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She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain

December 7, 2023

Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country's epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction.

The New Quest to Control Evolution

November 29, 2023

Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it.

Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to ‘Peak’ Fitness

November 28, 2023

Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful adaptations. But a new study of “fitness landscapes” and antibiotic resistance in bacteria shows that life still finds a way.

In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge

November 21, 2023

Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand.

During Pregnancy, a Fake ‘Infection’ Protects the Fetus

November 14, 2023

Cells in the placenta have an unusual trick for activating gentle immune defenses and keeping them turned on when no infection is present. It involves crafting and deploying a fake virus.

Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better

November 9, 2023

The discovery that the brain has different systems for representing small and large numbers provokes new questions about memory, attention and mathematics.

Bats Use the Same Brain Cells to Map Physical and Social Worlds

October 31, 2023

New research in social bats raises the intriguing possibility that evolution can reprogram the brain’s “place cells,” which are typically associated with location, to encode all kinds of environmental information.

Fossilized Molecules Reveal a Lost World of Ancient Life

October 23, 2023

A new analysis of ancient sediments fills a gap in the fossil record — revealing a massive dynasty of ancient eukaryotes, which may have reigned for 800 million years and shaped the history of life of Earth.

These Cells Spark Electricity in the Brain. They’re Not Neurons.

October 18, 2023

For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons. Researchers recently published the best evidence yet that some astrocytes are part of the electrical conversation.

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