This Is Why You Forget Some Things And Remember Others
Westend61 via Getty Images Remembering to do something is actually a complex cognitive process. This morning, heading out the door to take my 9-year-old daughter to school, I patted my pockets to confirm “phone-keys-wallet.” This is a little ritual intended to keep me from having to run back for any of these essential items, or, […]
Designers find better solutions with computer assistance, but sacrifice creative touch
From building software to designing cars, engineers grapple with complex design situations every day. ‘Optimizing a technical system, whether it’s making it more usable or energy-efficient, is a very hard problem!’ says Antti Oulasvirta, professor of electrical engineering at Aalto University and the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence. Designers often rely on a mix of […]
Viruses in the gut may warn of a deadly disease in preterm infants
Immediately after birth, human infants begin to develop a complex, interwoven fabric of microbes in their gut. Known collectively as the gut microbiome, this diverse ecosystem consists of bacteria, archaea, viruses and fungi, numbering in the billions. All have important roles to play in health and disease and researchers are racing to better understand their […]
Pre-school children’s emotional eating partly shaped by innate food drive
New research at Aston University is helping to unpick the complex connections between the eating habits of children and their mothers. The research, by PhD student Rebecca Stone, surveyed 185 mothers of young children aged between three and five, asking about their eating habits and those of their children. The findings are published in the […]
Critical benefits of snowpack for winter wheat are diminishing
University of Minnesota scientists are partnering with a global team to study the complex effects of climate change on winter crops. Warming winters may sound like a welcome change for some farmers because the change in temperature could reduce freezing stress on plants and create more ideal conditions for growing overwinter cash crops and winter […]
Boosting the immune defense: Interleukin-2 promotes fate decisions in CD8 T cells for long- or short-term immune protection
The immune system is a complex network of cells and proteins with a simple job. Defend the body against infection. To do that, the cells must recognize and destroy infecting viruses or bacteria. In addition, the system also has to keep a record of each pathogen it has defeated, so it can quickly remobilize if […]
Juno and Hubble data reveal electromagnetic ‘tug-of-war’ lights up Jupiter’s upper atmosphere
New Leicester space research has revealed, for the first time, a complex ‘tug-of-war’ lights up aurorae in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, using a combination of data from NASA’s Juno probe and the Hubble Space Telescope. The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, describes the delicate current cycle driven by Jupiter’s rapid rotation […]
Complex three-dimensional kidney tissue generated in the lab from the scratch
A research team based in Kumamoto University (Japan) has created complex 3D kidney tissue in the lab solely from cultured mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. These organoids could lead the way to better kidney research and, eventually, artificial kidneys for human transplant. By focusing on an often-overlooked tissue type of organoid generation research, a type […]
Persistence pays off in the human gut microbiome
The human gut microbiome is a complex community of trillions of microbes that are constantly interacting with each other and our bodies. It supports our wellbeing, immune system and mental health — but how is it sustained? Researchers in the UK and Germany, alongside other international collaborators, have investigated the evolution of bacteria in the […]
Coffee Causes This One Arrhythmia, Trial Shows
Coffee consumption had a complex relationship with arrhythmias, a randomized trial with real-time electrocardiography patch monitoring showed. Premature atrial contractions weren’t caused by coffee consumption, whereas premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) were, reported Gregory Marcus, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, at the American Heart Association (AHA) virtual meeting. PVCs were 54% more likely […]