Octopus Arms Have a Mind of Their Own
Octopuses and their relatives stand out from other invertebrates in terms of their cognitive complexity and the range of their behaviors. Despite their evolutionary distance from humans and other vertebrates, these animals can use tools, solve complex puzzles, recognize individual people, and explore objects through play. They do all this and more with a completely unique nervous system.
Read more at my Animal Minds blog: Octopus Arms Have a Mind of Their Own.
Weird Ways Animal Moms Feed Their Babies
Any human mom can attest that keeping a baby fed and happy can be a Herculean task. That’s why some animal mothers have evolved some truly creative—and sometimes surprising—strategies. These include regurgitating nectar, sequestering toxins, and even self-sacrifice.
Read my latest for National Geographic's Weird & Wild news: Bats Regurgitate Nectar for Their Babies -- A New Discovery.
How the BRAIN Initiative is Changing Neuroscience
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, a large-scale, public-private research program launched in 2014, aims to be ambitious and transformative. Its overarching goal is to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain, driven by the development and application of breakthrough technologies. Such a bold vision requires changes in the practice of science, from grant writing to data sharing.
As we approach the halfway mark of this 10-year effort, we can evaluate how scientists are responding to this challenge.
Read my article in Neuroscience Quarterly: The BRAIN Initiative: Changing Neuroscience.
Artificial Lights and Bat Drinking Behavior
Darkness is a diminishing natural resource. Over the last hundredyears, human development and urbanization have changed the nocturnallandscape, making the nighttime sky 20 percent brighter.
This is bad news for nocturnal animals like bats, which depend on the protection offered by darkness. In my latest Animal Minds blog post, I take a look at how artificial lighting affects bat drinking behavior.
Read the story here: Do Artificial Lights Cause Drinking Problems in Bats?
New Brown Alum Profile: Andrew Beck
Brown alum Andrew Beck believes that pathology will be one of the first areas of medicine to benefit greatly from artificial intelligence. He is so sure of AI’s promise that, in 2017, he left a tenure-track position at Harvard to start his company, PathAI.
Read more from the Brown Alumni Magazine: Pathology Breakthrough?