brain

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Counting Chicks Redefine Birdbrain

Study shows chickens can do basic math

(Newser) - No dumb clucks, young chickens appear capable of basic arithmetic, Discover reports. Scientists relied on two innate chick traits—an instinct to flock with the biggest group and an attachment to objects—to test the birds’ noggins. After hiding yellow balls of varying numbers behind screens, they released the chicks....

Globalization Is Changing Our Brains
 Globalization Is 
 Changing Our Brains 
opinion
Mar 29, 2009 6:20 PM CDT

Globalization Is Changing Our Brains

(Newser) - Having boogied in 70 countries on all seven continents, Matt Harding concludes that “globalization is forcing our brains to evolve." Known via the Internet for dancing poorly with locals in far-flung locations, Harding argues that our brains were designed for social interaction within a small tribe—but we...

'Brain Gyms' Offer Grey Matter Workouts

(Newser) - Gyms offering to exercise the brain instead of the body are attracting thousands of aging Americans seeking to tone their gray matter, the Wall Street Journal reports. The gyms are generally based around brain-fitness software, but some offer courses in brain nutrition as well as mental-fitness assessments with personal trainers...

Exposing Autism's Violent Side One Mother's Last Hope
Exposing Autism's Violent Side One Mother's Last Hope
commentary
Mar 26, 2009 11:20 AM CDT

Exposing Autism's Violent Side One Mother's Last Hope

Condition created 'the perfect storm' in him, she says

(Newser) - After years of painting autism as “beautiful, mysterious, perhaps even evolutionarily necessary,” Ann Bauer has been moved by the transformation of son Andrew into a violent monster to write about the condition’s violent side. Bauer forgave her son’s attacks—which broke three of her ribs—until...

Scientists Read Subjects' Location From Brain Scans

(Newser) - Decoding part of the complex system used by the brain to store memories has allowed scientists to determine a person’s location by looking at brain scans, Wired reports. A study took images of the hippocampus—the part responsible for spatial relationship and short-term memories—as individuals navigated a virtual-reality...

Fast Thinking Makes People Happy

Rapid thoughts can make people feel happier

(Newser) - Happy people think fast thoughts, say researchers at Princeton and Harvard. They asked two groups to perform the same tasks—problem-solving, reading, and watching TV—at different speeds. Those forced to move along briskly felt more elated, creative, even powerful, Scientific American reports. The findings suggest a crossword puzzle or...

Facebook May 'Infantilize' Your Mind, Expert Warns

(Newser) - A British neuroscientist thinks the children of today, exposed to “instant new screen images flashing up with the press of a key,” will develop differently from past generations, and that’s not a good thing. Facebook, for instance provides an experience “devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term...

Seizure Risk Lingers 10 Years After Brain Trauma

Danish study sparks ideas for better long-term treatment

(Newser) - Among the overlooked effects of the sort of brain injuries incurred in contact sports is the likelihood of having an epileptic seizure as long as 10 years after the injury, new research shows. The risk goes up 3.5 times for those who had a mild injury or skull fracture,...

Darwin Skeptics Separate Mind From Gray Matter

Debate focuses on whether the brain and mind function in tandem

(Newser) - To undermine Darwinian theories about the emergence of life, skeptics have a new weapon in mind: the brain, NPR reports. They’re challenging the notion that a cluster of cells could produce such high-level mental processes as consciousness and free will. “It doesn’t hang together,” says one...

Babies Ready to Rock at Birth

Infants can perceive rhythmic regularity

(Newser) - Babies are born ready to get in the groove, a new study suggests. Researchers played repetitive rock beats for infants, and when “metrically-unimportant” aspects of the music were absent, the babies’ auditory activity didn’t change much. But if there was a shift in the rhythm—for instance, if...

Brain Looks Beyond Eyes to Recognize Faces: Scientists

New research shows that eyebrows, noses are key to distinguishing people

(Newser) - Want to make yourself hard to recognize? Get a nose job and shave your eyebrows, say facial-recognition experts, who have yet to fully understand—or agree upon—how we “see” or “read” faces. Psychologists and neuroscientists, fueled by the need to quickly and correctly identify people in the...

Eyes, Brain Make Cards' Fitzgerald Quite the Catch

Star receiver has rare visual skills and a souped-up onboard computer for analysis

(Newser) - More than height, speed, or jumping ability, highly developed eyesight and an extraordinary internal computer make Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald a top-tier NFL receiver, a scientist tells the Wall Street Journal. Fitzgerald’s optometrist grandfather put him through drills to improve his “visual dominance,” enabling him to take...

Ultrasound May Help Counter Brain Disease

Low frequency ultrasound shown to release neurotransmitters

(Newser) - Bombarding the brain with sound waves may not seem like the most logical way to repair damage, but a new study shows that ultrasound may have therapeutic uses, reports the Economist. While ultrasound technology has long been used to take images of human interiors, such as fetuses in the womb,...

Scientist: Love's Just Brain Chemicals

...that could someday be reproduced in a lab

(Newser) - An American neurologist is determined to prove wrong the poets who say love is beyond understanding, reports the BBC. The Emory professor argues that neurochemical reactions in certain parts of the brain can explain love, raising the possibility that scientists could someday create drugs to bring love back to dying...

It's Your Brain's Fault Your Family Drives You Nuts

(Newser) - If you ended your holiday visit home with frayed nerves, blame your brain, not your brother's snoring, Discovery reports. Family members prompt activity in a different part of the brain from friends and strangers, a new study shows. Researchers used MRIs to look at subjects' brains while they viewed photos...

Baby Born With Extra Foot ... in Brain

Foot, other partly formed appendages may have been from twin that grew within

(Newser) - Surgery to remove a brain tumor from a 3-day-old Colorado boy turned up something “borderline unheard-of,” his doctors say: a foot. When the pediatric neurosurgeon operated Oct. 3 on Sam Esquibel, he saw a small foot, other half-formed appendages, and even intestines in the baby’s head, reports...

Scientists Find 2,000-Year-Old Brain in Britain

Experts ask if head was severed by sacrifice or ritual burial

(Newser) - British archaeologists have unearthed an ancient skull carrying a startling surprise—an unusually well-preserved brain. Scientists said today that the mass of gray matter was more than 2,000 years old, making it the oldest ever discovered in Britain, the AP reports. One expert unconnected with the find called it...

Dementia Patients Often Can't Detect Sarcasm

New tests could help with diagnoses

(Newser) - People suffering from dementia often can't pick up on sarcasm, a finding that could help with diagnoses and in improving patients' relations with caregivers, AFP reports. Australian researchers say patients under age 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia, the second most common form of the disorder, were unable to detect sarcastic...

Japanese Scientists Can Read Your Mind

They find a way to extract images directly from the brain

(Newser) - The Thought Police could eventually exist in reality, if they can just figure out how to harness new technology developed by Japanese researchers, the Daily Yomuri reports. The team managed to re-create images that people were looking at—using only subjects' recorded brain activity. This is the first successful display...

Researchers Push 'Brain Steroids' for All

Future drugs could boost job, classroom performance

(Newser) - Healthy adults should be able to take brain-boosting drugs for a competitive advantage at work or on an exam, researchers say in a provocative paper. Seven authors say ethical questions about cognitive-enhancement pills are both warranted and imminent, and that such medicinal aid is no less moral than caffeine consumption,...

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