Who wants to live forever? Scientist sees aging cured. Protein linked with rare disease plays role in aging. Psychologists Demonstrate Simplicity Of Working Memory. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but humans may have even less to work with than previously thought. University of Missouri researchers found that the average person can keep just three or four things in their "working memory" or conscious mind at one time. This finding may lead to better ways to assess and help people with attention-deficit and focus difficulties, improve classroom performance and enhance test scores. "Most people believe the human mind is incredibly complex," said Jeff Rouder, associate professor of psychology in the MU College of Arts and Science. "We were able to use a relatively simple experiment and look at how many objects can be in maintained in the human conscious mind at any one time. We found that every person has the capacity to hold a certain number of objects in his or her mind.
Working memory is like the number of memory registers in a computer. "How an individual does this test depends on working memory," Cowan said. Best tests for predicting Alzheimer's disease identified. New research has identified the memory and brain scan tests that appear to predict best whether a person with cognitive problems might develop Alzheimer's disease. The research is published in the June 30, 2010, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Memory and brain scan tests were performed on 85 people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who were part of a larger study called the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. The tests included an episodic memory test, in which a participant must correctly recall a list of words. Blood tests were given to measure which form of the APOE gene people had, since one form of the gene is associated with Alzheimer's disease. MRI brain scans were also used to measure the size of a participant's hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory.
Participants were between the ages of 55 and 90 and were followed for an average of 1.9 years. Predicting Alzheimer's -- Psychiatrists Can Predict Onset of Alzheimer's with New EEG Test. Aug. 11, 2023 — The skin, hair and eye color of more than eight billion humans is determined by the light-absorbing pigment known as melanin. New research has identified 135 new genes associated with ... Aug. 10, 2023 — Researchers introduce a new tool to measure bias in text-to-image AI generation models, which they have used to quantify bias in the state-of-the-art model Stable ...
Aug. 10, 2023 — Microscopic plastic particles have been found in the fats and lungs of two-thirds of the marine mammals in a graduate student's study of ocean microplastics. The presence of polymer particles ... Aug. 10, 2023 — Sodium, Potassium and zinc have all been promising contenders for lithium's place in rechargeable batteries of the future, but researchers have added an unusual and more abundant competitor to ... Aug. 10, 2023 — The best heart rate for burning fat differs for each individual and often does not align with the 'fat burning zone' on commercial exercise machines, researchers report.
Japan experts design superelastic alloy, may resist quakes. Quantum 'graininess' of space at smaller scales? Gamma-ray observatory challenges physics beyond Einstein. The European Space Agency's Integral gamma-ray observatory has provided results that will dramatically affect the search for physics beyond Einstein. It has shown that any underlying quantum 'graininess' of space must be at much smaller scales than previously predicted. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity describes the properties of gravity and assumes that space is a smooth, continuous fabric. Yet quantum theory suggests that space should be grainy at the smallest scales, like sand on a beach.
One of the great concerns of modern physics is to marry these two concepts into a single theory of quantum gravity. Now, Integral has placed stringent new limits on the size of these quantum 'grains' in space, showing them to be much smaller than some quantum gravity ideas would suggest. According to calculations, the tiny grains would affect the way that gamma rays travel through space. GRBs come from some of the most energetic explosions known in the Universe. Early universe was a liquid, nuclei collisions at the Large Hadron Collider show. In an experiment to collide lead nuclei together at CERN's Large Hadron Collider physicists from the ALICE detector team including researchers from the University of Birmingham have discovered that the very early Universe was not only very hot and dense but behaved like a hot liquid.
By accelerating and smashing together lead nuclei at the highest possible energies, the ALICE experiment has generated incredibly hot and dense sub-atomic fireballs, recreating the conditions that existed in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang. Scientists claim that these mini big bangs create temperatures of over ten trillion degrees. At these temperatures normal matter is expected to melt into an exotic, primordial 'soup' known as quark-gluon plasma.
These first results from lead collisions have already ruled out a number of theoretical physics models, including ones predicting that the quark-gluon plasma created at these energies would behave like a gas. For one tiny instant, physicists may have broken a law of nature. For a brief instant, it appears, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island recently discovered a law of nature had been broken. Action still resulted in an equal and opposite reaction, gravity kept the Earth circling the Sun, and conservation of energy remained intact. But for the tiniest fraction of a second at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), physicists created a symmetry-breaking bubble of space where parity no longer existed. Parity was long thought to be a fundamental law of nature. It essentially states that the universe is neither right- nor left-handed -- that the laws of physics remain unchanged when expressed in inverted coordinates. In the early 1950s it was found that the so-called weak force, which is responsible for nuclear radioactivity, breaks the parity law.
However, the strong force, which holds together subatomic particles, was thought to adhere to the law of parity, at least under normal circumstances. Birds' eye view is far more colorful than our own. The brilliant colors of birds have inspired poets and nature lovers, but researchers at Yale University and the University of Cambridge say these existing hues represent only a fraction of what birds are capable of seeing. The findings based on study of the avian visual system, reported in the June 23 issue of the journal Behavioral Ecology, show that over millions of years of evolution plumage colors went from dull to bright as birds gradually acquired the ability to create newer pigments and structural colors. "Our clothes were pretty drab before the invention of aniline dyes, but then color became cheap and there was an explosion in the colorful clothes we wear today," said Richard Prum, chair and the William Robertson Coe Professor in the Department of Ornithology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and co-author of the paper.
"The same type of thing seemed to have happened with birds. " "We don't know why plumage colors are confined to this subset," Stoddard said. DHA improves memory and cognitive function in older adults, study suggests. A study published in the November edition of Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association suggests that taking docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) may improve memory and learning in older adults with mild cognitive impairments. This is promising news for many aging Americans who are searching for options to maintain memory and support overall cognitive health. The "Memory Improvement with Docosahexaenoic Acid Study" (MIDAS) was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the effects of DHA -- the principle omega-3 fatty acid in the brain -- on improving cognitive functions in healthy older adults with age-related cognitive decline.
The study found that DHA taken for six months improved memory and learning in healthy, older adults with mild memory complaints. "The results of this study are very encouraging for those consumers concerned about maintaining memory. These findings underscore the importance of early DHA intervention. Learning keeps brain healthy: Mental activity could stave off age-related cognitive and memory decline.
UC Irvine neurobiologists are providing the first visual evidence that learning promotes brain health -- and, therefore, that mental stimulation could limit the debilitating effects of aging on memory and the mind. Using a novel visualization technique they devised to study memory, a research team led by Lulu Chen and Christine Gall found that everyday forms of learning animate neuron receptors that help keep brain cells functioning at optimum levels. These receptors are activated by a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which facilitates the growth and differentiation of the connections, or synapses, responsible for communication among neurons.
BDNF is key in the formation of memories. "The findings confirm a critical relationship between learning and brain growth and point to ways we can amplify that relationship through possible future treatments," says Chen, a graduate researcher in anatomy & neurobiology. Could a pill increase learning ability post-puberty? It is well known that the onset of puberty marks the end of the optimal period for learning language and certain spatial skills, such as computer/video game operation. Recent work published in the journal Science by Sheryl Smith, PhD, professor of physiology and pharmacology, and colleagues at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn shows that a novel brain receptor, alpha4-beta-delta, emerges at puberty in the hippocampus, part of the brain that controls learning and memory. Before puberty, expression of this receptor is low and learning is optimal. However, at puberty, increases in this receptor reduce brain excitability and impair spatial learning.
Dr. "These findings suggest that intrinsic brain mechanisms alter learning during adolescence, but that mild stress may be one factor that can reverse this decline in learning proficiency during the teenage years," says Dr. In 2007, Dr. New gene therapy for heart failure developed. Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found in a Phase II trial that a gene therapy developed at Mount Sinai stabilized or improved cardiac function in people with severe heart failure.
Patients receiving a high dose of the therapy, called SERCA2a, experienced substantial clinical benefit and significantly reduced cardiovascular hospitalizations, addressing a critical unmet need in this population. The data are published online in the June 27 issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation. SERCA2a is delivered via an adeno-associated virus vector -- an inactive virus that acts as a medication transporter -- into cardiac cells.
The therapy stimulates production of an enzyme within these cells that enables the heart to pump more effectively in people with advanced heart failure. "Few treatment options have shown such improved clinical outcomes in this patient population in the last decade," said Roger J. Led by Dr. According to the U.S. New material promises faster electronics. High hopes are pinned on the new material: Graphene, a honeycomb-like carbon structure, made of only one layer of atoms, exhibits remarkable properties. In 2010, the Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of graphene and its behavior. At the Photonics Institute at the TU Vienna, the electronic and optical properties of graphene are the focus of interest. Viennese scientists could now demonstrate how remarkably fast graphene converts light pulses into electrical signals.
This could considerably improve date exchange between computers. Converting Light into Electrical Signals When data is transmitted by light pulses (for in stance in fiber optic cables) the pulses have to be converted back into electrical signals, which can be processed by a computer. This conversion of light into electrical current is possible due to the photoelectric effect, which was originally explained by Albert Einstein. Analysis using Ultra Short Laser Pulses Fast Signals for Fast Electronics. Brain rhythm associated with learning also linked to running speed, study shows.
Rhythms in the brain that are associated with learning become stronger as the body moves faster, UCLA neurophysicists report in a new study. The research team, led by professor Mayank Mehta, used specialized microelectrodes to monitor an electrical signal known as the gamma rhythm in the brains of mice. This signal is typically produced in a brain region called the hippocampus, which is critical for learning and memory, during periods of concentration and learning. The researchers found that the strength of the gamma rhythm grew substantially as running speed increased, bringing scientists a step closer to understanding the brain functions essential for learning and navigation.
"The gamma rhythm is known to be controlled by attention and learning, but we find it is also governed by how fast you are running," said Mehta, an associate professor of physics and astronomy, neurology, and neurobiology and the senior author of the study. The 'language of the brain' How does the brain learn?