Research led by the Center for Biomedical Technology, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain, has compared the brains of superagers with those of normal cognitive aged abilities in a paper, “Brain structure and phenotypic profile of superagers compared with age-matched older adults: a longitudinal analysis from the Vallecas Project,” published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity. A Comment published in the same journal issue discusses the work by the team.

Episodic memory, the memory of personal life experiences, is vulnerable to age-related deterioration. Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s often lead to severe episodic memory decline.

Some older adults, called superagers, somehow resist age-related memory decline, maintaining episodic memory comparable to healthy indivi...

A better way to wirelessly charge over long distances has been developed at Aalto University. Engineers have optimized the way antennas transmitting and receiving power interact with each other, making use of the phenomenon of “radiation suppression.” The result is a better theoretical understanding of wireless power transfer compared to the conventional inductive approach, a significant advancement in the field.

Charging over short distances, such as through induction pads, uses magnetic near fields to transfer power with high efficiency, but at longer distances the efficiency dramatically drops...

Models show Venus’ superheated core could produce extended volcanism, long-lived resurfacing. A Southwest Research Institute-led team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth’s sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics. The team compared the early collision histories of the two bodies and determined that Venus likely experienced higher-speed, higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core that promoted extended volcanism and resurfaced the planet.

“One of the mysteries of t...

Researchers demonstrate a way to remove the potent greenhouse gas from the exhaust of engines that burn natural gas. Today’s catalysts for removing unburnt methane from natural-gas engine exhaust are either inefficient at low, start-up temperatures or break down at higher operating temperatures. A new single-atom catalyst solves both these problems and removes 90% of the methane.

Individual palladium atoms attached to the surface of a catalyst can remove 90% of unburned methane from natural-gas engine exhaust at low temperatures, scientists reported today in the journal Nature Catalysis.

While more research needs to be done, they said, the advance in single atom catalysis has the potential to lower exhau...