Wednesday, June 20, 2007
In an attempt to understand what makes us tick, researchers have been probing various regions of the brain, such as the premotor cortex, which helps make movement possible, and the auditory cortex, responsible for processing what we hear. But neuroscientists now say communication between regions—as opposed to within the areas themselves—may be the key that has eluded analysis until now, in part, because of technological obstacles. …
Read the full news article at Scientific American
For the first time, a text has been found in Old Persian language that shows the written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. The text is inscribed on a damaged clay tablet from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, now at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. The tablet is an administrative record of the payout of at least 600 quarts of an as-yet unidentified commodity at five villages near Persepolis in about 500 B.C. …
Read the full news article at the University of Chicago news office
Monday, June 18, 2007
The long-running controversy about the origins of the Etruscan people appears to be very close to being settled once and for all, a geneticist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today. Professor Alberto Piazza, from the University of Turin, Italy, will say that there is overwhelming evidence that the Etruscans, whose brilliant civilisation flourished 3000 years ago in what is now Tuscany, were settlers from old Anatolia (now in southern Turkey). …
Read the full news article at EurekAlert
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Neanderthals likely did not possess the cognitive complexities of modern humans and, as a result, probably did not suffer from schizophrenia and certain other mental disorders, according to a new theory. The theory proposes that language, creativity and many mental diseases are linked, due to the fact that they may originate in the neocortex, as well as the densely cell-packed cortex, located towards the top of the brain. These brain regions appear to mature and develop more slowly than other areas. …
Read the full article at Discovery Channel news
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Researchers at the Methodist Neurological Institute (NI) in Houston and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City used functional MRI to determine that songbirds have a pronounced right-brain response to the sound of songs, establishing a foundational study for future research on songbird models of speech disorders such as stuttering, as reported today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. …
Read the full news release at the Weill Cornell Medical College news room
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Rhesus monkeys turn out to be pretty good statisticians, a study reveals. They can accurately assess which of two behaviours is more likely to bring them a reward by summing together a series of probabilistic clues. And their reasoning is reflected in the firing rate of individual neurons in their brain. …
Read the full article at New Scientist
No Comments - Add a comment