Harnessing Our Sensory Superpowers
(PhysOrg.com) -- New research in perceptual psychology and brain science is revealing that our senses pick up information about the world that we thought was only available to other species, Lawrence...
View ArticleAnimal instincts: Why do unhappy consumers prefer tactile sensations?
A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research explains why sad people are more likely to want to hug a teddy bear than seek out a visual experience such as looking at art. Hint: It has to do with our...
View ArticleResearch finds new channels to trigger mobile malware
(Phys.org) —Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have uncovered new hard-to-detect methods that criminals may use to trigger mobile device malware that could eventually lead to...
View ArticleThe first gene-encoded amphibian toxin isolated
Researchers in China have discovered the first protein-based toxin in an amphibian -a 60 amino acid neurotoxin found in the skin of a Chinese tree frog. This finding may help shed more light into both...
View ArticleATP is a key to feel warm temperature
A Japanese research group led by Prof. Makoto Tominaga and Dr. Sravan Mandadi (National Institute for Physiological Sciences: NIPS) found that ATP plays a key role in transmitting temperature...
View ArticleStudy helps explain how we can sense temperatures
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) have shed new light on the molecular mechanism that enables us to sense temperature,...
View ArticleMaking hypersensitivity to cold a thing of the past in colorectal cancer...
Putting gloves on before opening the fridge. Avoiding the refrigerated section in supermarkets. This is routine for almost all colorectal cancer patients receiving chemotherapy with oxaliplatin, which...
View ArticleGene discovery explains how fruit flies retreat from heat
A discovery in fruit flies may be able to tell us more about how animals, including humans, sense potentially dangerous discomforts.
View ArticleSeeing without eyes: Hydra stinging cells respond to light
In the absence of eyes, the fresh water polyp, Hydra magnipapillata, nevertheless reacts to light. They are diurnal, hunting during the day, and are known to move, looping end over end, or contract, in...
View ArticlePutting the fire out with light
Chili peppers contain an activator of heat-sensitive pain receptors. An LMU team has now converted an antagonist to the compound into a light-sensitive regulator of such receptors that can...
View ArticleThe origins of polarized nervous systems
(Phys.org)—There is no mistaking the first action potential you ever fired. It was the one that blocked all the other sperm from stealing your egg. After that, your spikes only got more interesting....
View ArticleFirst look at 'wasabi receptor' brings insights for pain drug development
In a feat that would have been unachievable only a few years ago, researchers at UC San Francisco have pulled aside the curtain on a protein informally known as the "wasabi receptor," revealing at...
View ArticleTarantula toxins offer key insights into neuroscience of pain
When your dentist injects lidocaine into your gums, the drug blocks the pain of the oncoming drill, but it also blocks all other sensation – leaving your mouth feeling numb and swollen. What if there...
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