Electrical Brain Stimulation Enhances Creativity, Researchers Say
Georgetown University Medical CenterSafe levels of electrical stimulation can enhance your capacity to think more creatively, according to a new study by Georgetown researchers.
Safe levels of electrical stimulation can enhance your capacity to think more creatively, according to a new study by Georgetown researchers.
National tax preparation chains continue to exploit the working poor, many of whom spend a significant portion of a key federal anti-poverty tax credit just to pay for filing their taxes, a new study concludes.
What does the Red Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” have to do with biology? “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” Sexual reproduction protects species by continuously shuffling their genes. A UI-led team bolstered the theory by studying snails’ resilience to parasitic worms.
Evidence of wildlife passage, such as tracks, scat, fur, and disturbed surroundings, is a more accurate tool for assessing wildlife conservation status than actual encounters with animals, according to an international team of scientists from six universities, including Virginia Tech.
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have reduced protein in goldenrod pollen, a key late-season food source for North American bees, a Purdue University study shows.
Young male gamers who strongly identify with male characters in sexist, violent video games show less empathy than others toward female violence victims, a new study found.
Researchers pinpoint chemical compound that gives rare animal its popcorn-like scent.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cornell University, and collaborators have produced the first direct evidence of a state of electronic matter first predicted by theorists in 1964 -- a "Cooper pair density wave." The discovery, described in a paper published online April 13, 2016, in Nature, may provide key insights into the workings of high-temperature superconductors.
In a paper published in the April 13 issue of Nature Communications, investigators from Harvard report on a novel biochemical method that enables the rapid and repeated regeneration of selected molecular constituents in situ after device implantation, which has the potential to substantially extend the lifetime of bioactive films without the need for device removal.
Maple syrup protects neurons and prevents the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in C. elegans worms, according to a study by college students, now students at the university level, and published today in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Supervised by PhD student Martine Therrien and by researcher Alex Parker, Catherine Aaron and Gabrielle Beaudry added maple syrup to the diet of these barely 1 mm-long nematodes.
Columbia Engineering researchers have developed a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras. They designed and fabricated a flexible lens array that adapts its optical properties when the sheet camera is bent. This optical adaptation enables the sheet camera to produce high quality images over a wide range of sheet deformations. (To be presented at ICCP 5/13-15)
You can never predict what treasure might be hiding in your own basement. We didn't know it a year ago, but it turns out that a 1917 image on an astronomical glass plate from our Carnegie Observatories' collection shows the first-ever evidence of a planetary system beyond our own Sun.
If you go out after a rain, you may notice spider webs glistening with water droplets. The soggy webs resemble human-made meshes for fog collection: They both have thin fibers that collect water from droplets in the air. Now researchers have developed a model to predict whether a falling droplet will stick to a thin fiber, and how much water residue will remain on the fiber, discussing their findings in this week’s Physics of Fluids.
Scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) are set to use computer models to investigate NASA tests to develop an engineering tool to design missions using a new type of long-distance space propulsion.
Researchers at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory warn that the extinction to two amphibian species—the southern toad and the southern leopard frog—may be hastened by the combined effects of climate change and copper-contaminated wetlands.
Just like humans, when plants are cut they clot at the site of the wound. Just how they do it is has been a botanical mystery until now. Two University of Delaware researchers have uncovered the enzymes that produce this response. The findings will be published on Monday in Nature Plants.
Newly identified mechanism may offer ways to enhance the immune response to fight cancer or strengthen long-term protection provided by vaccines
Robots do many things formerly done only by humans - from bartending and farming to driving cars - but a Dartmouth researcher and his colleagues have invented a "smart" paint spray can that robotically reproduces photographs as large-scale murals.
A new University at Buffalo-led study suggests that the moral response produced by the initial exposure to a video game decreases as experience with the game develops.
Crisp, clear images of a “hot Jupiter” system captured by a University of Notre Dame physicist were vital in determining that a newly found planet inhabits a three-star system, a phenomenon documented only a few times before.
Men on Tinder think they have a "licence to use women as they see fit" if their date's appearance is less attractive than her profile photograph, research says.
Sequencing the genomes of hundreds of strains of the wine yeast S. cerevisiae has revealed little genetic diversity and high levels of inbreeding. In many cases, yeast strains sold by different companies were almost genetically identical. The results, published in the April issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, a publication of the Genetics Society of America, suggest that winemakers attempting to develop improved wine yeasts will need to look to creating hybrids with more exotic strains.
Scientists have found evidence that rising river waters deliver a feast of carbon to hungry microbes where water meets land, triggering increased activity and altering the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
A metabolic pathway that is up-regulated in some breast cancers promotes the disease’s progression by activating a signaling protein called Arf6, according to a paper published in The Journal of Cell Biology. The study, “P53- and mevalonate pathway–driven malignancies require Arf6 for metastasis and drug resistance” by Ari Hashimoto and colleagues, suggests that statin-like drugs may be effective treatments for breast cancer patients whose tumors express high levels of Arf6 signaling proteins.
Astronomers have uncovered one of the biggest supermassive black holes, with the mass of 17 billion suns, in an unlikely place: the cente of a galaxy that lies in a quiet backwater of the universe. The observations, made with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini telescope in Hawaii, indicate that these monster objects may be more common than once thought. The results of this study are released in the journal Nature. To learn even more, join astronomers and scientists during a live Hubble Hangout discussion at 3pm EDT on Thurs., April 7, at http://hbbl.us/z7j.
University of Kentucky Astrophysicist Isaac Shlosman and collaborators have revealed details of how supermassive black holes formed 13 billion years ago, and it's not from normal (stellar size) black holes growing to supermassive proportions.
Constant stress is associated with signs of poor blood vessel health and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. New research presented at the Experimental Biology 2016 meeting in San Diego finds that aerobic exercise kept the blood vessels of stressed rats working normally.
A new study offers hope for cold-water species in the face of climate change. The study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, addresses a longstanding paradox between predictions of widespread extinctions of cold-water species and a general lack of evidence for those extinctions despite decades of recent climate change.
A research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has established a mouse model for testing of vaccines and therapeutics to battle Zika virus. The mouse model mimics aspects of the infection in humans, with high levels of the virus seen in the mouse brain and spinal cord and in the testes of male mice.
A new study addresses a controversial hypothesis regarding the potential ramming function of the sperm whale’s head. This hypothesis was instrumental in inspiring Herman Melville to write the novel Moby Dick but its mechanical feasibility had never been addressed.
A team of international paleontologists demonstrate that ancient mammal relatives known as therapsids were suited to the drastic climate change by having shorter life expectancies and would have had a better chance of success by breeding at younger ages than their predecessors.
A leading cause of the bone-loss disease osteoporosis is hyperparathyroidism. Doctors commonly treat this using a class of prescription drugs called bisphosphonates, which are supposed to strengthen bones. A UCLA study found those drugs actually increase the risk of fracture, meaning that taking them is worse than doing nothing at all. The research also revealed that patients who have surgery to remove the overactive parathyroid glands have fewer subsequent bone fractures.
New research on coral reefs suggests that existing biodiversity will be essential for the successful adaptation of ecosystems to climate change.
Microbiologists based in the Institute for Global Food Security and School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast have recently released results that may have answered one of ancient history’s greatest enigmas: Where did Hannibal cross the Alps?
A shocking new report by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Fauna & Flora International documents a catastrophic collapse of the world’s largest great ape– the Grauer’s gorilla – due to a combination of illegal hunting around mining sites and settlements, prior civil unrest, and habitat loss.
New study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City found that effectively treating depression can reduce a patient’s chance of having a stroke, heart failure, a heart attack or death.
People with high levels of good cholesterol, or high-density lipoprotein, are not as safe from heart disease when high levels of a newly identified biomarker of inflammation in the arteries are also found in their bloodstream, according to a new study.
The first largescale study of ancient DNA from early American people has confirmed the devastating impact of European colonisation on the Indigenous American populations of the time.
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that causes seizures of many different types. Recent research from Japan has found that epileptic seizures can be more easily predicted by using an electrocardiogram to measure fluctuations in the heart rate than by measuring brain activity, because the monitoring device is easier to wear. By making more accurate predictions, it is possible to prevent injury or accident that may result from an epileptic seizure. This is a significant contribution toward the realization of a society where epileptic patients can live without worrying about sustaining injury from an unexpected seizure.
Like an endlessly repeating video loop, horrible memories plague people with post-traumatic stress disorder. But a new study in veterans shows the promise of mindfulness training for enhancing the ability to manage those thoughts if they come up. It also shows the veterans’ brains changed in ways that could help switch off that endless loop.
Two invasive species of tumbleweed have hybridized to create a new species of tumbleweed that University of California, Riverside researchers found has dramatically expanded its geographic range in California in just a decade.
A new study analyzes cloud cover around the world over 15 years. It finds that variations in cloud cover can help researchers predict where different species live — information that could aid conservation and management efforts.
Peering deep into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, this Hubble Space Telescope image reveals a rich tapestry of more than half a million stars. Except for a few blue, foreground stars, the stars are part of the Milky Way’s nuclear star cluster, the most massive and densest star cluster in our galaxy. To learn more, join astronomers and scientists during a live Hubble Hangout discussion at 3pm EDT today (Thurs., March 31) at http://hbbl.us/y6k.
New images from ALMA reveal never-before-seen details in the planet-forming disk around a nearby Sun-like star, including a tantalizing gap at the same distance from the star as the Earth is from the Sun.
A research team led by University of Arkansas chemist Jingyi Chen and University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences microbiologist Mark Smeltzer has developed an alternative therapeutic approach to fighting antibiotic-resistant infections.
A study published in today's Nature gives estimates of sea levels rising twice what previous studies have warned. The rapid melting of Antarctic's Ice Sheet could raise the sea level as much as three feet by the end of this century. The newer model suggests that sea levels could rise as much as 13 meters by 2500 should the Antarctic Ice Shelf, roughly the size of Mexico, continue to melt.
A changing climate and reduced snow cover across the north is squeezing the snowshoe hare out of its historic range, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
An international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, has obtained the most detailed 'fingerprint' of a rocky planet outside our solar system to date, and found a planet of two halves: one that is almost completely molten, and the other which is almost completely solid.
Could certain types of hormonal contraceptives cause an increase in seizures in women with epilepsy? A recent Texas A&M Health Science Center study suggests that ethinyl estradiol, the primary component of oral contraceptives, could be detrimental to the epileptic brain.
For most people, the culmination of a good life is a “good death,” though what that means exactly is a matter of considerable consternation. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine surveyed published, English-language, peer-reviewed reports of qualitative and quantitative studies defining a “good death,” ultimately identifying 11 core themes associated with dying well.