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Summary: A new study found a person’s math ability was linked to levels of GABA and glutamate in the brain. In children, greater math fluency was associated with higher GABA levels in the left intraparietal sulcus, while lower levels of GABA were linked to math ability in adults. The reverse was true for glutamate in both children and adults.

Source: PLOS

The neurotransmitters GABA and glutamate have complementary roles — GABA inhibits neurons, while glutamate makes them more active.

“What is exciting about this is that although our study was only in mice, the same mechanism should operate in humans – the molecules and structures in the human brain are the same as those in rodents,” says Fawcett. “This suggests that it may be possible to prevent humans from developing memory loss in old age.”


An intriguing new study from researchers in the United Kingdom is proposing an innovative method to treat age-related memory loss. The preclinical research shows memory decline in aging mice can be reversed by manipulating the composition of structures in the brain known as perineuronal nets.

Perineuronal nets (PNNs) are structures in the brain that envelop certain subsets of neurons, helping stabilize synaptic activity. They essentially put the brakes on the neuroplasticity seen in the first few years of life.

Although PNNs are vital to the effective functioning of a mature adult brain, by their very nature they also limit future neural plasticity and adaptability. A new wave of research is beginning to investigate ways to modulate PNNs in adult brains in the hope of treating a variety of diseases from diabetes to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Large space structures, such as telescopes and spacecraft, should ideally be assembled directly in space, as they are difficult or impossible to launch from Earth as a single piece. In several cases, however, assembling these technologies manually in space is either highly expensive or unfeasible.

In recent years, roboticists have thus been trying to develop systems that could be used to automatically assemble structures in . To simplify this , space structures could have a modular design, which essentially means that they are comprised of different building blocks or modules that can be shifted to create different shapes or forms.

Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Technische Universität München (TUM) have recently developed an autonomous planner that could be used to assemble reconfigurable structures directly in space. This system, introduced in a paper presented at the 2021 IEEE Aerospace Conference, could allow aerospace engineers and astronauts to assemble large structures in space and adapt them for specific use cases, reconfiguring them when necessary.

Nature always finds a way…so they say! But it looks like it may actually be true in the case of our global plastic waste dilemma. Genetic mutations have been discovered in specific natural bacteria that enable them to break the polymer chains of certain plastics. Where have we found these bacteria? Well…in plastic recycling dumps of course. So, gloves and masks on everyone. We’re going in!

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