Today in Science: GLV Daily Digest for August 25, 2014

Today in science, methane gas has been discovered seeping into the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast of the United States, raising concerns in connection to global warming. A new study of the famous remains of Taung Child, the first specimen of Australopithecus africanus known to science,argues that Taung Child's skull and brain developed in a manner that differed from that seen in human babies.

Scientists have grown a complete organ inside a mouse, a breakthrough that is expected to help people with weakened immune systems. Finally, a computational system called Robo Brain is helping robots to learn as never before. Welcome to the Guardian Liberty Voice Science Daily Digest for Aug. 25, 2014.

Methane Gas Is Seeping Into the Atlantic Off U.S. East Coast

Methane gas is seeping into the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast of the United States from at least 570 locations. A study published in Nature Geoscience indicates that this phenomenon is anything but new, with evidence pointing toward a pattern of methane seepage over the last 1,000 years at least.

The methane gas is the product of microorganisms. Since the majority of these seeps occur between 800 and 2,000 feet, the methane is probably escaping from frozen substances called hydrates. There are concerns that global warming could accelerate the melting of the hydrates, and thus the release of methane gas. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, though it is also a fairly short-lived one.

The discovery of methane seeps off the Atlantic coast of the U.S. is unusual. Typically, methane seeps occur either in tectonically active areas, such as the Pacific coast of the U.S., or else in areas that have access to deep petroleum basins, such as the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic coast is not a region of high tectonic activity, and so far as is known the majority of the methane seeps discovered are not connected to deposits of oil and natural gas.

Taung Child's Skull and Brain Development Differed From That of Humans?

A new study of the Taung Child ( Australopithecus africanus), an iconic specimen in the history of the search for human origins, argues that Taung Child's skull and brain development differed significantly from the pattern seen in human infants. This study rebuts a previous claim that the bones at the front of Taung Child's skull did not close until after birth, a key adaptation seen in human babies.

In human babies, the fact that the bones at the front of the skull do not close before they are born means that the brain has room to grow even larger than it is at birth. This is particularly important for expansion of the prefrontal lobe, a part of the brain linked to many different human behaviors. If the bones of Taung Child's skull were already closed at birth, then it would not have been able to take advantage of the kind of brain expansion seen in humans.

Taung Child lived about 3 million years ago, and was roughly three to four years old when it died. Evidence from the fossil skull indicates that Taung Child fell prey to an eagle. Its species, Australopithecus africanus, was a bipedal hominin that lived between about 3.3 to 2.1 million years ago. Au. africanus may have been a human ancestor, and was at the very least a close relative.

Complete Organ Grown in Mouse From Reprogrammed Cells

For the first time ever, scientists have succeeded in growing a complete organ in the body of an animal-a mouse, in this case-from reprogrammed cells. The organ in question was a thymus, responsible for the production of the T cells that are so important to the immune system, and it was grown from cells that were originally of a very different type.

The first step of the process entailed taking fibroblasts, the main cells active in connective tissue, from a mouse embryo. The scientists then reprogrammed the cells to become thymus cells. After being transplanted into a mouse, the thymus cells grew into a complete thymus.

The thymus is vital to the immune system because it produces T cells, a kind of white blood cells (leukocytes) that play an essential role in the body's ability to acquire immunity to new diseases. This research has the potential to someday help people with weakened immune systems, including those born without a properly developed thymus. The thymus is the first organ to lose functionality as a result of aging, so this discovery is expected to help the elderly as well.

Robo Brain to Educate Robots Using New Learning System

A computational system known as Robo Brain is set to streamline education for robots, using a new system of 'structured deep learning' to organize enormous amounts of information downloaded from the internet. Robo Brain will provide robots with well-organized information about a wide variety of things and their properties, helping them to fit into human society and perform useful tasks.

The traditional approach to robot education has essentially entailed teaching robots one task at a time. Robo Brain, on the other hand, provides robots with a complete learning system, one that stores information on many different levels of abstraction. This will allow robots to understand that an easy chair, for example, is one kind of a broader class of objects called chairs, which in turn are classified as furniture.

Robo Brain is currently downloading and organizing tremendous amounts of visual, text and video information. Once it is properly structured, this information will be available to help robots navigate everyday life in a human household.

Commentary by Michael Schultheiss, Science Editor

See also:

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Sources:

Methane:New York TimesNature Geoscience Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program

Taung Child:Phys.orgPNASSmithsonian - Taung ChildSmithsonian - Australopithecus africanusTaung Child image courtesy of Cicero Moraes

Organ:University of EdinburghNature Cell BiologyMedicineNet.com Thymus image courtesy of MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh

Robo Brain:EurekAlert!Robot image courtesy of JosepPAL

Main image credit:Australopithecus africanus reconstruction by John Gurche. Image courtesy of Chip Clark.

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