Animal care panel sues own university, fearing harassment from animal rights activists | Science

In an unprecedented move, members of a confidential group that oversees animal research at the University of Washington (UW) have sued their own school to block the release of their names to an animal rights organization. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been trying to obtain this information for more than a … Read more

Here’s What Doomscrolling Is Doing to Your Brain – And How to Fix It

Many people have experienced chronic stress since the pandemic lockdowns. Added to this are the climate crisis, the increasing cost of living and most recently threats to European and global security due to the conflict in Ukraine.   To some, it may seem that there is never any good news anymore. This is of course … Read more

Baby Receives Heart Transplant With a Life-Changing Twist to Counter Organ Rejection

A baby in North Carolina has received a first-of-its-kind heart transplant that may prevent his body from rejecting the organ without the need for lifelong drugs to suppress the immune system.    The child, Easton Sinnamon, is the first person to receive a heart transplant along with implantation of thymus tissue from the same donor, according to a statement from Duke … Read more

Indigenous Amazonians Have Just 1% Dementia Rates. We Can Learn From This

We know about the devastating effect that Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia can have on people – but what’s less clear is how they get started in the brain and what can be done to cure them or prevent them from happening in the first place.   Some clues could be found amongst indigenous … Read more

Here’s How The Human Brain Reboots Itself After The Deep Sleep of Anesthesia

You may well have spent hours wondering what your laptop is up to as it takes its time to boot up. Scientists have asked the same question of the human brain: How exactly does it restart after being anesthetized, in a coma, or in a deep sleep?   Using a group of 30 healthy adults … Read more

Wild New Paper Says ‘Quantum Gravity’ Could Emerge From a Holographic Universe

In the last decades of his life, Albert Einstein hoped to unite his description of gravity with existing models of electromagnetism under a single master theory. It’s a quest that continues to vex theoretical physicists to this day. Two of our best models of reality – Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the laws of … Read more

This Huge Yellow Spider Could Spread Across The US Seaboard in No Time at All

Say hello to the Jorō spider (Trichonephila clavata), an arachnid you’re likely to be seeing a lot more of in the future if you live on the East Coast of the US. New research suggests the distinctive black-and-yellow creature – currently flourishing in the state of Georgia – is unlikely to face any barriers in … Read more

How a 19th-Century Breakthrough Could Revolutionize COVID-19 Diagnosis

It sounds simple, but to treat someone you suspect has COVID, you need to confirm they are actually infected with the coronavirus. In the UK, it is easy to take this for granted – we’ve had a reliable detection method for diagnosing infected patients widely available since early on in the pandemic. This allowed for … Read more

What Freezing Ants Can Tell Us About How Their Memory Works

We humans are versatile and accomplished navigators, but insects might have navigation skills that are even better. For them, it’s literally a matter of life and death – and that’s why we decided to freeze some ants and beetles (don’t worry, they still survived) to learn more about how they remember their way home after … Read more

Scientists Unearth The Ancient Bones of The Largest Jurassic Pterosaur Ever Found

During low tide on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, a graduate student hunting for dinosaur bones looked down at the coastal rocks and made the discovery of a lifetime: the remains of the largest pterosaur on record from the Jurassic period.   Since collecting the specimen in 2017 – an eventful excavation that involved cutting out … Read more