Macaques show signs of grasping the abstract notions of language in a lab setting.Credit: Photo by Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images ShareOne of the most important cognitive foundations of human language is our ability to develop associations between the real-world phenomena we perceive with our senses and the sounds we use to refer to those phenomena. These soundswordsare the building blocks of language.Scientists have long wondered whether this ability is unique to humans, and a new study published February 12 in PLOS Biology suggests that macaques may possess similar capabilities. The study found that these monkeys are able to form associations between pictures and words, and that these associations remain when they hear the word spoken by different people.Luis Lemus, one of the studys co-authors, tells Popular Science that while many animals possess the ability to understand multiple senses reports as aspects of a single real-world phenomenona facility referred to as cross-modal correspondencethe ability to form the abstract associations required to understand how a word relates to its subject is far less common.Cross-modal correspondence, explains Lemus, refers to stimuli from different sensory modalities (e.g. auditory and visual) [being] inherently perceived as related or equivalent. For example, he says, we understand that the erratic buzzing of a mosquito naturally corresponds to the visual perception of an insects haphazard flight pattern. This ability, he says, appears to exist across most animal species. [This] suggests an evolutionarily conserved mechanism for multisensory integration.The ability to understand that the word mosquito refers to the insect in question, however, is a different phenomenon, referred to as cross-modal association. This is because, unlike the sound of a mosquito buzzing, the sound of the word mosquito has no inherent connection with the insect itself. Its an abstract label. This, Lemus says, means that the association between the visual object [i.e. the mosquito] and its verbal label must be explicitly acquired.This means that while they may appear superficially similar, associating a mosquito with the word mosquito places very different demands on the brain than associating a mosquito with the sound of its buzzing. The former, Lemus says, hinges on experience-dependent learning, whereas cross-modal correspondence reflects pre-existing perceptual linkages. In other words, while cross-modal correspondences can be hardwired into the brain, cross-modal associations require the formation of new neural connections. They need to be learned.To examine whether macaques possess the ability to learn such associations, the team played the animals a variety of soundseither human words or monkey vocalizationsand followed each sound with a specific image on a screen. Once the monkeys learned to match each sound to its associated image, the team introduced different speakers utterances of the sounds to see if the association remained.The study reports that this appeared to be the case: The hit rate remained high but more variable, suggesting that [the monkeys] perceived the sounds as equivalent, though not identical. Interestingly, while it took a relatively long time for the monkeys to form the first associations between sounds and images, subsequent associations were developed far more quickly. This, Lemus suggests, shows that the monkeys first need to grasp the concept of such associations: For monkeys, there is no initial known context to use as a template for learning new associations. An example would perhaps be when a human learns a completely different language.This notion is supported by way that the monkeys ages appeared to influence the speed at which they were able to make the initial associations, although Lemus says that more research is required to confirm this: One of the monkeys that learned the association task is already a fairly old monkey, and when we retrained it, it had a hard time learning the categories again. It even seems that it learned it more slowly, but we dont have conclusive data on that yet. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.Another area for future research is the degree to which a monkeys inability to speak the words affects its learning. The fact that humans can use sounds to give meaning to things may depend on our ability to articulate those sounds, Lemus says. However, since monkeys cannot speak, conceptual thinking may be more than audiovisual associations alone. Therefore, to learn about such complex brain processes, we aim to find the neuronal basis of multisensory associations, including conceptual thinking.While the study of monkeys ability to develop proto-linguistic associations is fascinating in itself, Lemus says it also has potential consequences for our understanding of the human brain. The study of complex cognitive phenomena in monkeys is important for understanding the brain mechanisms of thinking, he says, [and] it opens avenues for understanding and treating mental illnesses like dementia, schizophrenia, and language aphasia.

A 60-pound loggerhead turtle bobs in and out of the water after being released by Aquarium of the Pacific staff in a skipjack boat an hour from shore on October 16, 2024. It took the young turtle about five minutes to get orientated before it disappeared underwater. Mindy Schauer/MediaNewsGroup/Orange County Register via Getty ImagesShareLoggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) are pretty loyal marine reptiles. Even with their roughly 8,000-mile-long migrations across oceans, they consistently return to the same feeding and nesting sites. Sea turtles can travel these distances by remembering the magnetic signatures of an area and storing that knowledge in a mental map.However, the internal mechanisms behind this have been a bit of a mystery. New lab experiments reveal that they do a turtle dance when they reach an area that they associate with food, indicating how they are using magnetic fields to memorize where ecologically important areas are located.The findings are detailed in a study published February 12 in the journal Nature. Turtle dance behavior is a distinctive food-anticipatory behavior of captive-reared sea turtles. Hallmarks of the behavior include some or all of the following: tilting the body vertically, raising the head near to or above the water surface, opening the mouth, paddling alternately with the front flippers (dogpaddling), and occasionally spinning in place. Turtles typically display most elements of this behavior in the presence of food. During experimental trials when food is absent, turtle dance behavior is typically more subdued and limited to elements such as tilting towards the vertical, approaching the surface, and opening the mouth. The video shows one sequence of vigorous turtle dance behavior in the presence of food, followed by several more subtle instances of turtle dance behavior when a turtle was in the rewarded magnetic field but food was absent. Turtles swimming in the unrewarded field are also shown to illustrate baseline behavior for comparative purposes. CREDIT: Goforth et al., Nature (2025).Map sense vs. compass senseMigratory species like turtles, birds, and some fish tend to use two senses together to find their way. They can use the strength of the Earths magnetic field to identify where they aremap senseand where they need to go, or compass sense.Map sense is a positional sense. Its similar to a GPS system, Kayla Goforth, a study co-author and biologist at Texas A&M University, tells Popular Science. Compass sense is more directional and enables them to maintain a consistent heading.They appear to use both their map sense and compass sense to create mental maps of where they go to feed and nest that they can store over time. However, the mechanisms behind both are still a bit mysterious. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.The turtle danceTo see if turtles can learn the magnetic signatures of specific places, Goforth and her colleagues set up two large tanks about eight to 10-feet-tall. In the tanks, the magnetic signatures related to specific geographic locations were recreated with large coils. Juvenile sea turtles from beaches in North Carolina were then temporarily placed in the tanks. The turtles spent an equal amount of time in both magnetic fields, but were only fed in one of them.When they reached the area they associated with feeding, the turtles started to dance in anticipation.The turtle dance is a food seeking behavior that they exhibit in captivity, and its really quite adorable, says Goforth. They stick their head stuff out of the water with their mouths and they start to move their clippers rapidly and spin around.CREDIT: Goforth et al., Nature (2025).According to Goforth, they do this in captivity because their food is generally coming from above them. In the wild, sea turtles are primarily foraging downward on the sea floor for their food.The turtles reactions to the areas where food is present is some compelling evidence that they can learn to distinguish between magnetic fields.Since they have the ability to learn magnetic fields, they can likely incorporate that information into a magnetic map, or into their larger navigational system, says Goforth. They can then use that information to get back to a feeding, nesting, or other ecologically important area. Its similar to how we might memorize where our favorite pizza place is.Using magnetoreceptionFor the team, observing that the turtles might rely on a mechanism called magnetoreception was surprising. Magnetoreception is theorized to be a still unknown chemical reaction that they used to facilitate their navigation.Complex chemical reactions might provide animals with an ability to sense magnetic fields in the shortest possible directions, says Goforth. The way that you test that hypothesis is you expose them to what are called radio frequency fields that are believed to disrupt these chemical reactions.When the team ran a second experiment in the tanks using different radio frequencies, they observed how the change in frequency was affecting their internal compass. The turtles could not orient themselves properly while swimming.This suggests that their compass sense does rely on chemical magnetoreception, but the map sense relies on some other mechanism, says Goforth.Birds are believed to also rely on chemical magnetoreception to navigate in a similar way. These tools for navigation are likely present in other vertebrate species, but more study is needed.Theres still a lot of work to be done in this study, says Goforth. It covers some important things, but theres a lot for the research that we still need.

Got a plant with a boo-boo? Try a plant Band-Aid.A pure form of cellulose produced by bacteria can act as a plant bandage, researchers report, significantly boosting healing and regeneration in plants. The finding, described February 12 in Science Advances, has potential implications for agriculture and plant research.Unlike animals, plants cannot escape danger and instead rely on remarkable regenerative abilities. Bacterial cellulose already used in human medicine for treating wounds and burns due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability and high water retention has now been found to enhance plant healing as well.Plant biologist Nria Snchez Coll and colleagues were testing bacterial cellulose patches embedded with silver nanoparticles to prevent infections in wounded plants. They soon noticed wounds treated with the patches healed better and faster. This made us interested in finding the molecular cause of this process, says Snchez Coll, of the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics in Barcelona.To test the effectiveness of the patches as healing devices, the scientists made small cuts in the leaves of two common lab plants, Nicotiana benthamiana and Arabidopsis thaliana, applying the Band-Aids to half the wounds. After one week, more than 80 percent of the treated wounds had healed completely, compared with less than 20 percent of the untreated ones. Microscopic analysis showed that tissues in the treated wounds appeared healthy, while untreated wounds showed signs of distress and dehydration.The team also discovered that the patches significantly enhance plant regeneration, particularly in cloning experiments. Many plants reproduce asexually through vegetative propagation, a process used in research and agriculture to grow a genetically identical new plant from a piece of another. When bacterial cellulose patches were added to cuttings in petri dishes, the plants regenerated faster, developing roots and leaves more quickly than untreated cuttings. Intriguingly, patches made from plant-produced cellulose did not have the same effect.A chemical analysis revealed that the bacterial cellulose contained plant hormones, probably produced by the bacteria responsible for its synthesis. Bacteria have coevolved with plants for millions of years, producing hormones that influence plant behavior for the bacterias benefit. The researchers were surprised that these hormones remained intact despite previous sterilization of the patches to avoid contamination. We think that the cellulose matrix is so dense that it preserves the hormones, which remain bioactive, Snchez Coll says.At a genetic level, the bacterial celluloseinduced healing appears distinct from normal plant wound repair. The bacterial cellulose triggered a different set of genes, turning off some typically involved with healing while activating others related to infection defense. The researchers believe this altered response results from a combination of factors: the wound itself, the presence of bacterial hormones and the plants reaction to the bacterial cellulose as a foreign body, potentially triggering a defensive mechanism.Although bacterial cellulose has been widely used in human medicine, this is the first time it has been found to have intrinsic biological activity, says Anna Roig, a materials scientist at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona who wasnt involved in the study.Plant scientist Javier Agust, also not involved in the study, sees enormous biotechnological potential. I would be very interested in seeing how well it works in real crops, says Agust, of the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants in Valencia, Spain,While still in early stages, the findings do suggest potential applications in agriculture, Snchez Coll says, such as facilitating grafting, preserving cut plant material or serving as a growth medium in laboratories. Other research groups are already looking at these findings at the molecular level, trying to determine if they apply to other regeneration processes that arent yet fully understood.

Just one drop of blood could reveal if you have pancreatic cancer.A new test called PAC-MANNcan pick up signs of the disease in peoples blood, even at an early stage, researchers report February 12 inScience Translational Medicine.The test could one day give doctors a simple way to catch the disease early, before its too late for treatment, says study coauthor Jared Fischer, a molecular biologist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.Theres really a desperate need in the field for an early detection test for pancreatic cancer, he says.Though relatively rare, pancreatic cancer isone of the most lethal cancers, responsible for more than 50,000 deaths in 2024. Patients are often diagnosed late in the cancers progression, because the disease can be sodifficult to spot. There are no obvious symptoms, says biomedical engineer Jose Montoya Mira, part of the OHSU team.Unlike whats available for other diseases, doctors dont have anything that can easily reveal early cases of pancreatic cancer. Theyre mostly limited to biopsies and imaging tests. But pancreatic cancer does have some molecular red flags, which Montoya and Fischer tapped into with PAC-MANN. Like the ghost-gobbling hero of the classic arcade game, some pancreatic cancer proteins are known for their ability to chomp. These proteins, called proteases, break down connective tissues, giving tumors space to grow.The team built PAC-MANN, orProtease-ACtivated MAgnetic NaNosensor,to detect one of these chomping proteins. The nanosensor is made of a magnetic bead linked to fluorescent molecules. When mixed with blood from a pancreatic cancer patient, proteases cleave the fluorescent molecules from the bead, releasing them into solution. Using a magnet, the team pulls any remaining nanosensors away. Left behind are the cleaved fluorescent bits, which glow under visible light.The researchers tested their system on blood samples from 178 people who either didnt have pancreatic cancer or had already been diagnosed. Ninety percent of the time, PAC-MANN correctly predicted whether patients had cancer or not. PAC-MANN correctly identified 40 out of 55 people with the disease and 120 out of 123 people without the disease, the researchers reported.Now the team is validating its results in a larger set of people. Theyre also looking into starting a clinical trial. The researchers envision their system one day being used for regular screenings in clinics, like an annual mammogram.PAC-MANN doesnt require specialized imaging equipment or high-tech facilities to run. That means it has potential for use in underserved populations and in areas that lack the resources of big, wealthy hospitals, Montoya says.

Nature, Published online: 12 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08517-3In plant immunity, sensor NLR resistosomes can generate heterotrimer complexes comprising the helper NLR NRG1, and investigation of cryo-EM structures shows the mechanisms of these heterotrimers in immune activation and suppression.

Nature, Published online: 12 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00416-5Bacteria have developed many strategies to defend themselves from phages the viruses that infect them. The Zorya defence system uses a previously undescribed antiviral strategy. An inner-membrane-anchored complex detects phage infection, resulting in recruitment of enzymes inside the cell that digest incoming phage DNA, thereby rapidly preventing infection.

Quakes recorded for the first time inside Greenland's biggest frozen river, the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream, suggest this river and others switch between moving jerkily and flowing like honey.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 2.3% chance of hitting Earth in the year 2032. But according to new estimates, it may have an even smaller chance of hitting the moon instead.

Have you heard of Solstice-5, an imaginary planet that people lost control over? If not, you need to watch it to admire Paul Chadeissons impressive story and highly realistic visuals made in Blender.In a race for domination, the Continental Alliances ambition leads to the uninhibited exploitation of planet Solstice-5. As they construct unstoppable autonomous factories, the Alliances insatiable quest for power leaves behind a forsaken workforce in a world spiraling out of control.The first part of the short movie was released in 2023, and Chadeisson has just released another Forgotten Archives. Solstice-5 is a documentary from the future, but you dont need to love sci-fi to enjoy his enormous work.When Solstice-5 was first discovered, the following truth became clear to every nation: control the planet control the world. The only nations with the means to aspire to such conquest were the two biggest superpowers of the time: the Continental Alliance and the Coalition.Watching Solstice-5 is like watching Dune or Star Wars the 3D assets seem extremely real, as if Chadeisson went to space to capture them. But this is all the power of Blender, proven itself once again.If you enjoy both parts of Solstice-5 and are looking forward to the next, check out MIGRANTS, another short film by Chadeisson that tells a story about conquering and changing Mars.Follow the artist on YouTube or ArtStation and join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Keep readingMore from the artistMIGRANTS A Short Film by Paul ChadeissonColossal Digital Sci-Fi Environments Created in BlenderSolstice-5: Designing Environments For a Sci-Fi Movie in BlenderSource link The post Learn Story of Solstice-5 in This Highly Realistic Sci-Fi Short Movie appeared first on CG SHARES.

LarianSamantha Bart is a talented actor who has won a BAFTA nomination for the portrayal of the beloved character Karlach in Baldurs Gate 3. Reasonably, following the growing fame comes some casting requests from studios who hope to have her in their projects.One of them is obviously from one studio that is working on a spiritual successor to Disco Elysium, a successful RPG created by ZA/UM studio, which has been going through some drama that is even more dramatic than those we watch on the TV screen.The communication with the studio didnt seem to end well, so Bart took to social media to make her stance clear that she would not participate in any Disco Elysium spiritual successor projects unless the creator, Robert Kurvitz, was involved. Otherwise, it would just be a waste of time for both parties.Its unclear which studio contacted her, as three new studios formed by former Disco Elysium developers have almost simultaneously announced that they are working on such a title.But it doesnt even matter that much, as none of the three studios currently has Kurvitz with them. The Game Director, along with Disco Elysiums Art Director Aleksander Rostov and writer Helen Hindpere, launched a new studio called Red Info after they left ZA/UM in an involuntary manner. While the new studio hasnt officially announced its current project, they have filed a copyright claim for a title called Corinthians.Join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post The Necessary Condition To Have Karlachs Actor In A Disco Elysium Successor Title appeared first on CG SHARES.