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An estimated 35 percent of our food directly relies on pollinators, such as honeybees. But in recent decades, an alarming number of bees have died off, in part due to the use of pesticides in agriculture.
Studies have shown that wax and pollen in 98 percent of hives in the US are contaminated with an average of six different pesticides, leading to widespread colony collapse disorder. Beekeepers lose around a third of their hives each year. Wild honeybees are affected, too, further threatening food security and prices across the country.
A group of researchers at Cornell University have developed a new approach to saving the bees. “Pesticides are one of the biggest stressors that bees are going through and one of the big reasons why they are declining,” says researcher James Webb, CEO of Beemmunity and co-author of the resulting study recently published in
Penn State researchers have found that the signal of global brain activity is coupled to movement of cerebral spinal fluid in humans. It appears that the coupled movement cleans out the brain’s toxins as a person sleeps. The weaker the coupled movement, the higher the risk the person could develop Alzheimer’s disease. The signal can viewed via non-invasive brain imaging and could serve as a clinical marker to help in diagnosis.
Penn State College of Engineering
First described in 2012, the glymphatic system acts as a waste management system, washing out the proteins and other buildup that can hinder brain activity. The critical component of the system is the cerebrospinal fluid flow, according to Liu, which his research suggests is activated by the global BOLD signal activation. In sleep, the glymphatic system can speed up its cleaning processes significantly.