Contemporary chroniclers wrote about a "mystery cloud" which dimmed the light of the sun above the Mediterranean in the years 536 and 537 CE. Tree rings testify poor growing conditions over the whole Northern Hemisphere - the years from 536 CE onward seem to have been overshadowed by an unusual natural phenomenon. Social crises including the first European plague pandemic beginning in 541, are associated with this phenomenon. Only recently have researchers found conclusive proof of a volcanic origin of the 536 solar dimming, based on traces of volcanic sulfur from two major eruptions newly dated to 536 CE and 540 CE in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica.

Social problems are key characteristics in psychiatric disorders and are insufficiently targeted by current treatment approaches. By applying brain imaging methods, researchers at the University of Zurich now show that a small amount of psilocybin changes the processing of social conflicts in the brain. As a result, participants experienced social exclusion and social pain as less stressful. This could help to improve therapy of social problems.

HOUSTON - (April 18, 2016) - Thank the little "muscles" in your neurons for allowing you to remember where you live, what your friends and family look like and a lot more.

New research at Rice University suggests actin filaments that control the shape of neuron cells may also be the key to the molecular machinery that forms and stores long-term memories.

The Rice lab of theoretical biological physicist Peter Wolynes reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a theory about how long-term memories are made; the theory is based on simulations that analyze the energy landscapes of the proteins involved.

Using unique demographic records on 140,600 reproducing individuals from the Utah Population Database, a research team led from Uppsala University has come to the conclusion that lowered birth rates are one reason why women outlive men in today's societies. The study is published in Scientific Reports.

The causes underpinning sex differences in lifespan are hotly debated. While women commonly outlive men, this is generally less pronounced in societies before the demographic transition to low mortality and fertility rates.

You can never predict what treasure might be hiding in your own basement - a year ago, a 1917 image on an astronomical glass plate from the Carnegie Observatories' collection shows the first-ever evidence of a planetary system beyond our own Sun. 

Here's what happened: about a year ago, the review's author, Jay Farihi of University College London, contacted our Observatories' Director, John Mulchaey. He was looking for a plate in the Carnegie archive that contained a spectrum of van Maanen's star, a white dwarf discovered by Dutch-American astronomer Adriaan van Maanen in the very year our own plate was made.

During their life, plants constantly renew themselves. They sprout new leaves in the spring and shed them in the fall. No longer needed, damaged or dead organs such as blossoms and leaves are also cast off by a process known as abscission. By doing so, plants conserve energy and prepare for the next step in their life cycle.

But how does a plant know when it is the right time to get rid of unnecessary organs? It is regulated by receptor proteins located at the surface of specific cells that form a layer around the future break point. When it is time to shed an organ, a small hormone binds to this membrane receptor and, together with a helper protein, the abscission process is initiated. Their findings are now published in the journal eLife.