Mate choice: How social trends influence mate diversity
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 19-May-2026 11:16 ET (19-May-2026 15:16 GMT/UTC)
Whether people follow a general trend when choosing a partner or consciously decide against it has a noticeable impact on the diversity of phenotypes to choose from. This is shown by a new study by the University of Würzburg.
It's a small number of research labs inside tech giants that are driving the rapid rise of AI today. But this is not the first time such labs have taken center stage, a new study shows: The United States' rise as a technological superpower was fueled not just by inventions, but by the emergence of industrial research labs in the 1920s – which reshaped who invented, where innovation happened, and how breakthroughs were made.
Research reveals a strong disparity in the amount of heat-mitigating tree cover within nine cities across the globe, with wealthy neighborhoods benefitting from shade the most.
Social memory—the ability to recognize familiar individuals and distinguish them from strangers—is fundamental to social cognition. Deficits in social memory are hallmarks of multiple neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Notably, these conditions frequently co-occur with chronic sleep disturbances. Although extensive evidence linking sleep disruption to impaired social cognition, the underlying circuit-level and neurochemical mechanisms have remained largely unresolved. To address these challenges, the research team led by Prof. Haibo Xu and Prof. Linlin Bi at Wuhan University employed a combination of high-resolution oxytocin (OXT) sensor imaging, optogenetics, calcium imaging, and electrophysiological approaches to uncover the neural circuit mechanisms underlying sleep disruption–induced social memory impairment, as well as potential intervention strategies.
For the many patients with depression who haven't found relief through medication, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) — a noninvasive therapy that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate specific areas of the brain — has become an increasingly important treatment option. But the standard course of treatment requires daily clinic visits over six-to-eight weeks, a schedule that can be difficult for many patients to manage.
Self-isolating when infected may be a natural survival strategy, says new University of Warwick led study - and policymakers can harness it for future epidemics