While everyone knows that a good night’s sleep restores energy, a new Cornell University study finds it resets another vital function: memory.

Learning or experiencing new things activates neurons in the hippocampus, a region of the brain vital for memory. Later, while we sleep, those same neurons repeat the same pattern of activity, which is how the brain consolidates those memories that are then stored in a large area called the cortex. But how is it that we can keep learning new things for a lifetime without using up all of our neurons?

A study, “A Hippocampal Circuit Mechanism to Balance Memory Reactivation During Sleep,” published in Science, finds at certain times during deep sleep, certain parts of the hippocampus go silent, allowing those...

For the past century since their discovery, superconductors and their mysterious atomic properties have left researchers in awe. These special materials allow electricity to flow through them without any energy loss. They even allow trains to levitate.

But superconductors typically only work at extremely cold temperatures. When these materials are heated, they become ordinary conductors, which allow electricity to flow but with some energy lost; or insulators, which don’t conduct electricity at all.

Researchers have been hard at work looking for superconductor materials that can perform their magic at higher temperatures—perhaps even room temperature someday...

Remote-sensing images of Mars contain rich information about its surface morphology, topography, and geological structure. These data are fundamental for scientific research and exploration missions of Mars. Prior to China’s first Mars exploration mission, data from six advanced optical imaging systems of different missions in the Martian orbit was used to generate Mars global/near-global image datasets with spatial resolutions better than 1 km.

However, in terms of global color images, the best version of Mars Viking Colorized Global Mosaic has a resolution of approximately 232 m/pixel. There is a lack of global color images of Mars at the hundred-meter scale and higher resolution.

New data obtained by the Tianwen-1 mission has laid the foundation for the development of a high-...

A WEHI study could help solve a long-standing mystery into why a key immune organ in our bodies shrinks and loses its function as we get older.

The thymus is an organ essential for good health due to its ability to produce special immune cells that are responsible for fighting infections and cancer.

In a world-first, researchers have uncovered new cells that drive this ageing process in the thymus — significant findings that could unlock a way to restore function in the thymus and prevent our immunity from waning as we age.

At a glance

The thymus is an organ essential for our immune defence but it shrinks and weakens as we get older. The reason for this loss remains a long-standing mystery.

A new study has been able to visualise, for the first time, how two cell types d...