The Aurora vehicle will still be responsible for all driving operations, but a driver will be present in the vehicle as a backup.
A research team has uncovered a molecular “switch” that precisely regulates NMDA receptors, key players in brain communication, by blocking excitatory synapse overactivity.
Neural data analysis algorithms capable of tracking neuronal signals from one-photon functional imaging data longitudinally and reliably are still lacking. Here authors developed CaliAli, a tool for extracting calcium signals across multiple days. Validated with optogenetic tagging, dual-color imaging, and place cell data, CaliAli demonstrated stable neuron tracking for up to 99 days.
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Researchers have developed an extremely thin, flexible imager that could be useful for noninvasively acquiring images from inside the body. The new technology could one day enable early and precise disease detection, providing critical insights to guide timely and effective treatment.
“As opposed to existing prohibitively large endoscopes made of cameras and optical lenses or bulky fiber optic bundles, our microimager is very compact,” said research team leader Maysam Chamanzar from Carnegie Mellon University. “Much thinner than a typical eyelash, our device is ideal for reaching deep regions of the body without causing significant damage to the tissue.”
In the journal Biomedical Optics Express, the researchers showed that the microimager, which is only 7 microns thick—a tenth of an eyelash diameter—and about 10 mm long, can be used in a mouse brain for structural and functional imaging of brain activity. The width of the thin film imager can be customized based on the desired field of view and resolution.
Astrobee is a free-flying robotic system developed by NASA that is made up of three distinct cube-shaped robots. This system was originally designed to help astronauts who are working at the International Space Station (ISS) by automating some of their routine manual tasks.
While Astrobee could be highly valuable for astronauts, boosting the efficiency with which they complete day-to-day operations, its object manipulation capabilities are not yet optimal. Specifically, past experiments suggest that the robot struggles when handling deformable items, including cargo bags that resemble some of those that it might be tasked to pick up on the ISS.
Researchers at Stanford University, University of Cambridge and NASA Ames recently developed Pyastrobee, a simulation environment and control stack to train Astrobee in Python, with a particular emphasis on the manipulation and transport of cargo.
Duke University Medical Center-led research has identified a human-specific DNA enhancer that regulates neural progenitor proliferation and cortical size. Small genetic changes in HARE5 amplify a key developmental pathway, resulting in increased cortical size and neuron number in experimental models. Findings have implications for understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders.
Humans possess a significantly larger and more complex cerebral cortex compared to other species, contributing to advanced cognitive functions. Comparative genomics research has identified Human Accelerated Regions (HARs), segments of non-coding DNA with human-specific genetic changes. Many HARs are located near genes associated with brain development and neural differentiation.
Because thousands of HARs have been identified and linked to brain-related genes, the next critical step is to investigate how these regulatory elements actively shape human brain features.
The study revealed genes and cellular pathways that haven’t been linked to Alzheimer’s before, including one involved in DNA repair. Identifying new drug targets is critical because many of the Alzheimer’s drugs that have been developed to this point haven’t been as successful as hoped.
Working with researchers at Harvard Medical School, the team used data from humans and fruit flies to identify cellular pathways linked to neurodegeneration. This allowed them to identify additional pathways that may be contributing to the development of Alzheimer’s.
The Higgs boson, discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012, plays a central role in the Standard Model of particle physics, endowing elementary particles such as quarks with mass through its interactions. The Higgs boson’s interaction with the heaviest “third-generation” quarks—top and bottom quarks—has been observed and found to be in line with the Standard Model.
But probing its interactions with lighter “second-generation” quarks, such as the charm quark, and the lightest “first-generation” quarks—the up and down quarks that make up the building blocks of atomic nuclei—remains a formidable challenge, leaving unanswered the question of whether or not the Higgs boson is responsible for generating the masses of the quarks that make up ordinary matter.
Researchers study the Higgs boson’s interactions by looking at how the particle decays into—or is produced with—other particles in high-energy proton–proton collisions at the LHC.
If you’ve ever watched a flock of birds move in perfect unison or seen ripples travel across a pond, you’ve witnessed nature’s remarkable ability to coordinate motion. Recently, a team of scientists and engineers at Rice University discovered a similar phenomenon on a microscopic scale, where tiny magnetic particles driven by rotating fields spontaneously move along the edges of clusters driven by invisible “edge currents” that follow the rules of an unexpected branch of physics.
The research is published in the journal Physical Review Research.
“When I saw the initial data—with streams of particles moving faster along the edges than in the middle—I said ‘these are edge flows’ and we got to work exploring this,” said corresponding author Evelyn Tang, assistant professor of physics and astronomy. “What’s very exciting is that we can explain their emergence using ideas from topological physics, a field that became prominent due to quantum computers and exotic materials.”