Europe’s earliest Homo sapiens seemed to have vanished without a genetic legacy — but genomic studies now show otherwise.
IBM’s NorthPole processor sidesteps need to access external memory, boosting computing power and saving energy.
If you pause for a second and think about the activities that occupy most of your day, presumably sleeping, eating, and engaging in social interactions are among the first that come to your mind. Perhaps surprisingly, a small area buried deep inside the brain, called the hypothalamus, is responsible for coordinating neuronal signals related to these activities. By controlling the homeostasis of the neuroendocrine, limbic, and autonomic nervous systems, the hypothalamus is a key brain region for many physiological and pathological processes. Despite its small size, the hypothalamus has a complex cellular organization and circuitry that determine its structural and functional organization. It is composed of 11 nuclei grouped by their location and has vast, mostly bidirectional connections with many neuronal and endocrine systems.
Plants bred or engineered to be short can stand up better to windstorms. They could also boost yields and benefit the environment
To an interstate traveler—or anyone lost in a corn maze—the most impressive feature of corn is its stature. Modern corn can grow twice as tall as a person, but height has drawbacks, making the plants vulnerable to wind and more difficult for farmers to tend. Plant scientists think corn can be improved by making it shorter, and leading seed companies are doing that through both conventional breeding and genetic engineering. Bayer has launched a short variety in Mexico, another company is selling its versions in the United States, and more are getting involved.
Genetic changes to avian influenza viruses have led to spread among many wild species, creating an uncontrollable global outbreak.
Researchers catalogue more than 3,000 different types of cell in our most complex organ.
Recent studies evaluate risks associated with drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro.
Past the halfway point, Extremely Large Telescope prepares to receive first mirrors
A web of steel girders is rising from the flattened summit of Cerro Armazones, 3000 meters above sea level in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The dome it will support will be vast—with a footprint as big as a soccer field and almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty— and unexpectedly nimble: It will smoothly rotate on rails as a giant telescope inside tracks stars through the night.
Co-developer of biotech’s drug couldn’t supply original data
Gas could replace fossil fuels and fight climate change—if it is made cleanly
Through the lenses of powerful microscopes, scientists discover unexpected secrets about these fragile creatures that can be adapted and applied to make our world better and more sustainable. This film is a journey into the nano-dimensions of butterflies, taking viewers from high-tech labs to dense forests and lavender fields around the world. We take a close look at the iconic morpho butterfly and find out how its iridescent blue wings reveal a way to produce structural color, a discovery which allows researchers to control light.
Physicist Chunlei Guo, whose work involves reproducing butterfly structures, has created a material capable of absorbing all the colors of the spectrum, a discovery that might revolutionize the field of renewable energies. He is also investigating how the amazing hydrophobic properties of butterfly wings could be used to create an unsinkable metal, which could be useful for constructing floating cities if ocean levels continue to rise.
The blue morpho, the industrious silk moth, the transparent glasswing butterfly, the resistant Heliconius, the enigmatic monarch and the delicate white cabbage butterfly – all have inspired discoveries. These have taken place in many different scientific fields, including energy efficiency and medicine — and even in the detection of toxins, thereby helping save lives in the event of chemical or gas attacks. We take a look at the work of researchers, biologists and geneticists.
We also talk to experts, such as physicist and biomimicry expert Serge Berthier, as well as to Jessica Ware, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History, about butterflies’ incredible behaviors and capacities. Tiny as they are, butterflies and moths can inspire groundbreaking scientific progress. And they also serve as a warning about what’s at stake if we fail to protect our extraordinary natural environment.
The test 30 years ago of what remote sensing could tell us about our own planet shows the value of looking with unbiased eyes at what we think we already know.
Analysis of carved inscriptions more than 1,000 years old suggests the prominence of the Viking queen Thyra.
Samples of asteroid Bennu delivered by the OSIRIS-REx mission contain carbon, water and other ingredients from the primordial Solar System.
Scary play lets people—and other animals—rehearse coping skills for disturbing challenges in the real world
By Coltan Scrivner and Athena Aktipis
The Endangered Species Act requires that every U.S. plant and animal be saved from extinction, but after 50 years, we have to do much more to prevent a biodiversity crisis
Advances are increasing the supply of organs. But this isn’t enough. Enter the genetically modified donor pig
By Tanya Lewis
HARVARD MAGAZINE November-December 2023 :
Diet, cooking, and the human microbiome
IN THE LATE 2000s, Rachel Carmody was spending a lot of time counting calories. An anthropology graduate student at Harvard, she was studying whether cooking changed the number of calories the gut can extract from food. When humans invented cooking thousands of years ago, she and her advisor Richard Wrangham wondered, had they opened the door to a new source of energy?
DURING THE past two decades, the number of annual cancer deaths in the United States has fallen by 27 percent, a remarkable improvement driven by new precision diagnoses and treatments tailored to individual patients. Today, oncologists can detect cancer in its earliest stages and deliver drugs that enlist the patient’s own immune system to improve their odds of survival. Yet cancer remains the second deadliest disease in the United States, claiming more than 600,000 lives every year. Its persistence underscores the urgent need for a deeper understanding of how cancer interacts with the body. Assistant professor of neurology Humsa Venkatesh believes she may have found a promising new pathway for highly effective cancer treatments in the most unexpected of places: the human brain.
Video timeline: 0:00 NASA’s mission 0:46 The psyche asteroid 1:45 Why metal matters 3:04 What we can learn from the mission
The rocky inner planets of our solar system are thought to have mostly metallic cores. WSJ breaks down why this mission matters and what it could tell us about Earth’s origins.
A cell census provides information on the source of human brain specialization
The brain is composed of multiple regions associated with distinct functions, which have become further specialized in the human lineage. To define how this specialization is implemented, how it arises during development, and how it has emerged over the course of human evolution, a detailed understanding of the cells that make up the human brain is required.
Some whale populations are exhibiting unexpected cycles of boom and bust
Boomers Daily 