The location of the 'physics engine' in the brain is highlighted in color in this illustration.Credit: Jason Fischer/JHU Whether or not they aced the subject in high school, human beings are physics masters when it comes to understanding and predicting...
What if scientists could manipulate your brain so that a traumatic memory lost its emotional power over your psyche? Steve Ramirez, a Boston University neuroscientist fascinated by memory, believes that a small structure in the brain could hold the...
Machine enhanced humans -- or cyborgs as they are known in science fiction -- could be one step closer to becoming a reality, thanks to new research Lieber Group at Harvard University, as well as scientists from University of...
Babies find it easier to learn words with repetitive syllables rather than mixed sounds, a study suggests. Assessments of language learning in 18-month-olds suggest that children are better at grasping the names of objects with repeated syllables, over words with...
This visual shows the relationship between gender-linked language topics and characteristics of warmth and assertiveness. Blue-shaded points are topics most linked with men. Orange-shaded points are topics most linked with women.Credit: Images courtesy of PLOS ONE In a computational analysis...
How does stress -- which, among other things, causes our bodies to divert resources from non-essential functions -- affect the basic exchange of materials that underlies our everyday life? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers investigated this question by looking...
Older people who followed a Mediterranean diet retained more brain volume over a three-year period than those who did not follow the diet as closely, a new study says. Image Credit: Flickr/mealmakeovermoms A new study shows that older people who...
The brain acts much differently when we're outdoors compared to when we're inside the lab, a new study has found. "It happens when we're doing normal, everyday activities, like riding a bike," explained Kyle Mathewson, a neuroscientist in UAlberta's Department...
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have now for the first time identified a sub-region in the brain that works to form a particular kind of memory: fear-associated with a specific environmental cue or...
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The making of music

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Music is a tricky topic for evolutionary science: it turns up in many cultures around the world in many different contexts, but no one knows why humans are the only musical species. Image credit: Flickr/brian.abeling Study proposes new theory for...
By age 5 children have a sense of self-esteem comparable in strength to that of adults, according to a new study by University of Washington researchers. // Because self-esteem tends to remain relatively stable across one's lifespan, the study...