Lifeboat Foundation

They are part of the brain of almost every animal species, yet they remain usually invisible even under the electron microscope. “Electrical synapses are like the dark matter of the brain,” says Alexander Borst, director at the MPI for Biological Intelligence, in foundation (i.f). Now a team from his department has taken a closer look at this rarely explored brain component: In the brain of the fruit fly Drosophila, they were able to show that electrical synapses occur in almost all brain areas and can influence the function and stability of individual nerve cells.

Neurons communicate via synapses, small contact points at which chemical messengers transmit a stimulus from one cell to the next. We may remember this from biology class. However, that is not the whole story. In addition to the commonly known chemical synapses, there is a second, little-known type of synapse: the electrical synapse. “Electrical synapses are much rarer and are hard to detect with current methods. That’s why they have hardly been researched so far,” explains Georg Ammer, who has long been fascinated by these hidden cell connections. “In most animal brains, we therefore don’t know even basic things, such as where exactly electrical synapses occur or how they influence brain activity.”

An electrical synapse connects two neurons directly, allowing the electrical current that neurons use to communicate, to flow from one cell to the next without a detour. Except in echinoderms, this particular type of synapse occurs in the brain of every animal species studied so far. “Electrical synapses must therefore have important functions: we just do not know which ones!” says Georg Ammer.

Extremely interested to hear some of your opinions on this. Published in the journal Nature.

Scientists have discovered a new, mysterious particle. Of course, making new discoveries is exciting. But, perhaps the most exciting thing about this particle is that it could be a candidate for dark matter.

Incredibly, the never-before-seen particle was discovered using an experiment small enough to fit on a kitchen counter.

Continue reading “Scientists discovered a never-before-seen particle and it could be dark matter” »

Chance observations corroborate hybrid explanation for drop in brightness.

A weather satellite has helped explain why the red supergiant star Betelgeuse experienced an unprecedented dimming in 2019–20.

Its findings corroborate earlier studies that concluded the dimming was the consequence of a lower-temperature spot on the star, which reduced the heat going to a nearby gas cloud. This, astronomers believe, allowed the cloud to cool and condense into dust that blocked some of Betelgeuse’s light.

Continue reading “Weather satellite sheds light on ‘Great Dimming’ of Betelgeuse star” »

An interdisciplinary team led by Boston College physicists has discovered a new particle—or previously undetectable quantum excitation—known as the axial Higgs mode, a magnetic relative of the mass-defining Higgs Boson particle, the team reports in the online edition of the journal Nature.

The detection a decade ago of the long-sought Higgs Boson became central to the understanding of mass. Unlike its parent, axial Higgs mode has a magnetic moment, and that requires a more complex form of the theory to explain its properties, said Boston College Professor of Physics Kenneth Burch, a lead co-author of the report “Axial Higgs Mode Detected by Quantum Pathway Interference in RTe3.”

Theories that predicted the existence of such a mode have been invoked to explain “dark matter,” the nearly invisible material that makes up much of the universe, but only reveals itself via gravity, Burch said.

Understanding the early universe has been a goal for scientists for decades. And, now with NASA’s James Webb space telescope, and other technology, we’re finally making some decent strides. A new simulation on early galaxy formation could be another key stepping stone, too.

Researchers created the simulation using machine learning. It then completed over 100,000 hours of computations to create the one-of-a-kind simulation. The researchers named the algorithm responsible for the project Hydo-BAM. They published a paper with the simulation’s findings earlier this year.

Creating a simulation of early galaxy formation has allowed researchers to chart the earliest moments of our universe. These important moments began just after the Big Bang set everything into motion. Understanding these key moments of the formation of the early universe could help us better understand how galaxies form in the universe today.

All cosmic objects are embedded in magnetic fields. However, these fields are weak, but they are dynamically significant because they have profound effects on the dynamics of the universe.

The origin of these cosmic magnetic fields remains one of the most fundamental mysteries in cosmology, despite decades of intensive attention and inquiry.

By studying the dynamics of plasma turbulence, scientists from MIT are helping to solve one of the mysteries of the origins of cosmological magnetic fields.

Distinctive features of gravitational-wave signals from black hole mergers could reveal the existence of long-sought ultralight bosons.

A team of astronomers in Japan, for the first time, discovered a faint radio emission covering a giant galaxy as a result of achieving high imaging dynamic range. Radio emission is emitted by the gas created directly by the central black hole.

Using the same technique to additional quasars, the team hopes to learn more about how a black hole interacts with its host galaxy.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile (ALMA), astronomers targeted the quasar 3C 273, which lies at 2.4 billion light-years from Earth. It is the first quasar ever discovered, the brightest, and the best studied. However, much less has been known about its host galaxy itself because combining the faint and diffuse galaxy with the 3C273 nucleus required such high dynamic ranges to detect.

A new technique locates stellar objects that change brightness.