The researchers asked test participants in different age cohorts to feel two needlepoints that were located closely to each other with the tips of their fingers. Older participants perceived two points as a single event even when they were located quite far apart, whereas younger people were still able to distinguish them as two distinct points, which is evidence for degraded tactile perception at higher age. This impaired perception experienced by older people goes hand in hand with a spatial enhancement of brain activity, which researchers generally interpret as a compensatory mechanism.

Professional footballers and their coaches often complain about the mental fatigue induced by the stress of frequent matches.

Now research from the University of Kent has demonstrated for the first time that mental fatigue can have a negative impact on football performance by reducing running, passing, and shooting ability.

Professor Samuele Marcora of Kent's School of Sport and Exercise Sciences worked with researchers from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, and Ghent University in Belgium on the study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise.

Cholera outbreaks are on the rise. To prevent and control them, three oral cholera vaccines are currently approved by WHO. A study published in PLOS NTDs examining the immune response to one of them in Haitian adults finds that while the first vaccine round elicits a strong cholera-specific response in the mucosa (the first point of contact with the cholera pathogen), the booster dose after 2 weeks does not appear to stimulate the immune system further.

Cerebellar ataxia is a condition of the cerebellum that causes an inability to coordinate muscle movements. A study publishing June 16 in Cell Reports now describes a new genetic mutation as an additional cause of ataxia in humans and mice. The mutation, in the gene CAPN1, affects the function of the enzyme calpain-1 and causes abnormal brain development. The same genetic mutation is also associated with ataxia in Parson Russell Terrier dogs.

Vocal cords are able to produce a wide range of sound frequencies because of the larynx's ability to stretch vocal cords and the cords' molecular composition - according to a new paper published in PLOS Computational Biology. Scientists, led by Ingo Titze at the University of Utah, show how these two characteristics of various species' larynxes can closely predict the range of frequencies each species can produce. The results reveal the evolutionary roots of how and why voice arose.

Many traits make human beings unique, not the least of which is our ability to cooperate with one another. But exactly how we choose to do that -- particularly with nonfamily members -- can be complicated.

For men, that choice relies partially on perceptions of productivity and material benefit, just as it would have in an ancestral hunter-gatherer society. So finds a new study by UC Santa Barbara psychologists, which appears in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

"It's interesting that those mechanisms are designed for the environment of our ancestors, not our current context, yet they affect how people behave today," said lead author Adar Eisenbruch, a Ph.D. candidate in evolutionary psychology.