Article archives

MI weekly selection #581

MI weekly selection #581

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

Young exoplanet offers insights into planetary formation TIDYE-1 b, a newly discovered exoplanet orbiting the young star IRAS 04125+2902, offers a glimpse into early planetary development. Situated 520 light-years from Earth, this planet is wrapped in a protoplanetary disk and is expected to evolve into a sub-Neptune. Full Story: Astronomy Human Cell Atlas makes progress […]

A self-organizing nervous system of robots

A self-organizing nervous system of robots

Robotics

By Mapping Ignorance

The deployment of robot teams could allow humans to complete various real-world tasks faster and more efficiently. For instance, multiple co-operating robots could help to quickly find and rescue survivors of natural disasters or monitor pollution across large geographical areas. Researchers at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) have developed a new swarm architecture inspired by […]

MI weekly selection #580

MI weekly selection #580

Weekly Selection

By César Tomé

Immigrating birds adapt quickly through social learning Great tits demonstrate social learning by adopting new behaviors from resident birds when they immigrate to a new environment. Researchers used puzzle boxes to show that 80% of immigrant birds quickly adopted the resident birds’ methods for obtaining food, underscoring the importance of social learning in animal behaviour […]

Mechanodrugs

Mechanodrugs

BiochemistryDIPC BiochemistryPharmacy

By DIPC

Numerous proteins in the cell withstand mechanical loads while performing their function. This is especially significant for cell-surface proteins located in the extracellular matrix, which are essential for the communication between cells in the extracellular milieu. Reacting to mechanical force through conformational changes is crucial for these cell-surface proteins, translating a physical signal into an […]

Astrocytes transplantation as a treatment for some neurological disorders

Astrocytes transplantation as a treatment for some neurological disorders

Neuroscience

By Invited Researcher

Authors: Albert HiuKa Fok, Postdoctoral Fellow in Neuroscience, McGill University and Sabrina Chierzi, Research Associate, Neuroscience, McGill University Astrocytes — named for their star-like shape — are a type of brain cell as abundant as neurons in the central nervous system, but little is known about their role in brain health and disease. Many neurological […]

Multiple Denisovan interbreeding events with modern humans

Multiple Denisovan interbreeding events with modern humans

AnthropologyEvolutionGenetics

By Mapping Ignorance

Scientists believe individuals of the most recently discovered hominin group (the Denisovans) that interbred with modern day humans passed on some of their genes via multiple, distinct interbreeding events that helped shape early human history. In 2010, the first draft of the Neanderthal genome was published, and comparisons with modern human genomes revealed that Neanderthal […]