NEWS 21In 2008, the fossilised leg bones ofalarge
bird were discovered on the site of an
ancient lake in Central Otago, New
Zealand. Initially assumed to be from an
eagle, the Miocene-era fossils, thought to be
19 million years old, languished in lab
storage foradecade before palaeontologists
reanalysed them earlier this year. And their
conclusion is that the bones almost certainly
belonged toagiant parrot, which stood
nearly one metre tall and weighed 7kg –
making it twice as heavy as the biggest
known parrot, the critically endangered
kakapo, also from New Zealand.
The parrot’s name,Heracles inexpectatus,reflects the shock nature of the
discovery. Yet it fits into the story of New Zealand, where an absence of large
mammals enabled birds to become the top predators and often grow to huge sizes –
most notoriously the moa, which could be three metres tall.Heracles inexpectatusis
thought to have been flightless, and it “may well have dined on more than just
conventional parrot foods, perhaps even other parrots”, said co-author Prof Mike
Archer, from the University of New South Wales, Australia.Health &Science17 August 2019 THE WEEKSurgery to delay menopause
Doctors in Britain have launched a
controversial treatment designed to
give women the option of delaying the
menopause, reports The Sunday Times.
The procedure, which costs between
£7,000 and £11,000, involves removing
and freezingasection of ovarian tissue,
which is then transplanted back at the
onset of menopause. This “tricks” the
woman’s body into producing sex
hormones that delay the menopause –
potentially by as much as two decades, the
scientists claim. Nine British women aged
between 22 and 36 have so far undergone
the surgery, which isavariant of a
technique already used to preserve the
fertility of female cancer patients.
According to the doctors, it could reduce
the portion of women’s lives which they
have to spend coping with the unpleasant
side-effects of the menopause, which can
range from hot flushes and night sweats to
more serious complications such as
osteoporosis. But some are expected to use
the therapy to extend their fertility. “If this
procedure allows women to nail their
career and feel that burden taken off their
shoulders, and if by 40 they still want a
baby but are unable to conceive naturally,
they can go back to their tissue which they
froze at 30,” said Prof Simon Fishel, chief
executive of ProFam, the Birmingham
company behind the treatment.How to stare downaseagull
Seaside diners can help prevent their
lunches being nicked by seagulls simply by
maintaining eye contact with the birds, a
new study claims. Madeleine Goumas, of
the University of Exeter, visited coastal
towns in Cornwall and lured herring
seagulls into her vicinity withaportion
of chips sealed inatransparent bag. Halfthe time, whenaseagull approached, she
looked away; the other half, she locked
eyes with it. Birds that were stared at were
less likely to makeabid for the food, and
when they did, they typically took 21
seconds longer to do so. Writing in Biology
Letters, Goumas attributes this to “gaze
aversion”–aninstinctual nerviness about
being watched. However, her research
suggests that seagulls don’t entirely deserve
their reputation as fearless scavengers: of
the 74 birds she targeted, only 26% were
bold enough to approach the chips.Alzheimer’s blood test
Ablood test that can detect the earliest
non-symptomatic signs of Alzheimer’s
disease–the build-up of beta-amyloid
proteins in the brain–has been developed
by US scientists. At present, the only way
to identify the plaques (which can appear
two decades before the onset of cognitive
decline) is with expensive and time-consuming PET brain scans. Inatrial on
158 people aged over 50, the new test
achieved the same results as the scans 90%
of the time, suggesting it could beacheap
and reliable way to identify those most
susceptible to the disease. Yet it won’t
be appearing in surgeries soon: since
no treatment for Alzheimer’s has ever
made it through clinical trials, screening
for the disease would be pointless. Instead,
the test’s greatest short-term impact is
expected to be on dementia research.
“The big benefit with this test is that you
can run trials much faster, recruit and
identify people much more quickly,” said
Dr Randall J. Bateman of the Washington
University School of Medicine, who led the
study. “If we can run these trials faster we
will get to effective therapies much faster.”Breast cancer “liquid biopsy”
Anew, personalised blood test for breast
cancer makes it possible to spot the return
of the disease nearlyayear earlier than is
currently possible,astudy suggests. The
“liquid biopsy”, developed by the Institute
of Cancer Research and the Royal
Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, looks
for telltale DNA markers in the blood
based on the genetic make-up of the initial
tumour. When trialled on 144 patients
who had previously had breast cancer, 29
of whom relapsed overathree-year period,
the test successfully detected cancer DNA
in the blood of 23 of the patients, typically
doing so 10.7 months before symptoms
returned or the tumours showed up on a
scan. “The potential of this blood test to
spot the signs of breast cancer returning,
or spreading much earlier, in NHS clinics
is extremely exciting,” said Dr Simon
Vincent of the combined charity Breast
Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now,
which largely funded the research.Time to prey on their “gaze aversion”?Climate change made Britain’s recent
heatwave up to 2.5°C hotter than it
otherwise would have been,aleading
climatological body has said. By
drawing on long-term temperature
observations and climate models,
the World Weather Attribution Group
(WWA) estimated that human
interference increased the July
heatwave–which peaked with a
temperature of 38.1°C in Cambridge
–bybetween 1.5°C and 2.5°C, with
temperatures on the European
continent up to 3°C higher. “This July
2019 heatwave was so extreme over
Continental western Europe that the
observed magnitudes would have been
extremely unlikely without climate
change,” said Oxford University’s
Dr Friederike Otto,aWWA member.
Meanwhile, the Copernicus Climate
Change Service has confirmed that July
was the hottest month ever recorded.Aman-made heatwaveAreconstruction of Heracles inexpectatusWhat the scientists are saying...Biggest-ever parrot discovered©B
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LINDERS UNIVERSITY