People with aphantasia - that is, the inability to visualise mental images - are harder to spook with scary stories, a new UNSW Sydney study shows. The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, tested how aphantasic people reacted to reading distressing scenarios, like being chased by a shark, falling off a cliff, or being in a plane that's about to crash. The researchers were able to physically measure each participant's fear response by monitoring changing skin conductivity levels - in other words, how much the story made a person sweat. This type of test is commonly ...

WESTMINSTER, Colorado - March 10, 2021 - The paperbark tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia) was introduced to the U.S. from Australia in the 1900s. Unfortunately, it went on to become a weedy invader that has dominated natural landscapes across southern Florida, including the fragile wetlands of the Everglades. According to an article in the journal END ...

ften, humans display biases, i.e., unconscious tendencies towards a type of decision. Despite decades of study, we are yet to discover why biases are so persistent in all types of decisions. "Biases can help us make better decisions when we use them correctly in an action that has previously given us great reward. However, in other cases, biases can play against us, such as when we repeat actions in situations when it would be better not to", says Rubén Moreno Bote, coordinator of the UPF Theoretical and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. In these cases, decisions are guided by tendencies, or inclinations, that do not benefit our wellbeing. For example, playing the lottery more regularly after winning ...

Recent studies estimate that we use an astounding 129 billion face masks globally every month - that is 3 million a minute. Most of them are disposable face masks made from plastic microfibers. - With increasing reports on inappropriate disposal of masks, it is urgent to recognize this potential environmental threat and prevent it from becoming the next plastic problem, researchers warn in a comment in the scientific journal Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering. The researchers are Environmental Toxicologist Elvis Genbo Xu from University of Southern Denmark and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering ...

Global targets to improve the welfare of people across the planet will have mixed impacts on the world's forests, according to new research. The United Nations' 17 key areas for global development - known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - range from tackling poverty, hunger and sanitation to promoting clean energy, economic growth and reducing inequality. Many of these goals, such as improved peace and justice, good health and wellbeing, and quality education, will have a positive impact on the Earth's natural forests. But others, including creating new roads, industry and infrastructure, ...

Nearly 100 percent of the red snapper sampled in the Gulf of Mexico over a six-year period by University of South Florida (USF) marine scientists showed evidence of liver damage, according to a study reported in Aquatic Toxicology. The study is the first to correlate the concentration of crude oil found in the workhorses of the digestive system -- the liver, gall bladder, and bile - with microscopic indicators of disease, such as inflammation, degenerative lesions, and the presence of parasites. The team sampled nearly 570 fish from 72 Gulf locations between 2011 to 2017 in the wake of the historic 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. "The results add to the list of other species we've analyzed indicating early warning ...

In a breakthrough for quantum computing, University of Chicago researchers have sent entangled qubit states through a communication cable linking one quantum network node to a second node. The researchers, based in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago, also amplified an entangled state via the same cable first by using the cable to entangle two qubits in each of two nodes, then entangling these qubits further with other qubits in the nodes. The results, published February 24, 2021 in Nature, could help make quantum computing more feasible and could lay the groundwork for future quantum communication networks. "Developing methods that ...

"Phase transitions" are a central phenomenon in physical sciences. Despite being technical-sounding, they are actually something we all experience in everyday life: ice melting into liquid water, or hot water evaporating as steam. Solid, liquid, and gas are three well known "phases" and, when one turns into another, that is a phase transition. Rare-earth nickelate oxides, also called nickelates, have attracted a lot of interest from researchers because they display an electronic phase transition, which may be exploited in future electronic devices. This particular phase transition consists of turning from a metallic ...

Game theory is known to be a useful tool in the study of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Multi-Agent interactions. One basic component of these ML and AI systems is the exploration-exploitation trade-off, a fundamental dilemma between taking a risk with new actions in the quest for more information about the environment (exploration) and repeatedly selecting actions that result in the current maximum reward or (exploitation). However, the outcome of the exploration-exploitation process is often unpredictable in practice and ...

The balance of human intestinal microbiota, consisting of hundreds of bacterial species and phages (bacteria viruses), is crucial to good health. A research team, including scientists from the CNRS* and the Institut Pasteur, has characterised the phage-bacterial interaction networks of the microbiota in ten healthy individuals, with unprecedented precision. Scientists detected several hundred bacterial and phage genomes and identified the thousands of interactions that bind them by quantifying the contacts between the DNA molecules of viruses and their hosts. This method has the advantage ...

Researchers have published a study revealing their successful approach to designing much quieter propellers. The Australian research team used machine learning to design their propellers, then 3D printed several of the most promising prototypes for experimental acoustic testing at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's specialised 'echo-free' chamber. Results now published in Aerospace Research Central show the prototypes made around 15dB less noise than commercially available propellers, validating the team's design methodology. RMIT University aerospace engineer and lead researcher Dr Abdulghani Mohamed said the impressive results were enabled by two key innovations - the numerical algorithms ...

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have identified a new molecular target that could potentially treat the deadly, aging-related lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The study, which will be published March 10 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), suggests that targeting a protein called MDM4 could prevent respiratory failure by initiating a genetic program that removes scar tissue from the lungs. IPF is characterized by the accumulation of scar tissue that stiffens the lungs and makes it difficult for patients to breathe and get sufficient oxygen into their blood. Though the causes of IPF remain unclear, age is a significant risk factor: the disease is ...

Blood pressure measurements in children and adolescents should be taken from both arms after new research showed substantial differences could be seen depending on which arm was used. The study, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and published in the Journal of Hypertension, found even a small difference in blood pressure measurements between arms could lead to a wrong diagnosis. MCRI PhD candidate and study lead author Melanie Clarke said this was the first study worldwide to determine the size and frequency of inter-arm blood pressure differences in children and adolescents. The study involved ...

A researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is the lead author of a study with proposals for "technosignatures" -evidence for the use of technology or industrial activity in other parts of the Universe- for future NASA missions. The article, published in the specialized journal Acta Astronautica, contains the initial conclusions of a meeting of experts in the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, sponsored by the space agency to gather advice about this topic. In the article, several ideas are presented to search for technosignatures that would indicate the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, ...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. However, many women artists - and the stories their works tell - comprise less than 4 per cent of total art sold at auction and fail to attract high selling prices compared to male artists. A world-first international study by researchers at Monash University, Maastricht University (The Netherlands) and Artnet Worldwide, based in New York City, found that a staggering 96.1 per cent (2,572,346) of all artworks sold at auctions worldwide between 2000 and 2017 are attributed to male artists. However, work by female artists are on average 4.4 per cent more ...

When the body detects a pathogen, such as bacteria or viruses, it mounts an immune system response to fight this invader. In some people, the immune system overreacts, resulting in an overactive immune response that causes the body to injure itself, which may prove fatal in some cases. Now, scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have created a compound that could help to reduce this overactivation without impairing the body's entire immune response. An overactive immune system leads to many autoimmune disorders - when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy ...

Recently, Prof. ZHU Shu from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of CAS and Prof. Richard A. Flavell from Yale University were invited to publish a review article in Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology. They systematically summarized the gastrointestinal manifestations in patients with COVID-19 and explored the possible mechanisms of intestinal symptoms caused by COVID-19 infection. Although the clinical manifestations of COVID-19 are primarily fever, cough, and pulmonary imaging, gastrointestinal symptoms have also ...

At the end of December 2019, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) quickly spread throughout Hubei Province and other parts of China. During the 2020 Spring Festival, public activities were cancelled, people tried their best to stay at home, and human and industrial activities were reduced to a basic or minimum level. However, during this period, severe fog-haze events occurred over the North China Plain. What was the leading factor that caused these severe smog incidents? And what were the individual impacts of meteorological conditions and emission reductions? To evaluate the impacts of meteorological conditions and emission reduction measures on the near-surface PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) during the COVID-19 lockdown, ...

Flexible and adaptive microelectronics is considered an innovation driver for new and more effective biomedical applications. These include, for example, the treatment of damaged nerve bundles, chronic pain, or the control of artificial limbs. For this to work, close contact between electronics and neural tissue is essential for effective electrical and mechanical coupling. In addition, potential applications arise from the production of tiny and flexible surgical tools. An international team led by Prof. Dr. Oliver G. Schmidt, head of the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences at the Leibniz Institute ...

Tokyo, Japan - Scientists from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo demonstrated how the adaptive immune system uses a method similar to reinforcement learning to control the immune reaction to repeat infections. This work may lead to significant improvements in vaccine development and interventions to boost the immune system. In the human body, the adaptive immune system fights germs by remembering previous infections so it can respond quickly if the same pathogens return. This complex process depends on the cooperation of many ...

Recently, the three-dimensional (3D) Dirac points and 3D Dirac semimetals have attracted tremendous attention in the field of topological physics. The 3D Dirac point is a fourfold band crossing in 3D momentum space, which can be view as the degeneracy of two opposite Weyl points. However, the 3D Dirac points can be described by the Z2 topological invariant other than the Chern number. The topological property of 3D Dirac point is not totally the same as Weyl point. Besides, the transition from Dirac points to Weyl points has not been experimentally studied in both photonic and acoustic systems so far. Therefore, the theoretical or experimental breakthrough of 3D Dirac points and the study on their transition is of great ...

As countries around the world race to mitigate global warming by limiting carbon dioxide emissions, an unlikely source could be making climate goals harder to achieve without even deeper cuts in greenhouse gas production: reductions in air pollution. New modeling experiments from Kyushu University in Japan of the long-term effects of reductions in pollutants known as sulfate aerosols predicts further increases in surface air temperature at current and increased carbon dioxide levels because of the loss of an overall cooling effect caused by the light-scattering particles. "Air pollution causes an estimated seven million premature deaths per year worldwide, so action is essential, especially in emerging and developing countries, which tend to be most affected," ...

Heart attack and stroke are the first and second leading causes of death in developed countries, respectively. As the disease often results in sudden death with few special prognostic symptoms, early diagnosis is very important. For this purpose, imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are widely used to identify the narrowing or blockage of blood vessels. In MRI, contrast agents improve the visibility of the structures such as smaller blood vessels within the body. Just as satellites or global positioning systems (GPS) give traffic congestion information, the MRI contrast agents can give accurate information of vascular conditions such as vascular ...

A year ago, infectious disease doctor Christine Johnston was leading a study on the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of people with COVID-19. The trial launched at the end of March, when the disease was putting the world on pause and killing thousands. Hydroxychloroquine showed promise in studies done in test tubes rather than in animals or humans. If the drug worked, it would be cheap, safe, and available. As the trial got going in April, however, hydroxychloroquine was being touted as a treatment without any rigorous evidence. "The world was at a desperate moment and people were jumping to conclusions," ...

During the height of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK, women spent more time on unpaid housework and childcare than men, were more likely to reduce working hours, and reported higher levels of psychological distress, according to a new study published last week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Baowen Xue and Anne McMunn of University College London, UK. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, studies had already shown that women in the UK today spend more time doing unpaid care work than men. In March 2020, childcare facilities and schools in the UK were shut down in response ...