All Posts - It Ain't Magic

Dec

27

Memories are made of this ?? – (Part 2)

Thomas McHugh from the RIKEN Center for Brain Science continues his discussion about memories, emotions, the brain, and life.

Dec

26

Spacey, nerdy nights in Tokyo

by kelly | What's Up With Us

Kelly, our new It Ain’t Magic contributor, writes about her nerdy nighttime experiences in Tokyo.

Dec

16

Memories are made of this ? ? – (Part 1)

by adam phillips | Interviews

Brain science ’round midnight episode 8: Thomas McHugh from the RIKEN Center for Brain Science discusses memories and the brain

Nov

18

Hibernation-like state can protect kidneys during heart surgery

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Activating Q-neurons in the mouse brain led to a hibernation-like state that protected kidneys during heart surgery.

Sep

14

Crying baby? Science says walk, then sit

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Recipe for success: Walk 5 min, sit 8 min, lay no-longer-crying baby down. Now you can relax.

Sep

6

Cyborg cockroaches to the rescue!

by masataka sasabe | Hot Off the Press

The key to this remote-controllable cyborg cockroach is a solar-cell rechargeable battery and an ultrathin flexible backpack.

Aug

25

Ethanol pretreated soil protects plants from drought

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Pretreating soil with ethanol protected plants, including wheat and rice, from the adverse effects of water deprivation.

Aug

22

Marsupial heart regeneration ability given to mice

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Regeneration of mouse hearts ? ?? after birth achieved by figuring out how it’s possible in opossums.

Aug

19

How an herbal medicine protects against inflamed bowels

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

A Japanese herbal medicine promotes good bacteria and innate immune cells in the gut, which protects against intestinal inflammation.

Jul

7

Robotic AI helps efficient growth of replacement organs

by masataka sasabe | Hot Off the Press

Humans team-up with a robotic AI to speed up experiments to find the best way to regrow damaged eye tissue from stem cells.

Jun

20

Extra “eye” movements are the key to better self-driving cars

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

If self-driving cars make saccades like people, they might make fewer mistakes identifying important features of the road.

May

26

Palaeospondylus: mystery of vertebrate evolution solved

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Micro-CT scans using synchrotron radiation X-rays reveal Palaeospondylus morphology, finally allowing its placement on the evolutionary tree.

Apr

28

Xist knockout rescues miscarriages in mice

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Xist knockout rescues miscarriages in mice whose egg cells lack H3K27me3 epigenetic instructions.

Apr

27

A new type of cell death discovered in fly guts

by masataka sasabe | Hot Off the Press

A completely unknown type of cell death called “erebosis” has been discovered in the guts of the common fruit fly.

Apr

6

Diagnosing fetal heart disease benefits from explanatory AI

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Diagnosis accuracy improved when doctors used explanatory AI to help diagnose congenital heart disease from fetal ultrasound videos.

Apr

5

Chaos theory provides hints for controlling the weather

by jens wilkinson | Hot Off the Press

Computer simulations were used to show that small adjustments to certain variables in the weather system could modify weather phenomena such as sudden downpours.

Mar

29

Robotic exoskeleton learns to help people stand up

by jens wilkinson | Hot Off the Press

This new robotic exoskeleton uses machine learning to know when users want help standing up.

Feb

25

Nanocarrier spray: better crops without genetic modification

by adam phillips | Hot Off the Press

Gene expression, but not genomes, altered in plants and crops with a spray containing bioactive molecules tethered to nanocarrier peptides