They then compared the MRI data of participants who reported often feeling lonely with those who did not.

Researchers found the default networks of lonely people were more strongly wired together and surprisingly, their grey matter volume in regions of the default network was greater.

The fact the structure and function of this network is positively associated with loneliness may be because lonely people are more likely to use imagination, memories of the past or hopes for the future to overcome their social isolation.

In lonely people, the structure of this fibre tract was better preserved.

"In the absence of desired social experiences, lonely individuals may be biased towards internally-directed thoughts such as reminiscing or imagining social experiences.

Loneliness is increasingly being recognized as a major health problem, and previous studies have shown older people who experience loneliness have a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

the urgency of reducing loneliness in today's society,

hippocampus,

Electrodes implanted in these patients' brains help their surgeons precisely identify the seizure foci and also provide valuable information on the brain's inner workings, Lega says.

What the team found was exciting: Not only did they identify a robust population of time cells, but the firing of these cells predicted how well individuals were able to link words together in time (a phenomenon called temporal clustering). Finally, these cells appear to exhibit phase precession in humans, as predicted.

In addition, while rats are actively exploring an environment, place cells are further organized into "mini-sequences" that represent a virtual sweep of locations ahead of the rat. These radar-like sweeps happen roughly 8-10 times per second and are thought to be a brain mechanism for predicting immediately upcoming events or outcomes.

it was unclear how the hippocampus was able to produce such sequences.

hocolate milk

However, taking a closer look at the data, the researchers found something new: As the rats moved through these spaces, their neurons not only exhibited forward, predictive mini-sequences, but also backward, retrospective mini-sequences. The forward and backward sequences alternated with each other, each taking only a few dozen milliseconds to complete.

"In the past few decades, there's been an explosion in new findings about memory,"

whose face was disfigured in an attack by her ex-husband,

More than 40 patients worldwide have received face transplants, including 16 in the United States. None of the American patients had lost their donor faces until Tarleton.

She really got lucky.”

rejected his donor face eight years after his first transplant underwent a second

She really wanted to try one more time,” said Pomahac, who led the 20-hour, second surgery. A team of around 45 clinicians removed the failing transplant and then prepared sensory nerves and blood vessels in the neck for the surgical connection. The face was then transplanted and Tarleton will gain sensory and motor function in the coming months.

a much better tissue match.

“The pain I had is gone,” she said. “It’s a new chapter in my life. I’ve been waiting for almost a year. I’m really happy. It’s what I needed. I got a great match.”

“When you look at most organ transplants, there is a shelf life,” Gastman said. “We are getting to the point where these face transplantations are hitting against the maximum number of years someone can have one in.”

Tarleton was burned on over 80% of her body and blinded in 2007 when her estranged husband, Herbert Rodgers, beat her with a baseball bat and doused her body with lye because he thought she was seeing another man.

The first transplant transformed Tarleton’s life.

don’t get stared at so easily.”

She was added back on when the state allowed elective surgeries to resume.

But by last year, the face was failing. She began experiencing scarring, tightness and pain because of a loss of blood flow to her face. Black patches appeared on her face. Her eyelids contracted and her lips began disappearing, making it difficult to eat. She was mostly housebound and resumed taking strong pain medications.

“It is strange. I am not going to lie,” she added. “I’ll have to get used to it. My sister will have to get used to it. It takes a while for my friends and family to get used to what I look like now.”

If you’ve got as little as 30 seconds and a decent internet connection, you can help combat the deforestation of the Amazon. 

to build an artificial intelligence model that can recognize signs of deforestation. That data can be used to alert governments and conservation organizations where intervention is needed and to inform policies that protect vital ecosystems. It may even one day predict where deforestation is likely to happen next.

To monitor deforestation, conservation organizations need an eye in the sky.

WRI’s Global Forest Watch online tracking system receives images of the world’s forests taken every few days by NASA satellites. A simple computer algorithm scans the images, flagging instances where before there were trees and now there are not. But slight disturbances, such as clouds, can trip up the computer, so experts are increasingly interested in using artificial intelligence.

Users simply select the squares in which they’ve spotted some indication of human impact: the tell-tale quilt of farm plots, a highway, a suspiciously straight edge of tree line. 

Look at these nine blocks and make a judgment about each one. Does that satellite image look like a situation where human beings have transformed the landscape in some way?” Inman explained.

It’s not always easy; that’s the point. For example, a brown patch in the trees could be the result of burning to clear land for agriculture (earning a check mark for human impact), or it could be the result of a natural forest fire (no check mark). Keen users might be able to spot subtle signs of intervention the computer would miss, like the thin yellow line of a dirt road running through the clearing. 

SAS’s website offers a handful of examples comparing natural forest features and manmade changes. 

users have analyzed almost 41,000 images, covering an area of rainforest nearly the size of the state of Montana. Deforestation caused by human activity is evident in almost 2 in 5 photos.

The researchers hope to use historical images of these new geographies to create a predictive model that could identify areas most at risk of future deforestation. If they can show that their AI model is successful, it could be useful for NGOs, governments and forest monitoring bodies, enabling them to carefully track forest changes and respond by sending park rangers and conservation teams to threatened areas. In the meantime, it’s a great educational tool for the citizen scientists who use the app

Inman was surprised how willing people have been to spend their time clicking on abstract-looking pictures of the Amazon.

we have still had people from 80 different countries come onto the app and make literally hundreds of judgments that enabled us to resolve 40,000 images,

sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay the churches $2.6 million.

he was deeply sorry and wanted them to know he had recovered his faith in God

race was not considered a motive,

The music has been linked, in some instances, to fires at Christian churches in Norway.

Summerhays ordered him to pay $1.1 million in restitution to Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church and $970,213.30 to Greater Union Baptist Church, both in Opelousas, and $590,246 to St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church in Port Barre.

no one was injured.

Church Arson Prevention Act

“The churches survived for nearly 150 years but did not survive this defendant’s warped act of hatred.”

The judge asked the Bureau of Prisons to put Matthews in a prison near his family and to ensure that he gets substance abuse counseling and mental health treatment, KATC-TV reported.

what it means to have been in “close contact”

cumulative

He wore a mask, but there were times during the day when he was with individuals who did not.

nd it will likely change how schools and offices handle positive cases. If, say, a child is exposed to a person with COVID-19 for five minutes at three points during the day, there may need to be considerations for quarantine

virus twice

his second round of illness was much more severe and required hospitalization.

it appears to be extremely rare as of now.

five months

Also, just because a person no longer has antibodies does not mean they’ve necessarily lost immunity

Researchers analyzed child care centers that stayed open throughout the pandemic and found that employees who watched those kids all day were not at any greater risk of contracting COVID-19 than they would have been otherwise.

wear a mask.

There just has not been a lot of data so far.

under the age of 6

Perhaps most importantly, day cares were generally very good about preventive measures, especially hand-washing and disinfecting frequently.

the virus may be associated with significant mental decline in some cases.

They found that some test-takers who had had COVID-19 had an “equivalent to the average 10-year decline in global performance between the ages of 20 to 70,” the researchers said.

Still, the new research provides clues about COVID-19′s long-term effects, and it’s certainly something experts will be paying attention to moving forward.

On the other hand, the risk of getting your vote ruined from too much hand sanitizer is very, very real.

“Spread through inanimate objects such as pens, or touching the surface, or mail is theoretically extraordinarily low,”

The CDC does recommend having hand sanitizer available

Experts say you need to rub hand sanitizer until it is dry on your skin for it to be maximally effective.

I just do it at the end

Just remember to keep the ballot dry.

The architect who designed the sculpture, Maarten Struijs, told Dutch broadcaster RTL he was pleased that it likely saved the life of the driver.

plastic

uninjured and there were no passengers on the train

Authorities launched an investigation into how the train could plow through the barrier at the end of the rail tracks.

The driver of a metro train escaped injury

The driver of a metro train escaped injury

was caught by a sculpture of a whale’s tail near the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.

perched upon one of two tail fins known as “flukes”