Neuroscience is a broad scientific field that encompasses many different types of research. This research ranges from the microscopic level such as basic protein interactions, genes, and cells, to the…
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by Caitlin Goodpaster
Early this June, a viral story hit the internet—an engineer at Google had claimed an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot named LaMDA was conscious (Tiku, 2022). LaMDA, which…
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In his book “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain”, the neurologist Oliver Sacks stated that music can “calm us, animate us, comfort us, thrill us, or serve to organize…
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Nearly everything we do requires our brain in some way. Eating a bagel? That uses your brain. Reading this article? That’s using your brain, too. All those questionable decisions you…
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Sleep paralysis is a type of REM parasomnia or abnormal behavior that takes place during the REM sleep cycle. Also known as sleep atonia, this condition refers to the feeling…
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You probably don’t remember anything from when you were an infant. However, chances are that you experienced some pain immediately after you were born. You might have needed an IV…
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If someone had told me a year ago that he sleeps with his watch on at night, I’d probably wonder just how eccentric of a personality I was dealing with.…
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[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n a brand new episode of the Knowing Neurons podcast, we explore the concept of “mind uploading”. How would something like a mind upload really work?…
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[dropcap]A[/dropcap]lthough radically different in terms of their content and feel, the range of dream states are just as complex as waking states. If we look across an individual’s lifetime, we…
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Magritte’s comments on our fascination with the unknown rings true not just in artistic surrealism, but also in many of our scientific research endeavors. The human mind is continually fascinated…
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What are you doing right now? I’m no psychic, but I can say for certain one thing that you’re doing: reading. You’re reading this sentence, word by word, and extracting…
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In Isaac Asimov’s 1950 short story collection I, Robot, intelligent robots with positronic brains exist alongside humans. Unlike conventional computer hardware, the word positronic implies that electrical current is carried…
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Benjamin Franklin once quipped: ‘There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know oneself.’ Every decision we make, from pinpointing the source of a faint sound to…
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Brain stimulation might sound like some Frankensteinian demonstration from a Victorian science fair. But in reality, it is a contemporary technique making a huge impact in neuroscience by addressing a…
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Marine mammals, such as dolphins, whales, and porpoises, spend their entire lives at sea. Like us, they need to breathe, avoid danger, and care for their young. Like us, they…
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We have someone new joining our team! She is a neuroscience PhD student at the University of Iowa, and she studies speech perception – but let’s let the animation she created…
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If you grew up with siblings, it is likely that you have heard the phrase, ”Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” However, it wasn’t until a groundbreaking finding in…
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What are brain waves? It’s no wonder the term sounds like science fiction. In the 1920s, a German psychiatrist embarked on a highly personal quest to discover the supposed medium…
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Who hasn’t wanted to snap their fingers and dive into the pages of the gorgeous places featured in National Geographic? Caught in a miserable physics exam that you haven’t studied…
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It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon. Professor Freeman is enjoying the Southern California weather on Professor Domino’s patio.
Domino: Will it be Coke or Pepsi, Dr. Freeman?
Freeman: That’s an easy…
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Last month, astronomers announced the prediction of a new giant planet in our solar system dubbed Planet IX, a genuine ninth planet with ten times the mass of Earth. The…
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People like simplicity. Each decade, corporate logos grow progressively minimalistic, pop songs use ever simpler melodies, and visual art embraces simpler compositions, as Monet gives way to Picasso and Picasso…
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For the first time in over a decade, a new Star Wars film is upon us, and if you’re like the staff of Knowing Neurons, your nucleus accumbens is firing…
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Each night, you place your head on your pillow, close your eyes, and, barring insomnia, you lose consciousness of the world around you, drifting into blissful oblivion. Eventually, you reawaken,…
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Some questions cannot be addressed by science. Like parallel universes, the consciousness of others is not something that can be directly observed, measured, or experienced. Rene Descartes famously said,
“I…
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A familiar progression of chords blares out of your speakers as the red lights of the surrounding traffic fade into the memory of a dark stage illuminated by pulsing neon lights.…
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Pictures are powerful tools for illustrating quantitative data and capturing public interest. Each year, NASA releases many beautiful images of Martian dunes and distant nebulae which help win public funding.…
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