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Harvard Medical Researchers Discover Surprising Protective Properties of Pain

Harvard Medical School researchers have analyzed the molecular crosstalk between pain fibers in the gut and goblet cells that line the walls of the intestine. The work shows that chemical signals from pain neurons induce goblet cells to release protective mucus that coats the gut and shields it from damage. The findings show that intestinal pain is not a mere detection-and-signaling system, but plays a direct protective role in the gut. Credit: Chiu Lab/Harvard Medical School What if pain is more than just a mere alarm bell? New research in mice illuminates how pain neurons shield the gut from damage.…

Watch Live Human Brain Cells in a Dish Learn To Play Pong

This is a visual representation of the simulated Pong environment where neuron activity is reflected in the tiles growing in height. Credit: Kagan et. al / Neuron Live biological neurons show more about how a brain works than AI ever will. Scientists have shown for the first time that 800,000 brain cells living in a dish can perform goal-directed tasks. In this case, they played the simple tennis-like computer game, Pong. The results of the Melbourne-led study are published today (October 12) in the journal Neuron. Now the researchers are going to investigate what happens when their DishBrain is affected…

First Experimental Proof That Quantum Entanglement Is Real

Scientists, including Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, first discovered the phenomenon of entanglement in the 1930s. In 1972, John Clauser and Stuart Freedman were the first to prove experimentally that two widely separated particles can be entangled. A Q&A with Caltech alumnus John Clauser on his first experimental proof of quantum entanglement. When scientists, including Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, first discovered the phenomenon of entanglement in the 1930s, they were perplexed. Disturbingly, entanglement required two separated particles to remain connected without being in direct contact. In fact, Einstein famously called entanglement “spooky action at a distance,” because the particles…

NVIDIA, AMD Bend to TSMC’s Price Hikes Which Will Now Affect the RTX 40, Including Ryzen-Radeon 7000 Chips

Lead Image: A computer generated image of Nvidia’s RTX lineup Ever since the oversupply of semiconductors, there have been reports of many chipmakers like NVIDIA, AMD, Micron, and Kioxia who have cut their quarterly revenue estimates due to reduced demand by the end consumer. Major foundries like TSMC and Samsung have also faced similar issues on a smaller scale. Despite this, the Taiwanese foundry plans to raise wafer pricing across the board in the second half of the year. According to rumors, Apple hasn’t agreed to this hike with NVIDIA considering a similar stance. The latest reports coming out of…

Confirming a Decades-Old Prediction: Astronomers Discover a “Cataclysmic” Pair of Stars

Lead Image: An artist’s illustration shows a white dwarf (right) circling a larger, sun-like star (left) in an ultra-short orbit, forming a “cataclysmic” binary system. Credit: M.Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian The stars have the shortest orbit yet, circling each other every 51 minutes, confirming a decades-old prediction. In our galaxy, nearly half of the stars are solitary like the sun. The other half comprises stars that circle other stars, in pairs and multiples, with orbits so tight that some stellar systems could fit between Earth and the moon. Astronomers at MIT and other institutions have now discovered…