The human gut microbiome plays a critical role in the body, communicating with the brain and maintaining the immune system through the gut-brain axis. So it isn’t totally far-fetched to suggest that microbes could play an even larger role in our neurobiology. Fishing for Microbes For years, Irene Salinas has been fascinated by a simple […]
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The number of people who read for fun appears to be steadily dropping. Fifty percent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42 percent in 2015) and almost one in four young people aged 16 to 24 say they’ve never […]
Nature, Published online: 04 December 2024; doi:10.1038/d41586-024-03846-9 The discovery that peptides from myelin proteins in the brain help the immune system’s T cells to suppress autoimmunity could pave the way to developing therapies for inflammatory brain diseases.
It takes a huge amount of energy for human brains to grow to their current large size and be maintained over time. Our early human ancestors evolved to grow bigger brains, but the biological changes they went through to do so have been difficult for scientists to pin down. Now, new research points to our […]
Credit: CC0 Public Domain What will humans be like generations from now in a world transformed by artificial intelligence (AI)? Plenty of thinkers have applied themselves to questions like this, considering how AI will alter lives—often for better, sometimes for worse. They have conjured dramatic scenarios, like AI-driven extinction of humans (and many other species), […]
It is not some secret that stress can be bad for animal brains, and social stress itself can lead to a build up of oxidative stress. This imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants damages the cells and can cause a wide range of issues from cancer to neurological disorders to arthritis. In order to understand […]
14 Hard-To-Explain Images That’ll Test Your Brain’s Ability To Critically Think Just when we thought the world had tested us enough this week, Reddit’s Confusing Perspective thread came in with more brain-puzzling images. See if you can decipher them! 1. Explain exactly what is going on with this plane’s shadow: 2. Care to share how […]
Late in his team’s game against the Green Bay Packers on September 15, Indianapolis Colts tight end Kylen Granson caught a short pass over the middle of the field, charged forward, and lowered his body to brace for contact. The side of his helmet smacked the face mask of linebacker Quay Walker, and the back […]
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. It is late at night. You are alone and wandering empty streets in search of your parked car when you hear footsteps creeping up from behind. Your heart pounds, your blood pressure skyrockets. Goose bumps appear on your arms, sweat on your palms. Your stomach […]
