Tag: senses

  • 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 […]

  • Flowers.

    Flowers.

    When flowers reached Australia: University of Melbourne research has established when and where flowering plants first took a foothold. New research has revealed that Australia’s oldest flowering plants are 126 million years old and may have resembled modern magnolias, buttercups and laurels. (1) An empty continent. With no flowers. Full with life. But void of […]

  • Growing in darkness…

    Growing in darkness…

    New research reveals how a week in the dark rewires brain cell networks and changes hearing sensitivity in adult mice long after the optimal window for auditory learning has passed. With further study, cross-modal learning — the manipulation of one sense to induce change in another sense — could be used to help people with […]