Daily Steps Tied to Lower Teen Depression

Summary: A longitudinal study tracking more than 5,500 American adolescents reveals that higher daily step counts directly correlate with fewer mental health issues one year later. Led by researchers at…

How the Body Clock and Cold Team Up to Burn Fat

Summary: Metabolic researchers led by the University of Copenhagen have discovered that a little-known mitochondrial transporter, SLC25A34, acts as a master energetic switch in brown fat. The protein integrates signals…

Why Cannabis Can Suddenly Trigger Panic

Summary: Neuroscientists at Northwestern University have pinpointed a specific population of neurons that drives acute anxiety following exposure to cannabinoid compounds under stressful conditions. Published in Nature Communications, the preclinical…

Can an AI Ever Truly Be “Conscious” in the Eyes of Humans?

Humans refuse to attribute consciousness to AI even when it acts identically to a human.

Comparing Current Appearance to Past Selves Harms Body Image

Summary: A new psychometric study from The Ohio State University reveals that comparing our current body to former versions of ourselves is just as harmful to mental health as comparing…

Could Your Voice Reveal How Fast Your Brain Is Aging?

Summary: A multicenter study of nearly 3,000 individuals published in Science Advances reveals that machine-learning models can infer a person’s biological age and brain health from vocal patterns. This newly…

Neurodevelopmental Syndrome Linked to Partial Loss of BRSK1

Summary: Using the artificial intelligence tool AI-MARRVEL alongside functional fruit fly models, researchers have identified rare variants in the BRSK1 gene as the underlying cause of an undiagnosed neurodevelopmental condition.…

Flawed AI Summaries Distort Eyewitness Memory

Summary: AI-generated summaries can manipulate eyewitness memory, causing people to misremember events they witnessed firsthand. In a controlled experiment, exposure to misleading automated summaries nearly halved participants’ recall accuracy, implanting…

Mitochondria in the Brain’s Reward Hub Drive Nicotine Dependence

Summary: Supported by a $943,000 NIH grant, neuroscientists at the University of Central Florida are investigating how nicotine alters neuronal mitochondria within the nucleus accumbens. By examining the subcellular mechanisms…

Firsthand Experience Dictates Social Judgment

Summary: When public reputation clashes with direct personal experience, people prioritize their own history over social gossip to judge non-cooperation. A new study reveals an asymmetric moral calculus: while helping…