The Hive Mind Project

Mind stock image

Earlier this term, Mike Griffin shared details of the London Brain Project in his blog , which has some excellent ideas for teaching biological and cognitive approaches. But how about getting your students to actually have first-hand experience of having their brains studied? The Hive Mind Project, headed up by Rita Carter, a science writer, lecturer and […]

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The gateway to memory

Psychologists have known for many years that memories are primarily stored in the cerebral cortex of the brain, and that a ‘control centre’ buried deep in the brain, is involved in both creating memories and retrieving them from their store in the cerebral cortex: made up of the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex. In November […]

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The human brain is shrinking

According to palaeontologists (scientists who study fossils), over the last 20,000 years the average volume has been decreasing – possibly losing as much as 150cc (a chunk the size of a tennis ball). One possible explanation is related to the fact that brain size is correlated with body size. Humans have become smaller over the […]

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Bigger may not be better

Humans have exceptionally large brains; taking body size into account the human brain is seven times larger than those of other mammals. It has long been assumed that the benefit of this large brain is high intelligence A Brazilian, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, has recently challenged this. There are a number of small brained animals who are […]

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