Category: Senses

  • Listen.

    One drone, four microphones and a loudspeaker: nothing more is needed to determine the position of walls and other flat surfaces within a room. This has been mathematically proved by Prof. Gregor Kemper of the Technical University of Munich and Prof. Mireille Boutin of Purdue University in Indiana, USA. (1) The only way to see…

  • Rough.

    Most natural and artificial surfaces are rough: metals and even glasses that appear smooth to the naked eye can look like jagged mountain ranges under the microscope. There is currently no uniform theory about the origin of this roughness despite it being observed on all scales, from the atomic to the tectonic. Scientists suspect that…

  • Awareness.

    Awareness.

    A research indicates that trees might be ‘aware’ of their size: Scientists found out that birch trees adjust their stem thickness to support their weight. (1) We hold our consciousness so high. Never have we thought to look down to the dirt. Never have we thought that this might be the lowest of the possible…

  • Knowing thy self…

    Knowing thy self…

    Interoception is the awareness of our physiological states; it’s how animals and humans know they’re hungry or thirsty, and how they know when they’ve had enough to eat or drink. But precisely how the brain estimates the state of the body and reacts to it remains unclear. In a paper published in the journal Neuron,…

  • Listen. Without listening…

    Listen. Without listening…

    Brain activity synchronizes with sound waves, even without audible sound, through lip-reading, according to new research published in JNeurosci. Bourguignon et al. used magnetoencephalography to measure brain activity in healthy adults while they listened to a story or watched a silent video of a woman speaking. The participants’ auditory cortices synchronized with sound waves produced…

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