research

The mobile apps and wearable tech tapping into users’ emotions to tackle depression and anxiety

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A smartphone chatbot that reinforces positive thinking and emotion-tracking tech are designed to support users living with mental health conditions. Image credit - Pxhere, licensed under CC0

by Gareth Willmer Personalised smartphone applications and wearable technologies that are attuned to the user’s state of mind are offering customised ways of helping people cope with mental illness. The rising incidence of mental health problems places great strain on health systems and societies around the world. In the EU, mental health disorders are already estimated to … Read more

Global warming could be in reverse by 2050 if we take action now – Chad Frischmann

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Project Drawdown's research director says the paradigm around global warming needs to change into one of possibility and opportunity.

We could get to the stage where atmospheric greenhouse gases are in decline – a point known as drawdown – and begin to reverse global warming before 2050, but it will require us adopting solutions at an aggressive rate, according to Chad Frischmann, vice-president and research director of Project Drawdown. Project Drawdown is a worldwide … Read more

Global heatwave: Climate change is no longer a two-way debate – Dr Peter Stott

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With the EUPHEME project, Prof. Stott is linking extreme heatwaves and resulting wildfires to climate change.

The pattern of heatwaves causing record breaking temperatures across the northern hemisphere would not be seen without climate change, and they have firmly focused the conversation on what we can do about it rather than whether it’s happening, according to Peter Stott, professor of detection and attribution of climate change at the University of Exeter, UK. … Read more

‘Island of the brain’ explains how physical states affect anxiety

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Anxiety disorders might be better explained by understanding the brain's way of regulating emotions.

A fold of tissue hidden deep inside the human brain which collects inputs from both inside and outside the body could explain how our physical states influence our emotions and may be the key to understanding anxiety disorders, according to Dr Nadine Gogolla, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, Germany. … Read more

Could symbiotic microbes help ecosystems survive global warming?

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Symbiotic bacteria might have helped coffee plants adapt to climate change in the past.

Studies of the relationships between microbes and the organisms they live on are revealing how plants and animals could adapt to climate change. With the world facing a global warming somewhere between 1 and 5.5 degrees Celsius, organisms that have evolved to thrive in specific environments need to adapt or they could struggle to survive. Our … Read more

Mini-brains offer hope in search for new drugs for brain disorders

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Cerebral organoids allow scientists to test new drugs on human brain tissue in labs.

Miniature brains grown in laboratory dishes could overcome some of the problems testing drugs on animals and help researchers identify new ways to treat very human, and incurable, conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy. Most new drugs are developed and tested using mice as models. However, with brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s, the animals never … Read more