Summary: New research suggests that mood swings in bipolar disorder are regulated by two clocks: the body’s 24-hour circadian rhythm and a dopamine-based clock that influences alertness. When these clocks…
Category: Life
Cricket frogs belly flop their way across water
Cricket frogs were once thought to hop on the water’s surface. They actually leap in and out of the water in a form of locomotion called porpoising.
Fever’s link with a key kind of immunity is surprisingly ancient
When sick, Nile tilapia seek warmer water. That behavioral fever triggers a specialized immune response, hinting the connection evolved long ago.
European farmers concerned about climate change push to ground EU’s ‘Green Deal’ because of it restricts crop gene editing
Leveraging the proposed European Green Deal (EGD) announced in December 2019, the EU aims to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Growing evidence of a more unstable climate is…
AI Mimics Toddler-Like Learning to Unlock Human Cognition
Summary: A new AI model, based on the PV-RNN framework, learns to generalize language and actions in a manner similar to toddlers by integrating vision, proprioception, and language instructions. Unlike…
Long COVID Impairs Exercise Capacity and Cognition for Years
Summary: A study of nearly 1,000 people with post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) revealed that two-thirds still experienced significant symptoms, including reduced exercise capacity and cognitive performance, two years after infection. Persistent…
Carlos Matallana-Puerto ¡Los tricomas resbaladizos influyen en el éxito reproductivo de las flores trampa! (Español) – Functional Ecologists
En este nuevo post, Carlos Matallana-Puerto, doctorando de la Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brasil), presenta su trabajo “Sex, flies, and flower trap: trapping trichomes and their function in polination“. Habla…
Mole or marsupial? This subterranean critter with a backward pouch is both
Evolving a dig-in-the-dark mole lifestyle comes with radical anatomical changes, making it hard even to guess the animal’s closest relatives. That’s why the true identity of Australia’s most enigmatic and…
Breakthrough Institute report: ‘Why genetically engineered microbes need a pathway to market’
Genetically engineered microbes need a pathway to market. Fertilizer runoff and nitrous oxide emissions remain massive issues for agricultural climate and environmental impacts, and damage from disease, drought, and high…
Targeting Reward Pathways to Treat Depression
Summary: New research highlights how the brain’s reward-learning system can guide personalized treatments for depression. By studying two brain signals, expected value and prediction error, researchers identified markers that predict…
