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Category: mapping – Page 3

Like radar, a brain wave sweeps a cortical region to read out information held in working memory

Imagine you are a security guard in one of those casino heist movies where your ability to recognize an emerging crime will depend on whether you notice a subtle change on one of the many security monitors arrayed on your desk. That’s a challenge of visual working memory.

According to a new study by neuroscientists in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, the ability to quickly spot the anomaly could depend on a theta-frequency brain wave (3–6 Hz) that scans through a region of the cortex that maps your field of view.

The findings in animals, published in Neuron, help to explain how the brain implements visual working memory and why performance is both limited and variable.

Astronomers expose CO-dark molecular gas, previously invisible to telescopes

An international team of astronomers has created the first-ever large-scale maps of a mysterious form of matter, known as CO-dark molecular gas, in one of our Milky Way’s most active star-forming neighborhoods, Cygnus X. Their findings, using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), are providing crucial new clues about how stars formed in the Milky Way.

Ultrasensitive sensor maps magnetization textures in rhombohedral graphene

Graphene, which is comprised of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, is a widely used material known for its advantageous electrical and mechanical properties. When graphene is stacked in a so-called rhombohedral (i.e., ABC) pattern, new electronic features are known to emerge, including a tunable band structure and a non-trivial topology.

Due to these emerging properties, electrons in rhombohedral can behave as if they are being influenced by “hidden” magnetic fields, even if no is applied to them. While this interesting effect is well-documented, closely studying how electrons organize themselves in the material, with their spins and valley states pointing in different directions, has so far proved challenging.

Researchers at Weizmann Institute of Science recently set out to further examine the local magnetization textures in rhombohedral graphene, using a nanoscale superconducting quantum interference device (nano-SQUID). Their paper, published in Nature Physics, offers new insight into the physical processes governing the correlated states previously observed in the material.

World’s largest rays may be diving to extreme depths to build mental maps of vast oceans

Many marine species are no strangers to the depths of the oceans. Some animals, like certain sharks, tuna, or turtles, routinely perform extreme dives, whereas for other species, such behavior has been observed less frequently.

Now, an international team of researchers working in Peru, Indonesia, and New Zealand tagged oceanic manta rays—the largest species of ray—to learn more about the deep-diving behavior of these animals. They published their results in Frontiers in Marine Science.

“We show that, far offshore, oceanic manta rays are capable of diving to depths greater than 1,200 meters, far deeper than previously thought,” says first author Dr. Calvin Beale, who completed his Ph.D. at Murdoch University.

For the first time, scientists pinpoint brain cells linked to depression

Scientists identified two types of brain cells, neurons and microglia, that are altered in people with depression. Through genomic mapping of post-mortem brain tissue, they found major differences in gene activity affecting mood and inflammation. The findings reinforce that depression has a clear biological foundation and open new doors for treatment development.

Astronomers pinpoint the location of the brightest fast radio burst to date

An international collaboration of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Toronto, have detected the brightest Fast Radio Burst (FRB) to date—and have been able to pinpoint its location in a nearby galaxy by using a network of radio telescopes.

FRBs are extremely energetic flashes from distant sources from across the universe that are caused by extreme astrophysical phenomena. Yet, they remain poorly understood by scientists and are among astronomy’s most mysterious phenomena. Pinpointing their location promises to usher in a new era of discovery, allowing scientists to trace their true cosmic origins.

The new FRB signal, called FRB 20250316A and playfully nicknamed RBFLOAT (“radio brightest flash of all time”), was very precisely localized using a new FRB Outrigger array as part of the Canadian Hydrogen-Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), which has detected thousands of FRBs since 2018. These smaller versions of the CHIME instrument—located in British Columbia, Northern California and West Virginia—allow astronomers to perform very (VLBI), a technique that can pinpoint the location of FRBs with unprecedented accuracy.

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