Tag: non-thinking
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Ignore… you!
Electric fish generate electric pulses to communicate with other fish and sense their surroundings. Some species broadcast shorter electric pulses, while others send out long ones. But all that zip-zapping in the water can get confusing. The fish need to filter out their own pulses so they can identify external messages and only respond to…
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Rubik’s cube. Blindfolded.
The classic Rubik’s Cube has a zillion different states. And yet some people can solve it in seconds by just seeing it for a moment. How can you solve anything while seeing? Close your eyes. And the solution will be covered in darkness. But so will the problem… Do you see now?
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Brain. Skin. Thinking. Not being.
Brain activity has an unmistakable signature: the firing of neurons, as brain cells relay information to one another through the triggered release of chemical neurotransmitters, which are received by the long, branching dendrites of neighbouring cells. This microscopic ritual is distinctive, but it doesn’t belong only to neurons. Scientists have now found bursts of neuron-like…
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Drawing. Seeing.
Drawing an object and naming it engages the brain in similar ways, according to research recently published in JNeurosci. The finding demonstrates the importance of the visual processing system for producing drawings of an object. In a study by Fan et al., healthy adults performed two tasks while the researchers recorded brain activity using functional…
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Picking up voices…
Our brains have a remarkable ability to pick out one voice from among many. Now, a team of Columbia University neuroengineers has uncovered the steps that take place in the brain to make this feat possible. The auditory cortex is the brain’s listening hub. The inner ear sends this brain region electrical signals that represent…
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