Speech timing revealed, as reported in Nature News 20 February 2013 and ABC News in Science 21 February 2013. Edward Chang and colleagues from the University of California San Francisco have carried out a study of brain activity during speech. They were able to record directly from the surface of the brains of patients who […]
Tag: neuroscience
Speech Evolved From Fish
Speech evolved from fish, according to reports in BBC News and ScienceNOW, 17 July 2008 and Science, vol. 321, p 417, 18 July 2008. A group of American researchers have been studying the brain activity of the fish that communicate with sound. The midshipman fish makes a nest hole under rocks and makes humming sounds […]
Sheep Have Good Memories
Sheep have good memories, as reported in Nature, vol 414, p65, 8 November 2001. Scientists at the Laboratory of Cognitive and Developmental Neuroscience in Cambridge (UK) trained sheep to negotiate a maze using pictures of sheep’s faces as visual cues. The sheep remembered the right faces for over two years after the initial training. Sheep […]
Sea Spiders Aren’t Spiders
Sea spiders aren’t spiders, according to an article in ScienceNOW 19 October 2005 and Nature, vol 437, p 20 October 2005. Sea spiders live on the sea floor where they eat seaweed and small invertebrates. They are believed to have evolved 490 million years ago and have been classified as spiders because they have eight […]
Quote: Asimov on Human Brain
‘In man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.’ Isaac Asimov (Biochemist; was a Professor at Boston University School of Medicine; internationally known author), ‘In the game of energy and thermodynamics you can’t even break even’. Smithsonian Institute Journal, June […]
Pterosaurs had Smart Wings and Big Brains
Pterosaurs had “smart wings” and big brains, according to reports in Nature vol 425, p950, 30 October 2003 and ScienceNOW 29 October 2003. Lawrence Witmar of Ohio University, and colleagues have studied computerised x-rays of pterosaur skulls and found they had large semi-circular canals and an enormous flocculus area in their brain. The semi-circular canals […]
Human Brains Wired For Language
Human brains wired for language, according to a report in ScienceNOW 24 March 2008. Communicating with complex speech language is unique to humans, and it has long been known that human brains have specialised regions in the frontal and temporal lobes that are used for speech production and the understanding of language. Scientists who study […]
Gravity on the Brain
Gravity on the brain, reported in New Scientist, 23 April, 2005, p20. Francesco Laquaniti, had observed that astronauts are not good at predicting the movement of objects in zero gravity. He and a team of researchers from the Santa Lucia Foundation and University of Rome studied brain scans of people who were observing moving objects. […]
Big Eyes Caused Neanderthal’s Demise
Big eyes caused Neanderthal’s demise, according to articles in ABC News in Science, BBC News and New Scientist 13 March 2013. Eiluned Pearce and Robin Dunbar of Oxford University have compared 13 Neanderthal skulls with 32 Homo sapiens skulls and found the Neanderthals had larger eye sockets, by an average of 6mm as measured from […]