Tiny worm brains reveal surprising sex differences beyond neural wiring - Interesting Engineering

Scientists at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have uncovered evidence that two neighboring types of brain tissue may work together to support thinking abilities later in life. Their findings suggest that the condition of the brain's local communication pathways could influence how strongly gray matter loss affects cognition. The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, included brain imaging and cognitive testing from 459 adults aged 60 and older living in communities across India. The research is among the first to investigate superficial white matter in a community-based population from a low- and middle-income country.

A probe by the University of Maryland, Baltimore has led to the retraction of four studies that explored the effect of maternal diabetes on neural tube formation. The university’s internal investigation identified image duplications and other data integrity issues in the studies, according to the retraction notices. The studies are among a group of 25 papers that data sleuths flagged as having potentially duplicated or manipulated images, The Transmitter reported in June 2025. Since then, sleuths have flagged a total of 44 studies on PubPeer.

Materials in a superconducting state are of huge interest to scientists. That's because of rare properties – primarily the ability to conduct electricity with zero resistance, with nothing lost to heat – that promise to transform computing, energy grids, and transport. This phenomenon happens when free electrons condense into a low-energy quantum state at very cold temperatures, pairing up into what are called Cooper pairs so they can zip through materials without interference. Back in 2007, scientists predicted the existence of a more exotic type of electron movement, called a pair density wave (PDW), where the Cooper pairs form specific patterns while moving, like ripples on sand. Now a team led by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found compelling evidence of PDWs on the surface of the metal uranium ditelluride, with their results published in PNAS. What's more, the patterns were found to persist outside of the standard superconducting state, something that's never been seen before. "Pair density waves are the Cheshire Cat's grin of superconductivity," says physicist Eduardo Fradkin from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Swimming downwards, the whale pelts head-first towards a large group of sea lions. After it opens its mouth and takes a huge gulp of fish, a sea lion darts across its back in hot pursuit of an anchovy that got away. This is a glimpse of some of the footage captured when marine researchers in Monterey Bay, California, put video tags on humpback whales and watched them lunge feeding on bait balls.