essayHistory of science
Injury and inhibition
The misunderstood story of Phineas Gage shows that we need a new way of understanding the experiences of brain injury survivors
Ben Platts-Mills
essayNeuroscience
Ingredients for brilliance
An immersive ‘flow state’ isn’t only accessible to great artists and athletes. You can find your flow too. Here’s how
Julia F Christensen
essayNeuroscience
The entangled brain
The brain is much less like a machine than it is like the murmurations of a flock of starlings or an orchestral symphony
Luiz Pessoa
essayNeuroscience
Why nothing matters
It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences
Benjy Barnett
videoBioethics
What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’
6 minutes
videoNeuroscience
This intricate map of a fruit fly brain could signal a revolution in neuroscience
2 minutes
essayNeuroscience
The melting brain
It’s not just the planet and not just our health – the impact of a warming climate extends deep into our cortical fissures
Clayton Page Aldern
essaySex and sexuality
Sexual sensation
What makes touch on some parts of the body erotic but not others? Cutting-edge biologists are arriving at new answers
David J Linden
videoNeuroscience
Dog vision is a trendy topic, but what can we really know about how they see?
11 minutes
essayPleasure and pain
Me versus myself
I work against myself through procrastination, distraction and addiction. Why do I consistently sabotage my own life?
Eliane Glaser
essayNeuroscience
How to make a map of smell
We can split light by a prism, sounds by tones, but surely the world of odour is too complex and personal? Strangely, no
Jason Castro
essayNeuroscience
Rethinking the homunculus
When we discovered that the brain contained a map of the body it revolutionised neuroscience. But it’s time for an update
Moheb Costandi
essayPhilosophy of mind
What is it like to be a crab?
Consciousness science should move past a focus on complex mammalian brains to study the behaviour of ‘simpler’ animals
Kristin Andrews
videoMood and emotion
An Oceanic lullaby, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and more elucidate how music taps into our emotions
58 minutes
essayConsciousness and altered states
Déjà vu
Have you been here before? The eerie sensation is the shadow of your mind searching inward for clues to its own survival
Anne Cleary
videoSleep and dreams
How might the dreamworlds of other animals differ from our own?
8 minutes
videoPhilosophy of mind
Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no
5 minutes
essayNeuroscience
A thickness in the air
The spooky sensation that someone or something else is right there haunts us all. But what does this felt presence mean?
Ben Alderson-Day
videoPhilosophy of mind
We may never settle the ‘free will’ debate, but tapping into it is still worthwhile
32 minutes
essayPhilosophy of mind
Super-cooperators
Clear and direct telepathic communication is unlikely to be developed. But brain-to-brain links still hold great promise
Gary Lupyan & Andy Clark
videoAgeing and death
Death is a trip – how new research links near-death and DMT experiences
9 minutes
essayEvolution
Connected-up-brains
Bat friends, monkeys sharing, and humans holding hands: the brains of social animals synchronise and expand one another
Sofia Quaglia
essayAnimals and humans
Freefall into darkness
Scientists study animals to illuminate human psychology. So why are we blind to the mental lives of our caged subjects?
Garet Lahvis
videoNeuroscience
The brain repurposed our sense of physical distance to understand social closeness
5 minutes