Gender Gap in Monkey Cognition Closes with Training, Age

Sex differences in cognitive abilities have been at the center of heated debate lately, following the now infamous comments made by Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers. New findings may fan the flames. Research on a fellow primate, the rhesus monkey, reveals a gender gap in spatial cognition, but one that it is easily overcome with training. In addition, the results indicate that males may be more susceptible than females to age-related cognitive decline.

Eye Contact Triggers Threat Response in Autistic Children

Children suffering from autism pay very little attention to faces, even those of people close to them. Indeed, this characteristic can become apparent as early as the age of one, and is often used as a developmental sign of the disease. The results of a new study provide additional insight into why autistic children avoid eye contact: they perceive faces as an uncomfortable threat, even if they are familiar.

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The Brain's Own Marijuana
Research into natural chemicals that mimic marijuana's effects in the brain could help to explain--and suggest treatments for--pain, anxiety, eating disorders, phobias and other conditions
By Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley N. Alger
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Marijuana is a drug with a mixed history. Mention it to one person, and it will conjure images of potheads lost in a spaced-out stupor. To another, it may represent relaxation, a slowing down of modern madness. To yet another, marijuana means hope for cancer patients suffering from the debilitating nausea of chemotherapy, or it is the promise of relief from chronic pain. The drug is all these things and more, for its history is a long one, spanning millennia and continents. It is also something everyone is familiar with, whether they know it or not. Everyone grows a form of the drug, regardless of their political leanings or recreational proclivities. That is because the brain makes its own marijuana, natural compounds called endocannabinoids (after the plant's formal name, Cannabis sativa).
The study of endocannabinoids in recent years has led to exciting discoveries. By examining these substances, researchers have exposed an entirely new signaling system in the brain: a way that nerve cells communicate that no one anticipated even 15 years ago. Fully understanding this signaling system could have far-reaching implications. The details appear to hold a key to devising treatments for anxiety, pain, nausea, obesity, brain injury and many other medical problems. Ultimately such treatments could be tailored precisely so that they would not initiate the unwanted side effects produced by marijuana itself.

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Geographer of the Male Genome
The notion of the Y sex chromosome as a genetic wasteland still entices biologists. David C. Page has spent a good part of his career knocking down that myth
By Gary Stix

Ever since he picked up and inspected a random piece of DNA in 1979 as a young researcher and later learned that the glob contained a piece of the Y chromosome, Page has devoted much of his working life to the study of the genetic package that confers maleness. The very idea of investigating the Y chromosome offends those feminists who believe that it serves as nothing more than a subterfuge to promulgate an inherent male bias in biology. And, in Page's view, some reputable scientists have even pandered to these sentiments by writing books and papers that predict the extinction of men--or the Y's disappearance.

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