374 articles from THURSDAY 8.4.2021

New pig brain maps facilitate human neuroscience discoveries

For nearly a decade, scientists have relied on an MRI-based map, or atlas, of the pig brain - developed using 4-week-old pigs - to understand where and how nutrients and other interventions affect the developing brain. Now, scientists have updated that atlas, increasing its resolution by a factor of four, and they have also added a new atlas for adolescent 12-week-old pigs.

The tuberculosis pathogen releases its toxin by a novel protein transport system

Six years ago, Michael Niederweis, Ph.D., described the first toxin ever found for the deadly pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This toxin, tuberculosis necrotizing toxin, or TNT, became the founding member of a novel class of previously unrecognized toxins present in more than 600 bacterial and fungal species, as determined by protein sequence similarity. The toxin is released as M....

NASA Awards Global Change Research Support Services Contract

Portal origin URL: NASA Awards Global Change Research Support Services ContractPortal origin nid: 469984Published: Thursday, April 8, 2021 - 15:57Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: NASA has awarded the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) Support Services contract to ICF Incorporated LLC of Fairfax, Virginia.Portal image: NASA...

Modern human brain originated in Africa around 1.7 million years ago

The human brain as we know it today is relatively young. It evolved about 1.7 million years ago when the culture of stone tools in Africa became increasingly complex. A short time later, the new Homo populations spread to Southeast Asia, researchers have now shown using computed tomography analyses of fossilized skulls.

Chronic sinus inflammation appears to alter brain activity

The millions of people who have chronic sinusitis deal not only with stuffy noses and headaches, they also commonly struggle to focus and experience depression and other symptoms that implicate the brain's involvement in their illness. New research links sinus inflammation with alterations in brain activity, specifically with the neural networks that modulate cognition, introspection and response...

Giant radio pulses from pulsars are hundreds of times more energetic than previously believed

Scientists using coordinated observations of the Crab pulsar in a number of frequencies, have discovered that the 'giant radio pulses' which it emits include an increase in x-ray emissions in addition to the radio and visible light emissions that had been previously observed. This finding, published in Science, implies that these pulses are hundreds of times more energetic than previously...