Science

A virtual reality experiment suggests that fear, pain, and expectations shaped by prior experiences can disrupt the mind’s grip on the body.

The coffee from most of the coffee machines in workplaces contains relatively high levels of cholesterol-elevating substances. There is a big difference in comparison to coffee made in regular paper filter coffee makers, which filter out most of these substances.

Great hammerhead sharks are slow to grow and slow to reproduce, which makes them very vulnerable to overfishing — worldwide populations have shrunk and genetic diversity is dangerously low. To conserve these sharks, identifying the habitats they use and when they use them is critical. Scientists tagging and tracking sharks near Andros Island in the Bahamas have now discovered that although some sharks travel to the east coast of the US, others prefer to stick closer to home, living in the warm waters around Andros and returning to the same sites year after year.

Study.

Mixed methods study found hopelessness among patients struggling with condition after trying multiple antidepressants

People have noticed their pets reacting to the Oscar-winner “Flow” which features animated animals, making people wonder if their cat or dog recognizes themself on screen.

An analysis of the 100 most-viewed TikTok videos related to ADHD revealed that fewer than half the claims about symptoms actually align with clinical guidelines for diagnosing ADHD.

For years, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been studied primarily in people who experience trauma firsthand. But what about those who witness it — military veterans, first responders, health care workers, or bystanders to violence — who constitute 10 percent of all PTSD cases?

New research from Virginia Tech, published in PLOS ONE, reveals that witnessing trauma triggers unique brain changes, distinct from those caused by experiencing trauma firsthand. The study is the first to shed light on the molecular differences between directly acquired PTSD and bystander PTSD and could pave the way for changes in how the disorders are treated.

Waste-to-nutrition" technologies aim to transform agricultural or food waste into ingredients for human and animal consumption, while reducing the environmental impact of food systems. INRAE scientists assessed the environmental impact of 5 of these technologies in nine usage scenarios in France. They compared them with existing waste recovery technologies such as anaerobic digestion and composting. Their results, published in Nature Sustainability, show that these new technologies do not systematically provide any environmental benefits compared with existing solutions.

The agency froze most spending above $1. Government researchers now struggle to carry out basic functions of their jobs.

Transgender people prescribed gender affirming hormones are at significantly lower risk of depression, a new study shows. The US researchers looked at nearly 3600 transgender and non-binary patients, finding that over fifteen percent had moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms. After two years of followup, those who were prescribed hormones had a significantly lower risk of depressive symptoms. The researchers suggest that this happens because of the physiological changes caused by hormones, as well as reductions in gender dysphoria leading to better social functioning.

National Institutes of Health officials have urged scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications, two researchers said, in a move that signaled the agency might abandon a promising field of medical research.

Mathematicians from New York University and the University of British Columbia have resolved a decades-old geometric problem, the Kakeya conjecture in 3D, which studies the shape left behind by a needle moving in multiple directions.

Researchers found that adding city waste products to local farms promoted a healthy soil microbiome and improved how tomatoes taste.

In their ongoing efforts to push the boundaries of quantum possibilities, physicists at WashU have created a new type of “time crystal,” a novel phase of matter that defies common perceptions of motion and time.

Whether excited about gaining new followers or desperate to win back lost subscribers, investors who saw changes to their subscriber count performed worse than before their subscribers changed, according to a new study.

MRS. C GREN (Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Cells, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition.) is an acronym I learnt at school to categorise things as living or non-living. If something does all of these it is considered alive.

My teacher told me cells are included to categorise fire as non living (as fire fulfills all other requirements).

Even after finishing school I am still annoyed by this requirement. Cells are the basic unit of life. So cells need to be alive to be cells, but you also need to have cells to be alive, in other words you need to be alive to be alive, not very useful for determining if things are living or not.

So I propose an amendment, remove C and add E - for ability to Evolve. Fire cannot evolve, but I see evolution as an essential requirement for all forms of life.

Much more elegant.

Also as a bonus, MRS. GREEN is a nicer acronym and I think its easier to remember.

Were you taught a better acronym? Or perhaps do you have an even more elegant idea?