New research has confirmed that West Coast transient killer whales who live between British Columbia and California are two distinct subpopulations: inner and outer coast transients.

Based on 16 years of data from more than 2,200 encounters, the study published in PLOS One challenges previous assumptions about this group of mammal-eating killer whales.

“I've been thinking about this possibility for 15 years,” says first author Josh McInnes, who conducted the research as part of his masters at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). “Now our findings show the West Coast transients are two distinct groups, split along an east-west divide. They eat different things, hunt in different areas and very rarely spend time with each other.”

The published paper reports on the results of more than 5 years of collaboration and introduces a new instrument that the scientific community can use to accurately integrate ex-vivo dissection and in-vivo tractography data. These two complementary techniques had never been integrated so far into the study of human white matter connections, and this confirms a new research trend, where multidisciplinary competencies converge, in this case clinical neuroscience and artificial intelligence. The study opens new frontiers for Neurosurgery in the treatment of brain tumors and the approach to degenerative neurological disorders, and in Neuro-rehabilitation to harness the potential of brain plasticity. The new instrument, called BraDiPho (Brain Dissection Photogrammetry), is the result of the joint effort of the University of Trento, the Provincial Healthcare Services of Trento (Apss) and Fondazione Bruno Kessler, in collaboration with the University of Bordeaux (France) and the University of Sherbrooke (Canada).

UC San Diego researchers find that a weeklong mind-body retreat led to rapid changes in brain function and blood biology, boosting resilience, pain relief, and stress recovery—showing how meditation and related practices can quickly impact health.