Culture
Among the many things rodents have taught neuroscientists is that in a region called the hippocampus, the brain creates a new map for every unique spatial context - for instance, a different room or maze. But scientists have so far struggled to learn how animals decides when a context is novel enough to merit creating, or at least revising, these mental maps. In a study in eLife, MIT and Harvard researchers propose a new understanding: The process of "remapping" can be mathematically modeled as a feat of probabilistic reasoning by the rodents.
This research defines the new mini-invasive technique for the treatment of osteoid osteomas, which are benign but painful bone-forming tumors that usually involve long bones, with 10-20% of the cases having localization at the spine.
LOWELL, Mass. - More durable prosthetics and medical devices for patients and stronger parts for airplanes and automobiles are just some of the products that could be created through a new 3D printing technology invented by a UMass Lowell researcher.
Pupils' achievements at school are often shaped by the way that they 'act out' specific gender roles, according to a new study which warns against over-generalising the gender gap in education.
The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge, suggests that young people's attainment is linked to their ideas about what it means to be male or female. Those who defy traditional gender stereotypes appear to do better in the classroom.
In The BMJ today, a panel of international experts make a weak recommendation for the use of remdesivir in patients with severe covid-19, and strongly support continued enrolment of patients into ongoing clinical trials of remdesivir.
Their advice is part of The BMJ's Rapid Recommendations initiative - to produce rapid and trustworthy guidelines for clinical practice based on new evidence to help doctors make better decisions with their patients.
Experts have developed a risk score to predict cardiac arrest patient outcomes.
The study published today in European Heart Journal, by a team of researchers from King's College London and King's College Hospital, details a novel risk score for heart attack centres to predict brain damage in patients who have had an out of hospital cardiac arrest.
New research has found that paying greater attention to internal bodily sensations can increase our appreciation of our own bodies.
The study, led by Jennifer Todd of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and published in the journal Body Image, focused on gastric interoception, which are the feelings of hunger or fullness that originate in the gut.
The researchers carried out an experiment involving 191 adults in the UK and Malaysia fasting and then consuming water.
As small and relatively simple as they may be, even viruses have strategies. Now, researchers in Japan report that they can evaluate two of these strategies through a combination of biology and math, providing a new tool for insight into viruses that could be used to develop better treatments.
While the level of fine particulate air pollution has declined considerably over the last several decades, a new study finds that its distribution has remained largely unchanged. According to the results, the most and least polluted U.S. neighborhoods in 1981 remained the most and least polluted more than 30 years later, with disadvantaged communities far more likely to have higher levels of particulate pollution at any given time. The findings reveal persistent socioeconomic disparities in access to clean air and highlight the perpetual problem of environmental inequality.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced nations worldwide to implement unprecedented social measures to stem the rapid spread of the virus. In a Policy Forum, David Laborde and colleagues discuss how the economic fallout from these efforts and impacts on food supply chains worldwide puts global food security at risk. Laborde et al. argue that these new threats need to be acknowledged and addressed by governments worldwide to prevent the COVID-19 health crisis from becoming a global food crisis as well.
The alpine biome harbors distinctive communities adapted to stressful environmental conditions. For plants, the world's most species-rich temperate alpine biota occurs in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), Himalaya, and the Hengduan Mountains (THH).
Threatened by global warming, alpine species are vulnerable. To understand how alpine biotas formed in response to historical environmental change may improve our ability to predict and mitigate threats.
Steve Granick, Director of the IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter and Dr. Huan Wang, Senior Research Fellow, report together with 5 interdisciplinary colleagues in the July 31 issue of the journal Science that common chemical reactions accelerate Brownian diffusion by sending long-range ripples into the surrounding solvent.
Researchers who generated a strain of SARS-CoV-2 that can infect mice used it to produce a new mouse model of infection that may help facilitate testing of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. Notably, they used their mouse model to test and confirm the protective efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has prioritized the development of small animal models for SARS-CoV-2. As SARS-CoV-2 does not use mouse ACE2 - the entry point for this virus in humans - mice are thought to be less susceptible.
Women who lack social ties have a greater likelihood of being obese, according to new UBC research published today in PLOS One. Men, on the other hand, were less likely to be obese if they lived alone and had a smaller social network.
Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, researchers analyzed the social ties of 28,238 adults aged 45 to 85 and how these link to waist circumference, body mass index and general obesity.
New Orleans, LA - A team of LSU Health New Orleans pathologists published what is believed to be the first case report on pathologic findings of vasculitis of the small vessels of the heart, which likely represents multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS). The report was published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine, available here.