Termites on Kenyan Savanna,Treating Mental Illness in Sudan

This week:  Our online conversation with author Ethan Watters continues through next Monday. Don’t forget to stop by the Science Forum discussion with your own comments and questions. Today you’ll hear another story related to this Forum discussion. It’s about treating mental illness in Sudan. Also in today’s show, termites in the Kenyan savanna, celebrity culture among chimps and the ecological impacts of the oil spill.

Treating Mental Illness in Sudan: Traditionally, when people in Sudan suffer mental illness, they seek out exorcists and other spiritual healers. But in Khartoum, a growing number of patients are also seeing Western-style psychiatrists and psychologists. The result is a tense rapprochement between health practitioners who have historically been at odds.
Report by: Hana Baba
Visit our Science Forum discussion with author Ethan Watters. He’s taking your comments and questions about culture and mental health.
The journal PLoS Medicine recently published a series of papers on mental health care in low- and middle-income countries. You can read those articles here.

Elsa’s Favorite Stories:

• Setback to Bt Cotton in China: A 10-year study has some surprising findings about transgenic cotton in China. The Bt cotton variety has a gene for a bacterial toxin that kills a variety of pests–especially caterpillars–that feed on the plants. Bt cotton has allowed farmers to decrease their dependence on broad-spectrum pesticide sprays. But in the absence of such sprays, populations of formerly insignificant pests such as mirid bugs have billowed out of control.
  The study.
  Our Science Forum discussion and coverage of Bt brinjal.
  Read more about the ongoing debate over genetically modified crops in India.
  
• Termites Shape the African Savanna: Termite mounds occur at strikingly regular intervals in the Kenyan savanna–probably because of the way the colonies maintain non-overlapping territories. The effects of these tiny insects ripple up through the savanna ecosystem, ultimately boosting the abundance of plants, lizards and other insects. The hotspots of plant growth associated with termite mounds are visible in satellite photos such as the one at right. (Photo taken from the study.)
  The study.
  More on fungus-farming termites from The New York Times.
  While I was looking for a good termite link, I discovered that some snails farm fungi too! Check it out.
• Celebrity Culture in Chimpanzees: Chimps prefer to mimic high-status members of their social groups, even when the underdogs’ methods obviously work just as well. The study helps explain how chimpanzee culture gets handed down over time, and hints at ancient evolutionary roots for our own tendency to copy prestigious people.
  The study.
  More on chimpanzee culture from the BBC.

Lessons from Global Oil Spills: BP is trying another technique to plug the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s hope it works. In the meantime, the spilled oil is already threatening coastal environments.  Oil spills are, sadly, a global phenomenon, and we may be able to learn from previous spills and from the efforts to clean them up.
Guest: Jay Holcomb of the International Bird Rescue Research Center.
Photos of oiled and scrubbed birds from the International Bird Rescue Research Center.
More photos of the oil impact on shore from the Boston Globe.
About BP’s “Top-Kill” technique on NPR. This page also includes a live webcam where you can watch BP’s efforts to plug the oil well.

Tags: Africa, Bt cotton, chimpanzee, chimps, China, evolution, farming, genetically modified, Kenya, mental health, mental illness, savanna, savannah, sudan, termite, transgenic crops