DJ's angry wife sells $45,000 sports car for less than $1.00!

A controversial radio DJ's wife sold his $45,000 sports car on eBay for less than a dollar after he flirted with model Jodie Marsh on air.Kerrang 105.2's Tim Shaw told the sexy babe he was prepared to leave his wife and their two children for her.

The DJ's wife was listening and immediately started an auction on eBay to sell his Lotus Esprit Turbo with a 'Buy It Now' option of $1.00.

The item description read: "I need to get rid of this car in the next two to three hours before my husband gets home to find it gone and all his belongings in the street."

The car was sold in under five minutes.

It wasn't the first time this DJ upset his 27-year-old wife. When she was pregnant he rang up her sister live on air and said he thought about her while having sex with his wife.

Mrs Shaw said: "When he said he would leave me and the kids for Jodie Marsh, that was it for me. I am sick of him disrespecting this family for the sake of his act.

"The car is his pride and joy but the idiot put my name on the log book so I just sold it. I didn't care about the money, I just wanted to get him back."

She added: "There is no hope for a reconciliation." A Kerrang 105.2 spokesperson said the DJ was 'absolutely gutted'.

Man Makes Soup Out Of Body Parts

A man from Nigeria confessed to killing his boss and making a
soup out of her body parts. Salifu Ojo, 23, was arrested last
Wednesday. Ojo killed his 40 year old boss, Christiana Elijah,
because of a argument over his pay. The man chopped of her
head, hands, and legs, and then took out her internal organs and
put them in his soup. He then drank the soup, and ended up
vomitting. He eventually confessed to his fellow workers what
he had done.

Indian Actor Gets Into Cage For Animal Rights

Indian actor R. Madhavan squeezed himself into a tiny cage as he
appealed for compassion for chickens as part of a campaign by an
international animal rights group. The same human rights group
has already used Beatle Paul McCartney, singer Bryan Adams and
Indian Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan to speak against "cruelty
for meat."

Prince Wore Tracksuit To His Wedding

According to the Bangkok Post, Thailand's Crown Prince Maha
Vajiralongkorn married last year wearing a tracksuit and
slippers after astrologers told him to hold a low-key wedding.
The prince, who rarely speaks to the press, said the marriage
ceremony, performed by the king, was kept secret.

Woman Makes Entire Wardrobe Out Of Hair

A Romanian woman has just completed creating an entire wardrobe
out of her her own hair. Ioana Cioanca, 64, started to collect
her fallen hair since she was 17 when her grandmother told her
that it was a sin to throw it out. She just completed making a
raincoat for the winter season. She says she intends to wear it
over the brown blouse and skirt crocheted from the same material
when she goes to church on Sunday.

Strange But True at StrangeFacts

Saturday mail delivery in Canada was eliminated by Canada Post on February 1, 1969!

In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!

There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo!

Should there be a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane as a precaution!

Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second!

The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card!

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos!

There is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants!

Every day 20 banks are robbed. The average take is $2,500!

The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad!

Tablecloths were originally meant to be served as towels with which dinner guests could wipe their hands and faces after eating!

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult!

One car out of every 230 made was stolen last year!

The names of Popeye's four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye!

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia! The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each other's shoulders! When glass breaks, the cracks move faster than 3,000 miles per hour. To photograph the event, a camera must shoot at a millionth of a second! A Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel! A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average automobile!
	The Philadelphia mint produces 26 million pennies per day!
A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found at the sun's surface! A violin contains about 70 separate pieces of wood! It is estimated that 4 million "junk" telephone calls, phone solicitations by persons or programmed machine are made every day in the United States! It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times! Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill! Almost half the newspapers in the world are published in the United States and Canada!

Longest Goldfish

WHO:

Goldfish

WHAT:

47.4 cm (18.7 in)

WHERE:

Hapert, Netherlands

WHEN:

March 24, 2003

The world's longest goldfish (Carassius auratus) is owned by Joris Gijsbers and measured 47.4 cm (18.7 in) from snout to tail-fin end on March 24, 2003 in Hapert, The Netherlands.

Face transplants can work, studies show

New faces given to a Chinese man after a bear tore off part of his face and a French-Caribbean man

The findings give hope to some people with severe facial disfigurement and suggest the transplants could prove long-lasting without major problems, two separate research teams reported in the Lancet medical journal.

Despite recurrent episodes of tissue rejection in the first year after their transplants, neither man had psychological problems accepting their new faces and have been able to rejoin society, they reported.

Only three people have received face transplants. The world's first was carried out on French woman Isabelle Dinoire in November 2005 after she was disfigured in an attack by her dog. Last year, her doctors reported that she had recovered slowly and steadily, overcoming two episodes of rejection

In 2006, Chinese doctors performed a face transplant on a 30-year-old mauled by a bear. While there were some complications with tissue rejection following the operation, two years later the man was doing well, his doctors said.

"This case suggests that facial transplantation might be an option for restoring a severely disfigured face, and could enable patients to readily reintegrate themselves back into society," Shuzhong Guo and colleagues at Xijing hospital in China wrote.

A French team described their work on a 29-year-old man who suffered from von Recklinghausen disease, an illness that deforms the face. The man, who was not named, was given a new nose, mouth and chin in a 2007 operation.

He began work 13 months after the transplant, has more function in his face and has not rejected the new tissue, his doctors said.

"Our case confirms that face transplantation is surgically feasible and effective for the correction of specific disfigurement,"Dr. Laurent Lantier and colleagues at the Henri-Mondor hospital outside Paris wrote.

disfigured by a rare tumor show that such transplants can work and are not medical oddities, researchers said on Thursday.

Tallest Dog Living

WHO:

Gibson

WHAT:

107 cm (42.2 in) tall

WHERE:

Grass Valley, California, USA

WHEN:

August 31, 2004

The tallest dog living is Gibson, a harlequin great Dane, who measured 107 cm (42.2 in) tall on August 31, 2004 and is owned by Sandy Hall of Grass Valley, California, USA.

LARGEST MONKEY

The male mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) or man-ape of equatorial West Africa has an average head and body length of 61–76 cm (24-30 in) and a tail length of 5.2–7.6 cm (2-3 in). Adult males weigh an average of 25 kg (55 lb), although specimens weighting up to 54 kg (119 lb) and measuring 50.8 cm (20 in) to the shoulder have been known. The mandrill is also one of the most colourful mammals, recognized by its naked vivid-blue rump, red-striped face and yellow beard.

Tailor-made Functional Garments For Olympic Horses

When the horses and competitors go through their paces at the Summer Olympics in Hong Kong in 2008, it will be very hot and very humid – just as it is every summer there. Three special blankets will offer the Swiss teams’ tournament horses some respite from the elements.

When the animals move from their air-conditioned stables to the tournament venue, they will be protected from the brilliant sunshine by cooling covers. This will allow them to better withstand the effects of the heat and ensure that they are able to give their utmost during the competition. And after the their event is over, “sweat blankets” will help them to dry off as quickly as possible – one to cover them as they return to the stables, and another to wear in their air conditioned quarters. These special garments offer support to these sensitive and valuable champion horses in their own efforts to regulate their temperature and prevent the dangerous "post exercise chill effect," the unpleasant and unhealthy uncontrolled cooling which leads to the animals becoming chilled after exercise.

In developing the novel material, which is specially optimized for this equestrian application, Empa scientists based their research on an idea by Anton Fuerst, the Veterinary Surgeon of the Swiss dressage riders association. They began work on the project, named “Horse Blankets Hong Kong”, a year ago, in collaboration with the Eschler company, (which is based in the town of Buehler in Canton Appenzell), and the Vetsuisse Faculty of Zurich University.

Big-brained Animals Evolve Faster

Ever since Darwin, evolutionary biologists have wondered why some lineages have diversified more than others. A classical explanation is that a higher rate of diversification reflects increased ecological opportunities that led to a rapid adaptive radiation of a clade.

A textbook example is Darwin finches from Galapagos, whose ancestor colonized a competitors-free archipelago and rapidly radiated in 13 species, each one adapted to use the food resources in a different way. This and other examples have led some to think that the progenitors of the major evolutionary radiations are those that happened to be in the right place and at the right time to take advantage of ecological opportunities.

However, is it possible that biological diversification not only depends on the properties of the environment an ancestral species finds itself in, but also on the features of the species itself? Now a study supports this possibility, suggesting that possessing a large brain might have facilitated the evolutionary diversification of some avian lineages.

Over 20 years ago, Jeff Wyles, Allan Wilson, and Joseph Kunkel proposed that big brains might favor adaptive evolutionary diversification in animals by facilitating the behavioral changes needed to use new resources or environments, a theory known as the behavioral drive hypothesis. When these authors formulated their hypothesis, evidence that the size of the brain limits the cognitive capacity of animals were scanty.

Since then, however, a substantial body of evidence has confirmed that animals with larger brains, relative to their body size, have more developed skills for changing their behavior through learning and innovation, facilitating the invasion of novel environments and the use of novel resources. Despite the progress, the role of the brain in the adaptive diversification of animals has remained controversial, mostly due to the difficulties to demonstrate that big-brained animals evolve faster.

Water: The Forgotten Crisis

This year, the world and, in particular, developing countries and the poor have been hit by both food and energy crises. As a consequence, prices for many staple foods have risen by up to 100%. When we examine the causes of the food crisis, a growing population, changes in trade patterns, urbanization, dietary changes, biofuel production, and climate change and regional droughts are all responsible. Thus we have a classic increase in prices due to high demand and low supply.

However, few commentators specifically mention the declining availability of water that is needed to grow irrigated and rainfed crops. According to some, the often mooted solution to the food crisis lies in plant breeding that produces the ultimate high yielding, low water- consuming crops. While this solution is important, it will fail unless attention is paid to where the water for all food, fibre and energy crops is going to come from.

A few years ago, IWMI (the International Water Management Institute) demonstrated that many countries are facing severe water scarcity, either as a result of a lack of available fresh water, or due to a lack of investment in water infrastructure such as dams and reservoirs. What makes matters worse is that this scarcity predominantly affects developing countries where the majority of the world's under-nourished people-- approximately 840 million -- live.

The causes of water scarcity are essentially identical to those of the food crisis. There are serious and extremely worrying factors that indicate water supplies are steadily being used up. Essentially every calorie of food requires a liter of water to produce it. Thus those of us on western diets, use about 2500-3000 liters per day. A further 2.5 billion people by 2030 will mean that we have to find over 2000 more cubic kilometers of fresh water to feed them. This is not any easy task given that current water usage for food production is 7500 cubic kilometers and supplies are scarce.

According to the recent report "Water for Food, Water for Life" of the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, which drew on the work of 700 scientists, unless we change the way we use water and increase "water productivity" (i.e. more crop per drop) we will not have enough water to feed the world's growing population (This population is estimated to increase from 6 billion now to about 8.5 billion in 25 years.) Compared with the lengthy agenda to combat climate change, this is a very short time indeed and yet the impacts of water scarcity will be profound. However, very little is being done about it in most countries.

Since the formulation of the UN Millennium Goals in 2002, much of the water agenda has been focused around the provision of drinking water and sanitation. This water comes from the same sources as agricultural water and as we urbanize and improve living standards there will be increasing competition for drinking water from domestic and other urban users, putting agriculture under further pressure. While improving drinking water and sanitation is vital with respect to health and living standards, we cannot afford to neglect the provision and improved productivity of water for agriculture.

There are potential solutions. Better water storage has to be considered. Ethiopia, which is typical of many sub-Saharan African countries, has a water storage capacity of 38 cubic meters per person. Australia has almost 5000 cubic meters per person, an amount that in the face of current climate change impacts may be inadequate. While there will be a need for new large and medium-sized dams to deal with this critical lack of storage in Africa, other simpler solutions are also part of the equation.

These include the construction of small reservoirs, sustainable use of groundwater systems including artificial groundwater recharge and rainwater harvesting for smallholder vegetable gardens. Improved year- round access to water will help farmers maintain their own food security using simple supplementary irrigation techniques. The redesign of both the physical and institutional arrangements of some large and often dysfunctional irrigation schemes will also bring the required productivity increases. Safe, risk free reuse of wastewater from growing cities will also be needed. Of course these actions need to be paralleled by development of drought- tolerant crops, and the provision of infrastructure and facilities to get fresh food to markets.

Current estimates indicate that we will not have enough water to feed ourselves in 25 years time, by when the current food crisis may turn into a perpetual crisis. Just as in other areas of agricultural research and development, investment in the provision and better management of water resources has declined steadily since the green revolution. I and my water science colleagues are raising a warning flag that significant investment in both R&D and water infrastructure development are needed, if dire consequences are to be avoided.

Squirrels Use Old Snake Skins To Mask Their Scent From Predators

California ground squirrels and rock squirrels chew up rattlesnake skin and smear it on their fur to mask their scent from predators, according to a new study by researchers at UC Davis.

Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in animal behavior at UC Davis, observed ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) and rock squirrels (Spermophilus variegates) applying snake scent to themselves by picking up pieces of shed snakeskin, chewing it and then licking their fur.

Adult female squirrels and juveniles apply snake scent more often than adult males, which are less vulnerable to predation by snakes, Clucas said. The scent probably helps to mask the squirrel's own scent, especially when the animals are asleep in their burrows at night, or to persuade a snake that another snake is in the burrow.

The squirrels are not limited to the use of shed snake skins, said Donald Owings, a professor of psychology at UC Davis who is Clucas' adviser and an author on the paper. They also pick up snake odor from soil and other surfaces on which snakes have been resting, and use that to apply scent. Other rodents have been observed using similar behavior.

Snake-scent application is one of a remarkable package of defenses that squirrels use against rattlesnakes, Owings said. In earlier work, Owings' lab has found that squirrels can: heat up their tails to send a warning signal to rattlesnakes, which can "see" in the infrared; assess how dangerous a particular snake is, based on the sound of its rattle; and display assertive behavior against snakes to deter attacks. In addition, work by Owings' colleague, psychology professor Richard Coss, has demonstrated that these squirrels have evolved resistance to snake venom.

"It's a nice example of the opportunism of animals," Owings said. "They're turning the tables on the snake."

The other authors on the paper, which was published Nov. 28 in the journal Animal Behavior, are Matthew Rowe, Sam Houston State University, Texas, and Patricia Arrowood at New Mexico State University. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Animal Behavior Society.

Tracking Down Abrupt Climate Changes: Rapid Natural Cooling Occurred 12,700 Years Ago

Researchers in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States have shown, for the first time, that an extremely fast climate change occurred in Western Europe. This took place long before human-made changes in the atmosphere, and is causatively associated with a sudden change in the wind systems.

The research, which appears in the journal Nature Geoscience, was conducted by geoscientists Achim Brauer, Peter Dulski and Jörg Negendank (emeritus Professor) from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Gerald Haug from the DFG-Leibniz Center for Surface Processes and Climate Studies at the University of Potsdam and the ETH in Zurich, and Daniel Sigman from Princeton University.

The proof of an extreme cooling within a short number of years 12,700 years ago was attained in sediments of the volcanic lake Meerfelder Maar in the Eifel region of Germany. The seasonally layered deposits allow to precisely determine the rate of climate change. With a novel combination of microscopic research studies and modern geochemical scanner procedures, the scientists were able to successfully reconstruct the climatic conditions even for individual seasons. In particular, the changes in the wind force and direction during the winter half-year caused the climate to topple over into a completely different mode within one year after a short instable phase of a few decades.

Up to now, it was assumed that the attenuation of the Gulf Stream alone was responsible for the strong cooling in Western Europe.

The examined lake deposits show, however, that the atmospheric circulation, probably in connection with the spreading of sea-ice, most likely played a very important role. At the same time, these new results show that the climate system is still not well understood, and that especially the mechanisms of short-term change and the time of occurrence still hold many puzzles. Micro-layered lake deposits represent particularly suitable geological archives, with which scientists want to track down climate change.

Scientists from the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and other institutions are in search of such archives worldwide, with the hope of obtaining area-wide information on the dynamics of climate and possible regional variations in the future.

Toxic Drugs, Toxic System: Sociologist Predicts Drug Disasters

Americans are likely to be exposed to unacceptable side effects of FDA-approved drugs such as Vioxx in the future because of fatal flaws in the way new drugs are tested and marketed, according to research to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

"Drug disasters are literally built into the current system of drug testing and approvals in the United States," said Donald Light, the sociologist who authored the study and a professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. "Recent changes in the system have only increased the proportion of new drugs with serious risks."

According to a 1999 report for the Institute of Medicine, adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States and more than two million serious reactions occur every year. ADRs can occur for a number of reasons, including improper prescribed dosage, drug abuse and drug interactions.

Light's analysis identifies the organizational foundations of patient risk from prescription drugs and suggests institutional reforms to help avoid or reduce future drug disasters.

According to Light, rather than using current approved drugs as benchmarks of efficacy, the existing testing system evaluates the effectiveness of new drugs based on their effects compared to placebos. Systematic reviews indicate that one in seven new drugs is superior to existing drugs, but two in every seven new drugs result in side effects serious enough for action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including black box warnings, adverse reaction warnings, or even withdrawal of the drug.

Based on this system, Light asserts that new drugs are twice as likely to harm patients as to provide them with benefits superior to existing drugs.

Light's analysis suggests another flaw lies within the design of clinical trials. He contends that pharmaceutical companies frequently design their trails to minimize evidence of toxic side effects. To do so, they sample from a healthier population atypical of patients who will actually take the drug, excluding people who are older, poorer or who have multiple health problems. Trials are run long enough to pick up main effects but not to detect some long term side effects. Approvals are based on these data; so drugs with harmful effects sometimes get through.

"Based on our current system, the designation of 'safe and effective' on today's new drugs could be replaced with, 'apparently safe based on incomplete information, and more effective than a placebo,'" Light said.

With regard to government oversight, Light cites serious under-funding of the FDA, which creates a dependency on the pharmaceutical industry—the industry FDA regulates—to pay its staff. In return for drug company funding, Light says, the industry expects faster reviews, but faster reviews potentially fail to identify serious long-term side effects.

"Speed-up reviews for safety have more than tripled the number of 'black box warnings' of side effects or withdrawals after drugs are on the market," Light said. "Despite recent reforms to strengthen the FDA's role in protecting the public from harmful drugs, the harm-benefit ratio is worsening due to these reviews and relaxed rules that allow companies to promote drugs for unapproved uses."

The paper, "Institutional Foundations of the Vioxx Disaster," will be presented on Sunday, Aug. 3, at 2:30 p.m. in the Sheraton Boston at the American Sociological Association's 103rd annual meeting. Light will identify eight institutional foundations for future drug disasters, and will suggest multiple reforms to improve the U.S. drug approval system.

Smart Contact Lenses Dispense Medication

"Smart" contact lenses that measure pressure within the eye and dispense medication accordingly could be made possible using a new material developed by biomedical engineers at UC Davis.

Tingrui Pan, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and postdoctoral researcher Hailin Cong started with a material called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). They developed a method for placing powdered silver on the PDMS in a precise pattern, to create conductive wires. The silver also has antimicrobial properties.

The researchers were able to shape the PDMS-silver into a contact-lens shape, and show that it could function as a simple pressure sensor. Glaucoma, a build-up of pressure in the eye, is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. A contact lens that could continuously measure pressure within the eye and relay the data to a computer would allow doctors to learn more about glaucoma and improve patient treatment.

The researchers plan to apply for approval to begin trials of the lenses in humans, Pan said. They are collaborating with Professor James Brandt of the Department of Ophthalmology at the UC Davis School of Medicine.

A paper describing the fabrication technique was published in the July 2008 issue of the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

World's Smallest Snake Found In Barbados

The world's smallest species of snake, with adults averaging just under four inches in length, has been identified on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The species -- which is as thin as a spaghetti noodle and small enough to rest comfortably on a U.S. quarter --was discovered by Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State.

Hedges and his colleagues also are the discoverers of the world's smallest frog and lizard species, which too were found on Caribbean islands. The most recent discovery will be published on 4 August 2008 in the journal Zootaxa.

Hedges found the new snake -- a type of threadsnake -- in a tiny forest fragment on the eastern side of Barbados. He believes the species is rare because most of its potential habitat has been replaced by buildings and farms. "Habitat destruction is a major threat to biodiversity throughout the world," he said. "The Caribbean is particularly vulnerable because it contains an unusually high percentage of endangered species and, because these animals live on islands, they have nowhere to go when they lose their habitat."

Hedges determined that the Barbados species is new to science on the basis of its genetic differences from other snake species and its unique color pattern and scales. He also determined that some old museum specimens that had been misidentified by other scientists actually belong to this new species.

Scientists use adults to compare sizes among animals because the sizes of adults do not vary as much as the sizes of juveniles and because juveniles can be harder to find. In addition, scientists seek to measure both males and females of a species to determine its average size. Using these methods, Hedges determined that this species, which he named Leptotyphlops carlae, is the smallest of the more than 3,100 known snake species.

According to Hedges, the smallest and largest species of animals tend to be found on islands, where species can evolve over time to fill ecological niches in habitats that are unoccupied by other organisms. Those vacant niches exist because some types of organisms, by chance, never make it to the islands. For example, if a species of centipede is missing from an island, a snake might evolve into a very small species to "fill" the missing centipede's ecological niche.

Hedges thinks the Barbados snake may be at or near the minimum possible size for snakes, though he cannot say for sure that no smaller species exists -- several other snake species are nearly as small. While it is possible that a smaller species exists, finding such an animal is unlikely. "Snakes may be prevented by natural selection from becoming too small because, below a certain size, there may be nothing for their young to eat," said Hedges, adding that the Barbados snake, like others to which it is related, likely feeds primarily on the larvae of ants and termites.

In contrast to larger species -- some of which can lay up to 100 eggs in a single clutch -- the smallest snakes, and the smallest of other types of animals, usually lay only one egg or give birth to one offspring. Furthermore, the smallest animals have young that are proportionately enormous relative to the adults. For example, the hatchlings of the smallest snakes are one-half the length of an adult, whereas the hatchlings of the largest snakes are only one-tenth the length of an adult. The Barbados snake is no exception to this pattern. It produces a single slender egg that occupies a significant portion of the mother's body.

"If a tiny snake were to have two offspring, each egg could occupy only half the space that is devoted to reproduction within its body. But then each of the two hatchlings would be half the normal size, perhaps too small to function as a snake or in the environment," said Hedges. "The fact that tiny snakes produce only one massive egg -- relative to the size of the mother -- suggests that natural selection is trying to keep the size of hatchlings above a critical limit in order to survive."

Hedges has discovered and described more than 65 new species of amphibians and reptiles throughout the Caribbean in the course of his genetic and evolutionary studies. In the paper in which he describes the Leptotyphlops carlae snake that he discovered on Barbados, he also describes another new snake that he discovered on the nearby island of St. Lucia, a new threadsnake that is nearly as small as the Barbados snake. Finding new species, collecting them, and naming them is a necessary first step for other types of research. Hedges said this exploration and discovery of new species also is critical for protecting biodiversity. "It is difficult to protect a species if you don't know it exists," he said.

Memory, Depression, Insomnia -- And Worms?

Researchers have spent decades probing the causes of depression, schizophrenia and insomnia in humans. But a new study may have uncovered key insights into the origins of these and other conditions by examining a most unlikely research subject: worms.

The project, which was led by Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist Kenneth Miller, Ph.D., examined the way eye-less microscopic worms known as C. elegans shy away from certain kinds of light. The researchers made several key findings, chief among them that exposing paralyzed C. elegans to ultraviolet light restored normal levels of movement in the worms.

Miller’s group at OMRF traced the light reaction to a tiny molecular sensor, which is encoded

by a gene they named LITE-1. “This sensor doesn’t resemble any other light sensors previously discovered,” said Miller.

Although humans lack this ultraviolet light sensor, Miller’s discovery provides a window for understanding how the molecular signals in our nerve cells allow them to talk to each other to produce perceptions, behaviors, learning and memory.

“That doesn’t mean shining an ultraviolet light on people in wheelchairs will suddenly allow them to walk,” said Miller. “But it does give us a tool that we can use to solve the mysteries of nerve cell communication and could ultimately help us understand the biology of everything from sleep and memory to depression.”

The research appears in the Aug. 5, 2008 edition of the journal PLoS Biology.

“The new work from Ken Miller's lab has identified a new way that organisms can sense light, distinct from the previously known light-sensing mechanism used in the eye,” said Michael Koelle, Ph.D., of the Yale University School of Medicine. “It will be interesting to see whether the LITE-1 light-sensing mechanism will also lead to new insights into human sensory perception.”

Despite 35 years of intensive research by hundreds of labs studying C. elegans, no one had discovered that eye-less worms can respond robustly to light. Miller’s group found the light response when they began studying worms that were paralyzed because of a gene mutation.

In prior studies, Miller and his OMRF colleagues showed that this mutation disrupts a molecular network of pathways that controls how nerve cells send signals to each other at synapses, the points where different neurons touch each other. Those same nerve cell pathways are all present in the human brain, where they are thought to play a role in controlling behaviors, learning and memory, and may also be involved in causing human neurological disorders.

“Without signals from this network, neurons cannot talk to each other or to muscle cells to produce movement, so the mutants just lie paralyzed on the culture plate even if you poke and prod them,” Miller said.

But when Miller turned a short wavelength light—like ultraviolet rays—on the worms, it created a new signal in the neurons, allowing the animals to move as long as the light was on them. The same response had not been found previously in normal C. elegans because those worms have no trouble moving.

Miller said he thinks the worms are hardwired to avoid damaging or lethal doses of direct sunlight, which includes UV rays.

“When you are only a few cells thick, getting a sunburn is fatal,” he said.

Miller emphasized that the research is still in its early stages. “We’re a long way from any treatments based on this research, but I think we’ve opened up a door that we didn’t know was there before,” he said. “There’s a lot of work left to be done, but I’m excited to see where this discovery leads us.”

Research funding was provided through a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, and OMRF.