Human Quirks: Mind & Brain

April 24, 2024

Top Headlines

Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding number sense in animals by confirming the existence of discrete number sense in rats, offering a crucial animal model for investigating the neural basis of numerical ability and disability ...

Did You Know That Physical Activity Can Protect You from Chronic Pain?

Mar. 27, 2024 — Reserachers found that people who were more active in their free time had a lower chance of having various types of chronic pain 7-8 years later. For example, being just a little more active, such as going from light to moderate activity, was ...

Universal Brain-Computer Interface Lets People Play Games With Just Their Thoughts

Apr. 1, 2024 — Engineers have created a brain-computer interface that doesn't require calibration for each user, paving the way for widespread clinical ...

A Decade of Aphantasia Research: What We've Learned About People Who Can't Visualize

Mar. 27, 2024 — People who can't visualize an image in their mind's eye are less likely to remember the details of important past personal events or to recognize faces, according to a review of nearly ten years of ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:57pm EDT

Study Uses Artificial Intelligence to Show How Personality Influences the Expression of Our Genes

Apr. 1, 2024 — An international study using artificial intelligence has shown that our personalities alter the expression of our genes. The findings shed new light ...

Beethoven's Genes Reveal Low Predisposition for Beat Synchronization

Mar. 26, 2024 — Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the most celebrated musicians in human history, has a rather low genetic predisposition for beat synchronization, according to a new ...

New Archive of Ancient Human Brains Challenges Misconceptions of Soft Tissue Preservation

Mar. 20, 2024 — A new study has challenged previously held views that brain preservation in the archaeological record is extremely rare. The team compiled a new ...

Artificial Nanofluidic Synapses Can Store Computational Memory

Mar. 19, 2024 — In a step toward nanofluidic-based neuromorphic -- or brain-inspired -- computing, engineers have succeeded in executing a logic operation by connecting two chips that use ions, rather than ...

If Faces Look Like Demons, You Could Have This Extraordinary Condition

Mar. 22, 2024 — Imagine if every time you saw a face, it appeared distorted. Well, for those who have a very rare condition known as prosopometamorphopsia (PMO), which causes facial features to appear distorted, ...

New Technique Helps AI Tell When Humans Are Lying

Mar. 18, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new training tool to help artificial intelligence (AI) programs better account for the fact that humans don't always tell the truth when providing personal information. ...

In Flies, a Single Brain Cell Can Drive Multiple Movements of the Body

Mar. 20, 2024 — Motor neurons are the cells the brain uses to command muscles to act. Scientists typically thought of them as simple connections, much like the cables that link computers with their accessories. Now, ...

Brain-Inspired Wireless System to Gather Data from Salt-Sized Sensors

Mar. 19, 2024 — In a new study, researchers describe a novel approach for a wireless communication network that can efficiently transmit, receive and decode data from thousands of microelectronic chips that are each ...

Advanced Army Robots More Likely to Be Blamed for Deaths

Mar. 14, 2024 — Advanced killer robots are more likely to blamed for civilian deaths than military machines, new research has revealed. The study shows that high-tech bots will be held more responsible for ...

AI-Generated Food Images Look Tastier Than Real Ones

Mar. 11, 2024 — Researchers have announced an intriguing discovery -- consumers generally prefer AI-generated images of food over real food images, especially when they are unaware of their true ...

Last Chance to Record Archaic Greek Language 'Heading for Extinction'

Apr. 2, 2024 — A new data crowdsourcing platform aims to preserve the sound of Romeyka, an endangered millennia-old variety of Greek. Experts consider the language to be a linguistic goldmine and a living bridge to ...

The Surprising Effect of Presence Hallucinations on Social Perception

Mar. 12, 2024 — Neuroscientists have devised a way to alter our social perception and monitor specific types of hallucinations, both in healthy individuals and patients with Parkinson's disease. The test, which ...

Sprinting 'Like a Jet' Will Produce Premier League Strikers of Tomorrow, Study Shows

Mar. 5, 2024 — Sprinting 'like a jet plane taking off' will help produce Premier League star strikers of tomorrow, new research has revealed. A new study of Tottenham Hotspur's academy has shown that ...

AI Outperforms Humans in Standardized Tests of Creative Potential

Mar. 1, 2024 — In a recent study, 151 human participants were pitted against ChatGPT-4 in three tests designed to measure divergent thinking, which is considered to be an indicator of creative ...

Researchers Overestimate Their Own Honesty

Feb. 26, 2024 — The average researcher thinks they are better than their colleagues at following good research practice. They also think that their own research field is better than other research fields at ...

'Movies' With Color and Music Visualize Brain Activity Data in Beautiful Detail

Feb. 21, 2024 — Complex neuroimaging data can be explored through translation into an audiovisual format -- a video with accompanying musical soundtrack -- to help interpret what happens in the brain when performing ...

New Study Analyzes Link Between Digit Ratio and Oxygen Consumption in Footballers

Feb. 16, 2024 — The efficiency of oxygen supply to tissues is a factor in the severity of important diseases such as Covid-19 and heart conditions. Scientists already know that the relationship between the length of ...

Ancient Retroviruses Played a Key Role in the Evolution of Vertebrate Brains

Feb. 15, 2024 — Researchers report that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or ...

Great Apes Playfully Tease Each Other

Feb. 13, 2024 — Babies playfully tease others as young as eight months of age. Since language is not required for this behavior, similar kinds of playful teasing might be present in non-human animals. Now cognitive ...

Smart Earrings Can Monitor a Person's Temperature

Feb. 7, 2024 — Researchers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a user's earlobe temperature. Potential applications include tracking signs of ovulation, stress, ...

How Teachers Make Ethical Judgments When Using AI in the Classroom

Feb. 7, 2024 — A teacher's gender and comfort with technology factor into whether artificial intelligence is adopted in the classroom, as shown in a new ...

Researchers 3D-Print Functional Human Brain Tissue

Feb. 1, 2024 — It's an achievement with important implications for scientists studying the brain and working on treatments for a broad range of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ...

Poultry Scientists Develop 3D Anatomy Technique to Learn More About Chicken Vision

Jan. 30, 2024 — Poultry scientists are unraveling the complexities of bird brains and finding less expensive ways to do it. The scientists mapped the intricate neurological pathways that control vision in chickens ...

A Long-Lasting Neural Probe

Jan. 26, 2024 — An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a soft implantable device with dozens of sensors that can record single-neuron activity in the brain stably for ...

Research Team Breaks Down Musical Instincts With AI

Jan. 23, 2024 — A research team announced they have identified the principle by which musical instincts emerge from the human brain without special learning using an artificial neural network ...

Special Brain Cells React to Unexpected Situations

Jan. 10, 2024 — New research from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience shows that chandelier cells, a specific type of brain cell, become active during unexpected situations. 'Researchers have been ...

Largest Diversity Study of 'Magic Mushrooms' Investigates the Evolution of Psychoactive Psilocybin Production

Jan. 9, 2024 — The genomic analysis of 52 Psilocybe specimens includes 39 species that have never been sequenced. Psilocybe arose much earlier than previously thought -- about 65 million years ago -- and the ...

Sniffing Women's Tears Reduces Aggressive Behavior in Men, Researchers Report

Dec. 21, 2023 — New research shows that tears from women contain chemicals that block aggression in men. The study finds that sniffing tears leads to reduced brain activity related to aggression, which results is ...

AI's Memory-Forming Mechanism Found to Be Strikingly Similar to That of the Brain

Dec. 18, 2023 — An interdisciplinary team consisting of researchers has revealed a striking similarity between the memory processing of artificial intelligence (AI) models and the hippocampus of the human brain. ...

Thinking About God Inspires Risk-Taking for Believers, Study Finds

Dec. 14, 2023 — Does thinking about faith make religious people more likely to take leaps? A new study says yes, finding that participants were more likely to take risks when thinking about God as a benevolent ...