It’s difficult to know what birds ‘think’ when they fly, but scientists in Australia and Canada are getting some remarkable new insights by looking inside birds' heads.

Evolutional biologists at Flinders University in South Australia and neuroscience researchers at the University of Lethbridge in Canada have teamed up to explore a new approach to recreating the brain structure of extinct and living birds by making digital ‘endocasts’ from the area inside a bird skeleton’s empty cranial space.

A new study led by Georgia State University researchers has identified a group of neurons that, when activated, can induce a hypometabolic state, akin to hibernation. The discovery could have far-reaching implications for conditions like obesity, cardiometabolic diseases, and even for space travel. Led by GRA Distinguished Investigator and Professor of Neuroscience Eric Krause, the research team found that these neurons regulate key aspects of the brain-heart-gut axis. The study is published in Nature Metabolism.

A team of researchers led by Emory’s Chunhui Xu recently found that heart muscle cells can grow -and survive in the microgravity environment of space. Her findings, published in Biomaterials, show promise for developing hardier heart cells that could effectively repair damaged hearts in cell therapy –  the process of transplanting millions of heart cells to repair damaged hearts – on earth.

Astronomers previously thought all FRBs were generated by magnetars formed through the explosions of very young, massive stars. But new FRB is pinpointed to the outskirts of 11.3-billion-year-old galaxy without young, active stars — calling those assumptions into question. “Just when you think you understand an astrophysical phenomenon, the universe turns around and surprises us," researcher says.

Astronomers have discovered extremely powerful winds pummeling the equator of WASP-127b, a giant exoplanet. Reaching speeds up to 33 000 km/h, the winds make up the fastest jetstream of its kind ever measured on a planet. The discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile and provides unique insights into the weather patterns of a distant world.

The authors explored the recombination dynamics and defect concentration of a mixed cation mixed halide perovskite Cs_0.17FA_0.83PbI_1.8Br_1.2 with 1.75 eV bandgap after exposure to a gamma-ray source (2.5 Gy/min). The manuscript shed light on the use of the wide bandgap perovskite Cs_0.17FA_0.83PbI_1.8Br_1.2 as a material for tandem solar cells with potential applications in a space environment.