Chimp triumphs yet again

Please recall the case of the chimpanzee beating a bunch of college students in memory testing last month.

And if you thought that competition was mismatched--with the chimp easily owning the college kids--this story should prove once and for all that we should fear these animals and their superior cognitive abilities that will someday make us their slaves.

Ayumu the chimp was once again tested, but this time he was pitted against British memory champion Ben Pridmore, a man who can memorize the order of every card in a shuffled deck and memorizes 400-digit numbers on the weekends.

But still, the chimp reigned supreme.

[click here to try your hand at the testing Ayumu, the college students and Pridmore underwent]

The subject watches a computer screen on which numbers flashed up at various positions before being obscured by white squares. The object is to then touch the squares in order of the numbers they concealed, from lowest to highest.

The chimp got it right almost 90 percent of the time. Pidmore, on the other hand, came in with a 33 percent success rate.

Coverage of the testing will appear on a television program in London called "Extraordinary Animals." How embarrassing for Mr. Pidmore that he got beat by the chimp, but more so that he memorizes big numbers for fun.

Would you like cream and sugar with your nasal spray?

Again, my apologies for the lack of posting lately. Now that I've gotten the major headache holiday out of the way, hopefully things will be getting back to normal.

But lately, I've been exhausted...and perhaps some higher power was trying to tell me something by leading me to this article from wired.com about a nasal spray that helps eliminate the effects of sleepiness. (And ironically enough, it's currently almost 2 a.m.)

A study published in this week's The Journal of Neuroscience showed that a nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in a group of monkeys and allowed them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests.

The hormone could potentially help the 70 percent of Americans who do not get the recommended eight hours of sleep a night, myself included.

The authors of the study claim that orexin A reduces the effects of sleep deprivation but does not cause edginess and is apparently non-addictive.

Still, the spray would initially be used to treat people suffering from narcolepsy--a condition that the study states is caused by lack of orexin A in the brain. For the spray to become available to the average joe could take almost a decade, depending on the Food and Drug Administration's approval process.

But then it'll totally be so long coffee, hello nasal spray!!

Chimps beat chumps

Monkeys may not have the sense to live in the human world (or maybe they're smarter for keeping to themselves), but a new study out of Japan found chimpanzee's to have better cognitive functioning than college students.

Three 5-year-old chimps took on college students in a series of memory tests involving numbers on a touch screen.

In the first test, nine numbers appeared on the screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there. While the chimps were no more accurate than the college kids, they could do the task faster.

In the second test, the best performing chimp was pitted against nine students, but this time, five numbers flashed on the screen only briefly before they were replaced by white squares. The chimp and students both scored 80 percent when the numbers were shown for 7/10s of a second, but when shown for 2/10s of a second, the chimps still scored about 80 percent, while humans scored a lowly 40 percent.

Maybe those college students were just hungover? I think they should get those chimps liquored up and then see how they do.

Honey, I'm cured!

A new study today showed that honey can help ease a cough.

When compared to the cough syrup ingredient dextromethorphan or no treatment, honey came out on top.

The study tested 105 children seeking treatment of nighttime cough and separated them into three groups: those who took buckwheat honey, those who took a honey-flavored dextromethorphan preparation, and those with no treatment.

Parents were surveyed on the day of the doctor's visit and on the next day, after those in the treatment groups had given their kids honey or dextromethorphan at bedtime. Among the three groups, children given honey had the greatest reduction in cough frequency and severity, and the most improved sleep, as did their parents.

So apparently that old folk remedy actually is effective.

Mighty Mouse

Scientists in Ohio have seemingly created what they're calling "supermouse." The mouse can run for five hours without getting tired, eat like a pig without gaining weight, have loads of mouse sex and live longer than the average mouse. They're saying they are the mouse equivalent of Lance Armstrong--I'm not kidding.

The mouse's abilities have come from a simple modification of a metabolism gene that humans also have. Scientists are saying that it may be possible to use the findings to develop new drugs or treatments that could one day be used to "enhance" the natural abilities of athletes. So, an athlete with this gene will be able to bike up an Alpine mountain at top speed without getting tired, but it won't be cheating because it's natural?

According to scientists, the mice were different from birth; they "popped around the cage like popcorn," Professor Richard Hanson said (mice popcorn? ew). The supermice also eat much more than the non-supermice and are "very aggressive." I guess they have--dare I say--rat rage?

Duh-ble helix

You'd think someone smart enough to discover the double helix would know better than to publicly degrade the African American population, but almost everyone knows not to ignorantly and blatantly claim white people are smarter than black people.

Apparently Nobel Prize -winning Dr. James Watson doesn't.

He said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really."

He also said he hoped everyone was created equally, but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." Say whaaaaat?

It's racism, my dear Watson.