Brain/Neuroscience
‘Friendship, family and culture’: Surprising evolution-based attributes that dolphins share with humans
Scientists like Dr Blake Morton, a Lecturer of Psychology from the University of Hull, suggest that [personality similarities across species] ...
Podcast: Dogology—The science of our four-legged friends
Geneticist Kat Arney brings you some scientific tails as we explore the genetics of dog breeds and behaviour ...
Why did humans survive while our Denisovan and Neanderthal cousins died out? Just one gene could have made all the difference
Stem cells, the self-renewing precursors of other cell types, can be used to build brain organoids [or] "mini brains" in ...
Evolution of literacy: How Protestantism and the Bible rewired Medieval brains
Of course, writing systems are thousands of years old, found in ancient Sumer, China, and Egypt, but in most literate ...
How animals perceive time
[Are animals] entirely free from the temporal plane? Do they perceive it in any way? Do some species perceive it ...
One a day keeps the doctor away? Eating apples appears to boost brain function
Given that apples are one of the most widely consumed fruits in the world, [researchers Tara Louise] Walker, [Gerd] Kempermann ...
Emerging symptoms of COVID: Stuttering, forgetfulness, mania, and even psychosis
An early survey of 153 COVID-19 patients in the U.K. and a more recent preprint study of people hospitalized with ...
Evoking Jeff Goldblum’s ‘The Fly’: Does growing human ‘brains-in-a-dish’ and creating chimeras cross a bioethical line?
Bits of human brain growing in a lab dish can reveal a great deal about how a disease begins and ...
Methusalah dogs are pushing the boundaries of cognitive science
Living with people means dogs experience near-identical social and environmental influences on a daily basis. They show off a host ...
Who are you calling bird-brained? Crows and other corvids display self-awareness and consciousness
The corvid family of birds, which includes crows, ravens, jays and magpies, had been observed previously to use tools, as ...
COVID might be amplifying teenage suicide rates. Here’s how to help
Even during normal times, many mental health problems tend to emerge in adolescence, and young people in this group are ...
Exploring the boundary between consciousness and slumber
What was once seen as the neurological equivalent of annoying television static may have profound implications for how scientists study ...
Hidden biological link: Could estrogen during pregnancy hold key to preventing autism?
Over the past decade, genomic analyses of humans... have identified gene mutations strongly associated with [autism spectrum disorders, or] ASDs, ...
How years of ‘prolonged immaturity’ as babies provide humans with an evolutionary advantage
[H]uman babies, as well as the young of many other species of mammals and birds, require months or years of ...
Why cooperation based on reciprocity is unique to humans
It has long been known that human cooperation is so successful in large part because of our reciprocity. We help ...
Is art an evolutionary adaptation?
In his book The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature, [evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey] Miller expands ...
Viewpoint: Wishful worries? Fears about the transhumanist, human-enhancement movement are overblown
[A] problem arises when pundits concerned about possible social and ethical downsides of a technology exaggerate its technical feasibility. This ...
Mystery of how COVID-19 ravages the brain deepens
That SARS-CoV-2, the culprit of the COVID-19 pandemic, is also associated with neurological symptoms isn’t entirely surprising, given some evidence ...
Birds of play? How social engagement plays a role in brain development in birds, and maybe humans
Have you ever seen magpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a ...
AI writing test accurately predicts Alzhiemer’s years before symptoms appear
People with a wide variety of neurological illnesses have distinctive language patterns that, investigators suspect, may serve as early warning ...
CRISPR ‘mini-brains’ made from Neanderthal DNA offer insight into the evolution of human cognition
Humans are more closely related to Neanderthals and Denisovans than to any living primate, and some 40% of the Neanderthal ...
Did magic mushrooms and other hallucinogens fuel human evolution?
Did psychedelics stimulate human consciousness? First proposed by 20th century ethnobotanist Terence McKenna (1946-2000) in his 1992 book "Food of ...
Understanding the ‘post-truth’ world: Is cognitive bias hard-wired?
One of the deepest roots of post-truth has been with us the longest, for it has been wired into our ...
Electrical brain stimulation appears to relieve OCD symptoms
Researchers found that brain stimulation, delivered over five days, reduced obsessive-compulsive tendencies for three months, though in people who did ...
‘The Pattern Seekers’: How has autism driven human evolution?
Unfortunately, “The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention” by Cambridge University professor Simon Baron-Cohen never really lives up to ...
Psychedelics are revolutionizing psychiatry. Here’s what we can expect
Once dismissed as the dangerous dalliances of the counterculture, [psychedelic drugs] are gaining mainstream acceptance. Several states and cities in ...
Are Trump and Biden showing early signs of dementia? It’s time to look beyond arm-chair psychiatry and politics to science
In 2020, while the United States was locked in one of the most polarizing presidential elections and post-election period in ...
Viewpoint: Happiness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
Over the past 10 years, numerous studies have shown that our obsession with happiness and high personal confidence may be ...
