Cells that transmit nerve impulses in the part of elephants’ brains responsible for functions such as learning and memory are structured differently from those of any other mammal.
By understanding sleep across animals we can gain insights into improving the quality of human sleep. It can also help to bolster conservation management strategies for the animals in question.
Yossi Rathner, Swinburne University of Technology and Mark Schier, Swinburne University of Technology
It’s a long, hot summer’s day and you’re looking forward to an ice cream. But within seconds of your first bite, you feel a headache coming on: a brain freeze. What’s going on?
What exactly is addiction? What role, if any, does choice play? And if addiction involves choice, how can we call it a “brain disease,” with its implications of involuntariness?
First found in jellyfish, but now inserted into all kinds of organisms, GFPs illuminate biological structures and processes that researchers otherwise couldn’t see.
Notorious for their gruesome cannibalism, praying mantises have a hidden talent. Controlling the spin on their jumps allows juveniles to make precision landings, before their wings have developed.
Try putting an ice-cube in your mouth. The insides of your mouth and tongue instantly turn numb. Hold it in still and you will feel pain. Now try sucking on peppermint. The mint itself is at room temperature…
Helen Westerman, The Conversation and Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
We are faced with a myriad of choice in our lives - but an emerging body of work suggests the more choice we’re faced with, the more likely we’ll make a poor decision. The conundrum is called the “curse…
Whether choosing a dinner, a car, a spouse or an investment, experts now know what part of the brain our likes and dislikes are encoded, how we represent alternatives, and even how we choose. This has…
The use of drugs to improve academic performance goes by a number of names – “academic doping”, “cosmetic neurology”, “neuroenhancement”. A recent survey suggested that Australian university students are…
In May last year, a new attraction called The Ascent opened for a brief season in Brooklyn, New York. Described as “part art installation, part adventure ride and part spiritual journey,” The Ascent consisted…
A new study is tapping into a phenomenon most of us have heard about and some of us might claim to have experienced at some point – “runner’s high”. In doing so, this study touches on something fundamentally…