News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Scientists may have discovered a new way of tackling the lingering, debilitating effects of Lyme disease, the tick-borne illness that can lead to flu-like symptoms and a rash called erythema migrans. The latest research suggests that dead fragments of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, continue to hang around in the body … Read more
Long before Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed, once-trusty proteins start to knot together in the brain in a process that may be hastened by poor sleep. Now, scientists have uncovered a possible mechanism linking disruptions in circadian rhythms and the build-up of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease, by studying the rhythmic operation of immune cells and … Read more
Since 2013, medical experts in West Africa have been playing whack-a-mole with what looks like the same strain of Ebola virus, and we don’t really know why it continues to pop back up. Even though we keep hammering away at the virus with effective antibody treatments and vaccines, this incredibly fatal infection keeps re-emerging … Read more
A new technique called sonogenetics uses ultrasound to switch on and off genetically altered brain cells. It has been successfully tested in mice, and could be a future tool for treating brain conditions such as Parkinson’s or epilepsy in humans Health 9 February 2022 By Clare Wilson Neurons (magenta) in a mouse brain Salk Institute … Read more
In the last few years, the deeply frustrating medical area of chronic migraine prevention has been revolutionized thanks to the discovery that a protein called calcitonin gene-related peptide, or CGRP, plays a role in the condition. While several drugs containing antibodies that block or bind the protein have now entered the market and are helping … Read more
A good workout doesn’t just boost your mood—it also boosts the brain’s ability to create new neurons. But exactly how this happens has puzzled researchers for years. “It’s been a bit of a black box,” says Tara Walker, a neuroscientist at the University of Queensland’s Brain Institute. Now, Walker and her colleagues think they have … Read more
Our eyes are continuously bombarded by an enormous amount of visual information – millions of shapes, colors, and ever-changing motion all around us. For the brain, this is no easy feat. On the one hand, the visual world alters continuously because of changes in light, viewpoint, and other factors. On the other, our visual … Read more
In the winter of 1997 Carver Mead lectured on an unusual topic for a computer scientist: the nervous systems of animals, such as the humble fly. Mead, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, described his earlier idea for an electronic problem-solving system inspired by nerve cells, a technique he had dubbed “neuromorphic” computing. … Read more
As cats have become domesticated over the last 10,000 years or so, their brains have shrunk significantly in size, a new study confirms – a finding that could lead to important new insights into how animals adapt when they start being regularly kept by human beings. Researchers compared the size of craniums (an indicator … Read more
A partial skull from China represents the earliest human with a “modern” brain size. It could represent an unknown group of ancient humans, or perhaps one of the enigmatic Denisovans Humans 26 January 2022 By Michael Marshall Fragments of a large ancient human skull known as Xujiayao 6 Xiu-Jie Wu,Christopher J.Bae, Martin Friess, Song Xing, … Read more