Human beings can generate false memories of events mere seconds after they have occurred, a new study has found. The phenomenon, which researchers have dubbed “short-term memory illusions,” shows how easily and rapidly humans reimagine experiences to fit our preconceptions, rather than accurately recording what takes place. The researchers published their findings April 5 in … Read more
Scientists have long debated the greatest possible age of a person, with previous studies placing the limit at up to 150 years. But in the past 25 years, no one has surpassed the record for the world’s oldest person, held by Jean Louise Calment, who died at age 122 in 1997. “This has led people … Read more
A person’s native language may shape how their brain builds connections between different hubs of information processing, a new brain scan study reveals. The observed differences in these language network structures were related to linguistic characteristics in the native languages of the study participants: German and Arabic. “So the difference we find there shouldn’t be … Read more
Scientists studying a cousin of the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis and leprosy have discovered an enzyme that converts hydrogen into electricity, and they think it could be used to create a new, clean source of energy literally from thin air. The enzyme, which has been named Huc, is used by the bacterium Mycobacterium smegmatis to … Read more
The largest animal ever to walk on Earth was likely the dinosaur Argentinosaurus, a hulking 77-ton (70 metric tons) titanosaur that lived about 90 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous. For comparison, the heaviest animal on land today is the African elephant (Loxodonta), which weighs less than 7 tons (6 metric tons). And both … Read more
Telomeres are the “caps” that protect the ends of DNA strands from being destroyed by a cell. They are made up of areas of repeated DNA sequences combined with specific proteins at the ends of chromosomes — the tightly wound structures of DNA and proteins inside cells. Telomeres play a role in how fast cells … Read more
The world’s deadliest mushroom has been invading California by cloning itself, new research finds. The poisonous “death cap” mushroom (Amanita phalloides) is an invasive fungus whose fatal amatoxin accounts for more than 90% of deaths from mushrooms worldwide, but how it spread from its European origins to colonize every continent except Antarctica has long been … Read more
Miniature, lab-grown models of the human brain’s wrinkled surface can be used to patch injuries in the brains of living rats and thus repair broken connections in the rodents’ sensory processing systems, a new study shows. Someday, such minibrains — known as brain organoids — could potentially be used to mend the brains of human … Read more
Once life gains even the tiniest foothold on a planet, it may have the power to transform that world, forcing us to broaden our definition of “habitable,” new research suggests. We don’t really know where life might arise. We have only one example of a life-hosting planet, Earth, which started to get interesting perhaps only … Read more
Scientists have uncovered a mysterious network of brain connections that is linked to several psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This shared brain circuitry could help reveal why many patients who are diagnosed with one psychiatric illness also meet the criteria for a second. “Half of the people we treat meet criteria … Read more
