144 articles from FRIDAY 15.9.2023

What turns an ant into a soldier or a forager? It may be all in their heads

Most worker carpenter ants have one of two fates: They either become foragers who look for food or soldiers who defend the nest. Levels of key hormones influence which role they crawl into. Now, a new study shows the ants’ blood-brain barrier plays a crucial role in this decision, regulating how much of one critical hormone seeps into developing ants’ brains by actively breaking it...

Newly discovered trigger of Parkinson's upends common beliefs

A new study challenges a common belief in what triggers Parkinson's disease. Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons is widely accepted as the first event that leads to Parkinson's. But the new study suggests that a dysfunction in the neuron's synapses leads to deficits in dopamine and precedes the neurodegeneration. The findings open a new avenue for therapies in which drugs target neuron synapses...

Brilliant galaxies of early universe

Scientists have used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey to change the way we think about the universe and its distant galaxies. Astronomers authored a paper confirming very bright galaxies in the early universe, while also disproving the identification of what would have been the most distant galaxy ever found.

In major breakthrough, researchers close in on potential preeclampsia cure

Researchers have achieved a significant breakthrough in identifying the primary cause and potential treatment for preeclampsia, a severe pregnancy complication. Experts pinpointed a toxic protein named cis P-tau in the blood and placenta of individuals with preeclampsia. The study describes cis P-tau as a pivotal circulating instigator of preeclampsia. An antibody developed in 2012 to target only...

Making AI smarter with an artificial, multisensory integrated neuron

The feel of a cat's fur can reveal some information, but seeing the feline provides critical details: is it a housecat or a lion? While the sound of fire crackling may be ambiguous, its scent confirms the burning wood. Our senses synergize to give a comprehensive understanding, particularly when individual signals are subtle. The collective sum of biological inputs can be greater than their...

How NASA Got a ‘UFO Czar’—And Why it Matters

The real czars may be long gone, but for decades, the White House has been doing a good job of keeping the role—or at least the honorific—alive, appointing a director to oversee a particular task or issue, and bestowing the title along with it. We’ve had the Ebola Czar, the Drug Czar, the Budget Czar, the Climate Czar, and more. Yesterday, at a press conference at...

Innovation increasingly led by collaborative teams, not individual pioneers: Study

Is disruption decreasing, or is it accelerating? That depends. With the exponential growth in scientific publications, the chance that an individual scientist might be highly disruptive in their field is decreasing. Collectively, however, the overall level of disruption in science—the influence of new findings that tend to overtake previous understandings—is as strong or stronger than it was...

Hydroelectric power plants in Brazil threaten turtles that depend on rapids, study warns

New research shows that the construction of new hydroelectric power plants in Brazil's South region could have an impact on more than 30% of the habitat of Phrynops williamsi, the Williams' side-necked turtle. The species occurs only in areas of Atlantic Rainforest and Pampa (the grassland biome adjacent to Brazil's border with Uruguay and Argentina), and is classed as "Vulnerable" (facing a high...

New metamaterial-based strategy to combine and transmit multiple light modes

The past few years have seen a massive surge in the amount of data transferred and processed per second. Rapidly emerging technologies, such as high-dimensional quantum communications, large-scale neural networks, and high-capacity networks, require large bandwidths and high data transfer speeds. One plausible way to achieve them is by replacing the conventional metallic wires between the...