Dozens of Scientists are Running for Congress
Policy
The ‘Political’ Scientists
October 25, 2018 | Science
A flood of candidates with scientific, technical, and health backgrounds decided to run this year for the U.S. House of Representatives. On the eve of the 6 November election, we look at those still in the race and those no longer on the ballot.
Neurotechnologies
Nerve-on-a-Chip Platform Makes Neuroprosthetics More Effective
October 23, 2018 | Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Neuroprosthetics -- implants containing multi-contact electrodes that can substitute certain nerve functionalities -- have the potential to work wonders. They may be able to restore amputees' sense of touch, help the paralyzed walk again by stimulating their spinal cords and silence the nerve activity of people suffering from chronic pain.
Monitoring Electromagnetic Signals in the Brain With MRI
October 22, 2018 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Researchers commonly study brain function by monitoring two types of electromagnetism — electric fields and light. However, most methods for measuring these phenomena in the brain are very invasive. MIT engineers have now devised a new technique to detect either electrical activity or optical signals in the brain using a minimally invasive sensor for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Science in the News
Just a Few Drinks Can Change How Memories are Formed
October 25, 2018 | Brown University
One of the many challenges with battling alcohol addiction and other substance abuse disorders is the risk of relapse, even after progress toward recovery. Even pesky fruit flies have a hankering for alcohol, and because the molecular signals involved in forming flies’ reward and avoidance memories are much the same as those in humans, they’re a good model for study.
Army Scientists Develop Computational Model to Predict Human Behavior
October 22, 2018 | Army Research Laboratory
Army researchers have developed for the first time an analytic model to show how groups of people influence individual behavior. Technically speaking, this had never been done before: no one had taken the computational information from a collective model (numerical solutions of, say, thousands of equations) and used it to exactly determine an individual's behavior (reduced to one equation).
