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Certain neurons encode memories of events that occurred in specific physical locations known as place fields. Chickadees show patterns of neuronal activity that are specific to locations of hidden food but independent of place fields.
Cement can be reused by including it as a component of steel recycling. This opens the way to an industrial partnership that improves the use of materials and lowers carbon emissions — but only if waste resources are well managed.
Neuroscientists find that two distinct neural pathways are responsible for the addictive properties of the opioid fentanyl: one mediates reward, the other promotes the seeking of relief from symptoms of withdrawal.
A phenomenon that affects the magnetic fields of rotating bodies could be involved in recurring changes in the Sun’s behaviour, which are related to a periodic flipping of its field. The proposal is a fresh take on this strange effect.
A simple design approach and predictive computational methods have spawned a pathway for making materials that could trap specific molecules — an ability needed for applications such as carbon capture.
Artificial neural networks that model the visual system of a male fruit fly can accurately predict the insect’s behaviour in response to seeing a potential mate — paving the way for the building of more complex models of brain circuits.
The chemistry of promethium, a rare radioactive element, has been clouded in mystery, owing to its scarcity and the difficulties involved in working with it. The synthesis of a complex of promethium plugs this knowledge gap.
When chromosomes are lost or gained, massive changes in gene expression disrupt the delicate balance of proteins in a cell. Yeasts with incorrect chromosome numbers counteract this by degrading excess proteins.
Long-term memories are thought to be represented by the same brain areas as those that encode sensory stimuli, but the mechanisms remain unclear. A study that recorded neural activity from face-selective regions of the macaque brain found that these regions represent familiar faces using a neural code that is distinct from the one for sensory representation.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, emphasizes the importance of conserving wild plant species, plus a wonderstruck sky-watcher spots a brilliant meteor, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
Propionic acidaemia is an inheirited metabolic condition caused by a lack of a liver enzyme, which leads to accumulation of toxic compounds. In a first-in-human trial, a therapeutic messenger RNA drug (mRNA-3927) led to restored enzyme activity, was well tolerated and showed a promising dose-dependent reduction of potentially life-threatening clinical events.
A two-in-one drug that modulates neural pathways involved in appetite and reward might prove to be more effective and longer lasting than current weight-loss drugs on the market.
A design principle for buildings incorporates components that can control the propagation of failure by isolating parts of the structure as they fail — offering a way to prevent a partial collapse snowballing into complete destruction.
Both parents of oldfield mice care for offspring, whereas in deer mice, mothers usually care for pups. The discovery of a type of adrenal-gland cell that is present in oldfield mice but not in deer mice helps to explain the difference.
A book cataloguing mysterious events challenges scientists to provide some answers, and Charles Darwin continues his investigations of crimes against primroses, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
Some genes carry an ‘imprint’ on either the maternal or the paternal copy, which determines whether or not that copy is expressed. This 1984 discovery changed how scientists think about gene regulation and inheritance.
A genome-wide association study of metabolic biomarkers in 136,000 participants discovered more than 400 independent genomic regions affecting metabolism. The study also highlighted the importance of participant characteristics, such as fasting status, that can substantially affect the genetic associations.
Clarifying how genome duplication and triplication events shaped early vertebrate genomes has presented a challenge in evolutionary biology. The genome of the jawless hagfish provides a missing piece of this puzzle.
By using volunteers to map roads in forests across Borneo, Sumatra and New Guinea, an innovative study shows that existing maps of the Asia-Pacific region are rife with errors. It also reveals that unmapped roads are extremely common — up to seven times more abundant than mapped ones. Such ‘ghost roads’ are promoting illegal logging, mining, wildlife poaching and deforestation in some of the world’s biologically richest ecosystems.
