1+ week, 1+ day ago   (1184+ words) Confidence builds a sense of control, and two brain circuits turn that estimate into how much you learn from a win or a loss. When a job application disappears into silence, you have to decide whether the resume was weak…...

1+ week, 3+ day ago   (1228+ words) To find buried prey, the elephantnose fish senses tiny electric fields while firing its own pulses. A brain map shows how neurons filter them out. In muddy African rivers, an elephantnose fish hunts with sensors in its skin that pick…...

1+ week, 3+ day ago   (927+ words) DNA normally uses four letters. In lab tests, a bacterial enzyme successfully read eight, including four synthetic bases. All life writes with four letters. Because A pairs only with T, and G only with C, a cell can copy its…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (1017+ words) Artificial hibernation caused mice to lose more than half of their hippocampal synapses, yet their memories survived, challenging ideas about long-term memory. A memory from years ago is still there when you go looking for it. Many of the connections…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago   (1114+ words) A tiny head-mounted microscope lets researchers watch and activate individual brain cells while mice move freely. Watching individual brain cells fire in fine detail inside a living animal has often meant holding the animal’s head in place. But a mouse…...

2+ week, 4+ day ago   (954+ words) Humans scream for a variety of reasons, and new research shows that only half of those reasons are due to some type of fear. Most animals scream for one reason. The sound tells others that something has gone wrong. Humans…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago   (1059+ words) Fungi may live for thousands of years, but their hidden networks and unclear boundaries make their true ages nearly impossible to determine. You can learn a tree’s age by counting the rings in its trunk. A fungus has no rings…...