How bat brains listen for incoming signals during echolocation

Neuroscientists at Goethe University, Frankfurt have discovered a feedback loop that modulates the receptivity of the auditory cortex to incoming acoustic signals when bats emit echolocation calls. In a study published in ...

Improving measurements of the kilogram

Until 2018, the SI unit of mass, the kilogram, was defined as the mass of a real object: the International Prototype Kilogram, kept in a secure facility in the outskirts of Paris. On November 16, 2018, the kilogram was given ...

How plants' threat-detection mechanisms raise the alarm

New work led by Carnegie's Zhiyong Wang untangles a complex cellular signaling process that underpins plants' ability to balance expending energy on growth and defending themselves from pathogens. These findings, published ...

Developing wet circuits for biology research

You don't have to be an engineer to know that water and electronics don't mix. But if you want to use a sensing circuit to study small-scale features in a community of cells, the electronics must find a way to accommodate ...

How mice choose the best escape route

Escaping imminent danger is essential for survival. Animals must learn a new environment fast enough for them to be able to choose the shortest route to safety. But how do they do this without ever having experienced threat ...

Cooling speeds up electrons in bacterial nanowires

The ground beneath our feet and under the ocean floor is an electrically-charged grid, the product of bacteria "exhaling" excess electrons through tiny nanowires in an environment lacking oxygen.

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