SAMPLINGS 



Genes for Jaws 



The finches Darwin famously encountered on 

 the Galapagos Islands — whose assorted 

 beaks were adapted to a diet of grubs, in- 

 sects, leaves, or seeds — demonstrate that 

 new species can evolve when subpopulations 

 specialize in particular foods. The myriad 

 perchlike cichlid fishes from Lake Malawi in 

 central Africa make another good example: 

 some have jaws that bite, others have mouth- 

 parts ideal for vacuuming plankton from the 

 water. That may sound like a lot of change to 

 attribute to the occasional random mutation 

 in one gene or another But according to R. 



Melodious Mice 



When it comes to songs, the ones made 

 by birds, whales, and people usually get 

 most of the attention. But new research 

 suggests that mice 

 should be added 

 to the list as well. 

 Investigators have 

 known for some 

 time that male mice 

 emit ultrasonic calls 

 when they discover 

 signs of female 

 mice nearby. Biolo- 

 gist Timothy E. 

 Holy and computer 

 programmer 

 Zhongsheng Guo, 

 both at the Wash- 

 ington University 

 School of Medicine 

 in Saint Louis, Mis- 

 souri, have examined those calls in de- 

 tail for the first time, and they made a 

 surprising discovery. 



Ultrasonic mouse calls are inaudible 

 to people, but by recording them and 

 dropping the pitch of the calls several 

 octaves, the investigators were able 

 to hear their true complexity. The calls 

 incorporate two essential features of 

 song: multiple kinds of syllables and a 

 regular temporal pattern. Individual 

 mice even sing their own unique songs, 

 which are far more complex than the 

 simple calls of insects and amphibians. 

 It remains to be seen whether the calls 

 serve as a communication channel 

 between mice. (PLoS Biology, 3:e386, 

 2005) —Nick W. AMnson 



Craig Albertson, a biologist at the Forsyth 

 Institute in Boston, and his colleagues, no 

 statistical miracles are needed: much of the 

 fishes' diversity in jawbone shape and 

 function can be traced to variations in a 

 single gene known as bmp4 (for "bone 

 morphogenetic protein 4"). 



Lake Malawi's Labeotropheus fuelieborni, 

 for instance, is a seven-inch-long biting cich- 

 lid. It pries algae off rocks with its stout 

 lower jaw. Albertson's research showed that 

 the embryos of the species have high con- 

 centrations of the product of the bmp4 gene 

 in their developing jaws. In contrast, a 

 smaller cichlid, Metriaclima zebra, sucks in 

 waterborne plankton and has a more slen- 

 der, elongated jawbone; little of the gene 

 product is present in M. zebra's immature 

 jaws. Another suction feeder, the zebrafish. 



Safe House 



4 



Larva of the ciciilid fish Metriaclima zebra 

 w/th red-stained bone and blue-stained 

 cartilage 



Danio rerio, is also low in bmp4 product. 

 When the biologists injected messenger 

 RNA transcribed from the bmp4 gene into 

 zebrafish embryos — thus inducing the em- 

 bryos to make more gene product than they 

 naturally would — the jawbone developed a 

 stouter shape, similar to the biting species' 

 jawbones. (PNAS 102:16287-92, 2005) 



— Stephan Reebs 



Would you trust your beloved heirlooms to an institution that could not ensure their safety 

 or whose environmental conditions were hazardous to their survival? Presumably not. Yet 

 according to a recent study by Heritage Preservation, a nonprofit conservation group 

 based in Washington, D.C., that's precisely what many institutions are asking the public to 

 do with some of the nation's most precious art, historical artifacts, and scientific specimens. 



Heritage Preservation examined the "health" of U.S. archives, libraries, and museums — 

 some 30,000 institutions in all — and found that 26 percent of them cannot protect their collec- 

 tions against damage from inappropriate humidity, light, and temperature. Even more alarm- 

 ing, the group learned, only 2 percent of the total annual operating budgets of all collecting 

 institutions is dedicated to conservation. And in the event of a natural disaster or a terrorist at- 

 tack, only 20 percent of institutions have an emergency plan to protect their collections. 



For fans of natural history, however, the news is not entirely bleak. Large institutions, which 

 hold 88 percent of the nation's 820 million scientific specimens, are better prepared. New York's 

 American Museum of Natural History, for instance, has permanent staff dedicated to collections 



management and a small army of volun- 

 teers; moreover, it is working toward a com- 

 prehensive emergency plan for all its collec- 

 tions. "We have been working hard — even 

 before 9/1 1 — ^toward preserving and assess- 

 ing the needs of our collections in a strate- 

 gic way," notes Merrily Sterns, the mu- 

 seum's senior director of federal programs. 

 "Despite limited funds, over the past dec- 

 ade we have allocated increasing resources 

 to collections management, preservation, 

 and security. But the needs are great." 



The fact that "federal funding is ex- 

 tremely scarce to almost nonexistent for 

 collections protection," Sterns adds, should 

 sound alarm bells throughout all U.S. muse- 

 ums. That funding is especially critical for 

 small natural history museums, which can- 

 not bear the costs of needed conservation 

 staff and expertise alone, (www.heritage 

 preservation.org/HHI/full.html) 



— Mary Knight 



Flood at this off-site storage facility in March 

 2004 damaged many archaeological artifacts 

 belonging to the New Mexico Museum of In- 

 dian Arts and Culture, in Santa Fe. 



February 2006 NATL'RM HISTOR\ 17 



