Phone: 310.423.4471; Email: [email protected]. BK’s present address is: Department of Basic Oncology, Hacettepe University Cancer Institute, Ankara, Turkey. RAP’s present address is: NCI-designated Cancer Center; Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, California, USA.
Memory is not a perfect record. Some memories fade, while others remain hidden and can be brought back by reminders. But reminders can also distort what is remembered, and scientists still know little about how the brain accurately recovers memories or forms false ones.
In a new study published in Nature Neuroscience, researchers in the group of Johannes Felsenberg trained fruit flies to associate one odor with mild electric shocks. Soon after training, the flies avoided that odor, but 24 hours later the learned avoidance had faded. When the researchers later exposed the flies to the same odor as a reminder, the aversive memory was recovered, and the flies avoided the odor again.
The reminder only worked when key parts of the original setting, such as the chamber’s texture and lighting, were unchanged, suggesting that the fly brain used both the odor and its context to bring the memory back.
True thermal invisibility would require a barrier that would split the heat flow, guide it around an object, and reunite it on the other side. The object inside would be protected from the external temperature gradient, while an observer outside would see the pattern expected from an uninterrupted material. In thermal terms, there would be no obvious object-shaped disturbance to detect. This is the trick the UIUC-led team says its new structure, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, can perform.
This mechanism could also prove useful for heat management applications, especially in modern electronics, where processors, power components, batteries, optical devices, and temperature-sensitive sensors are often cramped into compact spaces.
Now, thermal cloaking itself is not new. Researchers have previously demonstrated flat, or effectively two-dimensional thermal cloaks, bilayer devices, and even an ultrathin “stealth sheet” that can hide and fake heat signatures. However, most earlier experimental devices worked with circular, spherical, or extruded shapes, or performed properly only when heat arrived along a prescribed axis.
Nearly a decade after the discovery of LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of a nearby low-mass star, a new study reveals that the object may have its own atmosphere.
University of Florida Assistant Professor of Astronomy Jason Dittmann first discovered the planet in 2016. Now, he is a co-author of the new study, published in Science, that uses helium escape to explain a potential atmosphere.
“The exciting part about this paper, and why I think it was accepted into Science, was that this is the first time that we’re seeing a rocky, Earth-like planet that could still have an atmosphere,” Dittmann said.
Keeping a regular daily schedule may help reduce pain and depression, especially among older adults with insomnia. Researchers found that consistent times for waking, eating, socializing, and sleeping were linked to better well-being regardless of sleep quality. These routines may strengthen the body’s internal clock and limit the disruptive effects of “social jet lag.”
Ancient plant seeds provide important archaeological evidence for studying the evolution of human civilization. Lingnan University and Shandong University have jointly developed the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) archaeological system dedicated to identifying ancient Chinese plant seeds. The system emulates the identification process of archaeobotanical experts and achieves a classification accuracy of more than 90%.
The researchers said identifying plant seeds excavated from archaeological sites has traditionally relied on experts examining each seed individually, a process that is both time-consuming and difficult to scale. The large, standardized database they created helps improve research efficiency while advancing archaeobotanical research and the digitization of cultural heritage.
The findings have been published in Heritage Science.
A team of CNRS scientists has pinpointed the brain mechanisms behind the famous “Proust’s madeleine” phenomenon, in which smells bring back vivid, emotional memories.
This work, published in PLOS Biology on July 14, 2026, shows that early-life olfactory experiences leave a lasting impression on the brain, capable of reactivating the context and emotions associated with that memory throughout our lives.
The neuroscientists revealed the central role played by neurons in the olfactory bulb, an area of the brain that continues to develop during childhood. When these neurons are reactivated in adulthood by odors we experienced in childhood, they activate cerebral circuits involved in both memory and reward.