PHILADELPHIA (August 31, 2023) – A main crux of neuroscience is learning how our senses translate light into sight, sound into hearing, food into taste, and texture into touch.  Smell is where these sensory relationships get more complex and perplexing.    To address this question, a research team co-led by the Monell Chemical Senses Center and start-up Osmo, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company spun out of machine learning research done at Google Research, Google DeepMind (formerly known as Google Brain), are investigating how airborne chemicals connect to odor perception in the brain. To this end they discovered that a machine-learning ...

Brian K. Lee and colleagues have developed a Principal Odor Map (POM) that models the connections between an odorant’s chemical structure with its perceptual property of smell. The map performed as well as some highly trained human “sniffers” in describing odor quality, and could be used for predicting odor intensity and perceptual similarity between odorants. The map moves researchers closer to being able to match molecular properties of odorants to their perceptual properties, a challenge that has proved difficult for olfactory science. (For other senses, neuroscientists have been able to map light wavelengths ...

How a new method of inferring ancient population size revealed a severe bottleneck in the human population which almost wiped out the chance for humanity as we know it today. An unexplained gap in the African/Eurasian fossil record may now be explained thanks to a team of researchers from China, Italy and the United States. Using a novel method called FitCoal (fast infinitesimal time coalescent process), the researchers were able to accurately determine demographic inferences by using modern-day human genomic sequences from 3,154 individuals. These findings indicate that early human ancestors went through a prolonged, severe bottleneck in which approximately 1,280 ...

Between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, the population of human ancestors crashed, according to a new genomic model by Wangjie Hu and colleagues. They suggest that there were only about 1280 breeding individuals during this transition between the early and middle Pleistocene, and that the population bottleneck lasted for about 117,000 years. The researchers say about 98.7% of the ancestral population was lost at the beginning of the bottleneck. This decline coincided with climate changes that turned glaciations into long-term events, a decrease ...

A randomized trial involving 811 undergraduate students at a U.S. Hispanic-Serving Institution (HIS) university found that students assigned to calculus classes focused on collaborative learning and student engagement had a greater understanding of calculus concepts and improved grades compared to those assigned to classes taught in a traditional lecture style. Laird Kramer and colleagues note that the success of the engagement “treatment” occurred across all racial and ethnic groups, academic majors, and genders. Since ...

A new estimate of the genetic mutation rate in four wild species of baleen whales suggests that these rates are higher than previous estimates, with some interesting implications for calculations of past whale abundance and low cancer rates. For instance, the new mutation rate determined by Marcos Suárez-Menéndez and colleagues reduces estimates of abundance in pre-exploitation whale populations by 86%, which has implications for population-rebuilding goals of whale conservation programs. The mutation rate—the probability ...

This release has been removed per the request of the submitting PIO. END ...

Polysiloxanes, the scientific name for silicones, possess exceptional properties, and are used in numerous fields ranging from cosmetics to aerospace. They are absolutely everywhere! However, they have a major flaw, as small, cyclic oligosolixanes—toxic for the environment and identified as an endocrine disruptor—form during their synthesis. To correct this drawback, a team of scientists1 led by a CNRS researcher recently developed a new process for synthesising silicones in a cleaner and more environmentally-friendly ...

New research from the University of Washington and Polar Bears International in Bozeman, Montana, quantifies the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and the survival of polar bear populations. The paper, published online Aug. 31 in Science, combines past research and new analysis to provide a quantitative link between greenhouse gas emissions and polar bear survival rates. A warming Arctic is limiting polar bears’ access to sea ice, which the bears use as a hunting platform. In ice-free summer months the bears must fast. While in a worst-case scenario ...

Exciting a brain region using electrical noise stimulation can help improve mathematical learning in those who struggle with the subject, according to a new study from the Universities of Surrey and Oxford, Loughborough University, and Radboud University in The Netherlands. During this unique study, researchers investigated the impact of neurostimulation on learning. Despite the growing interest in this non-invasive technique, little is known about the neurophysiological changes induced and the effect it has on learning. Researchers found that electrical noise ...

An international scientific team has revealed for the first time the magnetic field transport processes in the accretion flow of a black hole and the formation of a "MAD"—a magnetically arrested disk—in the vicinity of a black hole. The researchers made the discovery while conducting multi-wavelength observational studies of an outburst event of the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070, using Insight-HXMT, China's first X-ray astronomical satellite, as well as multiple telescopes. Key to their discovery was the observation that the radio emission from the black hole jet and the optical emission from the outer ...

An international team of marine scientists, led by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Center for Coastal Studies in the USA, has studied the DNA of family groups from four different whale species to estimate their mutation rates. The results revealed much higher mutation rates than previously thought, and which are similar to those of smaller mammals such as humans, apes, and dolphins. Using the newly determined rates, the group found that the number of humpback whales in the North Atlantic before whaling was 86 percent lower than earlier studies suggested. The study is the first proof that this method can be used to estimate mutation rates ...

Researchers at University of Manchester and the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, have revealed an innovative approach to track individual molecule dynamics within nanofluidic structures, illuminating their response to molecules in ways never before possible. Nanofluidics, the study of fluids confined within ultra-small spaces, offers insights into the behaviour of liquids on a nanometer scale. However, exploring the movement of individual molecules in such confined environments has been challenging due to the limitations of conventional microscopy techniques. This obstacle prevented ...

LAWRENCE, KANSAS — Breast milk is widely acknowledged as the most beneficial nutrition for infants, but many families face medical or logistical challenges in breastfeeding. In the U.S., just 45% of infants continue to be exclusively breastfed at 3 months of age, according to the Centers for Disease Control. For decades, researchers have sought to create a viable complement or alternative to breast milk to give children their best start for healthy development. New research out of the University of Kansas has shown how a complex component of milk that can be added to infant ...

URBANA, Ill. — Artificial roosts for bats come in many forms — bat boxes, condos, bark mimics, clay roosts, and cinder block structures, to name a few — but a new conservation practice and policy article from researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests the structures haven’t been studied rigorously enough and may harm bats in some scenarios. The article, published in Conservation Biology, lays out potential dangers and encourages more research on the popular conservation practice. “The major emphasis among conservation managers using artificial roosts is how to attract ...

JMIR Dermatology Editor-in-Chief: Robert Dellavalle, MD, PhD, MSPH and guest editors James A Solomon, MD, PhD, FAAD and Ian Brooks, PhD welcome submissions to a special theme issue examining "Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ChatGPT in Dermatology." JMIR Dermatology welcomes all topics related to diseases of the skin, hair, and nails, with a wide breadth and depth of papers focusing on AI applications. All topics at the intersection of dermatology, AI, and ChatGPT are eligible for this theme issue. The journal ...

An artificial intelligence with the ability to look inward and fine tune its own neural network performs better when it chooses diversity over lack of diversity, a new study finds. The resulting diverse neural networks were particularly effective at solving complex tasks. “We created a test system with a non-human intelligence, an artificial intelligence (AI), to see if the AI would choose diversity over the lack of diversity and if its choice would improve the performance of the AI,” says William Ditto, professor of physics at North Carolina State University, director ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Kenneth Davis, professor of atmospheric and climate science at Penn State, will lead a team of 23 investigators from 13 research institutions in a new field campaign supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to study surface-atmosphere interactions around Baltimore, Maryland, to see how they influence the city’s climate. The new campaign, called the Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE), is expected to start in October 2024 and run through September 2025. CoURAGE will contribute to the Baltimore Social-Environmental ...

Infants who spent most of their first year in the pandemic have fewer types of bacteria in their gut than infants born earlier, according to a team of developmental psychology researchers.  The findings, published in Scientific Reports, showed that infants whose gut microbes were sampled during the pandemic had lower alpha diversity of the gut microbiome, meaning that there were fewer species of bacteria in the gut. The infants had a lower abundance of Pasteurellaceae and Haemophilus—bacteria that live within humans and can cause various infections—and significantly different beta diversity, which tells us how similar or dissimilar the gut microbiome for ...

A new blood test called p-tau217 shows promise as an Alzheimer's disease biomarker, and when used in a two-step workflow very high accuracy to either identify or exclude brain amyloidosis, the most important and earliest pathology. That is an innovation now presented by researchers at the University of Gothenburg, together with colleagues at University of Lund and in Montreal, Canada. In recent years, a lot of effort has been put on developing biomarkers in blood that could potentially help to identify Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Tau protein, ...

Vitamin C and other antioxidants stimulate the formation of new blood vessels in lung cancer tumours, a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation shows. The discovery corroborates the idea that dietary supplements containing antioxidants can accelerate tumour growth and metastasis. “We’ve found that antioxidants activate a mechanism that causes cancer tumours to form new blood vessels, which is surprising, since it was previously thought that antioxidants have a protective effect,” says study leader Martin Bergö, professor at the ...

HAMILTON, ON (Aug. 31, 2023) – An innovative model of care that offers new mothers psychotherapy delivered by other mothers who have also experienced post-partum depression (PPD) should be implemented in clinical practice, according to researchers at McMaster University. Researchers worked with nearly 200 mothers over a year and a half, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and found those receiving treatment from their peers were 11 times more likely to experience remission of their major depressive disorder. The findings of the randomized control trial are published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. PPD and its associated symptoms affect ...

About The Study: In a randomized clinical trial with 104 participants, psilocybin treatment was associated with a clinically significant sustained reduction in depressive symptoms and functional disability, without serious adverse events. These findings add to increasing evidence that psilocybin—when administered with psychological support—may hold promise as a novel intervention for major depressive disorder. Authors: Charles L. Raison, M.D., of Usona Institute in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that patients with cancer had a disparate burden of COVID-19 mortality during the winter Omicron wave compared with the general U.S. population. With the emergence of new, immune-evasive SARS-CoV-2 variants, many of which are anticipated to be resistant to monoclonal antibody treatments, strategies to prevent COVID-19 transmission should remain a high priority.  Authors: Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is the corresponding ...

An international team of scientists have uncovered an important link between Earth’s early atmosphere and the chemistry of its deep mantle. The study, which was led by researchers at the University of Portsmouth and University of Montpellier, sheds new light on the evolution of life on our planet and the rise of atmospheric oxygen. The team investigated magmas formed in ancient subduction zones, where portions of Earth’s crust sink back into the mantle, from a pivotal moment in Earth's history – the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). This event, which is estimated to have happened between 2.1 ...