Professor of psychology Michael Gazzaniga is spelling out a cautionary tale about the uses of neuroscience in society.
The most common measure of intelligence in animals, brain size relative to body size, may not be as dependent on evolutionary selection on the brain as previously thought, according to a new analysis by scientists. Brain size relative to body size has been used by generations of scientists to predict an animal’s intelligence. For example,…
The rare ships that have ventured through the harsh, icebound Arctic Ocean require reinforced hulls and ice-breaking bows that allow them to plow through dense ice as much as two meters deep, and face hazardous conditions in remote locations for long periods of time. Arctic sea ice now is melting so rapidly each summer due…
More than half of our nation’s waterways are in “poor condition.” So said the “National Rivers and Streams Assessment”, a recent report from the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA). As the weather warms and minds turn to spring and summer recreation, waterways in poor condition affect you directly if you are planning to swim, fish, or boat…
The huge NASA rover speeding toward an August landing on Mars may be the most capable and complex Red Planet explorer ever launched, but it’s far from the first. The 1-ton Curiosity rover — which will search for evidence that Mars is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life — represents humanity’s 40th effort…
Every time I look at my face in a magnified mirror in a hotel bathroom, I jump back in surprise. Seen closely, my skin looks like the surface of a strange planet. Ridges and canyons pock my chin and lips. Forests of tiny hairs grow from my ear lobes. Unnoticed pimples rise from my nose…
Ships’ propellers emit sound in the same frequency range that some whales use for communicating, and previous studies have shown the whales change their calling patterns in noisy places. Now, researchers have measured stress hormones in the faeces of the endangered North Atlantic right whale, and found they rose with the density of shipping. Ocean…