Tag Archives: The Brain

Research Preview: Science Magazine – July 19, 2024

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Science Magazine – July 18, 2024: The new issue features ‘INSIDE OUT’ – Titanium dioxide dehydrogenates propane with help from buried nickel nanoparticles…

The benefits of GLP-1 drugs beyond obesity

Glucagon-like peptide–1–based medicines have weight loss–independent actions

A hard fruit to swallow

Foraging niches become more specialized toward bird range limits

Scientists at odds over wild plans to slow melting glaciers

Call to study glacial geoengineering stirs up “civil war” among polar scientists

Research Preview: Science Magazine – July 12, 2024

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Science Magazine – July 11, 2024: The new issue features ‘Stealth Fungus’ – White-nosed pathogen evades bat skin defenses…

Can ‘cow flu’ be eliminated—or is it too late?

Feeble government response and lack of industry cooperation hamper U.S. control efforts

Accusations sting bee ‘odometer’ studies

Scientists allege irregularities in papers on how honey bees gauge distance

Ancient crystals show plate tectonics began early

Hardy zircons suggest subduction of ocean crust began 4 billion years ago

Stunning 3D chromosomes preserved in thawed mammoths

“New type of fossil” may boost efforts to bring beasts back

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 28, 2024

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Science Magazine – June 27, 2024: The new issue features ‘Trilobites in Detail’ – Fossils preserved in a pyroclastic flow illuminate previously unknown features…

The perfect pesticide? RNA kills crop-destroying beetles with unprecedented accuracy

New approach leaves other creatures unharmed. “You cannot get anything better than this”

Could super-Earths or mini-Neptunes host life among the stars?

As the hunt for habitable Earth-like planets stalls, astronomers are turning to bigger worlds

This biologist aims to solve the cell’s biggest mystery. Could it help cancer patients, too?

Four decades after his lab found odd, massive particles inside cells, Leonard Rome is still determined to figure out what “vaults” do

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 21, 2024

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Science Magazine – June 20, 2024: The new issue features ‘Getting Closer’ – Environmental change increases the value of social tolerance…

Wild poliovirus makes comeback in Afghanistan and Pakistan

2024 target of ending all transmission will likely be missed

Ancient earthquake likely rerouted the Ganges

Discovery of new seismic concern stokes flooding fear for densely populated delta region

No place like home

The hunt for Earth-like planets has run into headwinds. Some astronomers are looking for signs of habitability on bigger worlds

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 14, 2024

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Science Magazine – June 13, 2024: The new issue features ‘Follow The Leader’ – A surface layer ensures photoactive perovskite growth….

Hubble telescope down to last gyroscopes, limiting science

Despite failing hardware, NASA has no plans to pursue a servicing mission to the aging, iconic instrument

Astronauts face health risks—even on short trips in space

New studies include health data collected from space tourists on first privately funded orbital mission

Sacrificed Maya boys tied to myth of ‘Hero Twins’

Ancient DNA shows continuity between living and ancient Maya communities

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 7, 2024

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Science Magazine – June 6, 2024: The new issue features ‘Cellular Deformation’ – Rapidly stretching Protists snag a snack…

Little-known virus is on the rise in South America

Deforestation and climate change may be helping Oropouche virus spread far beyond the Amazon Basin

‘Google for DNA’ indexes 10% of world’s known sequence data

Achievement demonstrates feasibility of making all of life’s code easily searchable, researchers say

The evolution of thermogenesis in mammals

Comparative genomics elucidates the steps enabling heat production in fat tissue

Research Preview: Science Magazine – May 31, 2024

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Science Magazine – May 230, 2024: The new issue features ‘Cuckoo Coevolution’ – Host matching drives lineage divergence…

After crisis in interstellar space, stream of Voyager 1 data resumes

Before its computer crashed, venerable NASA probe may have entered mysterious new region beyond the Solar System

Theory of sleep as a brain cleanser challenged

Mouse study contradicts landmark finding, but some question its methodology

Mysterious sea urchin plague is spreading rapidly

Pathogen that kills victims within days leaps from Caribbean to Red Sea

Research Preview: Science Magazine – May 24, 2024

Science Magazine – May 23, 2024: The new issue features ‘Decoding the Brain’ – A cell-by-cell exploration of neuropsychiatry; Does a breakdown in the body’s internal chatter drive aging…

Decoding the Brain

A cell-by-cell look at neuropsychiatric diseases

Mapping the brain’s gene-regulatory maze

DNA sequences are connected to genes and functions in the developing and adult brain

How the German cockroach conquered the world

DNA study implicates medieval warfare and colonial trade

Research: New Scientist Magazine – Feb 24, 2024

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New Scientist Magazine (February 22, 2024): This issue features ‘The Human Brain’ – How it works, why it fails and the secrets to using it better…

New evidence finally reveals how male and female brains really differ

The strange truth about why thinking hard makes you feel exhausted

Why the brain’s microbiome could hold the key to curing Alzheimer’s

Supercommunicators review: Learning how to change deeply held beliefs

Are you truly healthy? These new tests provide the ultimate check-up

How we will discover the mysterious origins of life once and for all

With privacy concerns rising, can we teach AI chatbots to forget?

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Nov 20, 2023

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The New Yorker – November 20, 2023 issue: The new issue features The A.I. Issue – Joshua Rothman on the godfather of A.I., Eyal Press on facial-recognition technology, Anna Wiener on Holly Herndon, and more…

Why the Godfather of A.I. Fears What He’s Built

Geoffrey Hinton has spent a lifetime teaching computers to learn. Now he worries that artificial brains are better than ours.

By Joshua Rothman

In your brain, neurons are arranged in networks big and small. With every action, with every thought, the networks change: neurons are included or excluded, and the connections between them strengthen or fade. This process goes on all the time—it’s happening now, as you read these words—and its scale is beyond imagining. You have some eighty billion neurons sharing a hundred trillion connections or more. Your skull contains a galaxy’s worth of constellations, always shifting.

Does A.I. Lead Police to Ignore Contradictory Evidence?

A profile of a face overlaid with various panels.

Too often, a facial-recognition search represents virtually the entirety of a police investigation.


By Eyal Press

On March 26, 2022, at around 8:20 a.m., a man in light-blue Nike sweatpants boarded a bus near a shopping plaza in Timonium, outside Baltimore. After the bus driver ordered him to observe a rule requiring passengers to wear face masks, he approached the fare box and began arguing with her. “I hit bitches,” he said, leaning over a plastic shield that the driver was sitting behind. When she pulled out her iPhone to call the police, he reached around the shield, snatched the device, and raced off. The bus driver followed the man outside, where he punched her in the face repeatedly. He then stood by the curb, laughing, as his victim wiped blood from her nose.

Personal HistoryA Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft

Coding has always felt to me like an endlessly deep and rich domain. Now I find myself wanting to write a eulogy for it.

By James Somers