Human Quirks: Mind & Brain

May 17, 2024

Top Headlines

Some Mice May Owe Their Monogamy to a Newly Evolved Type of Cell

May 15, 2024 — What makes the oldfield mouse steadfastly monogamous throughout its life while its closest rodent relatives are promiscuous? The answer may be a previously unknown hormone-generating cell. Scientists discover the cells and hormones that inspire mice ...

Coming out to a Chatbot?

May 13, 2024 — Today, there are dozens of large language model (LLM) chatbots aimed at mental health care -- addressing everything from loneliness among seniors to anxiety and depression in teens. But the efficacy of these apps is unclear. Even more unclear is how ...

Cats Purrfectly Demonstrate What It Takes to Trust Robots

May 13, 2024 — Would you trust a robot to look after your cat? New research suggests it takes more than a carefully designed robot to care for your cat, the environment in which they operate is also vital, as well as human ...

A Fragment of Human Brain, Mapped in Exquisite Detail

May 9, 2024 — Researchers have created the largest synaptic-resolution, 3D reconstruction of a piece of human brain to date, showing in vivid detail each cell and its web of neural connections in a piece of human temporal cortex about half the size of a rice ...

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'Digital Afterlife': Call for Safeguards to Prevent Unwanted 'Hauntings' by AI Chatbots of Dead Loved Ones

May 8, 2024 — Researchers lay out the need for design safety protocols that prevent the emerging 'digital afterlife industry' causing social and psychological ...

Wake Up and Die: Human Brain Neurons Re-Entering the Cell Cycle Age Quickly Shift to Senescence

Apr. 23, 2024 — Post-mitotic neurons in the brain that re-enter the cell cycle quickly succumb to senescence, and this re-entry is more common in Alzheimer's ...

Test Reveals Mice Think Like Babies

Apr. 26, 2024 — Are mice clever enough to be strategic? A neuroscientist who studies learning in humans and animals, and who has long worked with mice, wondered why rodents often performed poorly in tests when they ...

Can Animals Count?

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Time Zones and Tiredness Strongly Influence NBA Results, Study of 25,000 Matches Shows

May 1, 2024 — The body clock has a significant impact on the performance of NBA players. Data shows vastly better win ratio for home teams from the Western Time Zone Area (PDT) when playing an EDT team, compared ...

A University Lecture, With a Dash of Jumping Jacks

Apr. 24, 2024 — A university professor has found a way to help students -- and himself -- power through long lecture classes: exercise breaks. A new study showed that five-minute exercise sessions during lectures ...

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 ...

Artificial Nanofluidic Synapses Can Store Computational Memory

Mar. 25, 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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...