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behavior

A video that shows washes of light moving across a model of a human brain.
neuroscience

Brain Chemical Helps Signal to Neurons When to Start a Movement

By Allison Whitten
March 22, 2022
Read Later

Dopamine, a neurochemical often associated with reward behavior, also seems to help organize precisely when the brain initiates movements. It’s the latest revelation about the power of neuromodulators.

Image of Trichoplax adhaerens moving against a black background.
biophysics

This Animal’s Behavior Is Mechanically Programmed

By Jordana Cepelewicz
March 16, 2022
Read Later

Biomechanical interactions, rather than neurons, control the movements of one of the simplest animals. The discovery offers a glimpse into how animal behavior worked before neurons evolved.

2021 in Review

The Year in Biology

By John Rennie
December 21, 2021
Read Later

The detailed understanding of brains and multicellular bodies reached new heights this year, while the genomes of the COVID-19 virus and various organisms yielded more surprises.

An artist’s conception of the ways that functional capacities have been mapped to regions of the brain.
neuroscience

The Brain Doesn’t Think the Way You Think It Does

By Jordana Cepelewicz
August 24, 2021
Read Later

Familiar categories of mental functions such as perception, memory and attention reflect our experience of ourselves, but they are misleading about how the brain works. More revealing approaches are emerging.

Video of a hydra moving against a dark background.
sleep

Sleep Evolved Before Brains. Hydras Are Living Proof.

By Veronique Greenwood
May 18, 2021
Read Later

Studies of sleep are usually neurological. But some of nature’s simplest animals suggest that sleep evolved for metabolic reasons, long before brains even existed.

Photo of emperor penguins huddling together for warmth, with two sticking their heads out
Abstractions blog

Math of the Penguins

By Susan D'Agostino
August 17, 2020
Read Later

Emperor penguins display rigorously geometric spacing and mathematical efficiency when they huddle together for warmth, which may reveal secrets to their overall health.

Illustration of a flying albatross, a swimming basking shark and the Lévy walk paths they take.
behavior

Random Search Wired Into Animals May Help Them Hunt

By Liam Drew
June 11, 2020
Read Later

The nervous systems of foraging and predatory animals may prompt them to move along a special kind of random path called a Lévy walk to find food efficiently when no clues are available.

Animated representation of locusts tracked by a computer move across a screen.
behavior

To Decode the Brain, Scientists Automate the Study of Behavior

By Jordana Cepelewicz
December 10, 2019
Read Later

Machine learning and deep neural networks can capture and analyze the “language” of animal behavior in ways that go beyond what’s humanly possible.

Illustration
neuroscience

How Microbiomes Affect Fear

By Elena Renken
December 4, 2019
Read Later

New studies help to explain how microbes in the gut can shape a host’s fear responses.


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