Sequencing DNA from individual cells is changing the way that researchers think of humans as a whole.
For the research subjects’ sacred values, the ones they wouldn’t give up on for any amount of money (they could ‘auction off their value’ for up to $100), what lit up in the brain were areas known to be involved in right-wrong decisions, not in cost-benefit/utilitarian parts of the brain. That is, we naturally go…
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…
Roughly 100,000 years ago, human evolution reached a mysterious bottleneck: Our ancestors had been reduced to perhaps five to ten thousand individuals living in Africa. In time, “behaviorally modern” humans would emerge from this population, expanding dramatically in both number and range, and replacing all other co-existing evolutionary cousins, such as the Neanderthals. The cause…
Scientists have picked up fragments of people’s thoughts by decoding the brain activity caused by words that they hear. The remarkable feat has given researchers fresh insight into how the brain processes language, and raises the tantalizing prospect of devices that can return speech to the speechless. Though in its infancy, the work paves the…
Narcissism has long gotten a bad rap. Its unseemly reputation dates back at least to ancient Greek mythology, in which the handsome hunter Narcissus (who undoubtedly would be gloating over his present-day fame) discovered his own reflection in a pool of water and fell in love with it. Narcissus was so transfixed by his image…
Little has been done to protect marine life since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, conservation scientists conclude. On pledges to protect key habitat and restrict the size of fishing fleets, they say progress has been “pitiful”. Their analysis is carried in the journal Science and is being discussed during final preparations for the Rio+20 summit….