Harvard researchers have mapped and catalogued more than 70,000 synaptic connections from about 2,000 rat neurons, using a silicon chip capable of recording small yet telltale synaptic signals from a large number of neurons. The research, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, is a major advance in neuronal recording and may help bring scientists a step closer to drawing a detailed synaptic connection map of the brain. Higher-order brain functions are believed to be derived from the ways brain ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Air pollution caused by auto emissions, wildfires and other sources is problematic for many people. It’s of particular concern for pregnant people due to the impact pollutants can have on the fetus, especially in the final month before birth. A new study from the University at Buffalo offers insight into air pollution’s effects during this vulnerable time by measuring neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions and satellite-based air pollution data. The researchers focused on common pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, industrial processes and power plants, and PM2.5, which ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – In the future, autonomous drones could be used to shuttle inventory between large warehouses. A drone might fly into a semi-dark structure the size of several football fields, zipping along hundreds of identical aisles before docking at the precise spot where its shipment is needed. Most of today’s drones would likely struggle to complete this task, since drones typically navigate outdoors using GPS, which doesn’t work in indoor environments. For indoor navigation, some drones ...

Photos Michigan Engineering professors Elizabeth Holm and Nicholas Kotov are among the newest members of the National Academy of Engineering—one of the highest honors bestowed on engineers in the United States. "Elizabeth Holm and Nicholas Kotov have not only distinguished themselves as leaders in their fields, they have demonstrated the impact we can have as engineers, influencing how current and future generations of engineers solve problems and do their work," said Karen Thole, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan College of Engineering.  "We applaud this significant honor, and look forward ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Your body is ground zero for a cellular arms race. Your mitochondria, red blood cells and immune system rely on iron to function; so do invading viruses and bacteria. As your body evolves safeguards for this most critical resource, these safeguards select for invaders that can overcome them. “Iron is physiologically useful in catalyzing reactions, such as binding oxygen, because it both donates and accepts electrons,” explained Binghamton University Associate Professor of Anthropology ...

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) announces the 2025 cohort of ESA Excellence in Ecology (EEE) Scholars. This prestigious scholarship program celebrates and supports outstanding early- to mid-career Ph.D. ecologists from groups traditionally underrepresented in the scientific community. This year’s EEE Scholars are: Elvira D'Bastiani, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles; Gabriela Garcia, Assistant Professor at Northeastern University; Camille Griffith, Assistant Professor at Oglala Lakota College; and Estelí Jiménez-Soto, Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida. “These exceptional scholars embody ...

Rivers and streams may look permanent, but their lengths can change dramatically with the seasons, according to a new study. It reports that stream networks in the United States expand up to five times their low-flow size during wet conditions. The findings offer the first large-scale insights into how water dynamically moves through landscapes and provide a framework for forecasting climate-driven changes in stream networks, particularly in response to increasing storminess. Traditionally regarded as ...

Despite record rainfall in the region in early 2023, only a fraction of Southern California’s groundwater reserves has been replenished, researchers report. Their study, which leverages seismic noise data from across Greater Los Angeles, highlights the urgent need for improved monitoring and management of the state’s critical groundwater reserves. After enduring two decades of severe drought, California experienced an abrupt meteorological shift in water in 2023. A succession of 16 atmospheric rivers from late 2022 through early 2023, followed by the torrential ...

Northern elephant seals may hold the key to unlocking the secrets of the open ocean’s twilight zone (~200 – 1,000 meters deep). According to a new study, these deep-diving creatures can help estimate fish abundance by providing a rare window into the elusive prey dynamics in one of the planet’s most mysterious and remote ecosystems. Ecosystems are dynamic, with resource fluctuations – natural or human-induced – shaping species interactions and food webs. These processes are well studied in terrestrial ecosystems but not in deep, open ocean ecosystems, ...

Adults with a history of depression gain long-term physical conditions around 30% faster than those without, according to research publishing February 13th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. Kelly Fleetwood of the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, and colleagues argue that their study suggests depression should be viewed as a ‘whole body’ condition, and integrated approaches should be used to manage mental and physical health. Depression is the most common mental health condition and ...

The greater Los Angeles area has long been subject of intense seismographic monitoring. A network of highly sensitive seismometers peppers the region on a constant vigil for earthquakes. Now researchers at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability have developed a new way to use that existing infrastructure and its decades of data to estimate water levels in the region’s aquifers, which serve some 10 million residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties.  The researchers analyzed the ...

EMBARGOED until Thursday, Feb.13,  2025, at 2 P.M. U.S. Eastern Time SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – Over the past 60 years, marine biologists at UC Santa Cruz have monitored the behavior of northern elephant seals that journey to nearby Año Nuevo Natural Reserve. With the seals gathering on the beach by the thousands to breed and molt, generations of researchers have been able to amass more than 350,000 observations on over 50,000 seals. With the help of powerful technologies and the intrepidness to get close ...

To find the cause of the "dessert stomach", the researchers investigated the reaction of mice to sugar and found that completely satiated mice still ate desserts. Investigations of the brain showed that a group of nerve cells, the so-called POMC neurones, are responsible for this. These neurones become active as soon as the mice were given access to sugar which facilitated their appetite. When mice are full and eat sugar, these nerve cells not only release signaling molecues that stimulate satiety, but also one of the body's own opiate: ß-endorphin. This acts on other nerve cells with opiate receptors and triggers a feeling of reward, ...

A fungal infection has been shown to trigger a fruit fly’s own immune system to destroy brain cells leading to signs of neurodegeneration, a new study has found.   The paper published in PLOS Biology today found that a fungus called Beauveria bassiana was able to make the fly’s innate immune system trigger a process that kills neurons and glia in the brain, leading to more than half of flies dying after seven days compared to half of control samples living for nearly 50 days.   In experiments conducted by a team of academics from the University of ...

Leuven, 14 February 2025 – In a new study published in Science, a Belgian research team explores how genetic switches controlling gene activity define brain cell types across species. They trained deep learning models on human, mouse, and chicken brain data and found that while some cell types are highly conserved between birds and mammals after millions of years of evolution, others have evolved differently. The findings not only shed new light on brain evolution; they also provide powerful tools for studying how gene regulation shapes different cell types, across species or different disease states. Our brain, and by extension ...

The pallium is the brain region where the neocortex forms in mammals, the part responsible for cognitive and complex functions that most distinguishes humans from other species. The pallium has traditionally been considered a comparable structure among mammals, birds, and reptiles, varying only in complexity levels. It was assumed that this region housed similar neuronal types, with equivalent circuits for sensory and cognitive processing. Previous studies had identified the presence of shared excitatory and inhibitory neurons, as well as general connectivity patterns suggesting a similar evolutionary path in these ...

Images EAST LANSING, Mich. – Tropical forests are massive biodiversity storehouses. While these rich swathes of land constitute less than one-tenth of Earth’s surface, they harbor more than 60% of known species. Among them is a higher concentration of endangered species than anywhere else on Earth.  However, these regions are also under immense pressure, as tropical land is rapidly being transformed for industrial and agricultural purposes.   Worldwide, regional governments and international groups are establishing new protected areas to slow further loss of threatened species. However, new research appearing in the journal PLOS Biology demonstrates ...

HOUSTON ― Using a new technology and computational method, researchers from Fred Hutch Cancer Center and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have uncovered a biomarker capable of accurately predicting outcomes in meningioma brain tumors and breast cancers. In the study, published today in Science, the researchers discovered that the amount of a specific enzyme, RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII), found on histone genes was associated with tumor aggressiveness and recurrence. Hyper-elevated levels of RNAPII on these histone genes indicate cancer over-proliferation and potentially contribute to chromosomal changes. These findings point to the use of a new genomic technology as ...

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 13, 2025 — Among the roughly 10 billion white dwarf stars in the Milky Way galaxy, a greater number than previously expected could provide a stellar environment hospitable to life-supporting exoplanets, according to astronomers at the University of California, Irvine. In a paper published recently in The Astrophysical Journal, a research team led by Aomawa Shields, UC Irvine associate professor of physics and astronomy, share the results of a study comparing the climates of exoplanets at two different stars. One is a hypothetical white dwarf that’s passed through much of its life cycle and is on a slow path ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor Genetics and collaborating institutions provided a long-awaited and rare genetic diagnosis in a child with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a type of developmental epileptic encephalopathy (DEE), associated with a severe, complex form of epilepsy and developmental delay. Their recent study reports that a highly complex rearrangement of fragments from chromosomes 3 and 5 altered the typical organization of genes in the q14.3 region of chromosome ...

Mustard gas, also known as sulfur mustard, is one of the most harmful chemical warfare agents, causing blistering of the skin and mucous membranes on contact. Chemists at Washington University in St. Louis have been awarded a $1 million contract with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to develop a new way to detect the presence of this chemical weapon on the battlefield. As with many chemical threats, quick identification of sulfur mustard is key to minimizing its damage, according to Jennifer Heemstra, the Charles Allen Thomas Professor of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences and principal investigator of the new DTRA grant.  “It’s ...

Neuroscientists have new insights into why previous experiences influence future behaviors. Experiments in mice reveal that personal history, especially stressful events, influences how the brain processes whether something is positive or negative. These calculations ultimately impact how motivated a rodent is to seek social interaction or other kinds of rewards. In a first of its kind study, Tufts University School of Medicine researchers demonstrate that interfering with the neural circuits responsible ...

Lithium nickel oxide (LiNiO2) has emerged as a potential new material to power next-generation, longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries. Commercialization of the material, however, has stalled because it degrades after repeated charging. University of Texas at Dallas researchers have discovered why LiNiO2 batteries break down, and they are testing a solution that could remove a key barrier to widespread use of the material. They published their findings online Dec. 10 in the journal Advanced Energy Materials. The team plans first to manufacture LiNiO2 batteries in the lab and ...

WASHINGTON — The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has selected 10 members from a highly competitive applicant pool to participate in the Society’s annual Capitol Hill Day on March 11–13, 2025. The 10 Early Career Policy Ambassadors (ECPAs), representing many career stages and geographic locations, were chosen for their dedication to advocating for the scientific community, their desire to learn more about effective means of advocacy, and their experience as leaders in their labs and community. The ambassadors are: Izan Chalen, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Nicole D’Souza, University of California, Riverside Lana Ruvolo Grasser, PhD, Department ...

Collecting video data is the long-established way biologists collect data to measure the behaviour of animals and humans. Videos might be taken of human subjects sitting in front of a camera while eating in a group in the University of Konstanz, or researchers using cameras to measure how often house sparrow parents visit their nests on Lundy Island, UK. All these video datasets have one thing in common: after collecting them, researchers need to painstakingly watch each video, manually mark down who, where and when each behaviour of interest happens—a process known as “annotation”. ...