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Cataracts and Crystallins
(c) Doug Richards

Don't Worry, be Happy!

Douglas Richards

We’re all searching for happiness, but do we really know what this is or where to find it? Douglas E. Richards gives an introduction to the science of happiness and argues that this is a vitally important topic that we, as a society, should be teaching our children...

(c) Amazon.co.uk

Deconstructing Chomsky - Re-writing the Innate Rules of Grammar

Andrew Caines

Noam Chomsky, a rookie professor at MIT, published a ground-breaking book called Syntactic Structures, which set out a theory of Generative Grammar. He suggested that a Universal Grammar (UG) of basic linguistic principles and a Transformational Grammar of rules responsible for putting sentences together was hard wired into all of us. Some don't agree including one Linguist who lived in the Amazon to learn more, as Andrew Caines explains...

(c) Harriet Dickinson

Tripping over Psychoactive Toads

Harriet Dickinson

For anyone fresh out of frogs and tempted to kiss a toad instead, this article has a word of warning. Although certain species of toads do make hallucinogenic chemicals linked to a lively "trip", many produce a lethal cocktail of cardiotoxic compounds that could turn such a trip into a once in a lifetime experience, en-route to the mortuary. So which toads should you watch out for...?

What IQ Tests Can't Tell You

Catherine Zentile

I.Q. scores have been rising steadily, by about 3 points per decade, ever since they were first administered. This is the Flynn Effect and it means that if we take the average teenager of today with an I.Q. of 100 and project the trend back to the 1900s, the average I.Q. was somewhere between 50 and 70 which usually marks a mental disability! Surely this cannot be correct...?

The Science of Linguistics

Andrew Caines

So what exactly is linguistics? Is it all about tape recorders, tongue twisters and dropped "aitches"? Or is it all adventure, exploration and the search for undiscovered languages among rainforest tribes? Well, it's both, and in this article Andrew Caines tells us more...

(c) Michelle Errera

The Oracle at Delphi - Not Just Hot Air

Emma Gatti

The Pythia, the prophetess at the Oracle of Delphi, was said to be able to communicate with Apollo by going into a trance. But science has shown that these trances weren't down to divine intervention - instead they were the result of inhaling noxious gases from nearby geological fault lines...

Seeing Red

Nick Humphrey

One day someone will write a book that explains consciousness. The book will put forward a theory that fills the gap between conscious experience and brain activity, but we aren't there yet.

A Beginner's Guide to Consciousness

Manjir Samanta-Laughton

What is consciousness, how does the brain generate the experience of consciousness, and how are scientists trying to unravel a subject, traditionally termed 'the hard problem, which has frustrated the best minds for decades ?

Flies are creatures of habit

Bjoern Brembs

Flies are creatures of habit - at least that's what the latest research on the fruit fly Drosophila has found. In this article Bjoern Brembs explains how a marine snail started him on the road to uncover the brain basis of learning...

Sleep Paralysis

Julia Santomauro

Sleep paralysis researcher Julia Santomauro explores the phenomenon of sleep paralysis including what is sleep paralysis, what causes sleep paralysis, how common is it, and are there any treatments for sleep paralysis ?

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