Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Neuroscience
Despite Alzheimer’s plaques, some seniors remain mentally sharp
Plaques and tangles riddle the brains of some very old and very healthy people.
- Neuroscience
Protein linked to Parkinson’s travels from gut to brain
Parkinson’s protein can travel from gut to brain, mouse study suggests.
- Health & Medicine
Chinese patient is first to be treated with CRISPR-edited cells
Researchers used CRISPR/Cas9 to engineer immune cells that were then injected into a patient with lung cancer, the journal Nature reports.
- Paleontology
Dinosaurs may have used color as camouflage
Fossilized pigments could paint a vivid picture of a dinosaur’s life.
- Animals
Skimpy sea ice linked to reindeer starvation on land
Unseasonably scant sea ice may feed rain storms inland that lead to ice catastrophes that kill Yamal reindeer and threaten herders’ way of life.
- Climate
Skimpy sea ice linked to reindeer starvation on land
Unseasonably scant sea ice may feed rain storms inland that lead to ice catastrophes that kill Yamal reindeer and threaten herders’ way of life.
- Neuroscience
Sounds and glowing screens impair mouse brains
Too much light and noise screws up developing mice’s brains.
- Climate
There’s something cool about Arctic bird poop
Ammonia from seabird poop helps brighten clouds in the Arctic, slightly cooling the region’s climate.
- Neuroscience
Infant brains have powerful reactions to fear
Babies can recognize facial emotions, especially fear, as early as 5 months old.
- Life
Lichens are an early warning system for forest health
Lichens, fascinating mosaics of fungi and algae or cyanobacteria, are made for sensing environmental change.
- Neuroscience
Zap to the head leads to fat loss
Stimulating the vestibular nerve led people to shed fat in a small trial.
- Life
Website turns Alzheimer’s research into a game
A new game assists Alzheimer’s researchers in the hunt for stalled blood vessels in the brains of mice.
