Ian Sample Science editor Researchers have given people a taste of superhuman vision after creating contact lenses that allow them to see infrared light, a band of the electromagnetic spectrum that is invisible to the naked eye. Unlike night vision goggles, the contact lenses need no power source, and because they are transparent, wearers can see infrared and all the normal visible colours of light at the same time. Prof Tian Xue, a neuroscientist at the University of Science and Technology of China, said the work paved the way for a range of contact lenses, glasses and other wearable devices that give people “super-vision”. The technology could also help people with colour blindness, he added. The lenses are the latest breakthrough driven by the team’s desire to extend human vision beyond its natural, narrow range. The wavelengths of light that humans can see make up less than one hundredth of a per cent of the electromagnetic spectrum. Dr Yuqian Ma, a researcher on the project, said: “Over half of the solar radiation energy, existing as infrared light, remains imperceptible to humans.” The rainbow of colours visible to humans spans wavelengths from 400 to 700 nanometres (a nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre). But many other animals sense the world differently. Birds, bees, reindeer and mice can see ultraviolet light, wavelengths too short for humans to perceive. Meanwhile, some snakes and vampire bats have organs that detect far-infrared, or thermal radiation, which helps them hunt for prey. To extend humans’ range of vision and enhance our experience of the world, the scientists developed what are called upconversion nanoparticles. The particles absorb infrared light and re-emit it as visible light. For the study, the scientists chose particles that absorb near-infrared light, comprising wavelengths that are just too long for humans to perceive, and converted it into visible red, green or blue light. © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Vision; Robotics
Link ID: 29804 - Posted: 05.24.2025

Dobromir Rahnev Is it possible to upload the consciousness of your mind into a computer? – Amreen, age 15, New Delhi, India The concept, cool yet maybe a little creepy, is known as mind uploading. Think of it as a way to create a copy of your brain, a transmission of your mind and consciousness into a computer. There you would live digitally, perhaps forever. You’d have an awareness of yourself, you’d retain your memories and still feel like you. But you wouldn’t have a body. Within that simulated environment, you could do anything you do in real life – eating, driving a car, playing sports. You could also do things impossible in the real world, like walking through walls, flying like a bird or traveling to other planets. The only limit is what science can realistically simulate. Doable? Theoretically, mind uploading should be possible. Still, you may wonder how it could happen. After all, researchers have barely begun to understand the brain. Yet science has a track record of turning theoretical possibilities into reality. Just because a concept seems terribly, unimaginably difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Consider that science took humankind to the Moon, sequenced the human genome and eradicated smallpox. Those things too were once considered unlikely. As a brain scientist who studies perception, I fully expect mind uploading to one day be a reality. But as of today, we’re nowhere close. Learn about the latest, most interesting health and science research © 2010–2025, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Consciousness; Robotics
Link ID: 29803 - Posted: 05.24.2025

By Meredith Wadman For people who wear a cumbersome mask to bed to avoid the life-threatening, long-term effects of a serious breathing disease, the prospect of shedding the headgear for a single pill taken at bedtime has been the stuff of dreams. Now, those dreams appear likely to become reality for at least some people with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), who stop breathing dozens or hundreds of times during the night, causing their blood oxygen to drop before they subconsciously awake. Top-line results from a large clinical trial, released this week, showed a combination of two medications in one pill stimulates muscles that keep the airway open, sharply decreasing breathing disruptions. “It’s pretty clear that this medication combination is reducing obstructive sleep apnea events. And it’s reducing the severity of oxygen drops during sleep. That is exciting,” says Sigrid Veasey, a sleep physician and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the study. “The effects are robust and have a good scientific basis,” she says. OSA affects an estimated 60 million to 80 million people in the United States, and about 1 billion globally. It comes with long-term risks including stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and sudden cardiac death. And many people can’t or don’t comply with the gold standard therapy, burdensome continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines that blow air into the throat to keep the airway open, requiring the nocturnal mask. Driven like many before them to search for an alternative, scientists in Boston a decade ago identified a combination of two existing medications that kept the upper airway open by jointly stimulating the relevant muscles, particularly the genioglossus, a workhorse that forms most of the base of the tongue and is critical to keeping the throat open. © 2025 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 29802 - Posted: 05.24.2025

By Maggie Astor Billy Joel has canceled his upcoming concerts because of a brain disorder affecting his hearing, vision and balance, the singer-songwriter announced on Friday. The condition, called normal pressure hydrocephalus, or N.P.H., is estimated to affect hundreds of thousands of older Americans. Here’s what to know about it. What is normal pressure hydrocephalus? N.P.H. occurs when excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the brain, causing difficulty walking, trouble controlling one’s bladder and memory problems. Those symptoms together suggest the disorder. The bladder symptoms can include incontinence and waking up at night to urinate with increasing frequency, said Dr. Charles Matouk, a neurosurgeon at Yale University and director of the university’s Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus Program. A statement posted to Mr. Joel’s social media accounts on Friday said his condition had been “exacerbated by recent concert performances.” N.P.H. is rare, but risk increases with age. Dr. Matouk estimated that it might affect less than 1 percent of the population ages 65 to 80, but likely 5 percent or more of people over 80. Experts say the condition is likely underdiagnosed because its symptoms can easily be dismissed as normal effects of aging. Dr. Matouk urged people to see a doctor if they experienced trouble walking, controlling their bladder and remembering things. How is it diagnosed? When a patient shows up with gait, bladder and memory problems, the first test may be a CT scan or M.R.I. In patients with N.P.H., that imaging will show enlargement of the brain’s fluid-filled ventricles. But the conclusive test is a spinal tap: Because that procedure removes cerebrospinal fluid, patients with N.P.H. experience a temporary alleviation of symptoms, confirming the diagnosis, Dr. Matouk said. © 2025 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 29801 - Posted: 05.24.2025

By Sara Novak Just a few weeks after they hatch, baby male zebra finches begin to babble, spending much of the day testing their vocal chords. Dad helps out, singing to his hatchlings during feedings, so that the babies can internalize his tune, the same mating refrain shared by all male zebra finches. Soon, these tiny Australian birds begin to rehearse the song itself, repeating it up to 10,000 times a day, without any clear reward other than their increasing perfection of the melody. The baby birds’ painstaking devotion to mastering their song led Duke University neuroscientist Richard Mooney and his Duke colleague John Pearson to wonder whether the birds could help us better understand the nature of self-directed learning. In humans, language and musical expression are thought to be self-directed—spontaneous, adaptive and intrinsically reinforced. In a study recently published in Nature, the scientists tracked the brain signals and levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in reward and movement, in the brains of five male baby Zebra finches while they were singing. They also measured song quality for each rendition the birds sang, in terms of both pitch and vigor, as well as the quality of song performance relative to the bird’s age. What they found is that dopamine levels in the baby birds’ brains closely matched the birds’ performance of the song, suggesting it plays a central role in the learning process. Scientists have long known that learning that is powered by external rewards, such as grades, praise or sugary treats, is driven by dopamine—which is thought to chart the differences between expected and experienced rewards. But while they have suspected that self-directed learning is likewise guided by dopamine, it had been difficult to test that hypothesis until now. © 2025 NautilusNext Inc.,

Keyword: Attention; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 29800 - Posted: 05.24.2025

Jon Hamilton A new blood test that detects a hallmark of Alzheimer's is poised to change the way doctors diagnose and treat the disease. The test, the first of its kind to be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, is for people 55 and older who already have memory problems or other signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's. The results show whether the brain of a person with cognitive symptoms also has amyloid plaques, clumps of toxic proteins that build up in the spaces between brain cells. The presence of plaques in a person with cognitive symptoms usually confirms an Alzheimer's diagnosis. "I think the blood test is going to really revolutionize the way people with Alzheimer's are cared for and diagnosed," says Dr. Howard Fillit, chief science officer at the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. "Primary care physicians will now have access to something that can give them a quicker read" on whether a patient has Alzheimer's, says Maria Carrillo, chief science officer of the Alzheimer's Association. One benefit of a readily-available blood test will be more accurate diagnoses, Fillit says, noting that currently, primary care doctors correctly diagnose patients only about 60% of the time. "Specialty neurologists get it right like seventy, eighty percent of the time," He says. "With the blood test, we can get it up to over 90%." A PET scan is the gold standard for detecting the amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer's. But the technology is costly, and unavailable in many communities. © 2025 npr

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 29799 - Posted: 05.24.2025

By Gina Kolata Dr. Geoffrey Manley, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, wants the medical establishment to change the way it deals with brain injuries. His work is motivated in part by what happened to a police officer he treated in 2002, just after completing his medical training. The man arrived at the emergency room unconscious, in a coma. He had been in a terrible car crash while pursuing a criminal. Two days later, Dr. Manley’s mentor said it was time to tell the man’s family there was no hope. His life support should be withdrawn. He should be allowed to die. Dr. Manley resisted. The patient’s brain oxygen levels were encouraging. Seven days later the policeman was still in a coma. Dr. Manley’s mentor again pressed him to talk to the man’s family about withdrawing life support. Again, Dr. Manley resisted. Ten days after the accident, the policeman began to come out of his coma. Three years later he was back at work and was named San Francisco Police Officer of the Month. In 2010, he was Police Officer of the Year “That case, and another like it,” Dr. Manley said, “changed my practice.” But little has changed in the world of traumatic brain injuries since Dr. Manley’s patient woke up. Assessments of who will recover and how severely patients are injured are pretty much the same, which results in patients being told they “just” have a concussion, who then have trouble getting care for recurring symptoms like memory lapses or headaches. And it results in some patients in the position of that policemen, who have their life support withdrawn when they might have recovered. Now, though, Dr. Manley and 93 others from 14 countries are proposing a new way to evaluate patients. They published their classification system Tuesday in the journal Lancet Neurology. © 2025 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Consciousness
Link ID: 29798 - Posted: 05.21.2025

By Erin Wayman Barbara J. King remembers the first time she met Kanzi the bonobo. It was the late 1990s, and the ape was living in a research center in Georgia. King walked in and told Kanzi she had a present. A small, round object created a visible outline in the front pocket of her jeans. Kanzi picked up a board checkered with colorful symbols and pointed to the one meaning “egg” and then to “question.” An egg? No, not an egg. A ball. But “he asked an on-point question, and even an extremely simple conversation was just amazing,” says King, a biolog­ical anthropologist at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Born in 1980, Kanzi began learn­ing to communicate with symbols as an infant. He ultimately mastered more than 300 symbols, combined them in novel ways and understood spoken English. Kanzi was arguably the most accomplished among a cohort of “talking” apes that scientists in­tensely studied to understand the origins of language and to probe the ape mind. He was also the last of his kind. In March, Kanzi died. “It’s not just Kanzi that is gone; it’s this whole field of inquiry,” says comparative psychologist Heidi Lyn of the University of South Alabama in Mobile. Lyn had worked with Kanzi on and off for 30 years. Kanzi’s death offers an opportu­nity to reflect on what decades of ape-language experiments taught us — and at what cost. A history of ape-language experiments Language — communication marked by using symbols, grammar and syntax — has long been consid­ered among the abilities that make humans unique. And when it comes to delineating the exact boundary separating us from other animals, scientists often turn to our closest living relatives, the great apes. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2025.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 29797 - Posted: 05.21.2025

By Paula Span Kristin Kramer woke up early on a Tuesday morning 10 years ago because one of her dogs needed to go out. Then, a couple of odd things happened. When she tried to call her other dog, “I couldn’t speak,” she said. As she walked downstairs to let them into the yard, “I noticed that my right hand wasn’t working.” But she went back to bed, “which was totally stupid,” said Ms. Kramer, now 54, an office manager in Muncie, Ind. “It didn’t register that something major was happening,” especially because, reawakening an hour later, “I was perfectly fine.” So she “just kind of blew it off” and went to work. It’s a common response to the neurological symptoms that signal a T.I.A., a transient ischemic attack or ministroke. At least 240,000 Americans experience one each year, with the incidence increasing sharply with age. Because the symptoms disappear quickly, usually within minutes, people don’t seek immediate treatment, putting them at high risk for a bigger stroke. Ms. Kramer felt some arm tingling over the next couple of days and saw her doctor, who found nothing alarming on a CT scan. But then she started “jumbling” her words and finally had a relative drive her to an emergency room. By then, she could not sign her name.After an M.R.I., she recalled, “my doctor came in and said, ‘You’ve had a small stroke.’” Did those early-morning aberrations constitute a T.I.A.? Might a 911 call and an earlier start on anti-clotting drugs have prevented her stroke? “We don’t know,” Ms. Kramer said. She’s doing well now, but faced with such symptoms again, “I would seek medical attention.” Now, a large epidemiological study by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, published in JAMA Neurology, points to another reason to take T.I.A.s seriously: Over five years, study participants’ performance on cognitive tests after a T.I.A. drops as steeply as it does among victims of a full-on stroke. © 2025 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 29796 - Posted: 05.21.2025

Nicola Davis Science correspondent A new method for diagnosing brain tumours could cut the time patients wait for treatments by weeks to hours and raise the possibility of novel types of therapy, researchers have said. According to the Brain Tumour Charity, about 740,000 people around the world are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year, around half of which are non-cancerous. Once a brain tumour is found, a sample is taken during surgery and cells are immediately studied under a microscope by pathologists, who can often identify the type of tumour. However, genetic testing helps to make or confirm the diagnosis. “Almost all of the samples will go for further testing anyway. But for some of them it will be absolutely crucial, because you won’t know what you’re looking at,” said Prof Matthew Loose, a co-author of the research from the University of Nottingham. Loose noted that in the UK there could be a lag of eight weeks or longer between surgery and the full results of genetic tests, delaying the confirmation of a diagnosis and hence treatment such as chemotherapy. Writing in the journal Neuro-Oncology, Loose and colleagues report how they harnessed what is known as nanopore technology to cut this timeframe. The approach is based on devices that contain membranes featuring hundreds to thousands of tiny pores, each of which has an electric current passing through it. When DNA approaches a pore it is “unzipped” into single strands; as a strand passes through the pore it disrupts the electric current. Crucially, the different building blocks of DNA – and modifications to them – disrupt the current in characteristic ways, allowing the DNA to be “read”, or sequenced. These sequences are then compared against those relating to different types of brain tumours, using a software program built by the team. © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 29795 - Posted: 05.21.2025

By Mikael Angelo Francisco A comic explains the highs and lows of birdsong Mikael Angelo Francisco is a science journalist and illustrator from the Philippines who enjoys writing about paleontology, biodiversity, environment conservation, and science in pop culture. He has written and edited books about media literacy, Filipino scientists, and science trivia. © 2025 NautilusNext Inc.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 29794 - Posted: 05.21.2025

By Christina Caron When most people think of obsessive-compulsive disorder, they may picture behaviors they’ve seen on TV — like repetitive hand-washing, flicking light switches on and off and meticulously arranging small items over and over. But the disorder manifests in many other ways. Some patients obsess over thoughts that they might hurt someone, while others fixate on certain aspects of their personal relationships. The comedian Maria Bamford, for example, has called her O.C.D. “unwanted thoughts syndrome.” On “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” she shared a story about how she couldn’t stop thinking horrific thoughts about her family members. On social media, people describe many types of obsessions and compulsions: “relationship O.C.D.,” “sexual orientation O.C.D.” or “emotional contamination O.C.D.” These aren’t separate diagnoses, but rather they are different expressions of the same disorder — much like how people with phobias can suffer from different fears, said Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez, an O.C.D. expert and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine. Understanding these distinctions can help clinicians tailor a precise treatment plan, she added. And they’re important for the public to grasp as well. Otherwise, people who experience the disorder might not even recognize they have it, Dr. Rodriguez said. People who are fearful of harming others might think, “Maybe I am a murderer,” she added. “If I tell anybody these things, I’m going to be put in jail.” © 2025 The New York Times Company

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 29793 - Posted: 05.17.2025

By Sheila Hale On the night before the accident, John and I and our son Jay, who was then 26, lingered in the garden drinking wine and enjoying the mid-summer scent of jasmine and lilies. We talked about the Manet exhibition we had just seen at the National Gallery. We probably talked about how the end of the cold war might affect the chances of Bill Clinton winning the presidential election against George HW Bush in November. I know what John thought about that. I only wish I could recall his words. The next morning, 30 July 1992, John got up before me as he always did. In the kitchen I found the contents of the dishwasher – knives, forks, spoons, plates, mugs – jumbled together on the table. This was odd because unloading the dishwasher was the one domestic ritual he willingly performed. It would be years before I learned the reason. At the time I put it down to absent-mindedness. It was a month since he had delivered a book to the publisher and he was already preoccupied by the next one, about art in the European Renaissance. Before I had time to be annoyed, I heard a crash from his study at the top of the house. I ran upstairs and found him lying on the floor next to his desk. He looked up at me with the radiant, witless smile of a baby. And he said: “Da walls.” The ambulance took us to the local hospital where they said that my husband had had cerebral accident – a stroke. The cause was probably years of uncontrolled high blood pressure, about which no doctor had warned him. They said he needed rest and reassurance. Unfortunately, because of the so-called efficiency savings introduced by John Major’s government, there was a shortage of beds and of nurses in all London hospitals. I was so grateful when they found a bed for him in a geriatric ward later in the day that I didn’t at first notice how filthy it was and how hot. The floor was covered in urine, blood and dust balls. (Later I brought in a mop to clean around John’s bed.) The plateglass window could not be opened: to prevent suicides, a passing nurse told me. It was a week before I managed to track down the doctor whose name was printed on a grimy card at the head of John’s bed. The doctor informed me that my husband’s case was hopeless. He would never walk again and must never be allowed to try to stand because the hospital insurance wouldn’t cover a fall. Physiotherapy, which the doctor considered “about as useful as peanut butter”, was out of the question. © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 29792 - Posted: 05.17.2025

Gemma Conroy Researchers have identified a genetic dial in the human brain that, when inserted in mice, boosts their brain size by about 6.5%.Credit: Sergey Bezgodov/Shutterstock Taking a snippet of genetic code that is unique to humans and inserting it into mice helps the animals to grow bigger brains than usual, according to a report out in Nature today1. The slice of code — a stretch of DNA that acts like a dial to turn up the expression of certain genes — expanded the outer layer of the mouse brain by increasing the production of cells that become neurons. The finding could partially explain how humans evolved such large brains compared with their primate relatives. This study goes deeper than previous work that attempted to unpick the genetic mechanisms behind human brain development, says Katherine Pollard, a bioinformatics researcher at the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology in San Francisco, California. “The story is much more complete and convincing,” she says. How the human brain grew to be so big and complex remains a mystery, says Gabriel Santpere Baró, a neuroscientist who studies genomics at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain. “We still do not have a definitive answer to how the human brain has tripled in size since our split from chimpanzees” during evolution, he says. Previous studies2,3 have hinted that human accelerated regions (HARs) — short snippets of the genome that are conserved across mammals, but which underwent rapid change in humans after they evolutionarily diverged from chimpanzees — could be key contributors to brain development and size. But the exact mechanisms that underlie the brain-building effects of HARs are yet to be uncovered, says study co-author Debra Silver, a developmental neurobiologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. © 2025 Springer Nature Limited

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Evolution
Link ID: 29791 - Posted: 05.17.2025

By Sydney Wyatt The red nucleus—a pale pink brainstem structure that coordinates limb movements in quadruped animals—also projects to brain areas that shape reward-motivated and action-based movements in people, according to a new functional imaging study. The finding suggests the region, like the cerebral cortex, took on a more complex role over the course of evolution. Many researchers had assumed that brainstem structures remained stuck in evolutionarily ancient roles, says Joan Baizer, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University at Buffalo. Activity in the red nucleus, a structure that emerged once animals began to use limbs for walking, coordinates the speed and accuracy of those movements in rats and helps to control posture in monkeys, previous electrophysiological recordings have shown. And in nonhuman primates, neurons in the red nucleus project to the motor cortex and spinal cord, anatomical studies have demonstrated, seemingly confirming the area’s role in motor function. By contrast, the human red nucleus primarily connects to cortical and subcortical regions involved in action control, reward and motivated behavior, the new work reveals. “If this is such a motor structure, why isn’t it projecting to the spinal cord? That doesn’t really fit with our notion of what this structure is supposed to be doing,” says study investigator Samuel Krimmel, a postdoctoral fellow in Nico Dosenbach’s lab. The new imaging suggests that, at least in people, the neural underpinnings of motivated movement—previously considered to be the role of higher-order brain areas—reach “all the way down into the brainstem,” says Dosenbach, professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine, who led the work. The findings were published last month in Nature Communications. © 2025 Simons Foundation

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Evolution
Link ID: 29790 - Posted: 05.17.2025

By Christina Caron Tasha Hedges took Xanax for 20 years to treat her anxiety and panic attacks, exactly as a psychiatrist had prescribed it. Then in 2022, that doctor unexpectedly died. A general practitioner continued her prescription but retired shortly afterward. The next doctor moved to Canada. Finally, Ms. Hedges found a new psychiatrist. “The first thing he did was start yelling at me that I had been on Xanax too long,” said Ms. Hedges, 41, who lives in Falling Waters, W.Va. “He ripped me off my meds.” Discontinuing the drug typically requires decreasing the dose slowly over months or even years, a process called tapering. Ms. Hedges stopped cold turkey. Debilitating withdrawal symptoms followed: hot flashes, cold sweats, restless legs, the shakes and teeth grinding. “It was a nightmare,” she said. Two years after discontinuing the medication, she is still dealing with the fallout. “My brain has not been the same.” In social media groups and websites such as BenzoBuddies, people like Ms. Hedges say they have become physically dependent on benzodiazepines. Many then get cut off from their medication or taper too quickly, and face dangerous and potentially life-threatening withdrawal symptoms that can linger long after the drugs are discontinued. Some doctors, fearful of the risks and stigma associated with these drugs, refuse to prescribe them at all. “Benzos generate as much anxiety in the prescriber as they do in the patient,” said Dr. Ronald M. Winchel, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. “Do I start it? Is it the right context? Is it safe? Is my patient going to abuse it? What will my colleagues think/ © 2025 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 29789 - Posted: 05.17.2025

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Can a robot arm wave hello to a cuttlefish—and get a hello back? Could a dolphin’s whistle actually mean “Where are you?” And are monkeys quietly naming each other while we fail to notice? These are just a few of the questions tackled by the finalists for this year’s Dolittle prize, a $100,000 award recognizing early breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered interspecies communication. The winning project—announced today—explores how dolphins use shared, learned whistles that may carry specific meanings—possibly even warning each other about danger, or just expressing confusion. The other contending teams—working with marmosets, cuttlefish, and nightingales—are also pushing the boundaries of what human-animal communication might look like. The prize marks an important milestone in the Coller Dolittle Challenge, a 5-year competition offering up to $10 million to the first team that can achieve genuine two-way communication with animals. “Part of how this initiative was born came from my skepticism,” says Yossi Yovel, a neuroecologist at Tel Aviv University and one of the prize’s organizers. “But we really have much better tools now. So this is the time to revisit a lot of our previous assumptions about two-way communication within the animal’s own world.” Science caught up with the four finalists to hear how close we really are to cracking the animal code. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis and S. bandensis) lack ears and voices, but they apparently make up for this with a kind of sign language. When shown videos of comrades waving their arms, they wave back.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 29788 - Posted: 05.17.2025

By Mac Shine The brain is an endlessly dynamic machine; it can wake you from sleep, focus your attention, spark a memory or help you slam on the brakes while driving. But what makes this precision possible? How can the brain dial up just the right amount of alertness or inhibition, and only when it’s needed? A new study, out today in Nature, may have found part of the answer in an unlikely place: a cluster of small, largely overlooked inhibitory neurons nestled next to one of the brain’s most powerful arousal hubs, the locus coeruleus (LC). Led by Michael R. Bruchas, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington, the study is a tour de force in neural sleuthing, employing methods ranging from viral tracing and electrophysiology to imaging and behavior to map an elusive cell population known as the pericoeruleus. In a world where we’re constantly being pinged, alerted, nudged and notified, the ability to not react—to gate our arousal and filter our responses—may be one of the brain’s most underappreciated superpowers. Here I discuss the results with Bruchas—and what he and his team found is remarkable. Far from being a passive neighbor to the LC, the pericoeruleus appears to act as a kind of micromanager of arousal, selectively inhibiting different subgroups of LC neurons depending on the behavioral context. If the LC is like a floodlight that bathes the brain in noradrenaline—raising alertness, sharpening perception and mobilizing attention—then the pericoeruleus may be the finely-tuned lens that directs where and when that light shines. It’s a subtle but powerful form of control, and one that challenges traditional views of how the LC operates. For decades, the LC has been thought of primarily as a global broadcaster: When it fires, it releases norepinephrine widely across the cortex, preparing the brain for action. But this new work is the latest in a recent line of inquiry that has challenged this simplicity—suggesting that the system is more complex and nuanced than previously thought. “We’re beginning to see that the locus coeruleus doesn’t just flood the brain with arousal – it targets specific outputs, and the pericoeruleus plays a key role in gating that process,” said Li Li, one of the co-first authors of the paper and a former postdoctoral researcher in Bruchas’ lab, now assistant professor of anesthesiology at Seattle Children’s Hospital. © 2025 Simons Foundation

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 29787 - Posted: 05.14.2025

Anna Bawden in Málaga and agency Giving obese children weight loss jabs works and could help avoid arguments over mealtimes, according to research. Clinicians treating very obese children at a hospital in Sweden analysed whether liraglutide injections could be used as well as diet and lifestyle changes to increase weight loss. In real-life analysis of 1,000 children under 16 with severe obesity over a number of years, about a quarter of patients in 2023 were given the weight loss drug liraglutide in addition to receiving intensive health behaviour and lifestyle treatment at the National Childhood Obesity Centre in Stockholm. The clinicians found that nearly a third of these children dropped enough weight to improve their health, compared with about 27% in earlier treated groups with no access to the drugs. Patients starting the programme in 2024 have been given semaglutide but results from these children are not yet available. Semaglutide, better known as Wegovy, and liraglutide, sold as Saxenda, are both GLP-1 receptor agonists, which help curb appetite. In the UK they are available on the NHS only for adults with a BMI above 35 with a weight-related condition, although in certain circumstances specialist paediatric clinics can prescribe them. Dr Annika Janson, of Karolinska university hospital in Sweden, the lead author of the study, whose findings were presented at the European Congress on Obesity, said the beneficial impact of weight loss jabs on children’s weight could accelerate in future years. © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 29786 - Posted: 05.14.2025

Nicola Davis Science correspondent Birds of a feather flock together, so the saying goes. But scientists studying the behaviour of starlings have found their ability to give and take makes their relationships closer to human friendships than previously thought. About 10% of bird species and 5% of mammal species breed “cooperatively”, meaning some individuals refrain from breeding to help others care for their offspring. Some species even help those they are unrelated to. Now researchers studying superb starlings have found the support cuts both ways, with birds that received help in feeding or guarding their chicks returning the favour when the “helper” bird has offspring of its own. Prof Dustin Rubenstein, a co-author of the study from the University of Colombia, said such behaviour was probably necessary for superb starlings as they live in a harsh environment where drought is common and food is limited. “Two birds probably can’t feed their offspring on their own, so they need these helpers to help them,” he said, adding that as each breeding pair produces few offspring, birds must be recruited from outside the family group to help the young survive. “What happens is the non-relatives come into the group, and they breed pretty quickly, usually in the first year, maybe the second year, and then they take some time off and some of the other birds breed – and we never understood why,” said Rubenstein. “But they’re forming these pairwise reciprocal relationships, in the sense that I might help you this year, and then you’ll help me in the future.” The results chime with previous work from Rubenstein and colleagues that found superb starlings living in larger groups have a greater chance of survival and of producing offspring, with the new work suggesting the give-and-take approach helps to stabilise these groups. © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 29785 - Posted: 05.14.2025