When it comes to studying cocaine addiction, one group of researchers has stomach acid on their brains. In a paper published Thursday in PLOS Biology, researchers find that a surgery that diverts some bile acid into the bloodstream seems to cut back cravings among mice with a cocaine habit. It’s a nifty angle on a pernicious problem, but it’s also another piece of evidence that bile acid, a compound produced by our ...read more

Signals in the brain hop from neuron to neuron at a speed of roughly 390 feet per second. Light, on the other hand, travels 186,282 miles in a second. Imagine the possibilities if we were that quick-witted. Well, computers are getting there. Researchers from UCLA on Thursday revealed a 3D-printed, optical neural network that allows computers to solve complex mathematical computations at the speed of light. In other words, we don’t stand a chance. Hyperbole aside, research ...read more

On Thursday, astronomers announced the first observations of the effect of a black hole’s gravitational redshift — light coming from a star in the gravitational field near a black hole looked redder than it would’ve outside the black hole’s influence. The black hole responsible was Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A-star�), the supermassive black hole at the center of our M ...read more

Astronomers have long had their eye on a group of stars that precariously circles just outside the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. And, in a discovery announced by the European Southern Observatory on Thursday, scientists say they've finally spotted one of these stars as it travels through the black hole’s gravitational field. It's the first test of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity near a supermassive black hole. The event, recorde ...read more

High winds are the norm at the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers have now clocked suns orbiting the galactic core at a staggering 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) per second. At this rate, Earth would complete its orbit around the sun in a mere three days. What lurks at the galaxy’s core that can accelerate stars to such speeds? Astronomers have considered various possibilities. Does the center of the galaxy harbor a tight cluster of superdense stellar remnants (neutron sta ...read more

Entrepreneurs are wired different than the rest of us. They’ll embrace huge financial risk to start a business despite statistics showing most startups fail. That chutzpa often gets tied to environmental factors, like how they were raised or where they went to college, or even to an X factor — something unknown but all-important that allows them to accept risk without flinching. Other studies have even hinted at a genetic component to risk-taking, or sensat ...read more

In an eyebrow-raising new paper, neuroscientists report that they had participants wear a ball gag while watching images of people in pain. The lucky participants in this neuro-bondage were all female BDSM submissives, and their brain activity in response to the painful pictures was recorded with EEG. Here's the article: Embodiment and Humiliation Moderation of Neural Responses to Others' Suffering in Female Submissive BDSM Practitioners And here's some of the stimuli (I assume they we ...read more

As luck would have it, Mars will remain engulfed in a colossal dust storm as it reaches opposition on July 27. The viewing conditions might be abysmal, but astronomers can at least take solace in a long-awaited Martian mystery being solved — where all of this dust is coming from. New research published in the journal Nature Communications revealed that the massive amounts of dust are tied to Mars’ Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF), the ...read more

Biting your tongue or cheek when chewing can ruin a tasty meal. But thankfully, mouth wounds heal up fast — faster than cuts on skin — and now scientists know why. According to new research published today in Science Translational Medicine, mouths are primed for healing. The find could help researchers transfer the mouth’s curative superpowers to make skin lesions heal faster too. Paper cuts, scraped knees and similar skin wounds take ab ...read more