WASHINGTON, D.C., November 19, 2019 -- Coordinated behavior is common in a variety of biological systems, such as insect swarms, fish schools and bacterial colonies. But the way information is spread and decisions are made in such systems is difficult to understand.
A group of researchers from Southeast University and China University of Mining and Technology studied the synchronized flight of pigeon flocks. They used this as a basis to explain the mechanisms behind coordinated behavior, in the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA November 19, 2019--For a person with Alzheimer's disease, there's no turning back the clock. By the time she begins to experience memory loss and other worrisome signs, cognitive decline has already set in. And decades of clinical trials have failed to produce treatments that could help her regain her memory.
Researchers studying six adults who had one of their brain hemispheres removed during childhood to reduce epileptic seizures found that the remaining half of the brain formed unusually strong connections between different functional brain networks, which potentially help the body to function as if the brain were intact. The case study, which investigates brain function in these individuals with hemispherectomy, appears November 19 in the journal Cell Reports.
A discovery about how the immune system responds to malaria infection could lead to better treatments for hepatitis C, HIV and lupus, say Australian researchers.
The research team showed, in laboratory models, that strong inflammatory signals caused by malaria infection activate molecules that trigger the production of highly potent antibodies to fight the disease.
HAMILTON, ON (Nov. 19, 2019) - There has been interest in cannabis being used as a replacement drug for people with opioid use disorder, but research at McMaster University has found it doesn't work.
The research team looked at all research on the effects of cannabis use on illicit opioid use during methadone maintenance therapy, which is a common treatment for opioid use disorder, and found six studies involving more than 3,600 participants.
Scientists have peered inside the brain to show how taking DMT affects human consciousness by significantly altering the brain's electrical activity.
DMT (or dimethyltryptamine) is one of the main psychoactive constituents in ayahuasca, the psychedelic brew traditionally made from vines and leaves of the Amazon rainforest. The drink is typically prepared as part of a shamanic ceremony and associated with unusual and vivid visions or hallucinations.
Rates of new anal cancer diagnoses and deaths related to human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted infection, have increased dramatically over the last 15 years, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The results of their study were published in the November issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
"They're out there," goes a saying about extraterrestrials. It would seem more likely to be true in light of a new study on planetary axis tilts.
Astrophysicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology modeled a theoretical twin of Earth into other star systems called binary systems because they have two stars. They concluded that 87% of exo-Earths one might find in binary systems should have axis tilts similarly steady to Earth's, an important ingredient for climate stability that favors the evolution of complex life.
People with prosopagnosia, or "face blindness," have trouble recognizing faces -- even those of close friends and family members. It often causes serious social problems, although some people can compensate by using clothing and other cues. Face blindness often becomes apparent in early childhood, but people occasionally acquire it from a brain injury later in life. A new study of people who became face-blind after a stroke, led by Alexander Cohen, MD, Ph.D., of Boston Children's Hospital, provides clues to what goes wrong in the brain.
Husbands are least stressed when their wives earn up to 40% of household income but they become increasingly uncomfortable as their spouse's wages rise beyond that point and are most stressed when they are entirely economically dependent on their partner, new research from the University of Bath shows.