Weaver ants folding paper Dr Chris Reid, Macquarie University A chain of weaver ants can easily outpull just about any other creature, pound for pound, making them one of the most formidable teams in the animal kingdom. Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina), which are found from India to northern Australia, form long chains to pull on…
Mitochondria, the tiny organelles without which our bodies would be deprived of energy, are gradually revealing their mysteries. In a new study published in Nature Neuroscience, researchers from Inserm and the University of Bordeaux at the NeuroCentre Magendie, in collaboration with researchers from the Université de Moncton in Canada, have for the first time succeeded…
The human brain ages less than thought and in layers – at least in the area of the cerebral cortex responsible for the sense of touch. Researchers at DZNE, the University of Magdeburg, and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research at the University of Tübingen come to this conclusion based on brain scans of…
Turns out, your sweet tooth may not be shaped by your diet. Findings from a new randomized controlled trial suggest that eating more sweet-tasting foods doesn’t increase someone’s preference for sweet tastes. The researchers found that after six months on diets with varying amounts of sweet foods, study participants’ preference for sweetness stayed the same,…
As the demand for plant-based meat and dairy options grows, vegan burgers, nuggets, and beverages have been in the spotlight for sustainable protein alternatives. But unlike their meatless burger counterparts, plant-based eggs haven’t received the same attention from researchers — until now. Enter Da Eun Kim, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,…
New research, published in The Journal of Immunology, discovered that a parasitic worm suppresses neurons in the skin to evade detection. The researchers suggest that the worm likely evolved this mechanism to enhance its own survival, and that the discovery of the molecules responsible for the suppression could aid in the development of new painkillers….
Watch: Can you un-bleach coral? BBC visits remote Australian reef to find out World-famous coral reefs along Western Australia’s (WA) coast have suffered the worst bleaching on record after the state’s “longest, largest and most intense” marine heatwave, scientists say. Between last August and this May, warmer water temperatures led to significant heat stress on…
The efficiency of quantum computers, sensors and other applications often relies on the properties of electrons, including how they are spinning. One of the most accurate systems for high performance quantum applications relies on tapping into the spin properties of electrons of atoms trapped in a gas, but these systems are difficult to scale up…
Scientists have simultaneously broken a temperature record, overturned a long-held theory and utilized a new laser spectroscopy method for dense plasmas in a groundbreaking article published on July 23 in the journal Nature. In their research article, “Superheating gold beyond the predicted entropy catastrophe threshold,” physicists revealed they were able to heat gold to over 19,000…
Nuclear physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider recently made headlines by achieving the centuries-old dream of alchemists (and nightmare of precious-metals investors): They transformed lead into gold. At least for a fraction of a second. The scientists reported their results in Physical Reviews. The accomplishment at the Large Hadron Collider, the 17-mile particle accelerator…
