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Neuroscientists have taken a step closer to understanding those moments when our thoughts seem to vanish into thin air, a phenomenon known as “mind blanking.” A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience reveals that when people report having no identifiable thoughts — mind blanking — there is a marked reduction in brain activity across several key regions. This intriguing discovery contributes to broader conversations about consciousness and our ability to report experiences.

The authors behind the new study sought to better understand a relatively understudied area of cognitive neuroscience: the phenomenon of mind blanking, where individuals find themselves unable to recount their immediate-past mental content. Unlike mental states with reportable content, such as daydreaming or engaging in a task, mind blanking represents a unique state of consciousness that lacked thorough neural characterization.

“In the past 10 years, I have researched human unconscious states where communication is restricted (post-comatose disorders),” said corresponding author Athena Demertzi, a tenured research associate of the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research and director of the Physiology of Cognition Lab at the University of Liège, Belgium.

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The first person with Neuralink’s computer-linked chip implanted in the surface of their brain showed off their “telekinetic” online chess-playing skills while discussing the “life-changing” procedure for the first time in a surprise livestream.

Noland Arbaugh, a 29-year-old with quadriplegia (or paralysis that affects the body from the neck down), volunteered to have the device implanted as part of Neuralink’s ongoing trial of the technology. Until now, his identity had remained a closely guarded secret.

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The highest rung on the ladder is studied by analyzing the redshifts of distant galaxies. This technique can be used to measure distances across of billions of light-years, by contrast.

Redshift occurs because, as objects race away from us due to the expansion of the universe, the light they emit that takes billions of years to travel to us has its wavelength stretched by this expansion. That lengthening reddens the light and even causes it to move to infrared wavelengths sometimes. This is actually why the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is highly sensitive to infrared light, is so adept and seeing galaxies in the early universe.

The cosmic distance ladder can help cosmologists measure the rate at which the universe is expanding, a value called the Hubble constant, named in honor of astronomer Edwin Hubble. This is because his observations of distant galaxies were key in overturning the idea that the universe exists in a steady state, neither growing nor shrinking.

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THURSDAY, March 21, 2024 (HealthDay News) — A germ commonly found in the human mouth can travel to colon tumors and appears to speed their growth, new research shows.

The finding might lead to new insights into fighting colon cancer, which kills more than 52,000 Americans each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle looked at levels of a particular oral bacterium, Fusobacterium nucleatum, in colon tumor tissues taken from 200 colon cancer patients.

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The big picture: Sand batteries might not be as efficient for generating electricity as they are for heating, but they could still have a huge impact on climate emissions — about 9% of the heat needed for buildings and industry comes from district heating systems, and 90% of those rely on fossil fuels.

We could then supplement the sand batteries with another alternative form of storage, such as flow batteries, to generate electricity from renewables year-round — completing the transition to a clean energy future.

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Diamond is the strongest material known. However, another form of carbon has been predicted to be even tougher than diamond. The challenge is how to create it on Earth.

The eight-atom body-centered cubic (BC8) crystal is a distinct carbon phase: not diamond, but very similar. BC8 is predicted to be a stronger material, exhibiting a 30% greater resistance to compression than diamond. It is believed to be found in the center of carbon-rich exoplanets. If BC8 could be recovered under ambient conditions, it could be classified as a super-diamond.

This crystalline high-pressure phase of carbon is theoretically predicted to be the most stable phase of carbon under pressures surpassing 10 million atmospheres.

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