Brain

Brain

Slower brain development ups a teen’s risk of getting into a car accident

Lack of driving experience isn't the only factor in whether a teen gets into a car crash. Crash risk in young drivers is also related to development of their brains’ working memory.

Brain

The color of body fat might affect how trim people are

Brown fat burns calories to keep us warm. Researchers are searching for ways to boost it to help fight obesity and diabetes.

Brain

Brain ‘ripples’ appear just before you remember something

Nerve cells in the brain’s hippocampus, a key memory center, fire together a second or two before people begin to recall an image, data now show.

Brain

Routine hits in a single football season may harm players’ brains

A group of college football players underwent brain scans after a season of play. The results suggest playing the sport could harm neural signaling.

Brain

Lasers make mice hallucinate

Scientists used a technique called optogenetics to make mice “see” vertical or horizontal lines that didn’t actually exist.

Brain

This brain region may make lifelike robots creep you out

Robots that look too much like real people can be unsettling. Scientists identified a brain region that may be behind these uneasy feelings.

Brain

High fat diet removes brain’s natural brake on overeating

At least in mice, high-fat diets promote overeating. And the problem appears to trace to changes that these foods make to cells in an appetite-control center within the brain.

Health & Medicine

A sixth finger can prove extra handy

Two people born with six fingers on each hand adeptly control their extra digits, using them to do tasks better than five-fingered hands.

Brain

The U.S. prison system can harm young brains, scientist warns

The U.S. justice system holds teens to adult standards. And that can harm a teen’s developing brain, one researcher now argues.

Life

In a first, scientists keep cells alive in the brains of dead pigs

They’re not true zombies — but these pig brains showed signs of cellular life long after the animals had died.

Brain

People may indeed have a sixth sense — for magnetism

People may process information about Earth’s magnetic field without knowing it, a study of brain waves suggests.

Psychology

Art can make science easier to remember

Students who learn science using art remember what they learned longer than those in regular classes.