With season’s endyou topple to the ground,aching, broken limbsheld aloft by briny handsthat bare you proudlyto their sunken home. Drifting. With hushed reverenceyou plunge into the laminate,embraced in placeby cold and surging tides. Drifting. You sail through crystal watersand mother-of-pearl skies,skimming ragged currentsacross this frozen,breaking kingdom. Drifting. Washed up on frigid shores,your weathered bodyshimmers in […]

Forgetting a child in the car is a parent’s worst nightmare, but some experts say our ability to remember even the most crucial tasks can be hijacked by something as simple as a missing cue. According to Harvard psychologist Daniel L. Schacter, tragic cases of forgotten children started to rise near the turn of the millennium, […]

In a new paper, scientists suggest that efforts to understand human cognition should expand beyond the study of individual brains. They call on neuroscientists to incorporate evidence from social science disciplines to better understand how people think. “Accumulating evidence indicates that memory, reasoning, decision-making and other higher-level functions take place across people,” the researchers wrote […]

Cambridge researchers have developed ‘mini brains’ that allow them to study a fatal and untreatable neurological disorder causing paralysis and dementia – and for the first time have been able to grow these for almost a year. A common form of motor neurone disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often overlaps with frontotemporal dementia (ALS/FTD) and can […]

More than 90 years ago, physicist Eugene Wigner predicted that at low densities and cold temperatures, electrons that usually zip through materials would freeze into place, forming an electron ice, or what has been dubbed a Wigner crystal. While physicists have obtained indirect evidence that Wigner crystals exist, no one has been able to snap a […]

Scientists have known for a long time that magnetism is created by the spins of electrons lining up in certain ways. But about a decade ago, they discovered another astonishing layer of complexity in magnetic materials: Under the right conditions, these spins can form skyrmions, little vortexes or whirlpools that act like particles and move around […]

Carbon dioxide emissions have dominated discussions about climate change, but reducing the amount of methane released into the atmosphere can also make an impact. Later this month, the world’s largest gathering devoted to climate change, COP26, will convene in Glasgow where world leaders are expected to discuss carbon dioxide emissions and methane emissions from oil […]

Ahigh body mass index (BMI) is closely correlated with insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. For decades, nutrition guidelines have emphasized the necessity of decreasing intake of dietary fats. Yet, even as studies demonstrate ties between foods laden with simple carbohydrates and metabolic dysfunction, much remains unknown about how the body processes large amounts of […]

For decades, scientists have wondered how large molecules such as proteins pass through cell walls, also known as plasma membranes, without leaving a trace. That ability is part of what makes certain drugs ­­­­– including some cancer treatments and the COVID-19 vaccine – work. And it is also how bacterial toxins enter human cells and […]

Carnegie Mellon University researchers are challenging a long-held assumption that there is a trade-off between accuracy and fairness when using machine learning to make public policy decisions. As the use of machine learning has increased in areas such as criminal justice, hiring, health care delivery and social service interventions, concerns have grown over whether such […]