New research provides the first direct evidence that Zika virus causes severe birth defects, and explains exactly how it does so

“I lifted up my T-shirt to check on what I thought had just been a small heat rash,” writes BuzzFeed correspondent Ali Watkins. “It had shown up along the right of my back, extending out from a handful of mosquito bites I had picked up… it had seemed relatively tame [but] now, it was inching across the front of my stomach and down my legs... Meanwhile, my right eye was inflamed and bright red, almost akin to a busted blood vessel.”

Watkins is describing the symptoms of a Zika virus infection that she contracted on a recent trip to Mexico. For many people, infection with this mosquito-borne virus causes an illness with symptoms just like those experienced by Watkins: fever, skin rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis. For others, these symptoms are so mild that they go completely unnoticed.

Related: Zika virus spreads across Americas - in pictures

Related: Zika forest: birthplace of virus that has spread fear across the world

Mechanosensory hairs covering bumblebees’ bodies detect the small electrical fields emitted by flowers

Bumblebees use the fine hairs covering their bodies to detect electrical fields produced by the flowers they feed on and pollinate, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Bristol. The findings, just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may help to solve the mystery of how insects and other terrestrial creatures detect and respond to electric fields.

It’s well known that bumblebees use their sense of smell, as well as visual cues such as the colour, shape, and patterning of flowers, to find nectar, and in 2013, biologist Daniel Robert and his colleagues reported the surprising finding that they can also detect floral electric fields.

Related: Electric eels curl up to deliver double strength shocks

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A toxin isolated from the Togo starburst tarantula provides new insights into pain mechanisms and could lead to new treatments for irritable bowel syndrome

With their large, hairy bodies and long legs, tarantulas are an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare. For pain researchers, however, these outsized spiders are a dream come true: Their venom contains a cocktail of toxins, each of which activates pain-sensing nerve fibres in different ways, and researchers in the United States have now identified one such toxin that will help them to better understand pain, and could also lead to treatments for the chronic pain associated with irritable bowel syndrome.

Physical pain signals are transmitted from the body to the brain by specialised sensory neurons called nociceptors. These pain-sensing neurons have cell bodies located just outside the spinal cord, and possess a single conductive fibre that splits in two, with one branch extending out towards the skin surface, and the shorter one entering the back of the cord.

Related: Uncomfortably numb: The people who feel no pain

Related: Researchers identify gatekeeper neurons that control pain and itch

New research reveals the secret behind the remarkable intelligence of some bird species

Related: Blind cave fish evolved a shrunken brain to save energy

Calling someone “bird brain” used to be considered as an insult. Birds’ brains are very small compared to those of mammals, and what’s more, they lack the heavily wrinkled cerebral cortex, which is characteristic of the human brain, and widely believed to the seat of intelligence. It was, therefore, widely assumed that birds aren’t very clever creatures, but recently this has started to change.

Related: Ravens cooperate with friends not foes

New research demonstrates an extreme form of inattentional blindness in which we fail to see the unexpected

There’s much more to visual perception than meets the eye. What we see is not merely a matter of patterns of light falling on the retina, but rather is heavily influenced by so-called ‘top-down’ brain mechanisms, which can alter the visual information, and other types of sensory information, that enters the brain before it even reaches our conscious awareness.

Related: Memory contaminates perception | Mo Costandi

Related: Language boosts invisible objects into visual awareness | Mo Costandi

A new imaging technique may give researchers fresh insights into brain development, function, and disease

The human brain is often said to be the most complex object in the known universe, and there’s good reason to believe that it is. That lump of jelly inside your head contains at least 80 billion nerve cells, or neurons, and even more of the non-neuronal cells called glia. Between them, they form hundreds of trillions of precise synaptic connections; but they all have moveable parts, and these connections can change. Neurons can extend and retract their delicate fibres; some types of glial cells can crawl through the brain; and neurons and glia routinely work together to create new connections and eliminate old ones.

These processes begin before we are born, and occur until we die, making the brain a highly dynamic organ that undergoes continuous change throughout life. At any given moment, many millions of them are being modified in one way or another, to reshape the brain’s circuitry in response to our daily experiences. Researchers at Yale University have now developed an imaging technique that enables them to visualise the density of synapses in the living human brain, and offers a promising new way of studying how the organ develops and functions, and also how it deteriorates in various neurological and psychiatric conditions.

Related: Brain’s immune cells hyperactive in schizophrenia

Related: 3D model of a nerve terminal in atomic detail | Mo Costandi

New research shows that the drug makes cells in the retina more sensitive to light

25 years ago, pharmacologist M. E. West of the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, noted that local fisherman who smoke cannabis or drink rum made with the leaves and stems of the plant had “an uncanny ability to see in the dark,” which enabled them to navigate their boats through coral reefs. “It was impossible to believe that anyone could navigate a boat without compass and without light in such treacherous surroundings,” he wrote after accompanying the crew of a fishing boat one dark night, “[but] I was then convinced that the man who had taken the rum extract of cannabis had far better night vision than I had, and that a subjective effect was not responsible.”

Some of these crew members told West that Moroccan fishermen and mountain dwellers experience a similar improvement after smoking hashish, and in 2002, another research team travelled to the Rif mountains in Morocco to investigate further. They gave a synthetic cannabinoid to one volunteer, and hashish to three more, then used a newly developed piece of kit to measure the sensitivity of their night vision before and after. Confirming West’s earlier report, they found that cannabis improved night vision in all three of their test subjects.

Related: How marijuana impairs memory

Related: A brief history of psychedelic psychiatry | Mo Costandi

New research shows that a genetic mutation associated with schizophrenia alters the process of cellular differentiation, disturbing the balance of neurons and glia in the brain

Stem cells obtained from patients with schizophrenia carry a genetic mutation that alters the ratio of the different type of nerve cells they produce, according to a new study by researchers in Japan. The findings, published today in the journal Translational Psychiatry, suggest that abnormal neural differentiation may contribute to the disease, such that fewer neurons and more non-neuronal cells are generated during the earliest stages of brain development.

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness that affects about 1 in 100 people. It is known to be highly heritable, but is genetically complex: so far, researchers have identified over 100 rare genetic variations and dozens of mutations associated with increased risk of developing the disease.

Related: Brain’s immune cells hyperactive in schizophrenia

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It’s not just your waistline that suffers as you put on weight. Researchers are beginning to find puzzling new links between obesity, memory loss and dementia

Lucy Cheke and her colleagues at the University of Cambridge recently invited a few participants into her lab for a kind of ‘treasure hunt’.

The participants navigated a virtual environment on a computer screen, dropping off various objects along their way. They then answered a series of questions to test their memory of the task, such as where they had hidden a particular object.

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New research shows that the rhythm of breathing directly impacts neural activity in a network of brain areas involved in smell, memory and emotions

The rhythm of breathing co-ordinates electrical activity across a network of brain regions associated with smell, memory, and emotions, and can enhance their functioning, according to a new study by researchers at Northwestern University. The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that breathing does not merely supply oxygen to the brain and body, but may also organise the activity of populations of cells within multiple brain regions to help orchestrate complex behaviours.

Related: Your nose knows death is imminent | Mo Costandi

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New findings challenge our understanding of how the brain matures

Faces are important to us. From the moment we are are born, we prefer to look at faces than at other, inanimate objects, and, being social animals, we encounter faces every day of our lives. The face is the first thing we look to when identifying other people; faces also convey emotions, informing us of peoples’ mood, and from them we can usually determine a person’s sex and, sometimes, roughly how old they are. Eye movements can also reveal to us something about another person’s intentions.

Related: How your eyes betray your thoughts

Related: Live imaging of synapse density in the human brain

New research provides evidence for the idea that sleep restores cellular homeostasis in the brain and helps us to forget irrelevant information

We spend one third of our lives sleeping, but we still do not know exactly why we sleep. Recent research shows that that the brain does its housekeeping while we sleep, and clears away its waste. According to another hypothesis, sleep plays the vital role of restoring the right balance of brain synapses to enhance learning, and two studies published in today’s issue of Science now provide the most direct evidence yet for this idea.

We do know that sleep is important for consolidating newly formed memories. During waking hours, we learn all kinds of new information, both consciously and unconsciously. To store it, the brain modifies large numbers of synaptic connections, making some of them stronger and larger, and it’s now thought that as we sleep other synapses are weakened or destroyed, so that the important new information is stored for later use, while irrelevant material, which could interfere with learning, is not.

Related: The Homer Simpson effect: forgetting to remember

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New research shows that we can train our brains to become memory champions

To many of us, having to memorize a long list of items feels like a chore. But for others, it is more like a sport. Every year, hundreds of these ‘memory athletes’ compete with one another in the World Memory Championships, memorising hundreds of words, numbers, or other pieces of information within minutes. The current world champion is Alex Mullen, who beat his competitors by memorizing a string of more than 550 digits in under 5 minutes.

You may think that such prodigious mental feats are linked to having an unusual brain, or to being extraordinarily clever. But they are not. New research published in the journal Neuron shows that you, too, can be a super memorizer with just six weeks of intensive mnemonic training, and also reveals the long-lasting changes to brain structure and function that occur as a result of such training.

Related: The Homer Simpson effect: forgetting to remember

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Researchers at MIT have developed a new method of electrically stimulating deep brain tissues without opening the skull

Since 1997, more than 100,000 Parkinson’s Disease patients have been treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS), a surgical technique that involves the implantation of ultra-thin wire electrodes. The implanted device, sometimes referred to as a ‘brain pacemaker’, delivers electrical pulses to a structure called the subthalamic nucleus, located near the centre of the brain, and effectively alleviates many of the physical symptoms of the disease, such as tremor, muscle rigidity, and slowed movements.

DBS is generally safe but, like any surgical procedure, comes with some risks. First and foremost, it is highly invasive, requiring small holes to be drilled in the patient’s skull, through which the electrodes are inserted. Potential complications of this include infection, stroke, and bleeding on the brain. The electrodes, which are implanted for long periods of time, sometimes move out of place; they can also cause swelling at the implantation site; and the wire connecting them to the battery, typically placed under the skin of the chest, can erode, all of which require additional surgical procedures.

Related: Blowing up the brain to reveal its finer details

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Why did right-winger Yosemite Sam have problem with the leftist Bugs Bunny?

Or better yet go back to Africa, we don’t need any feminazis ruining our society

I know AB and angle ABD, does anyone know how to work out BD and the area of ABD? Thanks

I say - Lock everything down, as we are, and keep everything locked down for years  This way, what every these people are complaining about will be long gone 

So once I went on a night out and I kissed a drunk girl and she was hinting she wanted to come home with me but I didn't let it happen. If this happens again will it be weird if I bring a girl home at like 3 in the morning and I live with my parents. Do I have to hide her? What if we have sex? In the morning my mum just come in and opens the door to get my washing. What if she does this and there is a girl in the bed? Will I get in trouble? I don't know anything about this stuff. I'm 21 do people this age even do this or is it only people in there 30s? It will be nice to spend the night with a girl. Is it a bad idea. I have no brothers or friends so I don't know what people do. I want to know for the next time?

Ok, so I have tried and do not get the same as as the book (1.6m). Can someone show the forces diagram or something , please?

happy, sad, meh, mad, or what?

Is this some sort of properties for fractions? I know how to arrive at step 1 from step 2 but not step 1 to step 2.

https://diazhub.com/news/boris-johnson-will-tell-public-to-stay-alert-control-the-virus-and-save-lives/

First, I would love to try Casu marzu and for dessert I am curious about durian. or a drink such as wormwood absinthe.

He catches the fish, breathes on them, then throws them back. These infected fish will infect all bodies of water with Covid-19. He goes saltwater and fresh water fishing 

My friend the dumb joe will ask me for money and try and sell me his garbage because he needs money for a bus fare. He will talk to Asian girls because I think he is not good enough for white girls. He try's to many things. Let's go over some of them. The army the police an astronaut he worked at 5 different supermarkets he got a night job for about 3 weeks and never sleeper at all. He wanted to go to China but cancelled he wanted to go to Auckland but cancelled he wanted to go to Singapore but cancelled. He brought a moped and sold it a week later. He wanted a BMW but didn't get one after he told me he was getting it. He sold me a speaker for $20 and a month later he asked for it back for free and he did not get it. He was on his way to buy a computer and he runs in to a friend and asked him can I have your computer for $200 when the one he was going to buy was $180. He will never learn to drive when he drove into a lamppost. And meny more weird things as well. What is wrong with him?

I think The Rock is a combination of both but barely because when he made his debut in the WWF in late 1996, he wasn't even called The Rock yet he was Rocky Maivia at that time. By the time he started getting over with the fans as The Rock, the 90s were almost over because it was 1998 - 99 by then. He spent more time as The Rock in the 2000s but even though he was still in the WWF/E when the decade started, he was gone by 2004 (by then he was already doing movies and wrestling at the same time). Then The Rock stopped wrestling completely and spent the rest of the 00s decade making movies, he spent even less time wrestling in the 2010s which is his most recent run in the WWE he missed 2010, came back in 2011 and was gone by 2013 aside from one match in 2016. What do you guys think ?

I am a dog sitter for my sister, she pays me around $100 a week. I also do extra chores around the house such as cleaning as an exchange for not paying rent. The money she pays me is usually transferred through zelle or paid cash. Im not sure if I would be considered an independent contractor or an employee. Also does she have to report to the irs my income and what forms would she have to use? Ive always received w2s from employers, so I’m Clueless to what I should do this tax season.  Thank you in advance!  Sorry I forgot to mention that my income for this last year was approximately $5000

Examples being: XTro (UK), Oldboy (S.Korea), Girl With a Dragon Tattoo (Sweden), Predestination (Australia) ... something like these

I'm a Japanese,struggling to catch English. Exa: V/B, we don't have the similar sound of V. so both sounds B. Can native English speakers always hear the difference of B/V even in France,Spanish or other Europe language?

I’ve liked him for a year and I told him, but he told me to date someone else. I started to forget about him, but then he told me that he liked me too. We’re dating now but I don’t think that I feel the same was as when I first started liking him. What should I do?

I just got sent an electronic message from one of the employers stating that I am unsuitable for the role based on my police record. I'm under the impression some people are still choosing to impersonate me on several job search engines by giving each employer the idea I'm an ex-con with work skills that came out of prison. Is there a chance they can see my old name?

I have an online gf it seems kind of serious but we've never really made attempts on meeting but i slept with someone irl,is that cheating? Should I tell her?

is she thicc af? I made this in the Sims 4 lol