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Blog – Page 1502

There are trillions of microorganisms living in our gastrointestinal tract. So why doesn’t the immune system launch a massive response against all of those foreign microbes? Scientists have now provided new details about the process. The findings have been reported in Nature.

The gut microbiome has to maintain a careful balance, and promote the growth of healthy and beneficial organisms while tamping down the growth of potential pathogens. While scientists have not defined exactly what a healthy microbiome is made of, and it may differ from one person to another, we do know that when the balance in the microbial community of the gut is disrupted, health problems can arise.

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A radio telescope observed complex activity in a magnetar 8,000 light-years from Earth:

A CSIRO team discovered a dormant star waking up with “unusual radio pulses” after being silent for years.

Most magnetars are known to emit polarized light, which oscillates in a certain direction. This magnetar generates light with circular polarization, creating a rapid spiral pattern as it travels across space.

“Unlike the radio signals we’ve seen from other magnetars, this one is emitting enormous amounts of rapidly changing circular polarization. We had never seen anything like this before,” said Marcus Lower, a postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency.

Continue reading “Magnetic star flashes ‘never seen before’ signals baffling scientists” | >

Scientists studying learning in mice have inadvertently encountered ‘zombie neurons’ in the brain – not flesh-eating, virus-spreading monsters, but cells that stop interacting normally even though they’re functionally alive. What’s more, they shed new light on learning processes in the brain.

A team from Portugal discovered the cells as part of an investigation into how a part of the brain called the cerebellum learns from the environment around us.

The cerebellum processes sensory information related to motor movements. It helps us walk down a crowded street, or pick up a drink without spilling it, and it’s also important for learning: so if we bump into something, we know how to refine our movement to avoid it next time. Exactly how that learning happens was the subject of this new study.

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A newly developed AI method can calculate a fundamental problem in quantum chemistry: Schrödinger’s Equation. The technique could calculate the ground state of the Schrödinger equation in quantum chemistry.

Predicting molecules’ chemical and physical properties by relying on their atoms’ arrangement in space is the main goal of quantum chemistry. This can be achieved by solving the Schrödinger equation, but in practice, this is extremely difficult.

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Experts are concerned about the way our planet is rotating due to climate change. For years, scientists have been concerned about the impacts of global warming.

Now, new research has revealed a change in the Earth’s spin due to the melting of the ice poles.

This could see a delay to the ‘leap second’ that was due to be added to the world’s Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in 2026.

Continue reading “Worrying research show the Earth’s rotation is beginning to change” | >