Replica Designer Watches

2013-12-04

Face to face with Sweden's social robot

Dec. 3, 2013 — Human interaction with robots is about to get a little more personal. Meet "Furhat," the face of tomorrow's interactive technology.

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An increasingly important -- and sometimes frustrating -- part of daily life is dealing with so-called "user interfaces." Whether it's a smartphone or an airport check-in system, the user's ability to get what they want out of the machine relies on their own adaptability to unfamiliar interfaces.

But what if you could simply talk to a machine the way you talk to a human being? And what if the machine could also ask you questions, or even address two different people at once?

These kinds of interactive abilities are being developed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology with the help of an award-winning robotic head that takes its name from the fur hat it wears.

With a computer-generated, animated face that is rear-projected on a 3D mask, Furhat is actually a platform for testing various interactive technologies, such as speech synthesis, speech recognition and eye-tracking. The robot can conduct conversations with multiple people, turning its head and looking each person straight in the eye, while moving its animated lips in synch with its words.

Samer Al Moubayed, one of the KTH researchers behind the development of Furhat, says the project represents the third generation of spoken dialogue systems that has been in development at KTH's Department for Speech, Music and Hearing during the last 15 years.

The Furhat team aims to develop its technology for commercial use, with the help of funding from Sweden's Vinnova, a government agency that supports innovation projects.The team behind the development of Furhat also includes: Jonas Beskow, Joakim Gustafson, and Gabriel Skantze.

"Furhat is becoming a popular research platform for scientists around the world who study human interaction with machines," Al Moubayed says. "It's very simple, it's potentially very cheap to make, and people want to use it in their own research areas."

Furhat also has attracted attention from researchers at Microsoft and Disney. "They have been following the development of Furhat for a long time," says Al Moubayed, who returned last week from a two-week visit to the U.S., where he presented the hardware and software behind Furhat at Microsoft's and Disney's research labs.

Al Moubayed says that Furhat has potential as an interactive user interface for a variety of applications. In schools, it could be used to conduct knowledge games with children. In assisted living centres, it could share information and chat with people.

Perched on a stand atop a bureau in Al Moubayed's office, Furhat greets a visitor and asks their name. It then addresses Al Moubayed, and after a couple more questions, asks if the visitor has any questions for Furhat. During a pause in the exchange, the robot offers to tell a joke.

Part of what sets Furhat apart from other interactive robots is its ability to make not only conversation, but eye contact -- an important element of communication.

"You want an interface that fulfills or reaches a critical quality that people can interact with in a natural way, otherwise the interaction you get is not natural anymore, and does not resemble how people interact with each other."

Furhat's ability to turn its face to multiple people in a conversation is enabled by face-tracking software. But its ability to make eye contact is achieved through projection. Unlike a 2D image, which can appear to be looking at everybody in the room at once -- a phenomenon known as the "Mona Lisa effect" -- Furhat appears to shift its gaze because the face is projected onto 3D-printed model of a human face.

"When we first experimented with this, the effect was strong immediately," Al Moubayed says. "You could bond with, or relate to, the face.

"It is an avatar that can really be present in the physical environment."

Such technologies are being explored as a potential therapeutic tool for children with autism and other disorders that affect social interaction, he says. The technology can also be used for telepresence applications in which 3D replicas of people's faces become the screens that we look at when conducting a video conference call.

"There are many different types of interest that drive this work," he says. "And we're just starting to explore its potential."

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDpgTAKgi0

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Our pupils adjust as we imagine bright and dark scenes

These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that the size of our pupils is not simply a mechanistic response, but one that also adjusts to a subjective sense of brightness.

"Visual imagery is a private and subjective experience which is not accompanied by strongly felt or visible physiological changes," explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo. "It is a particularly difficult topic to research, as years of controversy about the nature of mental imagery testifies."

Along with co-author Unni Sulutvedt, also from the University of Oslo, Laeng conducted a series of experiments to see whether they could tap into subjective mental imagery by monitoring pupillary size with an eye-tracking device.

Initially, participants were asked to look at a screen while triangles of different levels of brightness appeared. When they were later asked to actively imagine those triangles, the participants' pupils varied in size according to the triangle's original brightness. When imagining brighter triangles, their pupils were smaller. But when imagining darker triangles, their pupils were larger.

In a series of additional experiments, the researchers found that participants' pupils also changed in diameter when imagining a sunny sky, a dark room, or a face in the sun compared with a face in the shade, as if in preparation for experiencing the various scenes.

The experiments further showed that these results aren't due to voluntary changes in pupil size or differences in the mental effort required to imagine scenes.

"Because humans cannot voluntarily constrict the eyes' pupils, the presence of pupillary adjustments to imaginary light presents a strong case for mental imagery as a process based on brain states similar to those which arise during actual perception," says Laeng.

The researchers suggest that this work may have further applications, potentially allowing us to probe the mental experiences of animals, babies, and even patients with severe neurological disorders.

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New research shows promise for possible HIV cure

Dec. 3, 2013 — Researchers have used radioimmunotherapy (RIT) to destroy remaining human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected cells in the blood samples of patients treated with antiretroviral therapy, offering the promise of a strategy for curing HIV infection.

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Results of the study were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has transformed the outlook for patients infected with HIV by suppressing the replication of the virus in the body. However, despite the success of HAART in effectively reducing the burden of HIV, scientists believe reservoirs of latently infected cells persist in the body, preventing the possibility of a permanent cure.

"In an HIV patient on HAART, drugs suppress viral replication, which means they keep the number of viral particles in a patient's bloodstream very low. However, HAART cannot kill the HIV-infected cells," said the study's lead author, Ekaterina Dadachova, Ph.D., professor of radiology, microbiology and immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y. "Any strategy for curing HIV infection must include a method to eliminate viral-infected cells."

In her study, Dr. Dadachova and a team of researchers administered RIT to blood samples from 15 HIV patients treated with HAART at the Einstein-Montefiore Center for AIDS Research.

RIT, which has historically been employed to treat cancer, uses monoclonal antibodies -- cloned cells that are recruited by the immune system to identify and neutralize antigens. Antigens are foreign objects like bacteria and viruses that stimulate an immune response in the body. The antibody, designed to recognize and bind to a specific cell antigen, is paired with a radioactive isotope. When injected into the patient's bloodstream, the laboratory-developed antibody travels to the target cell where the radiation is then delivered.

"In RIT, the antibodies bind to the infected cells and kill them by radiation," Dr. Dadachova said. "When HAART and RIT are used together, they kill the virus and the infected cells, respectively."

For the study, Dr. Dadachova's team paired the monoclonal antibody (mAb2556) designed to target a protein expressed on the surface of HIV-infected cells with the radionuclide Bismuth-213.

The researchers found that RIT was able to kill HIV-infected lymphocytes previously treated with HAART, reducing the HIV infection in the blood samples to undetectable levels.

"The elimination of HIV-infected cells with RIT was profound and specific," Dr. Dadachova said. "The radionuclide we used delivered radiation only to HIV-infected cells without damaging nearby cells."

An important part of the study tested the ability of the radiolabeled antibody to reach HIV-infected cells in the brain and central nervous system. Using an in vitro human blood brain barrier model, the researchers demonstrated that radiolabeled mAb2556 could cross the blood brain barrier and kill HIV-infected cells without any overt damage to the barrier itself.

"Antiretroviral treatment only partially penetrates the blood brain barrier, which means that even if a patient is free of HIV systemically, the virus is still able to rage on in the brain, causing cognitive disorders and mental decline," Dr. Dadachova said. "Our study showed that RIT is able to kill HIV-infected cells both systemically and within the central nervous system."

According to Dr. Dadachova, clinical trials in HIV patients are the next step for the RIT treatment.

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EDA and IP Zuken moves beyond EDA tools to data management

2013/12/03

EDA tool suppliers need to be more than tool suppliers.

Wolfgang Heindrichs

This is the view of Zuken, which is in throes of changing its business to add data management software to its existing PCB and cable harness design tool.

“We recognise we are not just selling tools, we are helping the customer to be integrated into the supply chain,” Wolfgang Heinrichs, managing director, Zuken Contact told Electronics Weekly.

“Our tools are horizontal tool, but we see an increasing demand from our customers for vertical integration,” said Heindrichs.

Zuken believes this applies to the handling of design data within a company. It already has data management tool for PCB design data and now it has introduced its first software tool for managing data in cable harness, control system and fluid design.

“We offered our first data management tool for PCB design in 2004 and it took maybe four to six years to be adopted,” said Heindrichs.

The company recognised for the data tool to be effective there must be open interfaces with component data sheets and integration to the materials supply chain.

“Just throwing ZIP files and pdfs over the world cannot work,” said Heindrichs.

“There is not a closed approach, our systems are open; open APIs and software development kits,” said Heindrichs.

“The ERP system works with price and part ni8mber data only, this tool adds meta-data, schematics and electrical parameters,” said Heindrichs.

The firm allows the user to manage the E3.series design data for wire, harness, cable, control system and fluid design in its native format.

E3.EDM (Engineering Data Management) builds on Zuken’s E3.series and Contact Software’s CIM DATABASE EDM platform to provide data and process management integrated into E3.series.

According to Heindrichs, electrical and fluid design have specific requirements for data and process management that are not been covered by existing engineering IT systems.

“By using the native E3.series data model, designs are managed on a sheet and device level, which means engineers will not have to adapt their work process to the EDM tools,” said Heindrichs.

“This is a change in philosophy and approach to product development and practically will involve four or five processes working together,” said Heindrichs.

The management tools can be integrated into existing PLM and ERP systems, and is scalable “even down to a single licence”, said Heindrichs.

The E3.EDM has been developed by Zuken Contact, a joint venture set up to develop engineering data management software.

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New evidence suggests Neanderthals organized their living spaces

The findings, published in the latest edition of the Canadian Journal of Archaeology, indicate that Neanderthals butchered animals, made tools and gathered round the fire in different parts of their shelters.

"There has been this idea that Neanderthals did not have an organized use of space, something that has always been attributed to humans," said Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver and lead author of the study. "But we found that Neanderthals did not just throw their stuff everywhere but in fact were organized and purposeful when it came to domestic space."

The findings are based on excavations at Riparo Bombrini, a collapsed rock shelter in northwest Italy where both Neanderthals and, later, early humans lived for thousands of years. This study focused on the Neanderthal levels while future research will examine the more recent modern human levels at the site. The goal is to compare how the two groups organized their space.

The site comprises three levels assigned to Neanderthals. Scientists found that Neanderthals divided the cave into different areas for different activities. The top level was used as a task site -- likely a hunting stand -- where they could kill and prepare game. The middle level was a long-term base camp and the bottom level was a shorter term residential base camp.

Riel-Salvatore and his team found a high frequency of animal remains in the rear of the top level, indicating that the area was likely used for butchering game. They also found evidence of ochre use in the back of the shelter.

"We found some ochre throughout the sequence but we are not sure what it was used for," Riel-Salvatore said. "Neanderthals could have used it for tanning hides, for gluing, as an antiseptic or even for symbolic purposes -- we really can't tell at this point."

In the middle level, which has the densest traces of human occupation, artifacts were distributed differently. Animal bones were concentrated at the front rather than the rear of the cave. This was also true of the stone tools, or lithics. A hearth was in back of the cave about half a meter to a meter from the wall. It would have allowed warmth from the fire to circulate among the living area.

"When you make stone tools there is a lot of debris that you don't want in high traffic areas or you risk injuring yourself," Riel-Salvatore said. "There are clearly fewer stone artifacts in the back of the shelter near the hearth."

The bottom level, thought to represent a short-term base camp, is the least well known because it was exposed only over a very small area. More stone artifacts were found immediately inside the shelter's mouth, suggesting tool production may have occurred inside the part of the site where sunlight was available. Some shellfish fragments also suggest that Neanderthals exploited the sea for food; like ochre, these are found in all the levels.

The discoveries are the latest in continuing research by Riel-Salvatore showing that Neanderthals were far more advanced than originally thought.

In an earlier study, he found that Neanderthals were highly innovative, creating bone tools, ornaments and projectile points. He also co-authored a paper demonstrating that interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans may have led to the ultimate demise of the outnumbered hominins. Still, Neanderthal genes make up between one and four percent of today's human genome, especially among Europeans.

"This is ongoing work, but the big picture in this study is that we have one more example that Neanderthals used some kind of logic for organizing their living sites," Riel-Salvatore said. "This is still more evidence that they were more sophisticated than many have given them credit for. If we are going to identify modern human behavior on the basis of organized spatial patterns, then you have to extend it to Neanderthals as well."

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2013-12-03

Kids whose bond with mother was disrupted early in life show changes in brain

Dec. 2, 2013 — Children who experience profound neglect have been found to be more prone to a behavior known as "indiscriminate friendliness," characterized by an inappropriate willingness to approach adults, including strangers.

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UCLA researchers are now reporting some of the first evidence from human studies suggesting that this behavior is rooted in brain adaptations associated with early-life experiences. The findings appear in the Dec. 1 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Biological Psychiatry.

The UCLA group used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate that youths who experienced early maternal deprivation -- specifically, time in an institution such as an orphanage prior to being adopted -- show similar responses to their adoptive mother and to strangers in a brain structure called the amygdala; for children never raised in an institutional setting, the amygdala is far more active in response to the adoptive mother.

This reduced amygdala discrimination in the brain correlated with parental reports of indiscriminate friendliness. The longer the child spent in an institution before being adopted, the greater the effects.

"The early relationship between children and their parents or primary caregivers has implications for their social interaction later in life, and we believe the amygdala is involved in this process," said Aviva Olsavsky, a resident physician in psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and the study's first author. "Our findings suggest that even for children who have formed attachments to their adoptive parents, this early period of deprivation has led to changes in the brain that were likely adaptations and that may persist over time."

Indiscriminate friendliness is in some sense a misnomer. The behavior is not characterized by a deep friendliness but simply by a lack of reticence that most young children show toward strangers.

"This can be a very frightening behavior for parents," said Nim Tottenham, an associate professor of psychology at UCLA and the study's senior author. "The stranger anxiety or wariness that young children typically show is a sign that they understand their parents are very special people who are their source of security. That early emotional attachment serves as a bedrock for many of the developmental processes that follow."

Located in the limbic system of the brain, the amygdala is involved in a variety of functions, including detecting the salience of stimuli, and is believed to play an important role in intense relationships and attachments. Studies in rodents have found that the process of forming a maternal bond early in life has powerful effects on amygdala development and attachment-related behaviors. Research has also shown that youths whose early childhood did not include the typical caregiving experience may exhibit a variety of behaviors, including indiscriminate friendliness, but such behavior had not been well characterized at the brain level.

For the study, 67 youths between the ages of 4 and 17 underwent fMRI while they were shown pictures of their adoptive mother and of an unfamiliar female. Approximately half the children had spent time in institutions, ranging from five months to about five-and-a-half years, before being adopted. As part of the study, the parents of the participating children were given a questionnaire designed to gauge the likelihood of their child wandering away with a stranger, as well as how trusting the child was with new adults.

The UCLA researchers found that while the typically raised children exhibited higher amygdala signals for their mothers relative to strangers, the previously institutionalized youths showed amygdala responses to strangers that were similar to those they showed toward their adoptive mothers. Additionally, the children with a history of institutional rearing showed greater amygdala reactivity to strangers than did the typically raised children. Reduced amygdala differentiation was correlated with greater reports of indiscriminate friendliness by the parents.

In order to understand the heterogeneity of the sample, the researchers examined the role of age at adoption. They found that children who had been adopted later displayed the least discrimination on the scans and the greatest degree of indiscriminate behavior.

The study raised several questions: What, if any, effects does early maternal deprivation has on children as they move into adulthood? And do these findings also apply to less severe forms of deprivation, such as neglectful home environments? The researchers are continuing to use fMRI to examine the role of parents in brain development and the contribution of early experiences to mental health outcomes later in life.

The study was part of a larger grant study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, examining brain development in children with a history of institutional caregiving.

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Single spray of oxytocin improves brain function in children with autism, study suggests

"This is the first study to evaluate the impact of oxytocin on brain function in children with autism spectrum disorders," said first author Ilanit Gordon, a Yale Child Study Center adjunct assistant professor, whose colleagues on the study included senior author Kevin Pelphrey, the Harris Professor in the Child Study Center, and director of the Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience at Yale.

Gordon, Pelphrey, and their colleagues conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 17 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. The participants, between the ages of 8 and 16.5, were randomly given either oxytocin spray or a placebo nasal spray during a task involving social judgments. Oxytocin is naturally occurring hormone produced in the brain and throughout the body.

"We found that brain centers associated with reward and emotion recognition responded more during social tasks when children received oxytocin instead of the placebo," said Gordon. "Oxytocin temporarily normalized brain regions responsible for the social deficits seen in children with autism."

Gordon said oxytocin facilitated social attunement, a process that makes the brain regions involved in social behavior and social cognition activate more for social stimuli (such as faces) and activate less for non-social stimuli (such as cars).

"Our results are particularly important considering the urgent need for treatments to target social dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders," Gordon added.

Other authors on the study include Brent C. Vander Wyk, Randi H. Bennett, Cara Cordeaux Zagoory-Sharon, James F. Leckman, and Ruth Feldman.

The study was funded by a Harris Family Professorship to Pelphrey; a Lee Foundation Postdoctoral Award to Gordon; and a grant from the Binational Science Foundation to Feldman, Pelphrey, Gordon, and Leckman.

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Scientists build a low-cost, open-source 3-D metal printer

Dec. 2, 2013 — Joshua Pearce is not one for understatement. "This is the beginning of a true revolution in the sciences," says the author of "Open-Source Lab." For cash-strapped researchers, he could be right.

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His new book, published by Elsevier, is a step-by-step DIY guide for making lab equipment. The essential tools are a 3D printer, open-source software and free digital designs. "It's a guidebook for new faculty members setting up labs," he said. "With it, they can cut the cost by a factor of 10, or even 100 for research-grade equipment. Even in the classroom, we can do a $15,000 educational lab for $500."

In keeping with the open-source concept, parts of "Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs," will be freely available at different times on the Elsevier Store. Chapters one and two are free now.

Pearce, an associate professor at Michigan Technological University, began printing out lab equipment in earnest after a seminal moment, when he priced a lab jack at $1,000. "All it does is move things up and down," he said. Using a printer and open-source software, his team made a utilitarian replica for about five dollars.

Pearce hasn't looked back. On his desk is a dual-purpose gadget: it can measure water turbidity, like a nephelometer; and it can do chemical analysis based on color, like a colorimeter. "We've shoved two devices into one, and it's completely customizable," said Pearce. To buy them both with equivalent accuracy would have cost over $4,000. To make this hybrid on a 3D printer cost about $50 including the cost of an open-source microcontroller, sensors and LEDs.

Saving money is just the half of it. "This lets faculty have total control over their laboratory," he said. Because designs are fluid, "devices can evolve with your lab rather than become obsolete."

The technology goes beyond slashing costs; it can also result in better science, says Pearce. Replicating another researcher's work becomes much easier and cheaper. "Equipment designs can be shared as easily as recipes," he said. "Scientists from all over the world are contributing designs." And it may change the dynamic of graduate education. "We get a huge influx of students from China, India and Africa, in part because they have so few good labs," Pearce said. "If they could print their own equipment, they wouldn't have to leave their home to study unless they wanted to, and many more talented people could contribute to experimental science. We could have a truly global scientific community."

But for Pearce, perhaps the best thing about open-source 3D printing is the open-source part. Makers, as 3D printer aficionados are called, not only use designs posted on the Internet. They also post their own and provide feedback. "It creates positive scientific karma," he said. "You can share your ideas and get help from the community, and it speeds things up so much. It's like having a global R&D team dedicated to your work ."

"Open-Source Lab" is written for a wide audience, from novices to those who are "at one with the force of open source," who can skip the introductory material and get right to work printing their own equipment.

At the close of the Acknowledgements section, Pearce cautions the reader not to rely too heavily on existing designs. The whole point of open-source printing is to join the community and share, share, share. "If the hardware is not good enough for you or your lab, remember, it is free, so quit whining and make it better!"

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Functional importance of dinosaur beaks illuminated

Beaks are a typical hallmark of modern birds and can be found in a huge variety of forms and shapes. However, it is less well known that keratin-covered beaks had already evolved in different groups of dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Period.

Employing high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT scanning) and computer simulations, Dr Stephan Lautenschlager and Dr Emily Rayfield of the University of Bristol with Dr Perle Altangerel (National University of Ulaanbaatar) and Professor Lawrence Witmer (Ohio University) used digital models to take a closer look at these dinosaur beaks.

The focus of the study was the skull of Erlikosaurus andrewsi, a 3-4m (10-13ft) large herbivorous dinosaur called a therizinosaur, which lived more than 90 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period in what is now Mongolia, and which shows evidence that part of its snout was covered by a keratinous beak.

This new study reveals that keratinous beaks played an important role in stabilizing the skeletal structure during feeding, making the skull less susceptible to bending and deformation.

Lead author Dr Stephan Lautenschlager of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences said: "It has classically been assumed that beaks evolved to replace teeth and thus save weight, as a requirement for the evolution of flight. Our results, however, indicate that keratin beaks were in fact beneficial to enhance the stability of the skull during biting and feeding."

Co-author Dr Emily Rayfield, Reader of Palaeobiology at Bristol said: "Using Finite Element Analysis, a computer modelling technique routinely used in engineering, we were able to deduce very accurately how bite and muscle forces affected the skull of Erlikosaurus during the feeding process. This further allowed us to identify the importance of soft-tissue structures, such as the keratinous beak, which are normally not preserved in fossils."

Co-author Lawrence Witmer, Chang Professor of Paleontology at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine said: "Beaks evolved several times during the transitions from dinosaurs to modern birds, usually accompanied by the partial or complete loss of teeth and our study now shows that keratin-covered beaks represent a functional innovation during dinosaur evolution."

This work was funded by a research fellowship to Stephan Lautenschlager from the German Volkswagen Foundation and grants from the National Science Foundation to Lawrence Witmer.

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Secrets to 'extreme adaptation' found in Burmese python genome

Dec. 2, 2013 — The Burmese python's ability to ramp up its metabolism and enlarge its organs to swallow and digest prey whole can be traced to unusually rapid evolution and specialized adaptations of its genes and the way they work, an international team of biologists says in a new paper.

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Lead author Todd Castoe, an assistant professor of biology at The University of Texas at Arlington College of Science, and 38 co-authors from four countries sequenced and analyzed the genome of the Burmese python, or Python molurus bivittatus. Their work is scheduled for publication this week (Dec. 2) by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences along with a companion paper on the sequencing and analysis of the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah). The papers represent the first complete and annotated snake genomes.

Because snakes contain many of the same genes as other vertebrates, studying how these genes have evolved to produce such extreme and unique characteristics in snakes can eventually help explain how these genes function, including how they enable extreme feats of organ remodeling. Such knowledge may eventually be used to treat human diseases.

"One of the fundamental questions of evolutionary biology is how vertebrates with all the same genes display such vastly different characteristics. The Burmese python is a great way to study that because it is so extreme," Castoe, who began working on the python project as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in the laboratory of associate professor and paper corresponding author David D. Pollock.

Castoe said: "We'd like to know how the snake uses genes we all have to do things that no other vertebrates can do."

The new python study calls into question previous theories that major obvious physical differences among species are caused primarily by changes in gene expression. Instead, it contends that protein adaptation, gene expression and changes in the structure of the organization of the genome itself are all at work together in determining the unusual characteristics that define snakes, and possibly other vertebrates.

Pollock said the python and king cobra studies represent a significant addition to the field of "comparative systems genomics -- the evolutionary analysis of multiple vertebrate genomes to understand how entire systems of interacting genes can evolve from the molecules on up."

He said: "I believe that such studies are going to be fundamental to our ability to understand what the genes in the human genome do, their functional mechanisms, and how and why they came to be structured the way they are."

The Burmese python's phenotype, or physical characteristics, represents one of the most extreme examples of evolutionary adaptation, the authors said. Like all snakes, its evolutionary origin included reduction in function of one lung and the elongation of its mid-section, skeleton and organs. It also has an extraordinary ability for what researchers call "physiological remodeling."

Physiological remodeling refers to the process by which pythons are able to digest meals much larger than their size, such as chickens or piglets, by ramping up their metabolism and increasing the mass of their heart, liver, small intestine and kidneys 35 percent to 150 percent in only 24 to 48 hours. As the digestion is completed, the organs return to their original size within a matter of days. The authors suggest that understanding how snakes accomplish these tremendous feats could hold vital clues for the development of treatments for many different types of human diseases.

"The Burmese python has an amazing physiology. With its genome in hand, we can now explore the many untapped molecular mechanisms it uses to dramatically increase metabolic rate, to shut down acid production, to improve intestinal function, and to rapidly increase the size of its heart, intestine, pancreas, liver, and kidneys," said Stephen Secor, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Alabama and a co-author on the paper. 'The benefits of these discoveries transcends to the treatment of metabolic diseases, ulcers, intestinal malabsorption, Crohn's disease, cardiac hypertrophy and the loss of organ performance."

To complete their work, the research team aligned 7,442 genes from the python and cobra with genes sequences available in the Ensembl Genome Browser from other amphibians, reptile, bird and mammals. They used a statistical method called "branch site codon modeling" to look for genes that had been positively selected (or evolutionarily changed due to natural selection) in the python, the cobra, and early in snake evolution in the common ancestor of these two snakes. They found changes in hundreds of genes. They believe the results demonstrate that natural selection-driven changes in many genes that encode proteins contributed substantially to the unique characteristics of snakes.

Analyses showed a remarkable correspondence between the function of the selected genes, and the many functionally unique aspects of snake biology -- such as their unique metabolism, spine and skull shape and cell cycle regulation, Castoe said. Many of the altered genes the team observed also have prominent medical significance. For example, the python genome showed some changes to the gene GAB1, which other research suggests plays a role in breast cancer, melanomas and childhood leukemia.

In addition to changes to individual genes and their expression, researchers also found that the extreme characteristics in snakes could also be linked to duplications or losses in multigene families. Some of those include ancient loss and more recent re-evolution of high resolution vision, and their ability to detect chemical cues from the environment. Researchers also observed that, while most assume that reptile genes and genomes change at a very slow rate, snake genomes evolve at one of the fastest rates of any vertebrate.

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