Blood pressure may read falsely high if the arm isn’t positioned properly
When the arm is on the lap or the side, a blood pressure reading can be erroneously high. But when the arm is supported and at heart height, a blood pressure reading is more likely to be right. In a clinical trial, researchers investigated the effect that different arm positions had on blood pressure readings, […]
The discovery of tools key to machine learning wins the 2024 physics Nobel
As artificial intelligence explodes in popularity, two of its pioneers have nabbed the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics. The prize goes to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced October 8. These computational tools, which […]
Ancient Scythians had cultural roots in Siberia
Horse-riding Scythian herders and warriors, who inhabited Central Asia and Eastern Europe around 2,500 years ago, may have had cultural roots several thousand kilometers to the east in Siberia, a new study suggests (SN: 7/27/23). Remains of at least one person and 18 horses found atop a roughly 2,800-year-old tomb in southern Siberia may come […]
Runaway stars could influence the cosmos far past their home galaxies
Dozens of fugitive stars were caught fleeing a dense star cluster in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The swarm of speeding stars could mean that such runaways had a bigger influence on cosmic evolution than previously thought, astronomers report October 9 in Nature. Massive stars are born in young clusters, packed so close […]
A neutrino mass mismatch could shake cosmology’s foundations
As the youthful universe congealed under the pull of gravity, matter knotted itself into galaxies, galaxy clusters and filaments, weaving a dazzlingly intricate cosmic web. This web’s structure is thanks, in part, to the handiwork of neutrinos — lightweight, subatomic particles that surge through the cosmos in unimaginable numbers. Because they streak about at high […]
This engineer’s light-based computers take inspiration from the brain
Bhavin Shastri still gets excited when he sees a laser pointer, and he’s been fascinated by them since he was about 10 years old. “I was amazed that a light beam could maintain its brightness, centered in a tiny spot even after traveling a great distance,” Shastri says. “A laser pointer in my hand felt like a […]
A brain network linked to attention is larger in people with depression
Symptoms of depression fluctuate over time, but many brain imaging studies of the condition only study one point in time. That’s made it hard to connect networks of brain activity to various symptoms and mood changes. Now, a new study using long-term brain imaging data shows one brain network involved in guiding attention is nearly […]
How did dark matter shape the universe? This physicist has ideas
At age 12, Tracy Slatyer felt sorry for a book. She read a newspaper article about how lots of people were buying A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. “But then … nobody was actually reading it,” she says. “People were just leaving it on their coffee tables.” Determined to rectify this wrong, Slatyer […]
A materials scientist seeks to extract lithium from untapped sources
Electric vehicles promise to help wean us off of fossil fuels, but they introduce a new problem: how to get enough of the lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5/7/19). Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. Existing technology can extract lithium only from sources with highly concentrated ions, like […]
A study in mice hints at a new way to treat spinal cord injuries
After a devastating spinal cord injury, mice’s nerve cells balloon up in size. Some of these neurons stay swollen longer than expected and begin to die, a study published September 25 in Science Translational Medicine shows. A drug that brought this swelling down improved the mice’s recovery, though it’s not yet known if the approach […]