We're bombarded with information at all times, so much that if we had to try and process it all times, we'd be paralyzed. Our cerebellum does information damage control by filtering out what changes. Evolution made it possible for us to conserve energy while still processing anomalies quickly.
Athens, Ga. - A team of researchers led by faculty at the University of Georgia has identified a number of biological markers that make it possible to classify mental disorders with greater precision. Their findings, published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry, may one day lead to improved diagnostics and treatments for those suffering from mental illness.
The advent of modern medical diagnostic tools has made it possible to identify the hallmarks of innumerable diseases with simple, reliable tests that portray the inner workings of the body in exquisite detail--allowing doctors to pinpoint the specific cause of a patient's complaint and prescribe the proper course of treatment.
Our vision and hearing aren't as reliable as we might think, according to a new study.
The scholars conducted the research in part because there had never been a comprehensive study to examine whether humans' 'spatial localization' ability -- that is, whether we can immediately and accurately perceive where an object is located -- is as well-honed as we believe it to be. In the study, subjects were asked to sit facing a black screen, behind which were five loudspeakers. Mounted on the ceiling above was a projector capable of flashing bursts of light onto the screen, at the same spots where the speakers were located.
Various groups selling 'miracle' prevention techniques, and various United Nations groups (such as IARC) insist that cancer is a lifestyle disease, and if you just pay them, they will either give you something to prevent it or get something banned to prevent it.
ANN ARBOR--By studying videos from high-stakes court cases, University of Michigan researchers are building unique lie-detecting software based on real-world data.
Their prototype considers both the speaker's words and gestures, and unlike a polygraph, it doesn't need to touch the subject in order to work. In experiments, it was up to 75 percent accurate in identifying who was being deceptive (as defined by trial outcomes), compared with humans' scores of just above 50 percent.
London, UK (Dec. 11, 2015) As the hours of freelance or portfolio workers fluctuate, so does their well-being, finds a new study published in the SAGE journal Human Relations.
The study surveyed 45 freelance workers over a period of 6 months. With each participant completing an identical survey each week for 6 months, the researchers found that freelance workers are calmer and more enthusiastic when their hours are higher than their normal pattern of working. However, when the demands they face become increasingly difficult, their anxiety levels increase and they may even become depressed. As the researchers, Stephen Wood of the University of Leicester, and George Michaelides of Birkbeck, University of London, note:
The evolution of the striking, wing-like pectoral fins of skates and rays relied on repurposed genes, according to new research by scientists from the University of Chicago. Studying embryonic skates, they discovered that the rear portion of the fin is built by typical limb-development genes; but the front portion develops through a different set of genes that are usually found in the shoulder areas of other species.
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Dec. 7, 2015, shed light on the genetic mechanisms responsible for the evolution and diversification of vertebrate appendages.
Not much is predictable about climate, despite assurances by politicians and activists meeting in Paris, and one claim that global warming skeptics use - that more CO2 is good for plants - is also correct but also not predictable.
Instead, inter-annual variation in climate has stronger effects on predators such as spiders than populations of their detritivorous prey, such as isopods, which could lead to changes in food chain length, which can in turn influence decomposition and plant growth. These findings emphasize the importance of combined approaches that consider food webs and physiological processes to understand the consequences of global climate change.
Toronto, Canada - Why is it that some people have richly detailed recollection of past experiences (episodic memory), while others tend to remember just the facts without details (semantic memory)?
A research team from the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences has shown for the first time that these different ways of experiencing the past are associated with distinct brain connectivity patterns that may be inherent to the individual and suggest a life-long 'memory trait'.
The study was recently published online in the journal Cortex.
Buck Institute faculty Judith Campisi, PhD, says age researchers need to stop thinking of cellular senescence, now accepted as an important driver of aging, as a single phenotype that stems from genotoxic stress. Research from her lab reveals that cellular senescence, a process whereby cells permanently lose the ability to divide, is also induced by signaling from dysfunctional mitochondria - and that the arrested cells secrete a distinctly different "stew" of biologically active factors in a process unrelated to the damaging free radicals that are created in mitochondria as part of oxygen metabolism. The results are published in Cell Metabolism.
Pioneering new research has shed new light on the causes behind an 'ice-age' that took place on Earth around 170 million years ago - evidence of a large and abrupt cooling of the Earth's temperature during the Jurassic Period, which lasted millions of years.
The scientists found that the cooling coincided with a large-scale volcanic event - called the North Sea Dome - which restricted the flow of ocean water and the associated heat that it carried from the equator towards the North Pole region.
Researchers have found that the water supply of the Colorado River basin, one of the most important sources for water in the southwestern United States, is influenced more by wet-dry periods than by human use, which has been fairly stable during the past few decades.
The study, led by The University of Texas at Austin, took the most comprehensive look to date at the state of a water source that serves 40 million people in seven states. The researchers used 30 years of local water monitoring records and more than a decade of data collected from the NASA satellite system GRACE to reconstruct changes in the basin's water storage since the 1980s.
A team of Virginia Tech researchers have discovered fossils of kinorhynch worms - commonly known as mud dragons - dating back more than 530 million years.
The historic find - made in South China - fills a huge gap in the known fossil record of kinorhynchs, small invertebrate animals that are related to arthropods, featuring exoskeletons and segmented bodies, but not jointed legs.
The first specimen was unearthed in rocks in Nanjiang, China, in 2013 and more fossils were found later that year and in 2014.
