Новости за 14.12.2022

Sediment cores obtained from Eifel maar sites provide insight into the presence of large Ice Age mammals in Central Europe over the past 60,000 years: Overkill hypothesis not confirmed. Herds of megafauna, such as mammoth and bison, have roamed the prehistoric plains in what is today's Central Europe for several tens of thousands of years. As woodland expanded at the end of the last Ice Age, the numbers of these animals declined and by roughly 11,000 years ago, they had completely vanished from this region. Читать дальше...

Two seemingly different areas of physics are related in subtle ways: Quantum theory and thermodynamics. How can the laws of thermodynamics arise from the laws of quantum physics? This question has now been pursued with computer simulations, which showed that chaos plays a crucial role: Only where chaos prevails do the well-known rules of thermodynamics follow from quantum physics.

Training individuals to inhibit imitation of others increases empathy and allows them to recognize facial expressions in others regardless of their situations, according to new research.

Viruses can inflame and disrupt connections between the olfactory system, which governs the sense of smell, and the part of the brain associated with memory and learning, possibly accelerating the onset of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study.

Patients with treatment resistant depression have a 23 per cent higher risk of death than other depressed patients. They also have twice as much outpatient care and spend three times the number of days in inpatient care.

Some species of gut-dwelling bacteria activate nerves in the gut to promote the desire to exercise, according to a study in mice. The study reveals the gut-to-brain pathway that explains why some bacteria boost exercise performance.

Three approaches with a reputation for slowing aging processes have proven largely ineffective. For their study, researchers developed a new method to measure aging, which accounts for the complexity of aging in organisms.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the fifth leading cause of death in adults over 65 years old. While many potential treatments for the neurodegenerative disease focus on developing drugs to target key culprits, a relatively new approach aims to more directly treat the brain. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical technique of electrically exciting brain circuits to alleviate symptoms of disorders such as Parkinson's disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Humans are living further and further away from nature, leading to a decline in the number of our interactions with nature. The researchers highlight that human experience of nature is crucial for developing pro-environmental behavior and thus facing the global environmental crisis.

Quantum dots are normally made in industrial settings with high temperatures and toxic, expensive solvents -- a process that is neither economical nor environmentally friendly. But researchers have now pulled off the process at the bench using water as a solvent, making a stable end-product at room temperature. Their work opens the door to making nanomaterials in a more sustainable way by demonstrating that protein sequences not derived from nature can be used to synthesize functional materials.

Large doses of opioids are commonly prescribed after total knee and hip arthroplasty to avoid call-ins for refills, but smaller doses can be just as effective.

Structural racism has not only psychosocial but also biological consequences. Discrimination has been shown to contribute to mental and physical disorders including obesity, depression, and addiction, but the biological pathways from a social experience to its impacts on the body remain unknown. A new study examines the role of the brain-gut microbiome (BGM) system in discrimination-related health issues.