This graphic depicts the numbers and function of glia and neurons in the aging human brain. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Lilach Soreq.

The difference between an old brain and a young brain isn’t so much the number of neurons but the presence and function of supporting cells, glia. Researchers who examined postmortem brain samples from 480 individuals ranging in age from 16 to 106 found that the state of someone’s glia is so consistent through the years that it can be used to predict someone’s age. The work lays the foundation to better understand glia’s role in late-in-life brain disease.

“We extensively characterized aging-altered gene expression changes across 10 human brain regions and found that, in fact, glial cells experience bigger changes than neurons,” says Jernej Ule...

Microglia cells (green spider shapes). Credit: Image courtesy of University of Southampton

Cells in the brain responsible for detecting and fixing minor damage renew themselves more quickly than previously thought, new research has shown. A study, led by the University of Southampton shows that the turnover of Microglia, is 10X faster, allowing the whole population of Microglia cells to be renewed several times during a lifetime.

“Microglia are constantly scanning the brain to find and fix issues — you could call them the housekeepers of the brain,” said Dr Diego Gomez-Nicola, of the University of Southampton, who supervised the study. “We previously thought that microglia would renew themselves so slowly that a whole lifetime would not suffice to renew the whole population...

As soon as it comes out of the printing nozzle, the solvent evaporates and the ink solidifies. It takes the form of filaments slightly bigger than a hair. The manufacturing work can then begin. Credit: Polytechnique Montréal

Carbon nanotubes have made headlines in scientific journals for a long time, as has 3D printing. But when both combine with the right polymer, in this case a thermoplastic, something special occurs: electrical conductivity increases and makes it possible to monitor liquids in real time. This is a huge success for Polytechnique Montréal. In practical terms, the result of this research looks like a cloth; but as soon as a liquid comes into contact with it, said cloth is able to identify its nature. In this case, it is ethanol, but it might have been another liquid...

Illustration of the polar directions in relaxor-ferroelectric solid solutions where a small amount of polar nanoregions embedded in a long-range ferroelectric domain leads to dramatically enhanced piezoelectric and dielectric properties. Credit: Xiaoxing Cheng/ Penn State

All ferroelectric materials possess piezoelectricity in which an applied mechanical force can generate an electrical current and an applied electrical field can elicit a mechanical response. Ferroelectric materials are used in a wide variety of industrial applications, from ultrasound and sonar to capacitors, transducers, vibration sensors and ultrasensitive infrared cameras...