Researchers Find New Deep Water Coral

HONOLULU (AP) - Researchers have discovered what they believe is a new deep water coral and sponge beds found several thousands of feet below the ocean surface, officials said Monday.

The lemon-yellow bamboo coral tree and a giant sponge were discovered last month in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument by the Pisces V submersible operated by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL).

Samples of the corals and sponges were collected for taxonomic identification and DNA analysis. They were found in depth from 3,000 to 6,000 feet.

Christopher Kelley, the principal investigator of the project, said the monument is potentially protecting so many new species and new records of species that many will not be revealed for decades to come.

The vast national monument, nearly 100 times larger than Yosemite National Park, was created by President Bush last year out of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which stretch out 1,000 miles from the main Hawaiian Islands.

``Most of the monument is below scuba diving depths,'' said Randy Kosaki, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research coordinator for the monument. ``It's important to find ways to explore these deep water ecosystems where the inhabitants are virtually unknown.''

Researchers returned from their 22-day expedition on Nov. 19.

HURL was established by NOAA and the University of Hawaii to study deep water marine processes in the Pacific Ocean.

Belief, disbelief and uncertainty activate different parts of brain: Study

A new study has found that belief, disbelief and uncertainty activate distinct regions of the brain.

It was also found that belief/disbelief affected areas are associated with the pleasantness/unpleasantness of tastes and odours.

The study, led by Sam Harris of the University of California, Los Angeles, involved 14 adults who underwent functional MRI scans during which they were presented with short statements that they had to evaluate as true, false or undecided.

In the study, each participant underwent three scans while they evaluated statements from a broad variety of categories such as mathematical, geographical, autobiographical, religious and factual.

The statements were designed to be clearly true, false or undecidable.

The analysis found that contrasting belief and disbelief trials yielded increased signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), which is involved in linking factual knowledge with emotion.

"The involvement of the VMPFC in belief processing suggests an anatomical link between the purely cognitive aspects of belief and human emotion and reward," the researchers said.

The researchers noted that ethical belief showed a similar pattern of activation to mathematical belief suggesting that the physiological difference between belief and disbelief is not related to content or emotional associations.

The authors stated that the contrasts between disbelief and belief showed increased signal in the anterior insula, a region involved in the sensation of taste, the perception of pain, and the feeling of disgust, indicating that 'false propositions might actually disgust us'.

"Our results appear to make sense of the emotional tone of disbelief, placing it on a continuum with other modes of stimulus appraisal and rejection," they said.

Uncertainty evoked a positive signal in the anterior cingulate cortext (ACC) and a decreased signal in the caudate, a region of the basal ganglia, which plays a role in motor action.

Noting that both belief and disbelief showed an increased signal in the caudate compared to uncertainty, the authors suggested that the basal ganglia might play a role in mediating the cognitive and behavioural differences between decision and indecision.

"This would have obvious implications for the detection of deception, for the control of the placebo effect during the process of drug design, and for the study of any higher-cognitive phenomenon in which the differences between belief, disbelief, and uncertainty might be a relevant variable," the researchers said.

Study of Zebrafish may lead to research on human diseases

University of Cincinnati researchers hope their study of the tiny black-and-white striped zebrafish, whose systems closely track those of humans, will lead to enhanced research on human diseases.

A $1.53 million four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health is targeted at creating a camera that will allow more detailed study of zebrafish cells.

Jay Hove, an associate professor of molecular and cellular physiology, is working to develop the camera that would improve the study of cell and fluid movement in real time. He also hopes to develop a course for fall 2008.

``That's my mission here, to create an internationally recognized research program,'' said Hove, 43, formerly of the California Institute of Technology. ``I saw myself fitting in with what they were doing here.''

The tropical fish that belongs to the minnow family makes a good research subject because it breeds quickly.

``I can literally say, 'I need 10,000 babies next Wednesday,''' said Hove, who was hired in 2004 to establish the program.

Other scientists have studied zebrafish. Last year, Dutch researchers said they believe they have identified the gene that determines brain size in zebrafish, a finding that could eventually help in developing therapies for humans suffering from nervous system illnesses like Parkinson's Disease.

While genetically distant from humans, the zebrafish has comparable organs and tissues, such as heart, kidney, pancreas, bones, and cartilage.

``The zebrafish is therefore a powerful model organism for understanding normal development and birth defects, and providing clues to cure human diseases,'' Dr. Franziska Grieder, an official with the National Center for Research Resources, a component of the National Institutes of Health, said Monday.

The zebrafish research laboratory at the university's Genome Research Institute will move early next year to the school's East Campus. It includes three full-time research staff members and dozens of small tanks that each hold hundreds of fish with different kinds of genetic markers.

Competition to recruit more researchers to university campuses has grown and is particularly intense in the medical fields because of the millions of dollars in research money at stake.

The university opened the Genome Research Institute in 2003, and 40 researchers now work on projects ranging from validation of compounds for outside companies to protein expression and purification.

One of the institute's new projects is to form a consortium to maintain and operate a library of chemical compounds transferred to the institute from Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals. The University of Cincinnati, the University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee at Memphis and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center already have agreed to the join the group.

The University of Cincinnati also is planning to enlarge and improve animal testing facilities.