Author: News
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Concerns raised over mini-brain sentience
Scientists have raised ethical concerns over rapidly advancing work growing human brains. This month at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting, scientists from the Green Neuroscience Laboratory in San Diego called for a suspension on mini-brain research until an ethical framework guide had been developed. They warned that some researchers are becoming “perilously close” to…
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The rediscovery of a prehistoric crocodile species
Two and a half centuries after their discovery, the fossil remains of a mysterious creature has been identified as a new species. The remains turned out to belong to Mystriosaurus Iaurillardi – a Jurassic relative of modern-day crocodiles. The fossils were discovered in Altdorf, a town in southern Germany, in the 1770s, and were established…
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Mapping the human synaptome: the origins of thought?
The field of neuroscience has grown exponentially since it began. From the humble works of Ramón y Cajal, delicately hand-drawing the first images of human cortical neurons, to the advances by Karl Deisseroth manipulating neural activity using light. This progress is driven by one goal: a complete understanding of the most complex organ in the…
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A new interpretation of dreams: Our in-dream behaviours highlight our unconscious anxieties
A dream: You’re in a room with a man who is extremely dirty. He tells you that he is sad, and he would like you to accompany him to bed because of this. In the room is a double bed, but not a normal double bed. The bed is a health and safety hazard. It…
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Second Interstellar Object has been discovered by Gennady Borisov
The astronomy community has been buzzing since astronomer Gennady Borisov, from Crimea, made the remarkable discovery of the second known interstellar object to have passed into our solar system – a comet labeled C/2019 Q4 . This object has left scientists surprised, yet satisfied with how easy it was to uncover its identity. Although some…
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J.K. Rowling Donates £15.3 Million to Multiple Sclerosis Research
Author J.K. Rowling has recently donated £15.3 million to research at the University of Edinburgh’s Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. The Clinic was opened in 2010 in the name of J.K. Rowling’s mother, who had died of complications relating to multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1990. When Rowling turned 45, the age at which her mother…
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Scale of suicides by pesticide poisoning revealed by new study
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), pesticide self-poisoning is one of the most frequent means of suicide across the globe, killing an estimated 115,000 people a year and around 15 million people since 1960. The ingestion of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) affects Asia in particular, with it accounting for 60-90% of suicides in China,…
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PTSD: The evolutionary advantage
A third of people who survive traumatic events experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD survivors involuntarily and vividly relive their trauma through flashbacks and nightmares. To escape these painful reminders, they try to avoid any potential triggers, and they are constantly on edge. This has devastating consequences on their quality of life. Jacqui, a rape…
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Protein power: Dementia study reinforces role of damaging proteins in Alzheimer’s disease
A study, led by Professor Tara-Spires Jones at the University of Edinburgh, has elucidated the role of clusterin, a protein that accumulates at synapses in the brain, characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers studied brain tissue from deceased Alzheimer’s patients, which showed that the accumulation of clusterin occurs at synapses in addition to the aggregation of…