An international research team has used ancient DNA to uncover a 7,700-year-old "north-south corridor" connecting Siberia's Lake Baikal region with northern China. By analyzing 42 ancient genomes, the study, published in Science Bulletin, challenges the view that major trans-Eurasian contact only began in the Bronze Age. The findings link Early Neolithic groups genetically (via Ancient Paleo-Siberian ancestry) and archaeologically (via similar pottery and burial posture).

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.  

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.