[Functional brain mapping] Mitsuhashi et al.: “Callosal stimulation showed effective connectivity to homologous cortical regions. Sum of callosal-to-cortex propagation latencies matched interhemispheric latency.” Open access.
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“At that time, I had no professional experience in the videogame industry, and I didn’t even really have an artist portfolio, so I made one in a bit of a rush.” Nonetheless, this was enough to convince Saber, and Hatté joined the team as an environment artist, working primarily on Tomb Raider 4–6 Remastered.
“My role on the team was specifically to work on the environments and remaster the textures,” Hatté says. “It was a life changing experience. I’m incredibly grateful to have been given that opportunity.”
Reamsters aside, Tomb Raider has been dormant since 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider. But late last year, two new Lara Croft adventures were revealed—a second remake of the original game, and a new adventure by Crystal Dynamics pitched as a sequel to Tomb Raider: Underworld.
When the Amaterasu particle entered Earth’s atmosphere, the TAP array in Utah recorded an energy level of more than 240 exa-electronvolts (EeV). Such particles are exceedingly rare and are thought to originate in some of the most extreme cosmic environments. At the time of its detection, scientists were not sure if it was a proton, a light atomic nucleus, or a heavy (iron) atomic nucleus. Research into its origin pointed toward the Local Void, a vast region of space adjacent to the Local Group that has few known galaxies or objects.
This posed a mystery for astronomers, as the region is largely devoid of sources capable of producing such energetic particles. Reconstructing the energy of cosmic-ray particles is already difficult, making the search for their sources using statistical models particularly challenging. Capel and Bourriche addressed this by combining advanced simulations with modern statistical methods (Approximate Bayesian Computation) to generate three-dimensional maps of cosmic-ray propagation and their interactions with magnetic fields in the Milky Way.
Complex eyes in vertebrates may have evolved as early as 500 million years ago. Reconstructing the early evolutionary history of vertebrates requires understanding organisms that existed before bone evolved. However, these ‘soft-bodied’ fossils are inherently difficult to study, resulting in conflicting anatomical and evolutionary interpretations. For the first time, researchers used synchrotron-based imaging techniques to examine two Silurian taxa, Jamoytius and Lasanius, that may bridge the gap between the bone-less and boned vertebrates. They recover the first direct evidence of biomineralised apatitic bone in both taxa and of camera-eyes in Jamoytius. The discoveries indicate vertebrate bones and complex eyes evolved earlier than previously thought, and demonstrate the power of these techniques for problematic fossils.
Read the article in Proceedings B.
Abstract. Understanding the origin and early diversification of vertebrates has always been a challenge because of the ambiguous and conflicting interpretations of the soft-bodied, pre-biomineralization fossil record. Here, we apply synchrotron radiation techniques to Jamoytius and Lasanius, two soft-bodied Silurian vertebrates, key taxa for discerning vertebrate bone evolution owing to highly localized, but debated, biomineralization. We map soft-tissue structures and quantify details of biochemical residue impossible to resolve with traditional methods. We present the first unequivocal evidence for biomineralized apatitic scales in Jamoytius by combining synchrotron rapid scanning X-ray fluorescence and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (elevated Ca 37% and P 21%). This approach also recovers robust evidence for apatitic biomineralization in Lasanius. Chemical mapping of the optical anatomy of Jamoytius recovers a close correlation with Zn and Cu distribution, providing evidence for a retinal pigmented epithelium and complex eyes. In both taxa, chemical maps reveal original anatomical details not apparent in visible light, including potential evidence of other sensory anatomy in Jamoytius. Our work resolves long-standing fundamental anatomical debates, indicating stem-group origins for bone and complex eyes in vertebrates. We highlight the potential of using a powerful combination of analytical techniques to unlock otherwise inaccessible data in problematic fossils.
Neutrinos are very small, neutral subatomic particles that rarely interact with ordinary matter and are thus sometimes referred to as ghost particles. There are three known types (i.e., flavors) of neutrinos, dubbed muon, electron and tau neutrinos.
Interestingly, physicists discovered that as they travel, neutrinos can change flavor, which requires that neutrinos have a small, but not zero, mass. This phenomenon, known as neutrino oscillation, has been widely investigated in recent years, as studying it could help to infer the properties of neutrinos.
The NOvA experiment, a U.S.-based particle physics research endeavor, has been collecting data with two neutrino detectors that are far apart from each other, one located at the Fermi National Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois and the other at a facility in Northern Minnesota. In a recent paper, published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers involved in the NOvA experiment published some of the most precise neutrino oscillation measurements to date.
Another system the team Self on was a set of Ni–phosphine complexes, where steric interactions often limit the accessibility of the phosphine ligand’s lone pair. The researchers found that their results correlated well with the traditional method to study this – Tolman’s angles – but also showed that the interaction between the nickel centre and the ligand is smaller than Tolman analysis suggests.
These insights could prove useful for chemists. As Paton notes, ‘you could imagine comparing many different ligands in a library with this tool and using it to, for example, characterise or understand performance, maybe even ligand design… ultimately, that will allow us to think about how we might design better and more efficient systems and reactions.’
Hénon highlights that Self also works inside molecules, not just between them. ‘Previous methods were designed for two separate molecules approaching each other. But what about rotation barriers within a single molecule. That’s intramolecular steric repulsion, and Self handles it naturally. Other methods struggle badly with this. This opens new perspectives.’
“Useless blocks” that you’d bump into 95% of the time but didn’t affect the outcome at all.
New MIT research reveals how humans navigate complex environments: not through exhaustive mental mapping, but through ‘just-in-time’ processing—building simplified models only as needed. This challenges decades of cognitive theory and has profound implications for AI, robotics, and understanding everyday human behaviour and memory.
A team of archaeologists from the Universitat Jaume I, the University of Barcelona, and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) has developed a new methodology that allows for a much more detailed, precise, and objective analysis of Late Paleolithic portable art pieces. Thanks to this study, the research team was able to review several previously published pieces from Matutano Cave (Vilafamés), a reference site in the Iberian Mediterranean, with greater accuracy and demonstrate that some of the marks previously interpreted as artistic motifs are not anthropic engravings but natural surface reliefs.
Late Paleolithic art is usually characterized by very fine engravings, barely visible to the naked eye, often affected by taphonomic alterations, surface irregularities, and unclear morphologies, which complicates their identification and interpretation. This new methodology allows for a more precise analysis of the remains using photogrammetry and microtopographic analysis techniques.
The results are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
For decades, researchers have attempted to pinpoint the specific areas of the brain responsible for human intelligence. A new analysis suggests that general intelligence involves the coordination of the entire brain rather than the superior function of any single region. By mapping the connections within the human brain, or connectome, scientists found that distinct patterns of global communication predict cognitive ability.
The research indicates that intelligent thought relies on a system-wide architecture optimized for efficiency and flexibility. These findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.
General intelligence represents the capacity to reason, learn, and solve problems across a variety of different contexts. In the past, theories often attributed this capacity to specific networks, such as the areas in the frontal and parietal lobes involved in attention and working memory. While these regions are involved in cognitive tasks, newer perspectives suggest they are part of a larger story.