Friday, November 10, 2023

Understanding Consciousness Goes Beyond Exploring Brain Chemistry

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November 10, 2023

Consciousness

Understanding Consciousness Goes Beyond Exploring Brain Chemistry

We can account for the evolution of consciousness only if we crack the philosophy, as well as the physics, of the brain

By Philip Goff

Medicine

Doctors Complete First Successful Face and Whole-Eye Transplant

Surgeons transplanted part of a face and an entire eyeball into a man with severe electrical burns. He is not yet able to see out of the eye, but preliminary evidence suggests it may retain some function

By Tanya Lewis

Evolution

Starfish Are Heads--Just Heads

Scientists have finally figured out how to make heads or tails of starfish

By Lori Youmshajekian

Climate Change

Earth Reacts to Greenhouse Gases More Strongly Than We Thought

Climate scientists, including pioneer James Hansen, are pinning down a fundamental factor that drives how hot Earth will get

By Chelsea Harvey,E&E News

Language

'ChatGPT Detector' Catches AI-Generated Papers with Unprecedented Accuracy

A new tool based on machine learning uses features of writing style to distinguish between human and AI authors

By McKenzie Prillaman,Nature magazine

Nutrition

How Do Ultraprocessed Foods Affect Your Health?

Ultraprocessed foods have become a mainstay of modern diets and could be taking a toll on our health

By Lori Youmshajekian

Astronomy

Euclid Space Telescope Releases Stunning First Science Images

Fresh images show off the Euclid space telescope's ability to capture crisp pictures of vast swaths of sky

By Stephanie Pappas

Medicine

The Search for New Psychedelics

As companies join the hunt, can the field of mind-altering synthetic substances stay true to its original pioneering spirit of wonder, curiosity and connection?

By Rachel Nuwer | 10:12

Black Holes

This Record-Breaking Black Hole Could Help Solve a Cosmic Mystery

The earliest active supermassive black hole ever seen offers clues on how these enigmatic objects first formed

By Keith Cooper,SPACE.com

Astronomy

See JWST's Spectacular New View of the Crab Nebula

The James Webb Space Telescope's studies of the Crab nebula may shed new light on the supernova remnant's origins

By Phil Plait

Animals

Elephantnose Fish 'Sees' by Doing an Electric Boogie

The goofy-looking elephantnose fish "sees" its environment in three dimensions by creating a weak electric field and doing a little shimmy

By Elizabeth Anne Brown

Planetary Science

'Dinky' Asteroid Is Three Space Rocks, Not Two, NASA Flyby Finds

The Lucy spacecraft's encounter with asteroid Dinkinesh has revealed a bizarre "contact binary" double-moon companion

By Brett Tingley,SPACE.com

Animals

Birds Named after People Will Get New English Names

Standard English names for North American birds will now focus on the animals rather than people

By Meghan Bartels
BRING SCIENCE HOME
See Change: 2 Eyes, 1 Picture

Can you see it now? How our brain transforms two pictures into one Credit: George Retseck

Is catching, juggling or heading a ball challenging for you? If you've ever tried threading a needle, did it end in frustration? Have you ever thought of blaming your eyes? Two eyes that work together help you estimate how far a ball is or where the thread is with respect to the needle. This "working together" of the eyes actually happens in the brain. The brain receives two images (one for each eye), processes them together with the other information received and returns one image, resulting in what we "see". Are you curious about how depth perception enters the picture? "See" for yourself with this activity!

Try This Experiment
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