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game : Brain connectivity of experienced players in StarCraft 2 is significantly enhanced

Real time strategy game
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Friday, June 7, 2024 at 23:59
From Fahrenheit 451
A study found that the experienced players of StarCraft II who often participate in e-sports have significantly enhanced brain connectivity. The study involved 62 right-handed players, 31 of whom were experienced players. More than 60% of the game time was spent playing StarCraft 2 and often participated in fights; The other 31 are non game players with little game experience. The researchers scanned their brains. The results showed that the connectivity of specific brain regions of experienced players was enhanced. These areas include the parieto occipital lobe network and the frontal parietal lobe network, which are critical to visual attention, reasoning and motion control. The increased connectivity shows that playing games for a long time can improve communication between regions and improve cognitive ability.

science : The deformability of the swan snout worm derives from its origami like cell structure

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 14:32 Friday, June 7, 2024
From the dark plains
The swan proboscis (Lacrymaria color) is a single celled predatory ciliate, only 40 microns in size, but its neck like protuberance can stretch repeatedly to 1200 microns in less than 30 seconds, and then retract at the same speed. Using real-time imaging, confocal and transmission electron microscopy techniques, researchers found that an origami like layered cortical cytoskeleton and membrane structure enables the swan snout beetle to quickly stretch its neck processes. The cell membrane of the swan snout worm is folded into 15 folds with contact infectivity, which together form a kind of curved origami, which can be unscrewed in turn, so that its neck protrusion can be extended repeatedly and rapidly. This complex folding system is based on the structure of a spiral microtubule filament, which can guide the membrane folding and ensure rapid and effective extension and refolding when the shape changes.

science : Scientists form molecular Bose Einstein condensate for the first time

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, June 6, 2024 at 17:34
From going to the moon
American and Dutch physicists successfully cooled sodium cesium polar molecules to near absolute zero, so that more than 1000 molecules were in a huge quantum state, forming a molecular Bose Einstein condensate. This achievement can not only help scientists to create super solid materials that can flow without resistance, but also help to develop new quantum computers. As early as the 1920s, Einstein and others predicted that when it cooled to near absolute zero, atoms and other particles would no longer "fight alone", but would "cohere" into a "super atom" to form Bose Einstein condensate (BEC). Since 1995, physicists have achieved atomic BEC state, but they have always expected stable molecules to achieve this goal. Researchers said that molecules can rotate and vibrate in an impossible way for atoms. Molecular BEC can provide physicists with the possibility to simulate and understand a wider range of physical phenomena, but compared with atoms, molecular control and cooling are more challenging. In the latest research, researchers have used a group of polar molecules to achieve this goal. Each polar molecule consists of one sodium atom and one cesium atom. They use two kinds of microwave fields to manipulate polar molecules: one controls the rotation of molecules; The other causes the molecules to oscillate. These two microwave fields "work together" to orient the molecules in a specific direction, preventing collisions between molecules, which enables scientists to extrude the hottest molecules, thus further cooling the molecules. Finally, they cooled these molecules to about - 273.15 ℃, and obtained BEC composed of more than 1000 molecules, with a "life" of up to 2 seconds.

science : After pulling down the "emergency brake", most of the earth's life goes into sleep

earth
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, June 6, 2024 at 17:28
Fountain from heaven
For most life forms, the ability to isolate oneself from the outside world is crucial to survival. Bad conditions such as lack of food and cold weather will suddenly appear. In this dilemma, many creatures have mastered the art of dormancy, entering deep sleep rather than falling dead to survive the crisis. They significantly reduce physical activity and metabolism, and quickly restore physical vitality when conditions improve. Dormancy is the normal state of most life on earth. Sixty percent of the microbes on Earth are dormant at any given time. Even if the body is not dormant, such as most mammals, their cells will rest and wait for the optimal activation time. Scientists say that the earth is a dormant planet, and life lies in sleep. But how does the cell accomplish this feat? Scientists reported in the journal Nature that they found a natural protein called Balon, which exists in the bacteria dormant in the Arctic permafrost. A search of the catalogued bacterial genome revealed that its gene sequence existed in one fifth of bacteria. Its working mode is very special: it will pull down the "emergency brake" to stop the cells from producing proteins. It may be the dormancy mechanism of the whole tree of life.

science : The famous paper on Alzheimer's disease will be withdrawn in 2006

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, June 6, 2024 at 14:34
From blind spot
The author of a landmark research paper on Alzheimer's disease published in Nature in 2006 agreed to withdraw the research in response to the accusation of image manipulation. Karen Ashe, a senior author of this paper and neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Branch, admitted in an article on the journal discussion website PubPeer that this paper contains tampered images. "Although I was told two years ago that I did not know of any image tampering in the published paper, it is clear that some data in Lesn é et al. (2006) have been tampered... As a senior correspondent, I bear the ultimate responsibility for this." All the authors agreed to withdraw their papers - except the first author, UMN neuroscientist Sylvain Lesn é, who is a student of Ashe and the focus of the 2022 Science survey. According to the observation data of manuscript withdrawal, the research has been cited nearly 2500 times, which will be the most frequently withdrawn papers in history. This paper points out that an amyloid protein called A β * 56 (A β) may cause Alzheimer's disease.

science : Internet Addiction Changes Young People's Brain

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 20:43 Wednesday, June 5, 2024
From the seventh element
According to a study published in the journal PLOS Mental Health, Internet addiction changes the chemical reactions in young people's brains, which may lead to more addictive behaviors. The study found that many neural networks in young people's brains were significantly affected, increasing the activity of some brain regions during rest. The functional connectivity of some parts of the brain involved in active thinking has generally declined. "Active thinking" is the executive control network of the brain responsible for memory and decision-making. The study found that these changes led to adolescent addiction behavior and addiction tendency, as well as behavior changes related to mental health, development, intelligence and physical coordination.

science : Sulfur may come from space

earth
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at 18:17
From White Bird
A new study shows that in the absence of life, sulfur-containing organic molecule alkyl sulfonic acid can be naturally formed in space and carried to the Earth by comets and asteroids. This indicates that sulfur, the key element of the original life form on Earth, may come from space. Relevant papers were published in the new issue of Nature Communication. Sulfur containing organic molecules are essential for maintaining protein structure and function, enzyme activity, cell respiration involving sulfur binding and other biological activities, and are indispensable components of the Earth's life system. But where the sulfur in the earliest organisms on the earth came from is still an unsolved mystery. In the latest research, the researchers found that three kinds of the most basic alkyl sulfonic acid were effectively produced in interstellar sulfur doped ice through the interaction with cosmic rays through simulation experiments.

science : The research believes that the formation of scientific cognition and religious belief depends on the opinions of others rather than personal experience

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at 15:03
From White Bird
An international research team led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology found in a recent study that people's belief in science and religion is mainly shaped by the words of others, rather than by personal experience. This research will help to deepen the public's understanding of the process of forming beliefs about important social issues such as climate change and vaccination. In modern society, people generally believe in the existence of scientific phenomena (such as oxygen) rather than religious phenomena (such as God). The traditional view holds that this is because people believe that they can actually experience oxygen, while religious entities are difficult to be observed. However, the latest research results emphasize that the words of others play a decisive role in the formation of people's beliefs and understanding of the world, which is contrary to the view that personal experience is the main factor in forming scientific cognition. The research also demonstrates that the more credible the source is, the more people identify with the information, the more likely people will believe it. This shows that people's confidence in these phenomena is not because they have seen them directly, but because they believe in the source of information.

science : Chinese scientists discover a new longevity gene

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 14:24 Wednesday, June 5, 2024
From Doctor Mystery: Grief Eater
Mitochondria are closely related to aging. The scientific research team of Zhejiang University and the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Molecular Plant Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found a gene co evolving with mitochondria in the insect nuclear genome. One of CG11837 can not only affect the growth of mitochondria, but also significantly extend the life span of insects and nematodes. Relevant achievements were recently published in Nature - Aging. Mitochondria are mainly responsible for the energy supply of cells and are important members of our cells. The function of mitochondria tends to decline with age. Since mitochondria are closely related to aging, neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, tumors and other diseases, it is crucial to maintain the stability of mitochondrial function. The researchers conducted knockdown experiments on CG11837 gene in six different animals, including brown planthopper, fruit fly, Anopheles stephensi and Cryptorhabditis elegans. The results showed that in all the animals studied, reducing the activity of CG11837 gene would significantly shorten their life span, ranging from 25% to 59%. The researchers also carried out overexpression experiments of the gene in fruit flies and nematodes. The results showed that the life span of both animals was significantly prolonged, reaching 12% to 35%. They conducted experiments on human cells in vitro, and found that activating CG11837 gene can improve the anti-aging ability by 30%.

science : A marine fungus is found to be able to decompose plastic

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 14:14 Wednesday, June 5, 2024
From alchemy war: liberation
Parengyodonium, a fungus living in the sea, was found to be able to decompose particles of plastic polyethylene (PE), which is the most abundant plastic in the sea. This discovery has added this fungus to a very short list of plastic degrading marine fungi: only four species have been found so far. The researchers observed that P.album decomposes PE at a rate of about 0.05% per day. The researchers found that the presence of sunlight is crucial for fungi to use polyethylene as an energy source. In the laboratory, P. album can only decompose PE exposed to ultraviolet light for at least a short time. This means that in the ocean, fungi can only degrade the plastic that initially floated near the sea surface.

science : Childhood poverty has a lasting impact on brain language processing

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Tuesday, June 4, 2024 at 00:00
From 80 days around the world
A study has found that childhood poverty experiences can produce lasting changes in the way the brain processes language. Even adults who perform well in language tasks have different patterns of neural activity compared with the same age of middle-income families. The study highlights the long-term impact of early socio-economic conditions on brain function, indicating that chronic stress related to poverty may change the neural pathways related to language processing. The University of Michigan recruited 54 participants, 24 of whom were from the poverty group and 27 from the middle-income group, to conduct brain imaging. Participants were given a series of language processing tasks while their brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results showed that the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and other regions related to language processing were more active in middle income adults.

science : Research finds that good sleep is associated with low loneliness

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 23:39 Monday, June 3, 2024
From Doctor Mystery: The Shining Man
A study has found that good sleep is associated with lower loneliness. The study involved 2297 adults, with an average age of 44 years, 51% of whom were men. Participants completed the online sleep health questionnaire and loneliness scale. The results showed that the higher the level of sleep health, the lower the overall loneliness, emotional loneliness and social loneliness. This correlation is most obvious among young people. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine believes that sleep is vital to health, and suggests that adults should sleep seven hours a night.

science : Scientists discover the largest known genome in a small plant

Biotechnology
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 22:02 Sunday, June 2, 2024
From the Apocalypse of Rocky
According to a study published in the journal iScience, Tmesipteris oblanceolata, a fern growing on Grande Terre Island, Australia, has the largest known genome. This plant is very inconspicuous, only a few inches tall, but its DNA amount is more than 50 times that of human beings. T. The genome size of oblanceolata is a record 160.45 Gbp, 7% larger than P. japonica's 148.89 Gbp, and only 3.1 Gbp compared with the human genome. Larger genomes usually do not have a competitive advantage. Plants with a large amount of DNA are usually slow growing perennial plants with low photosynthetic efficiency and need more nutrients to grow in order to compete with neighboring plants with smaller genomes. The larger genome will also affect its ability to adapt to climate change, increasing the risk of extinction. The species with the largest genome in animals include the 129.90 Gbp Protopterus aethiopicus and 117.47 Gbp Neuse River waterlog (Necturus lewisi).

science : "Intelligent" antibiotics can selectively kill deadly drug-resistant bacteria

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 00:26 Saturday, June 1, 2024
From Padido Street Station
Pathogens known as gram-negative bacteria can quickly develop resistance to antibiotics. Although a few existing therapeutic drugs can kill them, they can also destroy beneficial intestinal bacteria. According to a study published in the journal Nature, scientists have developed an antibiotic that can selectively kill gram-negative bacteria without destroying the intestinal microbiota. Researchers have targeted compounds known to inhibit the Lol system, which is a unique group of proteins of gram-negative bacteria. Such compounds can inhibit proteins but cannot kill bacteria. Researchers adjusted the compound to produce a new compound called lolamicin, which selectively kills pathogenic bacteria without harming non pathogenic bacteria according to the difference of Lol protein between bacteria. Laboratory mouse studies have verified its effectiveness, and the results also show that loramicin does not significantly change the intestinal microbiota.

science : Japan promotes open access to all publicly funded research

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published at 14:28 Friday, May 31, 2024
From Doctor Mystery: silhouette
The Japanese government is promoting open access to all publicly funded research papers. This month, the Ministry of Science of Japan began to allocate funds to universities to build the necessary infrastructure for free reading of research papers nationwide. From January 2025, all researchers receiving government funding must publish their papers free of charge. This move aims to strengthen the long-term traceability of research information, promote secondary research and promote cooperation. Japan is one of the first Asian countries to make significant progress in open access, and also one of the first countries in the world to formulate a national open access plan. The United States announced open access regulations in 2022, and all taxpayer funded research must be open access by 2026. Japan has launched its own preprint service Jxiv, but so far there are few preprints of papers. Kazuki Ide, a Japanese scholar, said that the reason is that most researchers have not yet had the habit of publishing preprints, and many people do not know the existence of Jxiv.

science : How does the brain distinguish between music and language

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 15:53
From Ika Tenge
According to a study published in the journal PLOS Biology, the brain simply distinguishes the sound of music and language through acoustic features. Researchers say that music and language are different in many aspects, such as tone, timbre and sound texture. They use Hertz (Hz) to represent the rhythm or change period of sound. The change of volume or loudness of a song over time (AM) is relatively stable between 1Hz and 2Hz. In contrast, the amplitude modulation of a language is usually 4Hz - 5Hz, which means that its volume often changes. The research team conducted four experiments, allowing more than 300 participants to listen to a series of synthetic music and language audio, which have different amplitude modulation and laws. The results show that the human auditory system uses very simple and basic acoustic parameters to distinguish between music and language: for participants, audio with slower speed (less than 2Hz) and more regular amplitude modulation sounds more like music; The audio with faster speed (4Hz) and more irregular amplitude modulation sounds more like language.

science : The age of human fertility is changing

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 15:12
From the accelerated world 12: red badge
For a long time, childbearing has always belonged to young people. Researchers estimate that in the long history of mankind, women usually conceive their first child before or in their early 20s, and then stop having children later. In recent decades, people have become married more and more late, especially in developed countries. Since the 1970s, the average age for American women to start raising children has been postponed from 21 to 27, and even as high as 32 for Korean women. In most high-income countries, the average age for women to have children has exceeded or will exceed 30 years old. Rama Singh, an evolutionary biologist at Canada's McMaster University, believes that women's menopause may become later and later as their childbearing becomes later and later. Some researchers believe that since the beginning of human origin, the age of menopause has been stable at about 50 years old. But Singh believes that there is no indestructible biological law that can fix women's childbearing age in this range. According to this trend of late childbearing, perhaps menopause will disappear after hundreds of thousands of years.

science : Exercise helps eliminate traumatic memory

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 17:11
Sword from Mars
Studies in mice have found that exercise helps to eliminate traumatic memory. The research report was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, and this finding may be helpful for the treatment of PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that can be triggered by experiencing or seeing traumatic events, such as natural disasters, serious accidents or attacks. Globally, about 3.9% of the general population suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, whose symptoms include vivid flashback and avoidance behaviors, such as staying away from places that remind them of traumatic events or pushing people away. In the mouse study, researchers focused on how neurogenesis (the process of forming new neurons) in the hippocampus affects the ability of fear memory. The hippocampus is an important area of the brain for forming memories related to specific places and environments. It produces new neurons in an area called the dentate gyrus every day. Researchers gave mice two strong shocks in different environments to produce PTSD like behavior, and then explored whether it could be alleviated by exercise. Research shows that exercise can promote neurogenesis. Double shock mice were divided into two groups, one of which was equipped with a running wheel. Four weeks later, the number of newly formed neurons in the hippocampus of these mice increased, and the behavior similar to post-traumatic stress disorder was not so serious.

science : Astronomers report the first evidence of a black hole collapse region

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 00:34
From Dream Snake
Einstein was right again. An international team led by scientists from Oxford University confirmed a key prediction made by Einstein about black holes. They used X-ray data to prove for the first time that there is a "crash region" around the black hole, that is, the region where matter stops rotating around the black hole and falls directly into. In addition, they found that the region produced the strongest gravity observed in the Milky Way. Einstein's theory points out that because particles are close enough to a black hole, they cannot follow a circular orbit. Instead, they will dive towards the black hole at a speed close to the speed of light. For decades, astrophysicists have debated whether the so-called "crash zone" can be detected. In the latest research, the researchers used the X-ray data collected by NASA's space-based nuclear spectrum telescope array and the neutron star internal composition detector to better understand the forces generated by black holes, and confirmed the detection of this "collapse region" for the first time.

science : You'll leave microbial fingerprints on every piece of clothing you wear

science
Wilson (42865)
 Published on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 at 17:03
From Spark
According to a study published in the journal Genes, you will leave a microbial fingerprint on every piece of clothing you wear. The fingerprint can be saved for several months and can be used to identify the unique wearer. The bacteria on the skin surface are unique and can be transferred to other people and the environment. In the experiment, two Australian volunteers wore cotton T-shirts for 24 hours, and then were placed in a controlled environment for six months. The control group was not wearing T-shirts. The researchers collected samples at different time points, sent them to Italy for microbial DNA extraction, and then sequenced them in the UK. The results showed that the volunteers transferred unique and identifiable microorganisms to their clothes, which could be stored stably for 180 days. Any clothes at the crime scene can provide key evidence for the investigation, and can reveal the wearer's gender, occupation, income, social status, political, religious or cultural background, even marital status and other information.

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