Assistant Professor Xiaoke Chen, right, discusses the functions of the paraventricular thalamus with researcher Greg Nachtrab, one of his co-authors on a new paper.
Credit: L.A. Cicero/Stanford University

In order to learn about the world, an animal needs to do more than just pay attention to its surroundings. It also needs to learn which sights, sounds and sensations in its environment are the most important and monitor how the importance of those details change over time. Yet how humans and other animals track those details has remained a mystery.

Now, Stanford biologists think they’ve figured out how animals sort through the details...

Andreas Malikopoulos tests technologies for connected and automated vehicles on a smaller scale at the University of Delaware’s Scaled Smart City (UDSSC) testbed.
Credit: University of Delaware/ Owen Fitter

Pair of studies outline innovations that will improve coordination of traffic patterns and save fuel. New driverless car technologies could lead to a world without traffic lights and speeding tickets. Researchers also hope the innovations will bring about the development of driverless cars that use 19 to 22% less fuel.

Imagine a daily commute that’s orderly instead of chaotic. Connected and automated vehicles could provide that relief by adjusting to driving conditions with little to no input from drivers...

Physicists Jackson Matteucci and Will Fox with poster displaying their research.

Feature describes unexpected discovery of a role the process that seeds magnetic fields plays in mediating a phenomenon that occurs throughout the universe and can disrupt cell phone service and knock out power grids on Earth. Magnetic forces ripple throughout the universe, from the fields surrounding planets to the gasses filling galaxies, and can be launched by a phenomenon called the Biermann battery effect. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found that this phenomenon may not only generate magnetic fields, but can sever them to trigger magnetic reconnection – a remarkable and surprising discovery.

The Biermann battery effect, a possible s...

Booze on the brain
Studying fruit flies, researchers at Brown University found that alcohol hijacks a conserved memory pathway in the brain, forming the cravings that fuel addiction. The pink areas are the fly’s memory centers and the green dots are where the first molecular signaling “domino” Notch has been activated.
Kaun Lab/Brown University

Researchers have found that alcohol hijacks a conserved memory pathway in the brain and changes which versions of genes are made, forming the cravings that fuel addiction. One of the many challenges with battling alcohol addiction and other substance abuse disorders is the risk of relapse, even after progress toward recovery...