Earth
A brain chemical called noradrenaline is responsible for our responses to uncertain situations - helping us to learn quickly and adapt our behaviour, a new study has found.
The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged us all into a state of uncertainty. In a rapidly changing situation where it is hard to know what will happen next, making decisions can be difficult. Researchers at the University of Cambridge and University College London created a simplistic model of this uncertain situation in the lab, to understand how our brain responds.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have identified new mechanisms in neurons that cause Alzheimer's disease. In particular, they discovered that changes in the structure of chromatin, the tightly coiled form of DNA, trigger neurons to lose their specialized function and revert to an earlier cell state. This results in the loss of synaptic connections, an effect associated with memory loss and dementia.
The findings are published Nov. 13 in Science Advances.
Vibrations travel through our planet in waves, like chords ringing out from a strummed guitar. Earthquakes, volcanoes and the bustle of human activity excite some of these seismic waves. Many more reverberate from wind-driven ocean storms.
As storms churn the world's seas, wind-whipped waves at the surface interact in a unique way that produces piston-like thumps of pressure on the seafloor, generating a stream of faint tremors that undulate through Earth to every corner of the globe.
Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (*1) have received much attention as potential next generation solar cells and as materials for light-emitting devices.
Kobe University's Associate Professor TACHIKAWA Takashi (of the Molecular Photoscience Research Center) and Dr. KARIMATA Izuru (previously a graduate student engaged in research at the Graduate School of Science) have succeeded in completely substituting the halide ions of perovskite nanocrystals while maintaining their morphology and light-emitting efficiency.
FRANKFURT. The development of new drugs or innovative molecular materials with new properties requires specific modification of molecules. Selectivity control in these chemical transformations is one of the main goals of catalysis. This is particularly true for complex molecules with multiple reactive sites in order to avoid unnecessary waste for improved sustainability. The selective insertion of individual nitrogen atoms into carbon-hydrogen bonds of target molecules is, for instance, a particularly interesting goal of chemical synthesis.
A sphere and a cube can be deformed into one another without cuts or stitches. A mug and a glass cannot because, to deform the first into the second, the handle needs to be broken. Topology is the branch of mathematics that formalises this difference between mugs and glasses, extending it also to abstract spaces with many dimensions.
Scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have identified the first mechanosensitive ion channel to be found in an intracellular vesicle system. It responds to concentration changes within the vesicle, and probably controls the initiation of immune reactions.
In a screening for a functional impact to the neuronal differentiation process, Danish researchers identified a specific circular RNA, circZNF827, which surprisingly "taps the brake" on neurogenesis. The results provide an interesting example of co-evolution of a circRNA, and its host-encoded protein product, that regulate each other's function, to directly impact the fundamental process of neurogenesis.
The African continent is slowly separating into several large and small tectonic blocks along the diverging East African Rift System, continuing to Madagascar - the long island just off the coast of Southeast Africa - that itself will also break apart into smaller islands.
When it came to naming a gene that could lead to new insights on a crucial feature of evolution, the Harvard Organismic and Evolutionary Biology alumna leading the project aimed for something rather tongue in cheek. She called it POPOVICH, after San Antonio Spurs coach and president Gregg Popovich.
A drug that has shown promise for treating multiple sclerosis may actually make the debilitating disease worse, new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggests.
The drug has not yet made it to human trials for MS, but the UVA scientists are warning their fellow researchers to proceed extremely cautiously. In addition to worsening the disease in mouse models, the drug also had unintended, off-target effects, they report.
BUFFALO, N.Y. - If dispositional mindfulness can teach us anything about how we react to stress, it might be an unexpected lesson on its ineffectiveness at managing stress as it's happening, according to new research from the University at Buffalo.
When the goal is "not to sweat the small stuff," mindfulness appears to offer little toward achieving that end.
In 2018, a new aurora-like discovery struck the world. From 2015 to 2016, citizen scientists reported 30 instances of a purple ribbon in the sky, with a green picket fence structure underneath. Now named STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, this phenomenon is still new to scientists, who are working to understand all its details. What they do know is that STEVE is not a normal aurora - some think maybe it's not an aurora at all - and a new finding about the formation of streaks within the structure brings scientists one step closer to solving the mystery.
De'Broski Herbert has a philosophy that's guided his career researching helminths, or parasitic worms, and their interaction with their hosts' immune systems: "Follow the worm."
Using NASA satellite imagery and software processing approaches, a group of geoscientists has discovered a landslide-generated tsunami threat in Barry Arm, Alaska, that will likely affect tourists and locals in the surrounding area in the next 20 years.