Google and Harvard Map a Tiny Bit of Our Ridiculously Complex Brain Connections in Unprecedented Detail

There are more possible connections between neurons in the brain than there are stars in the galaxy, making the ole’ noggin the most complex supercomputer we know of. To map the connections in just one millimeter of cerebral cortex tissue required over a million gigabytes of data, and 225 million images. Now assembled by researchers […]

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Science Has Already Debunked the Top 20 Myths We Commonly Believe to Be True – Ready to be Surprised?

Researchers have already debunked the top 20 myths that we all commonly believe to be true—such as, the most heat escapes through your head, we only use 10 percent of our brains, and goldfish only have three-second memory. A new survey of 2,000 adults found nearly four in 10 aren’t even sure how they came […]

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Scientists discover a new feature that distinguishes modern humans from Neanderthals

(Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech)) Scientists from Skoltech and their colleagues from Germany and the US have found out which mutation in the genome affected the metabolism in brain tissues and thereby contributed to modern humans evolving into a separate species.

New study deconstructs Dunbar’s number

(Stockholm University) An individual human can maintain stable social relationships with about 150 people, not more. This is the proposition known as ‘Dunbar’s number’ – that the architecture of the human brain sets an upper limit on our social lives. A new study from Stockholm University indicates that a cognitive limit on human group sizes cannot be derived in this manner.

Modern human brain originated in Africa around 1.7 million years ago

(University of Zurich) The human brain as we know it today is relatively young. It evolved about 1.7 million years ago when the culture of stone tools in Africa became increasingly complex. A short time later, the new Homo populations spread to Southeast Asia, researchers from the University of Zurich have now shown using computed tomography analyses of fossilized skulls.

Did you know? Mathematician Sophie Germain ‘borrowed’ an identity

French mathematician Sophie Germain thwarted the École Polytechnique’s ban on women by assuming the identity of a male student.

Did you know? Triassic dinosaurs weren’t very big

Triassic dinosaurs that existed at the time were much smaller than other contemporary creatures, many not much bigger than a cow

Scientists paint multicolor atlas of the brain

Scientists have engineered a coloring technique, known as NeuroPAL (a Neuronal Polychromatic Atlas of Landmarks), which makes it possible to identify every single neuron in the brain of a worm.

The DNA regions in our brain that contribute to make us human

With only 1 percent difference, the human and chimpanzee protein-coding genomes are remarkably similar. Understanding the biological features that make us human is part of a fascinating and intensely debated line of research. Researchers have developed a new approach to pinpoint adaptive human-specific changes in the way genes are regulated in the brain.

New DNA modification ‘signature’ discovered in zebrafish

Researchers have revealed a previously unknown DNA modification in zebrafish – one of human’s distant evolutionary cousins.