Illness & Sleepiness
A primitive neural switch may explain why illness makes us sleepy.
Brilliance Stereotypes
Gender stereotypes about extreme intelligence take hold in the early school years.
Crowd-sourcing Better Tomatoes
Researchers turn to panels of taste testers to identify key flavor chemicals lost during the past 100 years of commercial tomato breeding.
Germy Fabrics
Objects like blankets and stuffed animals can theoretically spread illnesses, but it’s unlikely.
Cooking Spray Calories
How can companies claim that cooking sprays are “fat-free” if the first ingredient is oil?
Prehistoric Sea Temperature
Measurements of ocean temperatures from the last interglacial period suggest today’s climate models may be too conservative.
Mapping Extinct Brains
Scientists scanned preserved brains of extinct Tasmanian tigers in an attempt to better understand their behavior and life history.
Goal-directed Brain Cells
Bats have specialized neurons that help them navigate towards a target.
Monkey Metamemory
Neuroscientists investigate how humans ponder what we’ve learned by studying the brains of monkeys.
Killer Mice
Scientists discover a vertebrate brain circuit that triggers hunting, pouncing and biting.
Sickness Trackers
Fitness tracking devices could also alert users that they’re getting sick, and provide medical information to doctors.
Cancer Mass Spectrometry
Molecular analysis of tissue samples could lead to fast, accurate cancer diagnosis.
Bone Batteries
Bone structure inspires the design of a safer lithium ion battery.
Hummingbird Vision
Hummingbirds have vision that’s specially tuned to fast movement in every direction.
Robotic Medical Implants
Magnets trigger biocompatible robotic gears that deliver drugs safely within the body.
Sleepwalking Brains
A listener asks what's going on in the brain when someone is sleepwalking.
Insects in Winter
A listener asks: Where do all the insects go in winter?
Arctic Camels
Camels seem perfectly suited to life in the desert, but they may have evolved those traits in the high Arctic.