This is a digital reconstruction of a rosehip neuron in the human brain. Credit: Tamas Lab, University of Szeged

‘Rosehip’ neurons not found in rodents, may be involved in fine-level control between regions of the human brain. One of the most intriguing questions about the human brain is also one of the most difficult for neuroscientists to answer: What sets our brains apart from those of other animals? “We really don’t understand what makes the human brain special,” said Ed Lein, Ph.D., Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. “Studying the differences at the level of cells and circuits is a good place to start, and now we have new tools to do just that.”

In a new study published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Lein and his colleagues reveal one possible answer to ...

A simple liquid-based battery containing a methylene blue solution (left side), and a colorless solution of leuco methylene blue (right), which is methylene blue with added electrons.
Credit: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki/University at Buffalo

Methylene blue is a common ingredient in wastewater from textile mills. But scientists think it may be possible to give this industrial pollutant a second life. In a study, they show that the dye, dissolved in water, is good at storing and releasing energy on cue. This makes the compound a promising material for redox flow batteries, which could store energy for wind farms and solar homes.

“Methylene blue is a widely used dye...

This is the cross section area of the particle collected from the asteroid Itokawa using Hayabusa spacecraft.
Credit: Osaka University

Japanese research group clarifies the chronology of near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa. Scientists have closely examined particles collected from the asteroid Itokawa by the spacecraft Hayabusa, finding that the parent body of Itokawa was formed about 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was born and that it was destroyed by a collision with another asteroid about 1.5 billion years ago.

Understanding the origin and time evolution of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) is an issue of scientific interest and practical importance because they are potentially hazardous to the Earth...

This is Jupiter’s southern hemisphere photographed by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/GeraldEichstaedt/Sean Doran

Researchers can now show how Jupiter was formed. Data collected from meteorites had indicated that the growth of the giant planet had been delayed for two million years. Now the researchers have found an explanation: Collisions with kilometer-sized blocks generated high energy, which meant that in this phase hardly any accretion of gas could take place and the planet could only grow slowly.

With an equator diameter of around 143,000 kilometers, Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and has 300 times the mass of the Earth. The formation mechanism of giant planets like Jupiter has been a hotly debated topic for several decades...