MI weekly selection #135
Rats’ desires to go certain places revealed in their dreams
Rats dream about places they want to go, according to a study published in eLife. Researchers showed an inaccessible treat to rats, then coaxed them to sleep in a comfortable nest, monitoring their brain activity, and when they woke, they went directly to the place where they saw the treat before, firing the same cells.
Key gene that allows poppies to make morphine
Researchers studying poppy plants found a gene called STORR that helps the flowers produce natural morphinans.The researchers hope the discovery will help make pharmaceutical production more efficient.
Causes of glacial earthquakes
When huge ice chunks break away from a glacier and fall into the ocean, the force pushes the glacier backward, resulting in glacial earthquakes Researchers say glacial quakes may become more common as global temperatures rise.
Faraway planet seen trailing hydrogen gas as it orbits red dwarf star
The Hubble space telescope has spotted a planet the size of Neptune with a comet-like tail of hydrogen gas orbiting its red dwarf star Gliese 436.
Early galaxies had very little dust
Observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array indicate that early galaxies had very little dust compared with more mature galaxies ALMA detected carbon in the space between stars in early galaxies, helping scientists better understand how they evolved.