Espace : la sonde New Horizons a survolé Pluton avec succès

La sonde spatiale New Horizons a réussi à s’approcher très près de Pluton mardi 14 juillet, permettant à la NASA de collecter de nombreuses données qui permettront d’en apprendre plus sur cette  planète naine.

New Horizons, lancée début 2006, est passée à seulement 12 400 kilomètres de Pluton après un voyage de neuf ans et 6,4 milliards de kilomètres parcourus. La sonde a envoyé un message confirmant qu’elle avait réussi à s’approcher sans encombre de la planète naine : « Nous avons bien reçu la télémétrie envoyée par la sonde », a déclaré depuis le centre de commandes de Laurel Alice Bowman, la chef du projet. « C’est un grand moment dans l’histoire de l’humanité », a déclaré John Grunsfeld, le chef de mission de la NASA.

Cette mission a coûté 700 millions de dollars. Une somme colossale pour l’Agence spatiale américaine mais qui a permis de collecter un maximum d’informations sur la planète naine, très éloignée et dont on savait jusqu’à présent très peu de choses. Plus de quatre heures ont été nécessaires pour que ces données envoyées depuis les confins de notre système solaire parviennent aux techniciens de la Nasa, qui sont actuellement en train de les étudier.

« La sonde est pleine de données et on se hâte de tout récupérer. C’est un moment extraordinaire dans l’histoire humaine et demain va être une nouvelle journée très excitante », a ajouté l’ancien astronaute John Grunsfeld.

New Horizons est la sonde la plus rapide envoyée par l’homme dans l’espace : elle a frôlé Pluton à plus de 49 000 km/h.

La sonde devrait continuer son voyage vers la ceinture de Kuiper, une zone à la limite du système solaire semblable à la ceinture d’astéroïdes de Jupiter et qui contiendrait plus de 70 000 corps de plus de 100 km de diamètre, dont Pluton fait partie.


Њу хорајзонс стигао до Плутона

14. јул 2015.Вашингтон/ САД  (Beta) - Летелица „Њу хорајзонс“ (New Horizons) стигла је данас до Плутона после девет и по година и пређених скоро пет милијарди километара.

„Њу хорајзонс“ се највише приближио патуљастој планети у 15:49 по средњоевропском времену, али званична потврда неће доћи до вечерас.

Разлог за ово кашњење је што америчка свемирска агенција НАСА жели да Њу хорајзонс слика Плутон, његов џиновски месец Харон и још четири месеца, и да онда пошаље податке ка Земљи.

Према подацима НАСА, Њу хорајзонс се приближио Плутону на око 12.500 километара брзином од скоро 50.000 километара на час.


美国“新视野号”成功拍下冥王星照片

美国东部时间14日上午7时49分，美国“新视野号”探测器成功飞过冥王星，并拍下史上最清晰冥王星照片。


NASA's Phoenix spacecraft lands safely on Mars

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft has landed safely on Mars, following a ten-month flight. Landing occurred yesterday evening at around 23:38 GMT (20:38 EDT), with confirmation being received by flight controllers around fifteen minutes later at 23:53, the communications delay due to the time taken for light and radio signals to travel from Mars back to Earth.

Phoenix was launched atop a Delta II rocket last August. It is the first Mars Scout spacecraft to be sent to explore Mars.  It will search for water and complex molecules at the North Pole of Mars. It is the third spacecraft currently operating on Mars, joining the Mars Expedition Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are currently operating on the planet's surface. Phoenix is expected to operate on the surface of Mars for 90 Martian days, about 92 Earth days.

Scientists monitoring the landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California cheered as the news was transmitted by the spacecraft, saying it had landed safely.

According to the live broadcast on NASA TV, a systems check began in final preparation for landing at 22:20 GMT (7:20 p.m. eastern time) which was given the "all green". At 22:22, Phoenix was confirmed to be properly aligned for entry into the Martian atmosphere. At 22:30 Phoenix began to accelerate into the atmosphere, where it will hurtle towards the planet at nearly 11,000 miles an hour. At 22:41 the data stream was successfully sent to Earth, Phoenix successfully separated from its boosters and sent a UHF signal to NASA. At 22:44 its main radio was confirmed to be on.

Scientists monitoring the MRO then confirmed the signal from Phoenix at 22:45. Approximately 3 minutes later Phoenix was confirmed to have entered the Martian atmosphere.

According to predictions before the landing - based on the sequence of events programmed into onboard computers - the cruise stage, which had controlled the spacecraft during its journey from Earth to Mars, separated from the probe which was to enter the atmosphere at 23:24:15 GMT. Entry interface occurred at 23:31:15, and the parachute deployed at 23:34:58. The heat shield was jettisoned at 23:35:13, followed by the rest of the "aeroshell", which had protected the spacecraft during decent, and the parachute, at 23:37:13. Landing itself occurred at 23:38:36 GMT.

During descent, the spacecraft's progress was monitored by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, already in Areocentric orbit. Mars Odyssey was in contact with Phoenix throughout the descent, including during the phase of the descent where maximum temperatures were reached, when controllers had predicted that data would be lost.  The HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was able to photograph Phoenix under its parachute during descent.

Phoenix's goal is to gather environmental information about Mars to search for possible locations for the best signs of microbial life in the soil. It will also research the history of water on Mars. The mission is scheduled to last for at least 92 Earth days, or 90 Martian days.

The spacecraft landed in an area near the North Pole of Mars, unofficially named the  Green Valley. It is an area about 250 kilometres wide, located in the Vastitas Borealis plains.

Phoenix is carrying a number of instruments to investigate Mars. Some of these were taken from the cancelled 2001 Mars Surveyor lander, and some others were derived from instruments flown on the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) spacecraft. MPL was launched in January 1999, but failed during its descent to the Martian surface. Landing on Mars is considered to be one of the most difficult challenges in space exploration, and one scientist working on today's landing said that "this is not a trip to Grandma's for the weekend". More than half of previous missions to Mars have failed, leading to jokes that exploration of the planet is cursed.

This is the 38th spacecraft to be launched to Mars, and the 19th to arrive successfully, bringing the success rate to exactly 50 percent. It is also the 12th spacecraft to attempt a landing on Mars, and the 7th to successfully accomplish this.

Upon confirmation of landing, a flight controller was heard to exclaim "The Phoenix has landed, welcome to Vastitas Borealis!", whilst others cheered, and congratulated each other on the successful landing.


Die Raumsonde Phoenix ist erfolgreich auf dem Mars gelandet

Pasadena (Kalifornien) (Vereinigte Staaten), 26.05.2008 – Die Raumsonde Phoenix setzte heute um 1:38 Uhr MESZ auf dem Mars auf. Sie hat somit die risikoreiche Flugphase ihrer Mission überstanden und steht nun auf der Oberfläche des Mars bei 68,22 Grad Latitude und 234,3 Grad Longitude und somit in der arktischen Region des Planeten. Die Nachricht, dass Phoenix sicher gelandet ist, erreichte die Missionskontrolle jedoch erst mit einer 15-minütigen Zeitverzögerung, also um 1:53 Uhr MESZ. Zuvor begann um 01:46 Uhr MESZ die Übertragung des Eintritts in die Marsatmosphäre. Er geschah mit einer Geschwindigkeit von 20.400 Kilometern pro Stunde (oder 12.500 Meilen pro Stunde). Um 01:50 Uhr wurde die Öffnung des Fallschirms der Raumsonde gezeigt; das Fluggerät hatte zu dem Zeitpunkt noch die 1,7-fache Schallgeschwindigkeit. 140 Sekunden vor der Landung schaltete sich das Radargerät ein.

Knapp zwei Stunden später sendete die Sonde erste Bilder vom Mars. Sie zeigen die Solarpaneele, die sich komplett entfaltet haben, und auch erste Panoramafotos. Die Bilder zeigen eine ebenerdige Landschaft. Kein einziger Berg ist im Hintergrund zu sehen, lediglich kleine Felsen, Steine und kleine Sandverwehungen. Alle anderen Aktivitäten nach der Landung verliefen plangemäß. Der Mast für die Stereokamera, die Wetterstation, der Roboterarm für die Untersuchung der Bodenproben sowie das Biolabor, wo die Bodenproben untersucht werden, sind funktionsfähig.


La sonda espacial Phoenix llegó a Marte y comenzó a enviar imágenes del suelo marciano

La sonda espacial Phoenix, de la Agencia Espacial de Estados Unidos (NASA), llegó con éxito a la superficie marciana a las 16:53 hora local (23.53 UTC) del día domingo (25), tras 10 meses de viaje y tras un recorrido cercano a las 400 millones de millas recorridas por la sonda.

En las primeras horas tras el descenso sobre la superficie marciana, los equipos fueron monitoreados por los ingenieros de la NASA, los cuales no entregaron signos de fallas, por lo cual se procedió a dar las órdenes de auto chequeo para verificar el estado físico de la sonda, sin que se encontraran grandes problemas por el brusco aterrizaje.

Esta sonda, que fue lanzada el 14 de agosto de 2007, comenzó a enviar las primera imágenes del planeta rojo a las pocas horas de acabado el proceso de verificación de los sistemas. En ellas, se destaca que el panel solar de la sonda fue abierto totalmente por lo cual la sonda tiene asegurada gran parte de la energía necesaria para moverse en el planeta.

Tras esta etapa, comienza otra ronda de verificación exhaustiva de los aspectos físicos del robot, ya que los ingenieros deben comprobar el estado de las unidades de movimiento, brazos robóticos y otros componentes que son vitales para la misión de exploración, fase que no durará menos de 10 días.

La vida útil estimada de la sonda es de 90 días terrestres, antes que el invierno marciano aceche al robot y lo deje inutilizable, aunque los mismos científicos centran las esperanzas que la sonda sobreviva a las bajas temperaturas que se registran en el suelo de Marte.


Leszállt a Marson a Phoenix

Sikeresen landolt a Marson az Amerikai Egyesült Államok Nemzeti Légügyi és Űrhajózási Hivatalának (NASA) Phoenix nevű szondája, ami minden eddiginél részletesebben fogja kutatni a vörös bolygó talaját és a folyékony víz jelenlétére utaló nyomokat.

A közép-európai idő szerint hétfőn kora hajnali leszállás probléma mentesen sikerült és a tíz hónapos, 679 kilométeres úton is a terveknek megfelelően működtek a Phoenix berendezései, műszerei. Az eddigi marsi leszállások kevesebb, mint fele, 45 százaléka végződött sikerrel. A szonda a jéggel borított északi sarkköri vidéken landolt.

A Phoenix 36 800 kilométer/órás sebességgel közelítette meg a Mars bolygót, azonban a légkör felső rétegébe már „csak" 20 400 kilométer/órás sebességgel lépett be, majd az ezt követő hét percben 5,4 mérföld (kevesebb mint 9 kilométer/órás sebességre lassított.

A 1,52 méter magas, kiterjesztett napelemeivel együtt 5 méter széles és 350 kilogrammos Phoenix elsődleges feladata az lesz, hogy a több mint kétméteres robotkarja segítségével a fagyott talajból vett jégminták megolvasztásával vizet nyerjen s azt megvizsgálja, hogy a marsi víz alkalmas-e, vagy alkalmas volt-e valamikor élet kialakulására.


La sonda Phoenix è atterrata su Marte

La sonda spaziale statunitense Phoenix Mars Lander è atterrata con successo sul pianeta Marte alle ore 23:38 (ora di Greenwich). Lo annunciano i tecnici della NASA del centro di controllo di Pasadena (CA) dopo una notte di tensione; l'atterraggio è infatti il momento più critico delle missioni marziane e quello in cui si sono perse più sonde.

Phoenix, partita dalla Terra 4 agosto 2007 da Cape Canaveral e costata 420 milioni di dollari, è riuscita, dopo un viaggio di 680 milioni di chilometri, a posarsi indenne sulla superficie del pianeta rosso, nonostante fosse sprovvista di un sistema di protezione airbag. La sonda studierà la zona artica di Marte alla ricerca di tracce di forme di vita unicellulari che si pensa possa esistere od essere esistita sotto la superficie, dove potrebbero esserci sacche d'acqua. La sonda deve il suo nome al fatto di essere rinata, come la mitologica fenice, dalle ceneri della missione Mars Polar Lander del 1999, fallita a causa della perdita della sonda durante l'atterraggio.

Phoenix Mars Lander fa parte del programma statunitense di esplorazione di Marte, che prevede di mandare un equipaggio umano sul pianeta negli anni '30 di questo secolo e poi di costruirvi una base permanente. La conseguenza di ciò sarà l'abbandono delle missioni dello Space Shuttle entro il 2012 per concentrarsi sulla costruzione del Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), il veicolo che porterà l'uomo sul pianeta rosso.


Sonda Phoenix toca superfície de Marte

Voice of America

26 de maio de  2008

A sonda americana Phoenix chegou com sucesso até Marte, dando início a  uma missão de três meses para avaliar se o gelo subterrâneo do planeta vermelho alguma vez foi capaz de suportar vida.

As patas da Phoenix fizeram contacto com a superfície marciana no domingo á noite, hora local dos EUA, depois que a sonda abriu um pára-quedas e pôs em funcionamento motores para frear sua descida através da quente atmosfera de Marte.

Engenheiros e cientistas do Laboratório de Propulsão a Jato, na Califórnia, reagiram com júbilo quando se anunciou a bem-sucedida aterrissagem.

Posteriormente, a Phoenix enviou fotografias para a Nasa, as quais mostram a sonda em bom estado, perto do pólo norte marciano.

A Phoenix foi lançada em agosto passado, e viajou 679 milhões de quilômetros para chegar á Marte.


Марсианская одиссея 2008 года

Косморобот Phoenix рыщет в поисках жизни на Красной планете.

АМС Phoenix, запущенная НАСА в августе прошлого года, 25 мая совершила мягкую посадку в северных широтах Марса. Когда это произошло, исследователи в ЦУПе восторженно закричали и зааплодировали. Всё мировое астрономическое сообщество радостно восприняло эту весть.

И вот, сегодня пришла пугающая новость: космический аппарат Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, находящийся на орбите Марса с марта 2006 года, не передал сигнал с Феникса. Все затаили дыхание: неужели мистический Марс, погубивший столько автоматических межпланетных станций, «не пожалеет» и эту машину, созданную на Земле? (Напомним, почти каждый второй аппарат, отправлявшийся к Марсу, выходил из строя). Но потом связь наладилась, и все вздохнули с облегчением: косморобот живой!

Мы будем и далее следить за ходом этих драматических событий. Напомним, что Phoenix — одна из наиболее совершенных АМС, когда-либо запускавшихся в космос. На её борту находятся оптический и атомный силовой микроскопы, метеорологическая станция и много другой сложной и дорогостоящей аппаратуры. Если миссия будет успешной, возможно, мы в скором времени станем свидетелями замечательных открытий, среди которых и возможное обнаружение микроскопической жизни на чужой планете.

28 мая 2008 года


NASA's TESS spacecraft reports its first exoplanet

In findings released to the public on Monday through online site arXiv.org, astronomers reported they have already used data from the first photograph taken by National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to locate an exoplanet.  The planet, called Pi Mensae c, was spotted as it was transiting in front of its star, Pi Mensae (HD 39091).  The paper describing the findings was being submitted to AAS Letter but had yet to be published in full.

"Here, we report on the discovery of a transiting planet around [Pi Mensae], exactly the type of planet TESS was designed to detect," states a portion of the paper available to the public.

Scientists say the planet is roughly twice the diameter of Earth but about four times as massive.  Findings for Pi Mensae c indicate it may contain helium, methane, hydrogen, and water but is deemed unlikely to support life because it is so close to its star.

TESS, which launched last April, created the light image over the course of 30 minutes on August 7, using four optical telescopes to photograph a small portion of the night sky.  Its mission is slated to last two years and reports anticipate it could discover thousands of exoplanets.

This week in an unrelated project, researchers from the University of Florida spotted a planet circling a star named 40 Eriadni A (HD 26965).  In the fictional universe of Star Trek, this star system is the home of the Vulcans like Mr. Spock.  The exoplanet, officially called HD 26965b, has been nicknamed "Vulcan" after this fictional planet.


El telescopio TESS de la NASA descubre su primer exoplaneta

En un artículo publicado el lunes a través del sitio en línea arXiv.org, astrónomos reportan que utilizaron datos de la primera fotografía tomada por el Satélite de Sondeo de Exoplanetas en Tránsito (TESS, por sus siglas en inglés), de la Administración Nacional de Aeronáutica y del Espacio (NASA), para localizar un exoplaneta. Este, denominado Pi Mensae c, fue detectado mientras transitaba frente a su estrella, Pi Mensae (HD 39091). El artículo que describe los hallazgos fue enviado a AAS Letter, pero aún tiene que ser publicado completo.

"Aquí, reportamos el descubrimiento de un planeta en tránsito en torno a [Pi Mensae], exactamente el tipo de planeta para el que el TESS fue diseñado para detectar", señala una porción del artículo disponible para el público.

Los científicos indican que el planeta tiene aproximadamente el doble del diámetro que la Tierra y es cerca de cuatro veces más grande. Los hallazgos de Pi Mensae c indican que puede contener helio, metano, hidrógeno y agua, pero se considera que es poco probable que pueda sustentar vida dada la cercanía con su estrella.

El TESS, lanzado en abril pasado, creó una imagen de primera luz a lo largo de treinta minutos el pasado 7 de agosto, gracias a sus cuatro telescopios ópticos con los que fotografió una pequeña porción del cielo nocturno. Su misión está programada para durar dos años y los informes anticipan que podría descubrir miles de exoplanetas.

Esta semana en un proyecto no relacionado, investigadores de la Universidad de la Florida descubrieron un planeta que da vueltas alrededor de una estrella llamada 40 Eriadni A (HD 26965). En el universo ficticio de Star Trek, este sistema es el origen de los alienígenas vulcanos, como Spock. El exoplaneta, oficialmente HD 26965b, fue apodado Vulcan por ese planeta de ficción.


NASA: Signs of liquid water found on surface of Mars

NASA scientists have announced that the Mars Global Surveyor has captured images of deposits in gullies on the surface of the planet Mars which have been created since the areas were photographed seven years ago. These deposits are believed to be the residue of liquid water breaking out of cliffs and crater walls, carrying sediment downhill through the gullies, and later evaporating. The gullies are located inside the Terra Sirenum crater and the Centauri Montes regions.

"These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars," said the head scientist for the Mars Exploration Program in Washington D.C., Michael Meyer.

The bright appearance of the deposits suggests that, at some recent period, the surface material in these gullies has either been heavily disturbed or covered over by new, different, material. Whilst it is not proven that this is the result of water activity—it could be frost, for example, or the result of localized landslides—it ties in with previous theories that suggest liquid water is locked below the surface of Mars, occasionally being released in short and violent local bursts.

"These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it might be, and whether there's a below-ground wet habitat conducive to life." said Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems located in San Diego, California. Malin is the head investigator for the Mars Orbital Camera, the instrument which made these photographs, and is the author of the report about the discovery, published in the journal Science.

One factor suggesting water is the shape of the deposits, which are sinuous and appear to "flow" downhill. "The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water. They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and easily diverted around small obstacles," explained Malin. Scientists do not know how or why the water is making its way to the surface. "The big question is how does it happen, and does it point to a habitat for life?" said Meyer.

However, many in the scientific community stress possible alternative explanations for what has been seen, suggesting that the features could have been created by dust, sand or liquid carbon dioxide. Oded Aharonson of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) described the hypothesis of recent water activity on Mars as just one possible explanation and insisted further study was needed to determine whether the deposits could have been left there by the flow of dust rather than water.

Other scientists think it possible that the gullies were caused by liquid carbon dioxide. One reason is that computer models of the Martian crust indicate water could exist only at depths of several kilometers, but liquid carbon dioxide could persist much nearer the surface.

Contact was lost with Mars Global Surveyor in November, and has not yet been recovered. The spacecraft has been in orbit since 1997, operating over a lifespan which far exceeded the two-year mission originally planned. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate located in Washington D.C..


NASA findet Anzeichen von fließendem Wasser auf dem Mars

Washington, D. C. (Vereinigte Staaten), 06.12.2006 – Die NASA gab heute auf einer Pressekonferenz in Washington bekannt, dass sie deutliche Hinweise von fließendem Wasser auf dem Mars gefunden habe. Die Entdeckung gelang mit der Raumsonde „Mars Global Surveyor“. Die Sonde machte eine Aufnahme, auf der zwei etwa ein Kilometer lange Erdrinnen zu sehen sind. „Sie haben fingerartige Verzweigungen am unteren Ende, die sich leicht um kleine Objekte herumwinden“, erklärte der Forscher Michael Meyer. Dabei handele es sich um Sedimentablagerungen, die in den letzten sieben Jahren von Wasserflüssen dorthin transportiert wurden.

Der entscheidende Unterschied zu den Aufnahmen von ähnlichen Strukturen zuvor ist der Zeitraum. Bei den alten Fotos konnte man nur darauf schließen, dass es vor Milliarden Jahren einmal Wasser gegeben hat, nun ist von einem Zeitraum von sieben Jahren die Rede. Der Forscher Ken Edgett wird von der Nachrichtenagentur „dpa“ mit den Worten zitiert: „Heute reden wir von flüssigem Wasser, das jetzt da ist.“ Auf die Spur kamen die Wissenschaftler durch ältere Aufnahmen der Sonde. Bereits vor einigen Jahren zeigten andere Aufnahmen Gräben und Rinnen. Also ließen die Wissenschaftler die Sonde aktuelle Vergleichsaufnahmen anfertigen.

Anschaulich ist der Unterschied auf der Homepage der NASA zu betrachten. Dort sind zwei Aufnahmen nebeneinander abgebildet. Die linke ist aus dem August 1999, die rechte aus dem September 2005. Dieses ist gemäß dem Forscher Michael Meyer der bisher stärkste Beweis, dass es vor kurzem noch fließendes Wasser auf der Oberfläche gegeben habe.

Damit steht eine Frage wieder auf der Tagesordnung, die vor einigen Jahren nach dem Fund eines Mars-Meteoriten gestellt wurde: „Gibt es Leben auf dem Mars?“


Fotos da NASA sugerem água fluindo em Marte

Fotos da NASA divulgadas hoje sugerem que água ainda flui em Marte, em curtos jorros. As fotos tiradas pela sonda Mars Global Surveyor, desde novembro dada como perdida, apontam depósitos recentes provocados por um fluido que são "como se deveria esperar se o material fosse carregado por água", disse Michael Malin, do Malin Space Science Systems, responsável pela construção da câmera principal da sonda. "Eles tem prolongamentos semelhantes a dedos no fim da descida, e facilmente contornaram pequenos obstáculos".

Já havia evidências de gelo e vapor d'água em Marte, assim como de que no passado o planeta já contou com rios e mares. Esta, porém, é a primeira evidência de que pode haver água líquida no planeta, possivelmente em reservatórios subterrâneos.


NASA: White substance photographed by Phoenix lander on Mars 'must have been ice'

White 'chunks' that were photographed by the Phoenix lander on Mars on June 15 after digging a trench, have disappeared, leading scientists to believe they most certainly found ice on the Red Planet.

"It must be ice. These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona located in Tucson, Arizona.

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" when Phoenix's Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

Digging in a different trench Phoenix's robotic Arm connected with a hard surface that has scientists excited about the prospect of next uncovering an icy layer.

"We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench," said Washington University robotic arm investigator for Phoenix, Ray Arvidson. The arm tried at least three times to penetrate the layer, but was unsuccessful. As a result the arm went into a holding pattern, awaiting its next commands.


На Марсе обнаружено загадочное вещество

Аппарат Phoenix невозмутимо продолжает химические исследования на северном полюсе Марса

Несмотря на суровый климат Марса, несмотря на сбои связи с Землёй (подробнее здесь), несмотря на все трудности, выпадающие на долю машин, прибывших сюда с далёкой Голубой планеты, АМС Phoenix упорно продолжает заниматься геологическими изысканиями. И сделал уже немало: сфотографировал марсианские окрестности, зачерпнул несколько ковшов грунта, и в данный момент делает химический анализ частиц с помощью микропечи. Сделав небольшую канаву в красно-бурой почве, робот увидел необычное белое вещество (на фото справа). Это может быть обычным льдом, либо соляными отложениями, либо чем-то ещё. В ближайшее время Phoenix узнает точно, что это. Так что некоторые из бесчисленных загадок Марса будут раскрыты.

18 июня 2008 года


Netscape navigating the World Wide Web no more

AOL has decided to discontinue development of the Netscape web browser which brought surfing the Internet to the masses, until its user base began to erode during the "browser wars" of the mid-1990s and resulted in the birth of Mozilla project.

Tom Drapeau, the director of Netscape inside AOL announced on the Netscape blog that support for the recently released Netscape Navigator 9 and all of Netscape's browsers back to version 1.0, will end because it was unable to gain market share and a low number of users that continues to dwindle. Drapeau noted, "AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," and that "the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox."

Netscape's origins lie at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where Netscape's co-founders, Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina wrote their first copy of NCSA Mosaic which became the first popular web browser and opened up the web for the first time to the general public and started the rise of the Internet in everyday life.

Andreessen along with Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, started the Mosaic Communications Corporation and released their first product Mosaic Netscape 0.9 in October 1994. A month later the company became the name it is today, the Netscape Communications Corporation to avoid legal problems from NCSA. A year later, had a successful IPO on August 9, 1995 and the stock closed the day at $75.

Netscape's early success and virtual monopoly of the browser market was short-lived however as Microsoft viewed Netscape's idea of a consistent browser across various operating systems a threat and quickly began development of its own browser, Internet Explorer.

This competition between Netscape and Microsoft became known as the browser wars, where both companies tried to outdo each other with their increasingly unstable browsers including: new features that did not always work, not providing bug fixes, deviating from Web standards (including the infamous <blink> and <marquee> HTML tags), program crashes and security holes.

By the end of 1997, Netscape's glory had run out and it experienced it's first bad quarter, which resulted in layoffs in January 1998. The new year also brought the world with the arrival of what would eventually become Mozilla and later Firefox, when Netscape decided to make the source code for their browser open source. A year later, Netscape was out of steam and was no longer an independent company but now a subsidiary of America Online.

The most recent version of the Netscape browser, Navigator 9, was for the most part was a re-skinned version of Firefox developed internally by a small group of people inside AOL. Netscape's actual browser development division was closed back in July 2003 and the workers laid off.

However, AOL continues to run Netscape as a brand including a web portal, including a Digg-like social news aggregator which was branded as Netscape.com from June 2006 till September 2007, when it was spun off into a renamed site called Propeller. Netscape.com is now a dually branded AOL Netscape web portal, which is a duplicate of AOL.com. Netscape is also used as a brand by AOL as a low-cost dial-up Internet service provider.

Firefox's third version is currently available as a beta and Microsoft is expected to release Internet Explorer 8 sometime in 2008.


AOL、Netscape の開発を終了

2007年12月28日、米AOLはNetscapeの開発終了を発表し、3月1日を持ってサポートが終了したことを公式サイトで宣言した。ITmediaの報道によるとNetscapeは先にNetscapeブラウザの開発を2月1日で終了するとしており、窓の杜、マイコミジャーナルが報じた初報によると開発チームがNetscape blogにてWebブラウザ「Netscape Navigator」を2008年2月1日を持って完全に開発とサポートを終了すると発表していた。

窓の杜による当初の報道だと開発終了までは同社が2007年10月に正式リリースしたばかりの「Netscape Navigator 9」に関するセキュリティ修正やサポートは行われるが、それ以降は旧バージョンを含め開発・サポートをすべて終了する。同社はNetscapeユーザーに対して今後はMozilla Foundationが開発する「Firefox」の利用を推奨しており、Netscapeを継続使用したいユーザーにはライブラリサイト"Firefox Add-ons"に同社が登録したアドオンを利用するよう薦めている。登録されたアドオンを利用することで、すべてではないがNetscape Navigator 9に搭載されている一部の機能を再現できるようになる。

バージョン4当時はIEと激しい競争を繰り広げたNetscapeシリーズは、「Netscape 6」で初めてオープンソース化したが完成度などでユーザーの期待に応えることができず、次第にそのシェアを弱めていった。なお、公式の日本語版は2005年に公開された「Netscape 8」以降、リリースされていない。

マイコミジャーナルによるとNetscape Blogには「AOLが膨大な時間と労力を投資したにもかかわらず、MicrosoftのInternet Explorerからシェアを奪還することができなかった」と開発中止の理由が挙げられている。近年ではNetscape Navigatorの開発担当者はごく少数で、Firefoxにいくつかの拡張機能を加えただけに留まる製品の提供になっていた。

マイコミジャーナルによると最終版は2月20日にリリースされた9.0.0.6となり、また3月1日以降にNetscapeを起動するとFirefoxおよびFlockへの以降を促すリマインダが出るという。なお、INTERNET Watchによると製品としてのサポートは終了するものの、パッケージ自体は新規に設置された「Netscape Archive」からダウンロードが可能であるという。


Netscape Navigator será desativado

O browser Netscape Navigator será desativado. A América OnlineLine, empresa responsável pelos direitos do software, anunciou que vai descontinuar seu uso. O Netscape foi um dos responsáveis pela massificação da internet estabelecendo padrões na interface gráfica.


Neuroscientists tell Wikinews about empathy and harm aversion observed in lab rats

In findings published last month in the journal Current Biology, neuroscientists from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience examined harm aversion in laboratory rats for conspecifics — rats not wanting to hurt other members of the same species — and reported which region of the brain was crucial for it.  Wikinews caught up with Dr Christian Keysers and Dr Valeria Gazzola, two of the authors who contributed to the paper.

For the experiment, the rats were put in a container with two levers.  The rats were trained to develop a preference for one of the two levers: each delivering one pellet of sucrose.  One of the two levers was harder to press.

After developing a preference, the preferred lever was wired to deliver a shock to another rat in a neighbouring compartment, while delivering a single pellet of sucrose.  The study showed the actor rat, which pressed the lever tend to switch the lever to avoid shocking the other rat.  The rat receiving the shock was called a victim rat.

Aversion of harm to fellow rats was reported to be equal in both male and female rats.  If the actor rats were previously exposed to the shocks, their degree of harm aversion for others was heightened, the study revealed.

The investigation reported the rats avoided pressing the preferred lever to shock another rat, even if that lever delivered two sucrose pellets and the no-harm lever delivered only one.  However, this was not the case when the rats were given three pellets by the shock lever.  Most of the actor rats did not switch when they received three pellets pressing the lever, which also delivered an electric shock.  Dr Gazzola called it a "tipping point" and said it was a "cost-benefit" function.

The study also revealed the importance of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) region of the rat's brain for harm aversion.  The scientists tested harm aversion for conspecifics in the rodents after deactivating the ACC using muscimol.  Muscimol was injected in the rats belonging to the test group, while saline water was injected to rats in the control group.  The observations showed without the active ACC due to muscimol, the active rats in the test group were no longer averse to harming the victim rats, but degree of harm aversion did not drop in the control group rats.

Thank you for agreeing for this discussion, by the way.

((Christian Keysers))  Um, hmm.  Our pleasure.

((WN))  So, I would like to discuss about the study, the observations you've made and what lies ahead to be discovered in this field.

((WN))  So, what prompted you, and your interest in studying about this harm aversion?

((Valeria Gazzola))  So half of the lab works on human research.  And half on animal research, right?  So, the main topic of the lab is really to try to discover the brain mechanism that allow us to be empathic, basically.  That's the main theme.  So in particular, from the human research what we are interested is really trying to see whether embodiment: so these processes that these brain regions have become reactivated when we see somebody else in pain, for instance.  You know, the regions normally involve[d] in [making] pain also reactivated when you observe somebody else [in pain].  Whether these, the activity of these regions is essential to motivate us for instance not to hurt other people.

((Valeria Gazzola))  And one of the biggest limitation[s] in particular of the human research is that you can go so far in understanding the brain mechanism.  Because we cannot, we don't have tools with the correct resolution in terms of, for instance, understanding what a single cell does, in these processes.  And that's why, for many years, we developed, we tried to develop a model in animals where all these techniques are more available that would allow us to investigate similar processes to those in humans.  So processes basically that are involved in perceiving the other['s] distress also in animals.  And, that's basically the main reasons why we move towards this research and then we started from coming up with the experiment in which we simply measure the distress of an animal in reaction to the distress of another.  Which what we call emotional contagion, for instance.  And we made it more and more complex in order to reach slowly a degree of complexity that can be comparable to processes in humans.  Emotional contagions: you can compare it, for instance, that the level of humans when you are in a crowd, or when you are baby, that as a crowd you are contaged by the emotions are around.  And, but then, we wanted to go a little bit of a step forward: okay now I am contaged, what does it mean to be contaged?  Can I use this information to, for instance, avoid hurting other people.  And that's how we came about, more or less, so.

((Christian Keysers))  I mean, one other motivation we have is that in the past we've also been interested in people that seemed to lack the aversion to harming others.  I mean, with that psychopath, sometimes they're called sociopath as well.  And so, a couple of years ago, we made this study in which we identified psychopathic criminals in high-security institutions.  We brought them to the lab, and we scanned their brains while they witnessed the pain of other individuals.  And what we saw was that if they don't have any particular reason to empathise with others, they really have reduced activity in their own pain regions while they witness the pain of others.  So, of course, that's interesting and it may suggest that perhaps, the reason why if they can make some money, for instance, they don't mind to harm other people is because they don't activate their own pain much while they witness the pain of others.  The problem like Valeria was saying, is that in humans we can see that the brain region is active while you see the pain of others, but you can't easily change the activity in the brain region to see whether that would change the way that the psychopathic criminal would act.  I mean, ideally, what we'd like to do is increase the activity of these pain regions in psychopaths and see that now suddenly they would really care to not harm others anymore.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Although it's not yet, it's also not yet very clear that we need activity of these regions to avoid the harm, right?  At that point, that's how we came about to run the experiment, because the first question was: is it really necessary.  The activity of these regions.  So, you start with okay, you want to manipulate these regions to reduce psychopathy.  But the field could not even prove that this activity was necessary to reduce harm.

((Christian Keysers))  And so, that was really one of the strong motivation behind the rodent-experiment, because rats have a very similar cingulate cortex to what humans have.  It is really a core part of the brain that is involved in feeling your own pain.  So, if you don't have a cingulate cortex and you hurt yourself, you still feel that you've cut yourself, but you don't mind.  And so you are not going to do a lot to avoid being cut again.  So this region exists also in the rats and it is a relatively deep brain region.  So therefore, we turn to the rats, and figure that in the rat, we can change the activity in the brain region and see whether that would then change how much the rat would be aversed to harming other rats or not.

((WN))  Could you briefly explain this study and its findings?

((Christian Keysers))  Ah.  So very briefly, what we do is we give a rat a choice between two levers that the rat can press.  Both of these levers will provide the rat with one little pellet of sugar which they really like.  So, they are happy to press these levers to get the reward.  In the main experiment, what we do is that one of the two levers is a little bit more difficult to press than the other one.  So most of the rats start to prefer the easy lever to press.

Now, as soon as they have developed the preference for the easy lever, what we do is that now, still both levers give one pellet of sucrose.  But now the preferred, the easy lever, also gives a shock to a rat that's in the compartment next door.  And so then, the rat that presses the lever not suddenly hears someone next door, kind of, in the protesting with the pain-squeak about the shock that he just got.  And what we see is that the, about a little bit less than half of the rats will now stop to use their preferred lever because it gives a shock to the other one, and they would start to press the harder lever to avoid to shock to the other rat.

Now after we found that, we could do is go to the cingulate cortex, which is the region that we saw was less active in the psychopathic criminal, and is normally active when you feel the pain of other people.  And what we saw was that when we deactivate this region with muscimol, which is a bit like a local anesthetic, which you can inject the part of the brain, now suddenly, the rats that continued to use their favourite lever even when it harms another rat.  So now, what we see in there mainly are kind of two big findings.  One is it shows us that humans are not the only animals that don't like to harm other animals.  Rat also do that.  And second is the fact that they use the same brain region, which is the cingulate cortex that humans use while they witness the pain of other people, as a necessary part of this harm aversion.

And the fact that it's the same brain region that we see to be active in humans tells us that in a way, it's not just the case that rats and humans have independently developed harm aversion.  It suggests that there is kind of a common ancestor that already had this ability, and that was then given to both the rats and the humans.  Which means that kind of harm aversion and not wanting to harm other people is at least 100 million years old, because that's more-or-less when our race separated from rodents like rats and mice.

((Valeria Gazzola))  And that also what we see is that there is variability in the responses of the observers, of the rats that make the choice between the levers.  And these variabilities also present in humans: when you do tasks that are rather similar, you see that not everyone acts socially, preferring the social lever.  But you also have individuals that would go for the reward more often.  So this is also another similarity between the animal world and the human world.  And on top of that,  I think that the other things we've learned from that experiment is that, the decision is a cost-benefit function, basically.  Because, we have a condition for instance where we increase the reward for the animal, for the observer.  And when you increase the reward, they are less willing to switch to the other lever.  So that also another similarity with human world and shows that maybe that it is a bit of complex, a tipping point, and it is like a function that really weighs the cost and the benefit of that particular context.

((Christian Keysers))  Because when Valeria says that we increase the reward, we increase the difference between the two levers.  So in the main experiment, the only difference is that one is harder to press than the other, but they both give one pellet.  Then in two other experiments, what we did was that now that two levers are equally hard to press; but one of them gives you two pellets, the other one just one pellet.  And then rats are still willing to switch away from the two-pellet to the one-pellet to save the other one from pain.  But when we made it three pellets versus one pellet, then, none of the rats were willing to give up the three pellets to prevent the shock to the other person.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah, and then, the last, I think, result I kind of like in a way is that, as in many human studies, also in the animal world we did not find significant difference between sex.  So both, the female and the males acts in a similar way.  And in this type of paradigms, is also often the case in humans.

((Christian Keysers))  That's true.

((Valeria Gazzola))  So that's also interesting.

((WN))  What is the most fascinating aspect of this finding?

((Valeria Gazzola))  Well, in a way, I would say, to really show — I mean, I always believed it that animal performed these choices too.  And that they do it to a certain extent to at least care or at least perceive what goes on in the other, right.  It can't maybe specifically speaking of voluntarily care about others, but at least they perceive what goes on and I think this is something that the study shows pretty well that they do perceive, and that based on these perception[s], they make a decision.  And I think it is a complex — I mean, to me it was in a way trivial, because I always believed that, you know, if you are a "social animal", whether you are a rat, or a person, we are still animals, right?  They must develop behaviours that take advantage, or that they adapt to the fact that it's a social environment that involves more individuals.  But [...] the field keeps discussing, right?  Whether animals also have emotions, whether animals also can take this sort of decision.  And to see, slowly that evidence accumulates in favour of processes similar to what we call prosocial emotion or decision-making.  You know, similar: not exactly the same, but similar processes also are present in animals, to me is sort of reassuring also.  And I think it allows us to learn from how evolution evolved as well.  Maybe apart from knowing exactly how it works, but we start having some models where we can think, oh, evolutionary: maybe this process was already there, and then it developed further, more complex for the humans, but still is there to a certain extent.

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, and I think the fact that it's really the same brain region as well that seems to be involved kind of gives us some confidence that prosociality in caring about others is really deeply ingrained in our biology.

((WN))  What technologies were used to conduct this study?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah so in many ways it's a relatively simple study.  So we didn't need to use anything very high-tech in this case.  Because to alter brain activity, we use the injection of muscimol, which is a GABAA blocker.  It is a very simple pharmacological agent.  So it's really technologically a very simple study.  Nothing fancy.

((WN))  How did you get involved in this study?

((Valeria Gazzola))  Oh, we brainstormed about it.  We started, as I said, we did a lot of research on, since our early ages, let's say in all our scientific career is based on embodiment, and activities in these areas and slowly we kept wondering more and more, on the role of these areas.  And then, the way it goes, we normally speak about a topic and include other people and keep brainstorming, and I think, that's how it goes.  At least for us.  And in humans, we are also developing similar paradigms, so it just came one plus one equal to two. [laughs]

((WN))  What were the roles of other people involved in this study?

((Christian Keysers))  So, Julen Hernandez-Lallement, the first author of the study, was the one that basically made the vast majority of the experiments.  And he was helped by the other two: [Augustine Triumph] Attah: who did part of the other animal groups, and then Cindy [Pinhal] and Efe [Soyman] helped to analyse the data.  And basically Valeria and me have been kind of help designed this study initially and helped to analyse the data and wind up the study.  So we kind of lead the lab, but it's the other people that really manipulate the rats and do all the hard work.

((WN))  What was the timeline of this study?

((Valeria Gazzola))  Well, it was long.

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, I would say, four years?

((WN))  (Wow!)

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah, because the behavioural part is the longest one.  Because you need to understand the best way to teach the animal, first to manipulate the lever, then to manipulate two levers, and then, before the lever, there is also another action that they need to do; and everything needs to be done within a certain time.  So you need to let the animal the time to learn and for you that you run the experiment, you need to learn what's the best way, what's the best way to teach them to do the task?

Yeah, behavioural experiments of animals: they normally take quite some time to develop, specially more complex ones.

((WN))  Which activity took the most time and attention?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, I think that Valeria just said what's really important in these studies is to understand what kind of situation you can create for the rats that they are really understand and which they can in a way, show you what they're capable of.  So, kind of fine-tuning all the elements of the task, kind of how long do you let the rats develop the preference for one lever.  Because if you give them too much time to get too used to one lever, they are not so willing to switch anymore.  So the, most of the time is really involved in trying different versions of the paradigm, understanding what the rats really understand, and then analysing all the behaviour.

((WN))  What were the conditions did you test the hypothesis on?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah exactly; so the three kind of conditions we looked at was the hard vs the easy lever, and then seeing whether they switch to the harder lever when, to prevent the shock to the other one.  And we tried the two pellets versus one pellet and, then the three pellets versus one pellet.  And then finally, to test really whether the cingulate is necessary for that, we compare the condition in which we inhibit the activity in the cingulate using muscimol against the condition where we just inject salt water into the same brain region which doesn't have any effect.

((WN))  So, you mentioned the study took four years.  So you started back in 2016?

((Christian Keysers))  Correct.  Yeah.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah, more or less.  I don't know the date.

((WN))  What was the most difficult part of this study in these four years?

((Valeria Gazzola))  I think it was really again the establishing the behaviour.  And in particular because we, at first — so the paradigm itself, we took it from a previous study, that was run years ago, do you remember?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, in '69, so that's kind of 50 years ago.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Fifty years years ago, so the idea of the two levers.  And so and at that time, the articles' level of detail were not so many.  The articles were not giving as much information as we now have to write down.  And so we had to guess some parameters over there.  And, the fact that the rats would prefer the easy lever was also not so straightforward.  So we thought "oh, they are gonna prefer the easy lever, and that's it."  But at the end, you know, some rats, some animals develop a preference on the side; like they prefer their right lever, or the left lever, or others, they prefer the heavy lever.  Right?  And that was also a bit puzzling at first.  We said, okay, so what do we do?  We find that a couple of rats prefer the hard lever, is that meaningful or not?  So we have to discuss a lot, how to adapt the paradigm to make it work, and this is also why we came about in using this switching index, because for our purposes, at the end, as long as the rat is able to switch a preference, right, whatever preference is developed is irrelevant, right?  And before the beginning of this study, we were more thinking: oh, they have to develop the preference for the easy lever.  And that's what is bringing us a bit out of the main purpose.  And we realised: okay, but, what preference they develop at the end, it doesn't matter as long as we have a preference that we can show they can change because of the shock.  So, I think this was one of the longest part[s], I would say.

((WN))  Were you anticipating this outcome?

((Christian Keysers))  Yes.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah, I would say yes.

((Christian Keysers))  For once.

((Valeria Gazzola))  [laughs] Yeah, for once, yeah.  I mean, there was some evidence around and previous work was already bringing us towards that direction.  And, yeah, I mean we could not anticipate the proportion of animals that they would switch.  But, we surely were expecting the rats to switch.

((Christian Keysers))  We were hoping for the cingulate to be necessary, so.

((WN))  So what was your first reaction after confirming the hypothesis was true?

((Christian Keysers))  Jubilation.

((Valeria Gazzola))  We were happy.

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah.

((WN))  How many rats were used, roughly speaking, for this study?

((Christian Keysers))  I think it's written in the paper, but my guess would be something like, I'd say, 70.

((WN))  How distantly were the rats related to each other?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, so that's interesting, in this study we really find that there is a lot of variability between the rats.  So like I was mentioning, we have about 40% that were ready to switch when they witnessed other one getting shocked.  And about 60% that do not switch, so as a group, we really see that they do switch.  But then only a proportion of individuals really show that sensitivity, and others do not.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Or did you mean how close they were in terms of familiarity?

((WN))  I meant in kinship.  How genetically close they were?

((Christian Keysers))  So they're not genetically related.  They're not brothers or sisters.  And what we have is we have, we made one of the experiments with rats that didn't meet each other before, and it [the experiment] works.  And we had other cases in which they were living in the same home cage, and so they [would know] each other very well.  And the effect was not stronger.  So, amongst our rats, we really noticed that they care even about the fate of a stranger.

((WN))  So, if it fair to say there was no change in the degree of harm aversion when the actor and the victim were mates?

((Christian Keysers))  Correct.  Well, mates as in cage mates.  Yeah, there was no sign of a difference.  We did look at it and it was not the perfect comparison because the two groups were slightly different in the paradigm as well.  But, it didn't look like there was a big difference.

((WN))  So, do you think the degree of harm aversion would have been greater if the actor-victim shared some sort of kinship?

((Christian Keysers))  So we're actually going to test that very soon.  And it is up for grabs.  But in the past we've looked at whether a rat shows more freezing when it sees another one get a shock.  Which is a form of emotional contagion.  And there we compare a kind of rats from different strain,s even.  So one of the albino rats against a black and white rat, versus, that had never seen each other before, or ever seen a member of that strain, the one end.  And on the other end, really the rats have spent five weeks together and knew each other very well.  And we didn't see any difference there.  So I think the most robust findings is really that they care even about what happens to a stranger.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah, we are testing it again now, in the future.

((Christian Keysers))  Exactly, specifically whether a mother would do more for her own kids than for...

((Valeria Gazzola))  Kids of somebody else.

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah.

((WN))  Well, that would go on to support Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.

((Christian Keysers))  Correct.  Right.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah.

((WN))  How was the functioning of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) deactivated in the rats?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, what you do is you place a cannula.  So you put the animal in a stereotact which is a system where you can go to a very specific position in the brain.  We place a cannula, which is like an injection needle just where we know the cingulate to be.  Then you let the animal recover with the cannula cemented in place.  Then, on the day of the experiment, you basically inject a little bit of muscimol, which is an agent that blocks neurotransmission.  Then by doing that, you can reduce the activity of the cingulate for about one hour.  And during that hour, you can make the experiment.  And then the control group is the same thing, but instead of injecting the muscimol, you inject some salt water.

((WN))  What are the affects of muscimol on the rat's body other than deactivating the cingulate?

((Christian Keysers))  Nothing really.  Because you inject a very small quantity, that should only spread about 1 mm in the brain.  So it really just affects the region that you — and you don't see any change in behaviour.  So we also tested, for instance, whether they move more or less, whether they press the levers quicker or slower, and there was no difference.  The only difference is that they didn't learn to not press the one [lever] that shocks the other.

((Valeria Gazzola))  And for instance, when you inject with muscimol, in case you see doing a normal fear conditioning paradigm.  So whether you are still shocked to the sound, and then you present the sound.  In that case, the rat behaves normally.  And it still freezes.  So, it does suggest that the muscimol effect is not impairing the normal behaviour, but specifically impairs the social behaviour of feeling...

((Christian Keysers))  ...of feeling for others.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Exactly.  That was also the interesting part of the ACC that we believe to contribute really, to including the other [animal] into your decision-making.  Because for a normal fear conditioning paradigm, you don't need to go through the ACC.  They are made to be self-sufficient.  But, if you do a fear conditioning basically that involves another individual instead of sound, like of pain, then you do need to go to the contribution of the ACC.  So there seems to be two slightly complementary pathway for fear-detection.

((WN))  After the effect of deactivating the ACC wore off, was the degree of harm aversion of the actors back to the previously observed level?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, that we didn't measure.  So, in that study, the muscimol animals were only in the behaviour with the ACC deactivated and the other ones were only with their ACC intact.  So, but this is something that we plan to test in the future as well.  To really see whether the ACC is necessary to acquire the aversion versus to maintain it.

((WN))  Okay.  So it is not a permanent loss of empathy.  Right?

((Christian Keysers))  We don't know, but I think there is no reason to assume that when the muscimol wears off, they would not become normal again, right?  So that's most likely.  What we don't know is whether if we had for instance, because there's three days of experiment, right, where we develop the aversion.  And what we didn't try is for instance, give muscimol on Day 1 and Day 2 and then stop it on Day 3, and see whether on Day 3, they would then suddenly stop using the lever that gives shocks on the other days.  So that we don't know whether it's necessary for learning or for recall; we just know that if you don't have it at all, you don't learn at all.

((WN))  Did any of the actor rats choose to switch when they were on muscimol, and their ACC was deactivated?  Did any one of them switch?

((Christian Keysers))  It's a good question.  I would need to look in the paper.  If you have the paper there, perhaps you can see it.  But I can have a quick look to see if I have the paper somewhere.  Yeah, so if you look at the Figure 4c, you can see the behaviour of each individual animal.  And what you will notice is that there are some animals like some of the red animals which are the muscimol group that did switch, but the majority didn't switch.  So I see there is one and only one animal in the muscimol group that really did switch.  But what happens is that when you make those experiments, you never know for sure that when you inject the muscimol, that it has the desired effect.  Because of course you have a cannula that's in the brain, and the cannula could become clogged also.  So it can be that that one animal switched because the muscimol wasn't effective for some reason.

((WN))  Did the team test the change in the degree of harm aversion when the actor rats were given psychoactive drugs?

((Christian Keysers))  No.

((Valeria Gazzola))  No.  Could be nice, but we didn't.

((Christian Keysers))  Exactly.  Yeah, and in particular, there is a drug called Ecstacy that you may have heard of.  So, some people reported that Ecstasy for instance, increases the feeling of empathy amongst humans.  And I think that there is somewhere a study suggesting that if you give that to animal, there is also an increase in the sensitivity to what happens in another animal.  So we didn't test that.

((WN))  Did you also conduct the test with only one lever delivering the food also the electric shocks: how far the rats were willing to starve before they chose the victim should suffer?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, no so we didn't do that.  That is a very old experiment from [Russell] Church.  I think in the 50s, he did that experiment kind of with rats and with monkeys.  And he sees that the rats will use the lever less.  So even if you just have one lever, they'll use it less if it causes pain to others.  But in monkeys, that was a very strong affect.  Some of the monkeys really would rather not eat anything than to shock another monkey.  So it's an interesting experiment, but we haven't done it.

((WN))  In that diagram, we can clearly see the difference between contingent harm of males is lesser as compared to the females.  Even though it is somewhat similar.

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, what you see here is the two lines: the dark green and the light green that represents the males and the females.  For harm aversion, for that you should look at how much it changes from the baseline through the three shock sessions.  And the change is exactly the same in males and females.  But the difference between the two curves that you see is the fact that the females started off with the higher preference than the males did.  But the reduction in preference is same across groups.

((WN))  Tell us more about the observed differences between these rats.

((Christian Keysers))  Between which rats?  Rats, you mean, in general in the experiment?

((WN))  In general, like the rats, which were on the extremes, how extreme were they on the case-by-case basis?

((Christian Keysers))  Well, that you can see, if you look at Figure 3b in particular, you can see that some examples on the top of 3b of rats that had started off with a very strong preference for that were around 100 on the baseline session.  And it stayed at 100.  So they absolutely didn't care at all.  And in the other case, if you look at the bottom panel, you have some animals that initially had a preference around kind of 80%.  And by Day 3, they really go down to 0% of the shock lever used.  So it's really a very substantial difference; some changes much as they possibly could and some don't change at all.

((WN))  What could be the possible reason for this?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, it's a good — if we knew that, we would be very happy.  I think the things that we did look at and didn't play major difference is actually the reaction of the demonstrator.  So the first thing we figured perhaps you have demonstrators that really squeak a lot, and others, that don't give a lot of pain signals, and that could could explain the difference.  Then we quantified the reaction of the demonstrators, we saw there were no major differences there.  Where we did see really, big differences is in the reaction of the observer.  So we saw that there is some observers for instance, when they realised that they had shocked the other one, they really stopped to do anything for a while, and took longer to go get their food and ate the food very quickly.  So they really showed that they were disturbed by these shocks.  And those were the ones that switched.  And then were other rats that didn't seem to mind at all, they just kept eating their food as if nothing had happened.  And those ones were the ones that didn't switch.  So we feel that there's really just a striking difference in how much attention as well the agent paid to the harm signals of the other person.

((Valeria Gazzola))  But the causes are not known.  The causes of these are not: could be different brain activity, it could be the relationship between the distress that the observer perceives from the other that stops them to do anything, or actually motivates the other.  I mean, there are a lot of factors that could play a role.  And we are trying to think of it: how to test and untangle this aspect apart.  But it is not easy, but it is definitely a topic we are interested in.

((WN))  How much do we know about the evolution of harm aversion?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, well we don't know that much.  So from a kind of biological point of view, kind of it's only over the past, I would say, 10-20 years, that evolutionary biology is really paying a lot of attention to kind of altruism and mutualism.  Because if you read kind of traditional and evolutionary kind of books, they underline the selfishness of individuals.  So the idea that you mainly need to survive yourself, and that other animals are really competitors.  And then more slowly, people started to say, "well of course, you care about your kids, because they have a lot of your genes and therefore, that makes sense".  And it's only quite recently that people start to really see that even if you are not really related to another animal, but kind of you help each other, your whole kind of herd or group ends up better-off.  And the individual ends up being better-off.  Because often, rats actually, or animals have a sense of mutualism.  So if someone was kind to you at some point, you're more likely to be helped by that person in the future.  So that helping others is a way to facilitate being helped by them in the future.  And so, it still is a relatively young field of research that really acknowledges the fact that kind of in social animals, that live in groups.  And individuals will really do things for others kind of and that this is beneficial for evolution.  So it's really only starting to be explored.

((WN))  Is the ACC responsible for harm aversion in other vertebrates too?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, so what we know is that for instance, in monkeys, the cingulate seems to be necessary as well to, for instance, decide to work, to give juice to someone else.  So, in the primates they have some paradigms where you see a symbol on the screen that means that if you now do something, there can be juice for yourself.  And a different symbol if you work will give juice to another monkey, and a third symbol if you work that one, there'll be juice that's delivered in an empty glass.  And what you see is that monkeys that really work hard for themselves, but they're also willing to work a little bit to give juice to another monkey.  And that's more than they are willing to work if the juice is just gonna get wasted in as glass.  And there as well, the ACC seems to be important to motivate the monkey to work for another monkey and that's the other example that we know.  In mice, there is some evidence that if you disrupt the cingulate, then the mouse will no longer freeze when it see[s] another one getting shocked.  But that's it.  As far as I know, there's no other animal that has been explored.

((WN))  Are there any ethical considerations around conducting this study?

((Christian Keysers))  Yes, of course!  So, we ourselves, of course do not particularly like to have to give shocks to one animal.  So the only reason we really do these experiments is that we feel that harm aversion is such an important phenomenon.  Because in human society, when people lack harm aversion, they really cause a lot of damage to society.  Both because they harm people, and they end up in prison and that has a huge cost; but as well for the fact that these individuals really erode trust and they harm in a way the interaction that all of us have with each other.  Because we are always afraid that the person we have in front of us might be someone that will take advantage of you and harm you.  So I think, in understanding how that works in the brain is really really important.  And because of that, we feel that it's important to really understand how it works.  And currently, working with animals is the only way that we can really modify brain activity and see if it changes behaviour.

((WN))  In future, might you test this hypothesis with different species?

((Christian Keysers))  Yes, we might do it in mice.  So, of course, for other people, rats and mice are pretty much the same thing, but kind of there is a difference between them.  And ultimately, we hope we can do this in humans.  But for that, we need techniques in which we can modify brain activity in deeper brain regions.

((Valeria Gazzola))  You can do it once in a while in patients that already suffer from epilepsy and normally the surgeons inserts electrodes to measure, to find out the source of epilepsy, and you can at times stimulate to see whether the region is essential in some of the normal behaviour.  So at times, you can have access to these patients and ask them to participate in our task and we have a couple of collaborations, that we hope that will help us to tell something more about the role of the ACC and the insula in these type of tasks.  And we are also currently trying to develop methods that are human-friendly, in the sense that they are not invasive, and to be used in active participants to try to disrupt the activity of these regions as well.  Nowadays it's not easy to do because the TMS that [is] normally used to simulate the brain in humans, the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, is not very well suited to reach deeper structure.  Like the ACC goes really inside and it's a bit curved as well.  You can reach with TMS, but it's not the cleanest way.  So we are also trying to see whether we can use, for instance, ultrasound stimulation to do it and test it directly in humans.  Of course, it will also make use of data that comes from patients that show damages in the ACC.  And it was a study from Ralph Adolphs in the past that did confirm that some of these regions like insula for instance, are important and essential for discriminating emotions for instance, so, you can also test in these patients: use our tasks and test these patients.  So there are bit, some ways, to do it in humans, but it's quite small so we are investing, but the results take longer.  And of course, when you use patients, you always have the problem of reorganisation of the brain structure that you are looking at, possibly, so.

((WN))  Is there a way to increase the degree of harm aversion in anti-social beings?

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah, that's the question we are really interested in, and we don't know.  And that's why we are interested in finding out whether a particular region like the ACC is necessary for the development, or for the behaviour to occur.  Because once we know, we can confirm that in humans as well, what you could think are several ways.  You can manipulate plasticity in that region, so, ask the participants to go do certain tasks where they learn something.  And while you are modifying for instance, the {w|neuroplasticity|plasticity}} of the brain with current or magnetic simulation.  Or you can think of targeted therapies, for instance like neurofeedback, when you project the activities of the areas where the participants doing a task and the participants can directly modify through visual feedback the activity of these areas coming up.  So that if I now project on the screen the activity, real-time, the activity of the particular regions, I can tell you "okay, try find a way to modify that region".  So you would come up with thinking of something, you know, it's just a random process, but you could come up with a task saying like, "Okay, if I think of how my friend is feeling now, I see that manipulated region".  And then you can practice and practice to the point that it becomes automatic kind of things and that activity of that region now is modified based on your exercise and your activity.

So there are ways that we hope we may be able to use in the future to see whether we can use, can maybe improve or help these people to care more about.  But again we need to identify not just the region that is involved, but also at what point of the decision-making is happening.  So is it the motivation that is lacking, is just the attention, or is the general level of activity of that area, I mean, we don't know yet.  What is the reason why harm is done or you don't care to the other.  And if you consider that these decisions are always or in most of the cases this balance between a cost and a benefit, what you need to do is we need to readjust the cost-benefit balance which complicates the thing a little bit more.  But that's the way we want to go but it's the future.  So you also have this ethical aspect like, so it depends what — if somebody, like, with psychopathy, is just in the tail of the normal distribution right, so it is not just the specific dysfunction, but it's just a normal variability that went to the extreme, right, then where would you put the line and say, "Okay, now I intervene to change these and when I don't".  Because we know that certain traits or certain aspects of psychopathy can be useful in society as well.  So, then it becomes an ethical problem of when do we actually intervene?  And do we want to intervene early in kids that already manifest aggressive behaviour, or do we need to let them experience it and then act later on.

So there are a lot of considerations before doing interventions on these topics.

((WN))  Are there any future plans to explore more on the harm aversion and its evolution?

((Valeria Gazzola))  Ah, yes there are a lot of plans and, roads, let's say.  One of the plans we have is to really understand a little bit even more in details what is happening in the brain, at the cellular level and which are the inputs of these neurons are involved, what type of neurons are involved and all these aspect[s], we are also interested in trying [to] understand the developmental curve, what is happening, for instance, if you are exposed to a very stressful life when you're young, what kind of consequence it has on harm aversion later in life.  And we are interested in seeing how it is also transmitted through generations, like if you have these variabilities between individuals, with some individuals having higher propensity to be prosocial, or whether, you know, you select individuals that are mostly prosocial, would this selection be brought forward in the next generation.  So we also want also to see how much is learned and how much is more genetically encoded.  So all these aspects, we are trying to tackle with different experiment.  And let's hope we — of course the other aspects are very early at this stage.

((WN))  What are the other research you are currently working on?

((Valeria Gazzola))  [laughs] You want them all?  No, okay, so as I mentioned from the animal's point-of-view, we are doing, we want to do electrophysiology on the, a bit more of the physiology, and up the genetic to discover the role of the ACC and each single cell of the ACC, as I mentioning before.  So, is it for instance, let's say, what type of cells is involved in mapping the other pain into my own pain.  And where the information comes from, so what is the circuit that is involved, and how the other things change the information: this is one aspect of one of the experiments we're gonna run.

In humans, for instance, we are also, we've been implementing a lot of learning paradigms, similar to the one in this paper where people are faced with two symbols: they have to understand what are the consequences of choosing one versus the other and one symbol most often brings you higher reward, monetary reward, but also you would also see the other be more in pain, and the other symbol is the opposite.  And we again want to understand whether the circuit that is involved is the same as we see in the animal and vice-versa.  And again, whether we would like to simulate some of the areas we find, to see how the causality between this particular brain activity and the behaviour.  And we are also curious to see whether it matters, whether you see the other person being in pain in front of you, for instance, compared to simply receiving a message that the other person is in pain.  Because we believe that the embodiment component mainly comes into play when you see the other person.  You can also recall some embodiment processes through text.  But whether there is a difference between the two, we don't know.  So we are also interested in that aspect, and also interested in differentiating whether when you encounter such a type of conflict, whether there is a negative consequence like pain vs money as a reward; whether you value the pain of the other similarly to how much you value the pain for yourself.

And this is just a glimpse on all the things we are are doing.  I would say, on this aspect.  We also are interested in experiments that are trying to see how [we] ourselves encode emotions, do we have cells that code for happiness and cells that code for pain, painfulness or sadness or the cells simply encode the negative and positive aspect towards how strong it is.  Independently of a specific emotion.  So these are also other questions we have.  Unless you want to mention more, but I think it is plenty.

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Yeah.

((WN))  What is your role at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience?

((Christian Keysers))  Yeah, so we basically are both of us department heads, so that means that we each have a a group of people we basically manage.  And of course we really work very very closely together.  So our two groups kind of together form what we call the Social Brain Lab which is basically investigating how our brain processes the emotions of others and reacts to them.

((WN))  Well, that were all the questions we had for you both.

((Christian Keysers))  Okay.  Very good.

((WN))  Is there something you would like to add?

((Christian Keysers))  No.

((Valeria Gazzola))  No, I think it was quite thorough.  Yeah.

((WN))  Thank you very much for agreeing for this [interview].  It was great pleasure discussing this with you.

((Christian Keysers))  You are welcome.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Thank you.

((Christian Keysers))  Thank you. B-bye.  Have a good day.

((WN))  Thank you.

((Valeria Gazzola))  Bye.

((WN))  Bye.