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New study reveals how pigments affect the weight of bird feathers

Birds are some of the most striking creatures on Earth, coming in a rainbow of colors that serve several important functions, such as attracting a mate and communicating with other birds. These vibrant hues are produced by pigments, primarily melanin, but a major unknown until now was how much these pigments weigh. Since wings need to be as light as possible for flight, understanding pigmentation weight may tell us something about the trade-off between the evolutionary benefits of colored feathers and the physical cost of carrying that weight.

In a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, scientists from Spain have investigated how much melanin adds to the weight of and the difference in weight between the two main chemical forms of melanin—eumelanin (responsible for brown and black colors) and pheomelanin (responsible for reds and lighter colors).

The researchers analyzed the feathers from 109 bird specimens across 19 different species, including the common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and the Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). They examined feathers with mixed colors and those with single, pure colors, and used a involving or caustic soda, as it is more commonly known, to extract the pigments. Once extracted, they were weighed and compared to the original weight of the feathers.

Distinct prefrontal pathways shown to separate reward motivation from threat reactivity

University of Cambridge researchers report that inactivating dorsolateral prefrontal cortex area 46 in marmosets blunts appetitive motivation and heightens threat reactivity, with effects mediated through asymmetric left-hemisphere pathways.

The (dlPFC) is implicated in higher-order processes such as attention, abstract thought, working memory, and inhibitory control. It is also a target for noninvasive brain stimulation in .

Previous studies have shown that dlPFC transcranial magnetic stimulation improves depressive and comorbid anxiety symptoms and modulates activity in subcallosal cingulate cortex area 25, a region linked to therapeutic success.

Cognitive behavioral therapy can alter brain structure and boost gray matter volume, study shows

Psychotherapy leads to measurable changes in brain structure. Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Münster have demonstrated this for the first time in a study in Translational Psychiatry by using cognitive behavioral therapy.

The team analyzed the brains of 30 patients suffering from acute depression. After therapy, most of them showed changes in areas responsible for processing emotions. The observed effects are similar to those already known from studies on medication.

Around 280 million people suffer from worldwide. This depression leads to changes in the brain mass of the anterior hippocampus and amygdala. Both areas are part of the limbic system and are primarily responsible for processing and controlling emotions. In , (CBT) is an established method for treating depression.

Fresh insights into the inner workings of the developing brain could lead to autism treatments

While there is a vast amount of information about the human brain and how it develops and works, much of the organ is still uncharted territory. But new research published in the journal Nature is giving us new insights into a type of brain cell called the GABAergic interneuron and its role in the developing brain. These findings could help explain how conditions like autism and brain disorders in children develop.

GABAergic interneurons are a vital part of the brain. They release the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which regulates by switching neurons on and off. Disruptions in their functions can lead to a number of disorders, including epilepsy, schizophrenia and autism.

Researchers decode tertiary structure of DNA aptamer–ATP complex and improve binding affinity

DNA aptamers are powerful molecular tools in biosensing, bioimaging and therapeutics. However, a limited understanding of their tertiary structures and binding mechanisms hinders their further optimizations and applications.

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a central metabolite in cellular energy metabolism, is a key target for development. A DNA aptamer 1301b has recently been reported to bind to one molecule of ATP with a dissociation constant (KD) of ~2.5 µM. However, the structural basis for ATP recognition by 1301b remains unclear, lacking guiding principles for rational optimization.

In a study published in PNAS, a team led by Prof. Tan Weihong, Prof. Han Da, and Prof. Guo Pei from the Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences determined the tertiary structure of a DNA aptamer-ATP 1:1 binding complex, revealed the recognition mechanism, and engineered an optimized DNA aptamer with a submicromolar KD for ATP binding, which exhibited the highest affinity reported for ATP-binding DNA aptamers to date.

Breaking the code in network theory: Bimodularity reveals direction of influence in complex systems

As summer winds down, many of us in continental Europe are heading back north. The long return journeys from the beaches of southern France, Spain, and Italy once again clog alpine tunnels and Mediterranean coastal routes during the infamous Black Saturday bottlenecks. This annual migration, like many systems in our world, forms a network—not just of connections, but of communities shaped by shared patterns of origin and destination.

This is where —and in particular, community detection—comes in. For decades, researchers have developed powerful tools to uncover in networks: clusters of tightly interconnected nodes. But these tools work best for undirected networks, where connections are mutual. Graphically, the node maps may look familiar.

These clusters can mean that a group of people are all friends on Facebook, follow different sport accounts on X, or all live in the same city. Using a standard modularity algorithm, we can then find connections between different communities and begin to draw useful conclusions. Perhaps users in the fly-fishing community also show up as followers of nonalcoholic beer enthusiasts in Geneva. This type of information extraction, impossible without community analysis, is a layer of meaning that can be leveraged to sell beer or even nefariously influence elections.

3D-printed superconductor achieves record performance with soft matter approach

Nearly a decade after they first demonstrated that soft materials could guide the formation of superconductors, Cornell researchers have achieved a one-step, 3D printing method that produces superconductors with record properties.

The advance, detailed in Nature Communications, builds on years of interdisciplinary work led by Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and could improve technologies such as and quantum devices.

Wiesner and colleagues reported in 2016 the first self-assembled superconductor using block copolymers—soft, chain-like molecules that naturally arrange themselves into orderly, repeating nanoscale structures. By 2021, the group found that these soft material approaches could produce superconducting properties on par with conventional methods.

JUNO completes liquid filling and begins taking data to investigate ordering of neutrino masses

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) has successfully completed filling its 20,000-tons liquid scintillator detector and began taking data on Aug. 26.

After more than a decade of preparation and construction, JUNO is the first of a new generation of very large neutrino experiments to reach this stage. Initial trial operations and data taking show that met or exceeded design expectations, enabling JUNO to tackle one of this decade’s major open questions in particle physics: the ordering of neutrino masses—whether the third mass state (ν₃) is heavier than the second (ν₂).

Prof. Wang Yifang, a researcher at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and JUNO spokesperson, said, “Completing the filling of the JUNO detector and starting data taking marks a historic milestone. For the first time, we have in operation a detector of this scale and precision dedicated to neutrinos. JUNO will allow us to answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter and the universe.”

Research into stability of foams finds a valuable test subject in a tall glass of beer

Beer is one of the world’s most popular drinks, and one of the clearest signs of a good brew is a big head of foam at the top of a poured glass. Even brewers will use the quality of foam as an indicator of a beer having completed the fermentation process. However, despite its importance, what makes a large, stable foam is not entirely understood.

In Physics of Fluids, researchers from ETH Zurich and Eindhoven University of Technology investigated the stability of foams, examining multiple types of beer at different stages of the .

Like any other foam, beer foam is made of many small bubbles of air, separated from each other by of liquid. These thin films must remain stable, or the bubbles will pop, and the foam will collapse. What holds these thin films together may be conglomerates of proteins, surface viscosity, or the presence of surfactants, which are molecules that can reduce and are found in soaps and detergents.

Quantum memory array brings us closer to a quantum RAM

The internet, social media, and digital technologies have completely transformed the way we establish commercial, personal and professional relationships. At its core, this society relies on the exchange of information that is expressed in terms of bits. This basic unit of information can be either a 0 or a 1, and it is usually represented in electrical circuits, for instance, as two voltage levels (one representing the bit in state 0 and the other representing state 1).

The ability to store and manipulate bits efficiently lays the basis of digital electronics and enables modern devices to perform a variety of tasks, ranging from sending emails and playing music to numerical simulations. These processes are only possible thanks to key hardware components like random-access memory (RAM), which offer temporary storage and on-demand retrieval of data.

In parallel, advances in have led to a new kind of information unit: the . Unlike classical bits, which are strictly 0 or 1, qubits can exist in a superposition of both states at once. This opens up new possibilities for processing and storing information, although its practical implications are still being explored.

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