Designed to help individuals suffering from memory loss, a new prosthesis which includes a small array of electrodes implanted into the brain has performed well in laboratory testing in animals and is now being evaluated in human patients. A report on the device was presented at the 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering […]
University of Miami researchers have found that crossing a quantum phase transition at just-the-right speed generates the richest, most complex light-matter entanglement – a characteristic evident in our Universe. Such structure resembles “defects” in an otherwise smooth and empty space. The findings are published in Physical Review A, the American Physical Society’s main journal. “Our […]
A team including theoretical physicists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has taken a step toward building objects out of photons, and the findings hint that weightless particles of light can be joined into a sort of “molecule” with its own peculiar force. In a paper forthcoming in Physical Review Letters, the […]
Experiments with monkeys showed that the antidepressant sertraline (marketed as Zoloft) significantly increased the volume of one brain region in depressed subjects but decreased the volume of two brain areas in non-depressed subjects. Conducted by researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, the experimental results have been published in the journalNeuropharmacology. “These observations are important […]
Physicists at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have designed and created in the laboratory the first experimental wormhole that can connect two regions of space magnetically. The tunnel transfers the magnetic field from one point to the other while keeping it undetectable. The researchers used metamaterials and metasurfaces to build the tunnel, so that the […]
The discovery that ancient rocks harbored microbial life deep below the seafloor confirms a long-standing hypothesis that interactions between mantle rocks and seawater can create potential for life. The scientists behind the discovery, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Virginia Tech, and the University of Bremen, have reported their findings in theProceedings of the […]
Appearing in Nature Communications, a new study of dog fossils suggests that the evolutionary path of whole groups of predators can be a direct consequence of climate change. “It’s reinforcing the idea that predators may be as directly sensitive to climate and habitat as herbivores,” said study co-author Christine Janis, professor of ecology and evolutionary […]
Researchers at Plymouth University have found that polychaete worms living in acidified waters exhibit a tendency to nurture their offspring to a greater extent than those in more regular conditions. The polychaete worms in question live around volcanic vents in the Mediterranean. They grow and develop their eggs within the protection of the family unit […]
Researchers from the University of Birmingham (UK) and the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland) have found that wild bonobos, our closest living relatives in the primate world, communicate using a high-pitched call type, or “peep,” that requires context to be understood. The findings, published in the journal PeerJ, echo the context dependent manner in which human […]
When we type or perform other precise tasks, our brains and muscles usually work together effortlessly. But when a neurological disease or spinal cord injury severs the connection between the brain and limbs, once-easy motions become difficult or impossible. In recent years researchers have sought to give people suffering from injury or disease some restored […]
