Inside Me

A new study from Dartmouth reveals that three regions of the brain in the posterior cerebral cortex, which the researchers call "place-memory areas," form a link between the brain's perceptual and memory systems. The findings are published in Nature Communications . "As we navigate our surroundings, information enters the visual cortex and somehow ends up as knowledge of where we are—the question is where this transformation into spatial knowledge occurs. We think that the place-memory areas might be where this happens," says lead author Adam Steel, a Neukom Fellow with the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the Robertson Lab . "When you look at the location of the brain areas that process visual scenes and those that process spatial memories, these place-memory areas literally form a bridge between the two systems. Each of the brain areas involved in visual processing is paired with a place-memory counterpart." For the study, an innov

China is developing a mission to send a pair of spacecraft to explore the far reaches of the Solar System and enter interstellar space by mid-century. The project aims to send individual spacecraft to the nose and tail of the heliosphere, as well as areas of space dominated by the solar wind generated by our Sun, to study individual regions of this bubble and how it interacts with the interstellar medium. A high official with China's lunar exploration project said the mission aims to reach a distance of 100 astronomical units from Earth by 2049, when the People's Republic of China celebrates its founding centenary. Chinese heliosphere probes will be launched in 2024. The first will have to fly around Jupiter in 2029 before heading towards the nose of the heliosphere. The second probe will fly around Jupiter in 2033 then to flying around the ice giant Neptune in 2038. The spacecraft could also potentially release a small probe shortly before arrival, with the main probe observin