Category: Life
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Listen. Without listening…
Brain activity synchronizes with sound waves, even without audible sound, through lip-reading, according to new research published in JNeurosci. Bourguignon et al. used magnetoencephalography to measure brain activity in healthy adults while they listened to a story or watched a silent video of a woman speaking. The participants’ auditory cortices synchronized with sound waves produced […]
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Remembering…
A study published in Science Advances found that certain types of materials have a “memory” of how they were processed, stored, and manipulated. Researchers were then able to use this memory to control how a material ages and to encode specific properties that allow it to perform new functions. This creative approach for designing materials […]
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Tractionless movement.
Understanding how cells move autonomously is a fundamental question for both biologists and physicists. Experiments on cell motility are commonly done by looking at the motion of a cell on a glass slide under a microscope. In those conditions, cells are observed to “crawl” on the surface. Crawling is well understood: cells attach themselves to […]
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Mother. Child. Cosmos.
Mothers’ and babies’ brains can work together as a ‘mega-network’ by synchronising brain waves when they interact. The level of connectivity of the brain waves varies according to the mum’s emotional state: when mothers express more positive emotions their brain becomes much more strongly connected with their baby’s brain. This may help the baby to […]
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Recycling… Identity issues…
The secret to a long life? For worms, a cellular recycling protein is key. Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have shown that worms live longer lives if they produce excess levels of a protein, p62, which recognizes toxic cell proteins that are tagged for destruction. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, could […]
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