News tagged with human brains

Scientists solve mystery of the eye

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have a good overall understanding of human vision: when light enters our eyes, it is focused by the lens and strikes the retina in the back of the eye. The light causes some of ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Nov 17, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (64) | comments 14 | with audio podcast feature

Study dusts sugar coating off little-known regulation in cells

In Alzheimer's disease, brain neurons become clogged with tangled proteins. Scientists suspect these tangles arise partly due to malfunctions in a little-known regulatory system within cells. Now, researchers have dramatically ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Apr 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

New type of extra-chromosomal DNA discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from the University of Virginia and University of North Carolina in the US have discovered a previously unidentified type of small circular DNA molecule occurring outside ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Mar 09, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (21) | comments 9 | with audio podcast report

Immortal worms defy aging

Researchers from The University of Nottingham have demonstrated how a species of flatworm overcomes the ageing process to be potentially immortal.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 27, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (38) | comments 22 | with audio podcast

Japan scientists hope slime holds intelligence key

A brainless, primeval organism able to navigate a maze might help Japanese scientists devise the ideal transport network design. Not bad for a mono-cellular being that lives on rotting leaves.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 28, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (14) | comments 5

Chimp study shows evidence of synaesthesia

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the never-ending struggle to understand how the human brain works, all manner of experiments are dreamed up and carried out. In one new one, for example, researchers in Japan have been ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 06, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 3 | with audio podcast report

Differences in human and Neanderthal brains set in just after birth

(PhysOrg.com) -- The brains of newborn humans and Neanderthals are about the same size and appear rather similar overall. It's mainly after birth, and specifically in the first year of life, that the differences ...

Biology / Evolution

created Nov 08, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (13) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

DNA scan for familial autism finds variants that disrupt gene activity in autistic kids

(PhysOrg.com) -- The world's largest DNA scan for familial autism has uncovered new genetic changes in autistic children that are often not present in their parents. Identified in less than 1 percent of the population, these ...

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Jun 09, 2010 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Blind people use both visual and auditory cortices to hear

(PhysOrg.com) -- Blind people have brains that are rewired to allow their visual cortex to improve hearing abilities. Yet they continue to access specialized areas to recognize human voices, according to a ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Feb 16, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Bigger not necessarily better, when it comes to brains

(PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny insects could be as intelligent as much bigger animals, despite only having a brain the size of a pinhead, say scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 17, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (20) | comments 12

Why can't chimps speak? Study links evolution of single gene to human capacity for language

(PhysOrg.com) -- If humans are genetically related to chimps, why did our brains develop the innate ability for language and speech while theirs did not?

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Nov 11, 2009 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (15) | comments 3

On the move: 'Jumping genes' create diversity in human brain cells

Rather than sticking to a single DNA script, human brain cells harbor astonishing genomic variability, according to scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The findings, to be published in ...

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Aug 05, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (15) | comments 3

Learning is social, computational, supported by neural systems linking people

(PhysOrg.com) -- Education is on the cusp of a transformation because of recent scientific findings in neuroscience, psychology, and machine learning that are converging to create foundations for a new science ...

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Jul 16, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (8) | comments 0

New technique reveals unseen information in DNA code

Imagine reading an entire book, but then realizing that your glasses did not allow you to distinguish "g" from "q." What details did you miss? Geneticists faced a similar problem with the recent discovery ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 17, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Researchers gain better understanding of mechanism behind tau spreading in the brain

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have gained insight into the mechanism by which a pathological brain protein called tau contributes to the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created May 02, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1 | with audio podcast