In this week’s blog post, we’re working together to beat the cold! Discussing their paper: “Endogenous colony dormancy shapes seasonal cold tolerance in temperate ants” author Quentin Willot – a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoc at Namur…
Category: Life
Ape cuddles could prevent conflicts
Humans could learn from chimpanzees and bonobos, who turn to group members for physical comfort during tense moments.
Why Food Tastes Different After Coffee
Summary: A new study presents the first direct electrophysiological evidence showing how caffeine modulates taste perception at the organoid level. The researchers developed a biomimetic taste sensor by coupling 3D…
AI Make-Believe Allows Deep Emotional Bonds Without Moral Guilt
Summary: Framing AI chatbots as fictional characters resolves a major paradox in human-computer interaction: why people express deep emotional attachment to AI while simultaneously experiencing no moral hesitation when wiping…
Reduced Brain Network Flexibility Across Psychiatric Conditions
Summary: Researchers reveal that reduced dynamic brain flexibility, or “flattened” network dynamics, not only distinguishes psychiatric patients from healthy controls, but tracks individual symptom fingerprints far more accurately than standard…
Risk Genes for Borderline Personality Disorder Discovered
Summary: Researchers identified 11 independent genomic risk regions (loci) and 9 specific candidate genes linked to BPD development. The study establishes that common genetic variants account for 17.3% of the…
Study Links Childhood Unpredictability to Mental Health
Summary: A study establishes childhood unpredictability as a distinct risk factor for youth mental health. Screening nearly 30,000 children across 19 pediatric clinics, the team found that inconsistent household routines…
Deep-sea snails ride surface currents to reach distant hydrothermal vents
The ocean is giving up one of its secrets: how members of the same species can turn up at far-flung deep-sea hydrothermal vents. An epic migration up to — and…
Are we edging closer to precisely, and safely, editing human embryos?
On June 1, an international group of industry and academic collaborators, led by geneticist Dieter Egli at Columbia University, released a preprint on bioRxiv demonstrating the use of base editing in human embryos (2026,…
