Scientists have been surprised to find that a tiny molecule that promotes plant growth may hold the key to a family of new drugs for a whole range of illnesses in humans. We’ve long known that some kind of chemical was involved in plant growth, but only more recently was that substance identified as the hormone auxin.
Now scientists in the US and UK have shown that auxin encourages plant growth by playing an essential part in a molecular switch which turns certain genes on and off. Previously, scientists had not believed that such a tiny molecule could play such an important part in plant growth. Now they know it acts as a kind of glue, binding together the parts of the switch.
That has obvious significance for agriculture. But what is exciting Mark Estelle and Ning Zheng more is the fact that the growth switch is common to both plants and animals. Its failure in humans can cause Parkinson’s disease and breast and colon cancers. The hope is that pharmacologists will be able to engineer small, auxin-like drugs to get the switch working properly again.
The acoustics secrets of Ancient Greece
Actors in fourth century BC Greece must have loved playing the theatre at Epidaurus. While virtually every Greek city had a theatre because of the importance of plays in religious rites, Epidaurus was special not only because of its beauty but also its incredible acoustics.
Today, tour guides delight in stationing their charges around the seating area, which is capable of holding 15,000 spectators, and demonstrating that every one of them can hear a match struck at the centre of the stage.
Now researchers at Georgia Tech have found that the corrugated surface of the theatre’s seating is responsible for its remarkable acoustics. Nico Declerq and Cindy Dekeyser argue that the tiered rows of limestone seats form an acoustic filter that muffles low-frequency noises such as the murmuring of the crowd, while reflecting the higher-frequency sounds of the performers on stage.
Their analysis also provides a solution for a phenomenon that has puzzled experts for years: how the audience heard the lower frequencies in the actors’ voices. The wind, surface waves, even the masks worn by performers have all been offered as explanations.
Declerq attributes it to a well-known trick of the mind called virtual pitch, through which the brain reconstructs the missing frequencies - think of listening to speech through a tiny speaker in a laptop.
Declerq and Dekeyser think the Greeks stumbled on the secret by accident; theatres in other cities never quite managed to replicate the Epidaurus effect.
Referees, as any football knows...
Referees, as any football fan knows, are short-sighted, daft and of dubious parentage. But they are not deaf, and new research claims that they can be swayed by the roar of the crowd into favouring the home team. Ryan Boyco of Harvard University and his two brothers analysed 5,000 English Premier League football matches and 50 different referees to discover that teams scored on average more goals at home (1.5) than away (1.1), while away teams attracted more penalties and red cards. Crowd size was important: for every additional 10,000 spectators, home teams benefited by further tenth of a goal. Boyco says his research shows that particular referees can be shown to be biased to a greater extent than would be expected by chance. But he’s not going to publish their names.
