Other Sciences News

Deperrois et al. suggest that generating new, virtual sensory inputs via adversarial dreaming during REM sleep is essential for extracting semantic concepts, while replaying episodic memories via perturbed dreaming during NREM sleep improves the robustness of latent representations. Image credit: Stefan Keller.

Adversarial Dreaming Helps Brain Learn Better, Study Suggests

May 13, 2022 by News Staff

Humans and other animals learn to extract general concepts from sensory experience without extensive teaching. This ability is thought to be facilitated...

This system, containing Synechocystis blue-green algae, powered a microprocessor continuously for a year using nothing but ambient light and water. Image credit: Paolo Bombelli.

Renewable Bio-Photovoltaic Cell Created

May 12, 2022 by News Staff

Scientists have created a bio-photovoltaic energy harvester system using a species of photosynthetic blue-green algae called Synechocystis on an aluminum...

Blueberry supplementation may contribute to protection against cognitive decline when implemented early in at-risk individuals. Image credit: Kjerstin Michaela Noomi Sakura Gihle Martinsen Haraldsen.

Eating Blueberry Regularly Reduces Dementia Risk, New Study Suggests

May 12, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Blueberry supplementation has neurocognitive benefit in middle-aged individuals with insulin resistance and elevated risk for future dementia, according...

Lake Snow Eagle lies in a canyon in East Antarctica covered by a thick ice sheet. Image credit: University of Texas Institute for Geophysics.

Huge Subglacial Lake Discovered in East Antarctica

May 10, 2022 by News Staff

Named Lake Snow Eagle, the newly-discovered subglacial lake is approximately 42 km in length and 370 km2 in area, making it one of the largest subglacial...

Capsaicin is a chemical compound derived from chili peppers. Image credit: Jill Wellington.

Capsaicin: Researchers Look into Health Benefits of Active Component of Chili Peppers

May 10, 2022 by News Staff

You’re at an Indian, Mexican or Thai restaurant. You bite into a reddish substance. Immediately, your tongue tingles, you feel a rush of heat, you break...

Young males with a poor diet saw a significant improvement in their symptoms of depression when they switched to a healthy Mediterranean diet. Image credit: Barbara Jackson.

Study: Mediterranean Diet Improves Depressive Symptoms in Young Men with Clinical Depression

May 9, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

New research highlights the important role of nutrition for the treatment of depression and should inform advice given by clinicians to young men. Young...

Survey locations on the Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica: electromagnetic imaging stations were set up in two general areas (yellow markings); the researchers traveled to wider areas to perform other tasks, shown by red dots. Image credit: Gustafson et al., doi: 10.1126/science.abm3301.

Vast Saline Groundwater System Discovered Deep Under Antarctic Ice

May 6, 2022 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal Science, subglacial sediments beneath Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica are saturated with a mixture...

Nagaraj & Kejriwal defined and measured the differences between male character prevalence and female character prevalence using three robust measures of prevalence, on a corpus of copyright-expired literary texts from the Project Gutenberg English-language corpus. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Male Characters are Four Times More Prevalent in Pre-Modern Literature than Female Characters: Study

Apr 29, 2022 by News Staff

A duo of scientists from the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California has analyzed the publicly available English-language...

The study sheds new light on the link between sleep deprivation and obesity. Image credit: Sweet Briar College.

New Animal Study Pinpoints Molecular Basis of Deep Sleep

Apr 29, 2022 by News Staff

Identification of mechanisms which increase deep sleep could lead to novel treatments which promote the restorative effects of sleep. Uygun et al. show...

Machine learning guided predictions improve enzyme performance across PETase scaffolds. Image credit: Lu et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04599-z.

Scientists Engineer New Plastic-Eating Enzyme

Apr 28, 2022 by News Staff

Plastic waste poses an ecological challenge and enzymatic degradation offers one, potentially green and scalable, route for polyesters waste recycling....

Han et al. developed an ultra-thin loudspeaker that can turn any rigid surface into a high-quality, active audio source. Image credit: Felice Frankel.

Ultra-Thin, Lightweight Loudspeaker Created

Apr 27, 2022 by News Staff

The flexible, thin-film loudspeaker, developed by MIT researchers, weighs only 2 g, is 120 microns thick, and can generate high-quality sound no matter...

Hadean Earth. Image credit: Alec Brenner.

3.8-Billion-Year-Old Zircons Offer Clues to When Earth’s Plate Tectonics Began

Apr 26, 2022 by News Staff

The nature of Earth’s earliest crust and crustal processes remains enigmatic due to the almost complete lack of a rock record older than 4 billion years...

Jaws of Glycera dibranchiata are composites of protein, melanin, and both mineral and ionic copper; to date, nanomechanical tests have correlated the ionic copper and melanin with hardness and wear resistance, but the function of protein is uncertain. Wonderly et al. characterize a Gly- and His-rich protein called multi-tasking protein (MTP) and, using recombinant protein, show that it performs six distinct functions critical for jaw formation and performance, namely (1) recruiting 22 equiv of Cu2+, (2) mediating a liquid-liquid phase separation of the MTP-copper complex, (3) catalyzing the oxidation of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (Dopa) to melanin, (4) templating the interfacial polymerization of melanin, (5) integrating melanin and itself into thin films and fibers, and (6) providing intermolecular cohesion through Cu bridging. MTP achieves all these by assuming unprecedented roles as a building block, organizer, and fabricator -- a processing feat of considerable relevance to the autonomous production of other polymer composites, blends, and/or networks. Image credit: Wonderly et al., doi: 10.1016/j.matt.2022.04.001.

Study: Bloodworms Use Copper Harvested From Marine Sediments to Form Their Unique Jaws

Apr 26, 2022 by News Staff

Bloodworms Glycera dibranchiata are known for their unusual jaws, which are made of protein (∼50% w/w), ionic and mineralized copper (up to 10%), and...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Time Might Not Actually Exist, Researchers Say

Apr 22, 2022 by The Conversation

In a new book published by the Oxford University Press, Australian Catholic University’s Dr. Sam Baron and his colleagues provide the first systematic...

Sahara Desert. Image credit: Hicham Atatri.

Dust from West Africa Crosses Atlantic Ocean, New Study Says

Apr 21, 2022 by News Staff

New research also suggests that dust transport from the Sahara to the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, which could be further transported downstream towards the...

The green fuel (alcohol) is represented by the green-colored droplets at the top of the image, which upon interacting with curcumin enveloped gold nanoparticles, efficiently yield energy (white-colored sparks at the bottom of the image). Image credit: Sri Sai Prasad Nayak / Lakshman Ventrapragada.

Scientists Use Curcumin to Create Highly Efficient Electrode

Apr 19, 2022 by News Staff

A team of researchers from India and the United States has combined curcumin, a molecule that was first extracted from the roots of Curcuma longa (turmeric),...

Speleothems in Yonderup Cave, Yanchep National Park, Western Australia. Image credit: Andy Baker.

Researchers Reconstruct Australia’s Fire History from Cave Stalagmite

Apr 18, 2022 by News Staff

A stalagmite from Yonderup Cave, a shallow cave in Western Australia, preserved a record of fire events and climate conditions. Speleothems in Yonderup...

Hwang et al. studied the capillary-induced coalescence of swelling pasta; they observed that, as pasta is cooked (hence, swollen and softened), capillary action more easily deforms the noodle, and two pasta noodles can coalesce with the shorter stick length: (a) picture of spaghetti aglio e olio; capillary adhesion between the noodles is induced by olive oil seasoned with garlic and pepper; (b) pasta radial and axial growth over time at 100 degrees Celsius cooking due to hygroscopic swelling; radial strain grows up to 70% of its original and axial strain up to 40% of its original after 30 min of cooking (at 100 degrees Celsius); pasta cross section shows color-gradient before it is sufficiently cooked. Image credit: Hwang et al., doi: 10.1063/5.0083696.

New Math Model Describes Swelling, Elasticity and Adhesion of Pasta as It Cooks

Apr 15, 2022 by News Staff

In new research, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has documented how pasta — composed of starch granules —...

A thermophotovoltaic cell (size 1 x 1 cm) mounted on a heat sink designed to measure the TPV cell efficiency. Image credit: Felice Frankel.

Researchers Develop Highly Efficient Heat Engine

Apr 14, 2022 by News Staff

The newly-developed heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic cell that captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity...