Neuroscience

How London Cabbies Are Mentally Superior To You

Crack open the cranium of a London cab driver and you’re liable to find that they’re packing extra grey matter in regions of the brain responsible for spatial navigation. But this observation poses a compelling question: are the street’s most brilliant cabbies made, or are they born? To find out, researchers Katherine Woollett and Eleanor…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 8

Why our minds have probably evolved as far as they can go

Humans evolving into hyper-intelligent beings is a powerful idea in science fiction, but that’s probably where the idea will have to stay. Our brains have reached an evolutionary “sweet spot”, and we can’t get much smarter without making major trade-offs. That’s the finding of psychologists Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick and Ralph Hertwig…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 7

What flavor is this shape?

No ideas? What about a passing train — has listening to one ever evoked a specific color in your mind? The questions I’m asking you have to deal with something known as synesthesia — a rare condition wherein a person’s senses become entangled, causing them to associate different senses with one another. A person with…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 6

Easily hypnotized people can hallucinate colors whenever they want to

There’s thirty-four years of Jedi mind tricks telling us that the highly suggestible are, well, weak-minded. But now new research suggests the easily hypnotized actually have some unusual mental powers. Specifically, they can hallucinate any color they want — whenever they want. That’s the finding from a new study at the University of Hull in…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 1

Researchers have identified poo-flinging as a sign of intelligence (in chimpanzees)

Be honest. When you rolled out of bed this morning, who among you thought they’d be reading about the neuroanotomical correlates of poo-flinging in chimps today? In a study published in the latest issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, psychobiologist Bill Hopkins and his colleagues report that poo-flinging (and any-other-object-flinging) is, in…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 1

We dream in order to ease our painful memories

Sleeping isn’t just about refreshing us for the day ahead. It also has a more long-term impact on our health. The deep REM sleep associated with dreams actually shuts off our brain’s stress chemistry and soothes our most painful memories. That’s the finding of researchers at UC Berkeley, who found a number of dramatic stress-related…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 27

Breakthrough: Human stem cells successfully transplanted into mouse brains

In research published this week, scientists report that they’ve successfully transplanted human stem cell-derived neurons into the brains of living mice. That’s right, we’re talking about a functioning trans-species transplant of brain matter. The researchers took human embryonic stem cells, and grew them in a culture with mouse neurons that had a specific trait —…

io9 Tim Barribeau Nov 23

What makes a psychopath’s brain different?

There’s no neurological disorder quite as infamous as psychopathy, and yet figuring out exactly what goes on in a psychopath’s brain is extraordinarily difficult. We’ve now got an answer…and all it took was scanning the brains of forty medium-security prisoners. Specifically, the new findings come from brain imaging performed on forty inmates at a medium-security…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 23

New research suggests that you too can become a wine snob

Do you find yourself completely lost whenever your friends go off on long-winded descriptions of a wine’s aroma and bouquet? Well there may be hope for you yet, you uncultured brute. A new animal study — wherein researchers trained rats to distinguish between three very similar, albeit different, smells — suggests that with training, your…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 21

10 Reasons Coffee is Both the Best and the Worst Beverage Ever Invented

Caffeine is the most commonly used mood-altering drug in the world, and coffee is one of the most popular means of ingesting it. Over 50% of Americans drink coffee on a daily basis, and that figure is thought to be increasing every year. But there’s more to coffee than its caffeine content, and scientists are…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 21

Einstein’s brain is now on display at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia

When Albert Einstein died in 1955, Princeton pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey performed the autopsy. Against Einstein’s wishes, and without seeking permission from his family, Harvey preserved the brilliant physicist’s brain and sectioned it into hundreds of thin slices…for science. https://gizmodo.com/the-stolen-preserved-and-eventually-cubed-brain-of-al-5836056 Now, more than five decades later, a box of 46 brain slides has made its…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 21

How do humans distinguish sarcasm from sincerity?

Most of us are pretty good at picking up on sarcasm. Quite frankly, we have to be. Much of the way we communicate as a modern society is structured around subtle contextual cues that tell us whether someone’s mockingly contemptuous or earnest. Many of us can even pick up on sarcasm when it’s conveyed entirely…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 17

A computer chip that emulates the human brain – and might one day replace it

Your brain is home to around 100 billion neurons, all of which are perpetually establishing and breaking connections, known as synapses, with other neurons. There are trillions of these connections throughout your brain helping orchestrate everything from movement, to learning, to establishing and recalling memories. But we still don’t understand how all the connections between…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 17

Adding electrode arrays to your brain can stop seizures

Medicine increasingly involves modifying your body with technology, becoming a little bit cyborg to lead a normal human life. Case in point: new research suggests that brain implants may be the best treatment for epileptic seizures. Called “electrode array monitoring technologies,” these devices wire the brain with a hair-thin electrode and could make dangerous seizures…

io9 Keith Veronese Nov 17

20% of Americans suffer from a condition associated with dementia

Hearing loss is the kind of ailment that sneaks up on you over time — many people don’t even recognize that it’s happening). New research shows that its long-term consequences could include dementia. And now, it turns out that hearing loss is far more pervasive than anyone realized. According to a study published in yesterday’s…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 16

The neuroscience behind Rick Perry’s big oops

By now you’ve almost definitely heard about Rick Perry’s painfully awkward, potentially campaign-ending gaffe during Wednesday night’s Republican debate. (You haven’t? Here, have a few helpings of sympathetic embarrassment.) http://gawker.com/5858109/watch-rick-perrys-campaign-explode-in-an-excruciating-brain-fart?tag=rickperry What you probably haven’t read, however, is a scientific take on why it happened. Fortunately, The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach has published such a piece,…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 11

Man with schizophrenia has out-of-body experience in lab, gains knowledge, controls his psychosis

RM had his first out-of-body experience at the age of 16. Now, at the age of 55, he has had more than he can count. They usually happen just before he falls asleep; for ten minutes, he feels like he is floating above his body, looking down on himself. If the same thing happens when…

io9 Ed Yong - Discover Nov 6

Why do people pee when they’re frightened?

Have you ever been so frightened or surprised by something that you peed yourself, even just a little? It’s ok, you’re in the company of friends — nobody is going to make fun of you. After all, it’s not like it was your fault; strictly speaking, if you did leak a little bit the last…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Oct 31

Lucid dreamers bring us a step closer to “dream reading”

The problem with trying to do any sort of meaningful research into the way people dream is that it’s not exactly easy to give instructions to someone who is asleep. Most of us have no control over what we do when we’re sleeping, and limited memories of what we did. This is where lucid dreamers…

io9 Tim Barribeau Oct 28

Watch someone control a virtual helicopter in three dimensions using only their mind

It may not look like much at first, but the video you’re watching represents a milestone in the field of brain-computer interfaces. For starters, the helicopter on screen is being controlled in real time, by a test subject who has been trained to control its flight using “motor imaginations.” In other words, when the subject…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Oct 27

How London Cabbies Are Mentally Superior To You

Why our minds have probably evolved as far as they can go

What flavor is this shape?

Easily hypnotized people can hallucinate colors whenever they want to

Researchers have identified poo-flinging as a sign of intelligence (in chimpanzees)

We dream in order to ease our painful memories

Breakthrough: Human stem cells successfully transplanted into mouse brains

What makes a psychopath’s brain different?

New research suggests that you too can become a wine snob

10 Reasons Coffee is Both the Best and the Worst Beverage Ever Invented

Einstein’s brain is now on display at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia

How do humans distinguish sarcasm from sincerity?

A computer chip that emulates the human brain – and might one day replace it

Adding electrode arrays to your brain can stop seizures

20% of Americans suffer from a condition associated with dementia

The neuroscience behind Rick Perry’s big oops

Man with schizophrenia has out-of-body experience in lab, gains knowledge, controls his psychosis

Why do people pee when they’re frightened?

Lucid dreamers bring us a step closer to “dream reading”

Watch someone control a virtual helicopter in three dimensions using only their mind

Amazon Is Sticking With ‘Rings of Power’ to the End

Trump Is Reportedly Going Full Steam Ahead with the Golden Dome

‘Kamen Rider’ Is Ready to Take on the World

Twitter Just Can’t Stop Leaking Movies

The ‘Mass Effect’ Show is Getting Rewritten to Get Greenlit

See the Early Stages of How ‘Project Hail Mary’ Brought Rocky to Life

‘Cognitive Surrender’ Is a New and Useful Term for How AI Melts Brains

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Let us help find what you are looking for...