born. By filming nesting females, they confirmed that the birds actively paint their eggs with their uropygial secretions.

That’s unusual in itself: bird eggs usually have smooth shells, and preening oils wouldn’t normally stick to them. But when Martin-Vivaldi and Soler looked at freshly laid hoopoe eggs under a powerful microscope, they found a multitude of tiny pits. These are new—no one has ever seen anything like them on bird eggs before. By the time the chicks hatch, almost 90 percent of these pits have been filled with a doughy material that’s loaded with Enterococcus bacteria.

Left: Pits in a hoopoe’s eggshell. Right: Close up of the pits, with bacteria lining them.
Left: Pits in a hoopoe’s eggshell. Right: Close up of the pits, with bacteria lining them.
It’s the female who fills the pits. When Martin-Vivaldi and Soler stuck catheters into the hoopoes’ uropygial glands to stop them from reaching their own secretions, the birds couldn’t fill the pits in their eggs, which ended up with fewer bacteria on their surfaces. The eggs, however, had more bacteria inside them. It seems that the microbes in the pits, and the antibiotics they produce, act as a living shield. They stop harmful bacteria from colonising the eggs, and from travelling through pores in the shell to reach the chicks inside.

How does that benefit the chicks? Here, the researchers’ results become a bit more ambiguous. They found that normally, when females had more bacteria in their glands, their eggs had more bacteria in their pits and were more likely to hatch. When the females couldn’t reach their glands, these correlations disappeared. However, the two groups of females—the normal ones and those that couldn’t reach their glands—were just as likely to raise successfully hatching eggs.

The team think that if the gland bacteria really are protecting the chicks, it might take a larger study to detect any benefits. It’s possible that these bacteria only matter depending on the levels of other disease-causing microbes in the hoopoes’ nests. It’s also possible that harmful microbes that manage to travel into the eggs doesn’t change the odds that the chicks will hatch, but affects them later in life.

For now, we know that the hoopoes are painting their eggs in bacteria. Why? That’s still not fully clear. And why are hoopoes the only birds that have these pits on their eggs? Martin-Vivaldi and Soler suspect that it’s because of their unusually dirty nests.

Hoopoe nestlings can defend themselves by squirting streams of faeces at intruders and, unlike other birds, they don’t clean their waste from their nests. Their slovenliness might save their lives but it also comes with a high risk of infection. Perhaps they have evolved to cope with this extra risk by forming partnerships with defensive microbes, and laying eggs that are full of bacterial condos.

Hoopoes might be the only birds with such structures, but they’re far from the only animals with them. Leafcutter ants keep Streptomyces bacteria in special chambers on their bodies that kill parasitic fungi. Rove beetles carry Pseudomonas bacteria that make pederin—a toxin that deters spiders and can even irritate human skin. We typically think of bacteria as ‘germs’ that cause illness. They’re just as likely to be guardians that protect us from disease.

Reference: Martin-Vivaldi, Soler, Peralta-Sanchez, Arco, Martin-Platero, Martinez-Bueno, Ruiz-Rodriguez & Valdivi. 2014. Special structures of hoopoe eggshells enhance the adhesion of symbiont-carrying uropygial secretion that increase hatching success. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12243

Descargar


The Bird That Paints Its Eggs With Bacteria

74249 It’s spring. A female hoopoe—a bird that looks like a pickaxe painted in a tiger’s colours—lays her eggs in a hole within a tree. The eggs come out milky blue, but they soon change colour to a mucky brown. That’s not just because the nests are dirty, as Wikipedia currently claims. It’s also because of a liquid that the female produces.

 

Look under the tail feathers of any bird and you’ll find the uropygial gland, or preen gland. It secretes oils and waxes that birds use to clean and waterproof their feathers. But during breeding season, a female hoopoe’s uropygial gland becomes exceptionally large, and it makes a weird dark brown fluid that smells of rotting meat. This is the stuff that discolours the eggs.

The nature of this pungent secretion became clearer a decade ago, when scientists injected the hoopoe’s gland with antibiotics. Suddenly, it produced fluids that were similar to those made by other birds—lighter in colour, thinner in consistency, and weaker in smell. The gland turned out to be full of bacteria—mostly Enterococcus, but other species too.

Manuel Martin-Vivaldi and Juan Soler from the University of Granada have been studying the hoopoe’s bacteria for many years. They found that the microbes produce powerful antibiotics, and that hoopoes uses these chemicals to keep feather-eating bacteria from destroying its pristine plumes.

Now, they’ve found evidence that these birds use the same bacteria to protect their young before they’re even born. By filming nesting females, they confirmed that the birds actively paint their eggs with their uropygial secretions.

That’s unusual in itself: bird eggs usually have smooth shells, and preening oils wouldn’t normally stick to them. But when Martin-Vivaldi and Soler looked at freshly laid hoopoe eggs under a powerful microscope, they found a multitude of tiny pits. These are new—no one has ever seen anything like them on bird eggs before. By the time the chicks hatch, almost 90 percent of these pits have been filled with a doughy material that’s loaded with Enterococcus bacteria.

Left: Pits in a hoopoe’s eggshell. Right: Close up of the pits, with bacteria lining them.
Left: Pits in a hoopoe’s eggshell. Right: Close up of the pits, with bacteria lining them.
It’s the female who fills the pits. When Martin-Vivaldi and Soler stuck catheters into the hoopoes’ uropygial glands to stop them from reaching their own secretions, the birds couldn’t fill the pits in their eggs, which ended up with fewer bacteria on their surfaces. The eggs, however, had more bacteria inside them. It seems that the microbes in the pits, and the antibiotics they produce, act as a living shield. They stop harmful bacteria from colonising the eggs, and from travelling through pores in the shell to reach the chicks inside.

How does that benefit the chicks? Here, the researchers’ results become a bit more ambiguous. They found that normally, when females had more bacteria in their glands, their eggs had more bacteria in their pits and were more likely to hatch. When the females couldn’t reach their glands, these correlations disappeared. However, the two groups of females—the normal ones and those that couldn’t reach their glands—were just as likely to raise successfully hatching eggs.

The team think that if the gland bacteria really are protecting the chicks, it might take a larger study to detect any benefits. It’s possible that these bacteria only matter depending on the levels of other disease-causing microbes in the hoopoes’ nests. It’s also possible that harmful microbes that manage to travel into the eggs doesn’t change the odds that the chicks will hatch, but affects them later in life.

For now, we know that the hoopoes are painting their eggs in bacteria. Why? That’s still not fully clear. And why are hoopoes the only birds that have these pits on their eggs? Martin-Vivaldi and Soler suspect that it’s because of their unusually dirty nests.

Hoopoe nestlings can defend themselves by squirting streams of faeces at intruders and, unlike other birds, they don’t clean their waste from their nests. Their slovenliness might save their lives but it also comes with a high risk of infection. Perhaps they have evolved to cope with this extra risk by forming partnerships with defensive microbes, and laying eggs that are full of bacterial condos.

Hoopoes might be the only birds with such structures, but they’re far from the only animals with them. Leafcutter ants keep Streptomyces bacteria in special chambers on their bodies that kill parasitic fungi. Rove beetles carry Pseudomonas bacteria that make pederin—a toxin that deters spiders and can even irritate human skin. We typically think of bacteria as ‘germs’ that cause illness. They’re just as likely to be guardians that protect us from disease.

Reference: Martin-Vivaldi, Soler, Peralta-Sanchez, Arco, Martin-Platero, Martinez-Bueno, Ruiz-Rodriguez & Valdivi. 2014. Special structures of hoopoe eggshells enhance the adhesion of symbiont-carrying uropygial secretion that increase hatching success. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12243

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‘Beer Goggles’ Are a Real: How Alcohol Can Affect Your Tears and Obstruct Sight at Night

72462 Researchers recently demonstrated what is going on physically when alcohol is imbibed that affects eyesight and can impair driving and cause so-called «beer goggles.»

 

The team from the University of Granada showed that ethanol in the eye’s tear-film causes evaporation, which impacts the quality of the image being seen, especially at night.

The researchers evaluated retina-image quality and night-vision performance of nearly 70 people after they drank alcohol, measuring their blood alcohol levels through breathalyzer tests.

To assess volunteer’s vision at the time, the team conducted a «halometer» test in low-light conditions, allowing them to quantify any level of eyesight obstruction in the form of «halos» around bright lights, according to the news release. The more impaired a person’s vision was, the more of a «halo» they saw around the lights.

Those with blood alcohol content over the World Health Organization’s limit of 0.25mg/l experienced even more disturbances in their optical quality. The disturbances — the halos perceived around bright lights — were significant enough that researchers said it could impair driver’s ability to see a person walking in the street or read a traffic sign.

«This research offers results of value to society and public health care, especially in relation to night-time driving. Alcohol consumption and low-illumination conditions are factors present in many traffic accidents, hence people must to be made aware of the effects of alcohol consumption, especially on vision,» lead author Jose Juan Castro said in a statement.

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‘Beer Goggles’ Are a Real: How Alcohol Can Affect Your Tears and Obstruct Sight at Night

72462 Researchers recently demonstrated what is going on physically when alcohol is imbibed that affects eyesight and can impair driving and cause so-called «beer goggles.»

 

The team from the University of Granada showed that ethanol in the eye’s tear-film causes evaporation, which impacts the quality of the image being seen, especially at night.

The researchers evaluated retina-image quality and night-vision performance of nearly 70 people after they drank alcohol, measuring their blood alcohol levels through breathalyzer tests.

To assess volunteer’s vision at the time, the team conducted a «halometer» test in low-light conditions, allowing them to quantify any level of eyesight obstruction in the form of «halos» around bright lights, according to the news release. The more impaired a person’s vision was, the more of a «halo» they saw around the lights.

Those with blood alcohol content over the World Health Organization’s limit of 0.25mg/l experienced even more disturbances in their optical quality. The disturbances — the halos perceived around bright lights — were significant enough that researchers said it could impair driver’s ability to see a person walking in the street or read a traffic sign.

«This research offers results of value to society and public health care, especially in relation to night-time driving. Alcohol consumption and low-illumination conditions are factors present in many traffic accidents, hence people must to be made aware of the effects of alcohol consumption, especially on vision,» lead author Jose Juan Castro said in a statement.

Descargar


‘Beer Goggles’ Are a Real: How Alcohol Can Affect Your Tears and Obstruct Sight at Night

72462 Researchers recently demonstrated what is going on physically when alcohol is imbibed that affects eyesight and can impair driving and cause so-called «beer goggles.»

 

The team from the University of Granada showed that ethanol in the eye’s tear-film causes evaporation, which impacts the quality of the image being seen, especially at night.

The researchers evaluated retina-image quality and night-vision performance of nearly 70 people after they drank alcohol, measuring their blood alcohol levels through breathalyzer tests.

To assess volunteer’s vision at the time, the team conducted a «halometer» test in low-light conditions, allowing them to quantify any level of eyesight obstruction in the form of «halos» around bright lights, according to the news release. The more impaired a person’s vision was, the more of a «halo» they saw around the lights.

Those with blood alcohol content over the World Health Organization’s limit of 0.25mg/l experienced even more disturbances in their optical quality. The disturbances — the halos perceived around bright lights — were significant enough that researchers said it could impair driver’s ability to see a person walking in the street or read a traffic sign.

«This research offers results of value to society and public health care, especially in relation to night-time driving. Alcohol consumption and low-illumination conditions are factors present in many traffic accidents, hence people must to be made aware of the effects of alcohol consumption, especially on vision,» lead author Jose Juan Castro said in a statement.

Descargar