A new study demonstrates that when faced with a difficult decision, the human brain calls upon multiple neural systems that code for different sorts of behaviors and strategies. The research in the May 28th issue of Neuron provides intriguing insight into the mechanisms that help the human brain rise to the formidable challenge of adaptive decision making in the real world.
Are parasites evolving to be more or less aggressive depending on whether they are closely connected to their hosts or scattered among more isolated clusters of hosts? Research led by Geoff Wild, an NSERC-funded mathematician at the University of Western Ontario, with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh.
They decided to move the arguments from words to harder science and developed a formal mathematical model that incorporated variable patch sizes and the host parasite population dynamics. It was then run to determine the underlying evolutionary mechanisms.
Far from being geeky and exotic, virtual reality could be the key to a new range of innovative products. European researchers and industrialists have come together to build a world-leading community ready to exploit that promise.
Made famous by the ‘holodeck’ in Star Trek: The Next Generation, virtual reality (VR) has long had the reputation of being slightly frivolous. Yet Europe’s VR industry is emerging as a world leader thanks to new efforts to coordinate developments on a continental scale.
Studies of climate evolution and the ecology of past-times are often hampered by missing information – lost variables needed to complete the picture and thought untraceable have made too many assumptions necessary. Scientists writing in in the June issue of New Journal of Physics have created a formula which they say will fill in the gaps in our knowledge and will help predict the future.
A new method of reconstructing missing data will shed new light on how and why our climate moved us on from ice ages to warmer periods as researchers will be able to calculate lost information and put together a more complete picture.
GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer), launched in March and currently progressing through the commissioning phase, has achieved a first in the history of satellite technology; an electric propulsion system able to keep the satellite completely free from drag as it cuts through the remnants of Earth's atmosphere.
GOCE is set to measure Earth's gravity field with unprecedented accuracy but doing so means that the satellite has to orbit Earth as low as possible, where the gravitational signal is stronger but also where the fringes of the atmosphere remain.
Astronomers have found more than 300 alien (extrasolar) worlds so far. Most of these are gas giants like Jupiter, and are either too hot (too close to their star) or too cold (too far away) to support life as we know it.
Sometime in the near future, however, astronomers will probably find one that's just right – a planet with a solid surface that's the right distance for a temperature that allows liquid water -- an essential ingredient in the recipe for life.
But the first picture of this world will be just a speck of light. How can we find out if it might have liquid water on its surface? If it has lots of water – oceans – we are in luck.
AI Reveals 10X More Yellowstone Volcano Earthquakes Than Known Before
Counterfeited In China: US Tariffs May Hurt Criminals The Most
RSV Vaccine For Pregnant Women Leads To 72% Fewer Babies Hospitalized With The Virus
Bubbles In Ice Could Be A Future Medium For Secret Codes
