Like Civilization? Thank Tectonic Plates
Mesopotamia is Greek for “land between rivers” and indeed it sat between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, what is now basically modern Iraq.
Anthropology
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Archaeology
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Lady 56: A Swedish Grave Reveals A Famed Spanish Pilgrimage
If you see multiple graves in medieval graves, it is reasonable to assume children and adults were related, but a new study finds that was not the case.
Psychology
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Repressed Memories Nonsense Is Making A Comeback
Have you heard someone say online or in casual conversation, when responding to someone’s struggles, “well, the body keeps the score”? For many people, this phrase is a useful way to name the...
Science Education & Policy
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The Endangered Species Act Attempted To Define 'Habitat' And Controversy Ensued
It wouldn’t make much sense to prohibit people from shooting a threatened woodpecker while allowing its forest to be cut down, or to bar killing endangered salmon while allowing a dam to dry out...
Science History
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The Scorched Cherry Twig And Other Christmas Miracles Get A Science Look
Bleeding hosts and stigmatizations are the best-known medieval miracles but less known ones, like a scorched cherry twig miraculously sprouting, a diseased swamp becoming fertile land, and healing...
Philosophy & Ethics
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Editorial: This Week’s LA Non-riots
A Facebook friend opined that Los Angeles protesters could “turn LA into another Portland.” I expand for you my rejoinder to his post:
Turns Out We All Dream About Sex
Some advice my dad gave me: "If your wife says she never dreams about sex with another man, she's lying. If she says she never dreams about sex with another woman, she's lying then too."
He may have…
Music And The Mind
The long supposed connection between mind and music has been further demonstrated by an international collaboration of physicists led by Simone Bianco and Paolo Grigolini at the Center for Nonlinear…
Neural stem cells reduce Parkinson's symptoms in monkeys
Primates with severe Parkinson’s disease were able to walk, move, and eat better, and had diminished tremors after being injected with human neural stem cells, a research team from Yale, Harvard, the…
Neural stem cells reduce Parkinson's symptoms in monkeys
Primates with severe Parkinson’s disease were able to walk, move, and eat better, and had diminished tremors after being injected with human neural stem cells, a research team from Yale, Harvard, the…
Bird songs and human stuttering
The vocal learning process in the zebra finch offers a model system to study the neural and behavioral mechanisms by which humans learn to produce sounds. Songbirds such as zebra finches have…
Right-brained people make fewer mistakes
Logic or feeling. Left-brained or right-brained. The terms have become part of the lexicon for categorizing intellectual and artistic people. It turns out there may be more than just wishful…
Alzheimer's cases up 400 percent worldwide by 2050, estimate says
More than 26 million people worldwide were estimated to be living with Alzheimer’s disease in 2006, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.…
The Dentate Gyrus and Deja Vu
We've all had the feeling we've been somewhere before or had a feeling we've previously had a conversation. It isn't magic or mysticism, the answer is in a set of neurons called your 'place cells.'…
Growth in ADHD medication use due to improved ADHD identification, says study
Is ADHD over-diagnosed? Claims vary, with some people stating that ADHD prescriptions are substituting for parenting and teaching. No matter your opinion, ADHD medication is in greater use than…
Neuronal activity gives clues on how memory works
A newly discovered interplay of cells in one of the brain's memory centers sheds light on how you recall your grocery list, where you laid your keys, and a host of important but fleeting daily tasks…
