News
- Neuroscience
Busy neurons don’t always draw blood
Study of mice suggests caution in inferring the activity of the brain’s neurons from functional MRI results.
- Life
Animal source of Ebola outbreak eludes scientists
Researchers are trying to determine whether bats or bush meat transmitted the Ebola virus to people in West Africa.
- Life
Grizzly bears master healthy obesity
Tuned insulin signals explain how grizzly bears can fatten up for hibernation in the winter without developing diabetes.
- Oceans
World’s largest ocean dead zone may shrink as Earth warms
North Pacific dead zone may grow smaller, not expand, as climate change weakens Pacific Ocean trade winds.
- Psychology
Bilingual homes may give babies a learning lift
Hearing two languages during the first six months of life linked to an early mental advantage.
- Computing
Brain-inspired computer chip mimics 1 million neurons
By processing data in parallel, computer chips modeled after the human brain could perform certain tasks, such as pattern recognition, faster and more energy-efficiently than traditional computers.
- Health & Medicine
New tests screen for lethal prion disease
Urine and nasal swabs can detect small amounts of the abnormal prions that cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
- Planetary Science
Rosetta spacecraft confabs with a comet
After a 10-year chase, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has met up with comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
- Astronomy
Single black hole may be masquerading as a pair
New observations of a recently discovered binary black hole reveal that astronomers may have been seeing double.
- Life
Airborne transmission of Ebola unlikely, monkey study shows
No evidence found of macaque monkeys passing deadly virus to each other.
- Genetics
Debate rages over mouse studies’ relevance to humans
Last year, researchers said rodents are not good mimics of human inflammation; a new study says the reverse.
- Astronomy
Gamma rays streaming from stellar explosions stump astronomers
The Fermi satellite detected gamma rays coming from an unexpected source — and astronomers don’t understand what made that possible.
