The A﹠P Professor Science & Education Updates - Issue #197

Life Science

Cognitive neuroscience professor Guillaume Thierry explores the experience of death and how long our brains can stil process information after we die.

Researchers from Switzerland and the US say they brought neurons and retinal cells back to "life" after death. The eye cells detected color and light.

A synthetic system that reproduces several attributes of living cells.

Night shift work causes a misalignment between the body’s circadian rhythm — or 24-hour internal “clock” — and a person’s sleep/wake cycle. This can increase the risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. A new study finds only eating in the day time may help guard against mental health issues.

Symptoms of severe disease differ from those seen during past outbreaks, causing researchers to re-evaluate their assumptions.

President Joe Biden has chosen Renee Wegrzyn, a 45-year-old applied biologist with a background in industry and government, to head his new agency for biomedical innovation, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).

Congress created ARPA-H in March with a starting budget of $1 billion. It aims to bring to biomedical research the kind of innovation supported by the Army’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), known for developing the internet and GPS

An artificial intelligence can decode words and sentences from brain activity with surprising — but still limited — accuracy. Using only a few seconds of brain activity data, the AI guesses what a person has heard. It lists the correct answer in its top 10 possibilities up to 73 percent of the time, researchers found in a preliminary study.

Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungus that causes fungal meningitis, shrinks as it travels through the body and acquires the characteristics that allow the infection to spread.

Loperamide, a common anti-diarrhea medication, could help treat core symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder. The drug activates the μ-opioid receptor, helping to improve social behaviors.

TAPP News & Notes

Dr. Margaret Reece of Medical Science Navigator discusses issues related to teaching human reproduction & development.