Neuroscie
Thrill Fatigue: How Dopamine Devalues Repeated Rewards
Summary: New research shows that the same dopamine receptor mechanism responsible for drug addiction also governs the natural decline in motivation when we repeat rewarding behaviors. By studying male fruit…
AI Interviews Outperform Standard Mental Health Rating Scales
Summary: A new study demonstrates that an AI assistant can conduct psychiatric assessment interviews with greater diagnostic accuracy than widely used mental health rating scales. In a sample of 303…
Shocking Disparities: Women Face Higher Risk of ECT
Summary: A large international survey of 858 electroconvulsive therapy recipients found that women are twice as likely as men to receive ECT and experience more adverse effects. Women reported higher…
Maternal Stress Speeds Up Baby Teething
Summary: New research shows that infants whose mothers had higher cortisol levels during late pregnancy experience significantly earlier eruption of primary teeth. Babies of mothers with the highest cortisol levels…
Life
Nature
Newfound bat skeletons are the oldest on record
Two fossilized bat skeletons unearthed in western Wyoming represent a new species and are the oldest set of bat bones yet discovered, researchers say. The incredibly complete fossils of Icaronycteris…
Astronomy
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was Earth’s first real-life defense test
Artist’s depiction of an asteroid floating in space. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), Martin Kornmesser (ESA), Serge Brunier (ESO), Nick Risinger (Photopic Sky Survey) At this point in…
How do you fire someone into the sun?
Firing our villain straight at the Sun results in a big miss. Credit: Michael Brown, CC BY To point a rocket directly at the sun and hit would require great…
Cosmic ray puzzle resolved as scientists link ‘knee’ formation to black holes
LHAASO experiment. Credit: LHAASO Collaboration Milestone results released by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) on November 16 have solved a decades-old mystery about the cosmic ray energy…
If the supernova standard candle is wrong, it could solve the Hubble tension
An illustration showing how Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs) expand with the universe. Credit: Gabriela Secara, Perimeter Institute CC-BY-4.0 Last time I wrote about new data that overturns the standard cosmological…
