Brain

Goffin's cockatoos can learn how to make and use wooden tools from each other, a new study has found.

The discovery, made by scientists from Oxford University, the University of Vienna, and the Max Planck Institute at Seewiesen, is thought to be the first controlled experimental evidence for the social transmission of tool use in any bird species.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Smoking today's concentrated pot might be risky business for women, according to new research from Washington State University. The study is the first to demonstrate sex differences in the development of tolerance to THC.

Huntington's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that results in involuntary spastic movement and loss control of voluntary motor function. Patients also exhibit a decline in cognitive ability. The defects in learning and memory associated with Huntington's disease have been ascribed to pathology in the frontal lobe of the brain. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that alterations in the hippocampus contribute to memory dysfunction in Huntington's disease.

Tempe, Ariz. — Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are traditionally heavily dominated by males, which is of great concern to universities as they try to improve student retention and achievement. One exception to that trend is in the field of biology. Of undergraduate biology majors, more than 60 percent are female and about half of biosciences graduate students are women.

To get the most enjoyment out of our dollar, science tells us to focus our discretionary spending on experiences such as travel over material goods. A new Cornell University study shows that the enjoyment we derive from experiential purchases may begin even before we buy.

This research offers important information for individual consumers who are trying to "decide on the right mix of material and experiential consumption for maximizing well-being," said psychology researcher and study author Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University.

Life at opposite ends of primate social hierarchies is linked to specific brain networks, a new Oxford University study has shown.

A brain region largely known for coordinating motor control has a largely overlooked role in childhood development that could reveal information crucial to understanding the onset of autism, according to Princeton University researchers.

Most forecasts about the future of higher education have focused on how the institutions themselves will be affected – including the possibility of less demand for classes on campus and fewer tenured faculty members as people take courses online. Some changes already have begun.

When researchers at the University of Houston tackled the issue, they focused instead on what students will need in the future, including improved mentoring, personalized learning and feedback in real time.

The UH researchers identified three key themes:

Singapore— A team of investigators and clinician-scientists in Singapore and internationally have found that there are advantages associated with exposure to two languages in infancy. As part of a long-term birth cohort study of Singaporean mothers and their offspring called GUSTO – seminally a tripartite project between A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS), KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) and the National University Hospital (NUH) – (see Annex A), six-month old bilingual infants recognised familiar images faster than those brought up in monolingual homes.

Researchers have found that British Muslim women who wear a hijab generally have more positive body image, are less reliant on media messages about beauty ideals, and place less importance on appearance than those who do not wear a hijab. These effects appear to be driven by use of a hijab specifically, rather than religiosity.

A new study, led by researchers at the University of Warwick in the UK and the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany, and just published in the Journal Early Human Development, has found that both the length of time spent in hospital after birth and the use of mechanical ventilation are key indicators of reduced mathematical ability in preterm children.

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL…September 2, 2014 – Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed a new program that automates classification of personality traits of prominent individuals -- both friend and foe -- according to a paper soon to be published in the American Intelligence Journal.

A spinach extract containing green leaf membranes called thylakoids decreases hedonic hunger with up to 95% - and increases weight loss with 43%. This has been shown in a recently published long-term human study at Lund University in Sweden.

WATCH: "My cravings were gone from day one": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3jb4QVuxyE.

Neurons in human skin perform advanced calculations, previously believed that only the brain could perform. This is according to a study from Umeå University in Sweden published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

A fundamental characteristic of neurons that extend into the skin and record touch, so-called first-order neurons in the tactile system, is that they branch in the skin so that each neuron reports touch from many highly-sensitive zones on the skin.

Multiple previous studies of earthquake injuries have focused mainly on crush syndrome, fractures, infections, and rhabdomyolysis. Published data on peripheral nerve injury are very limited and there is no report of the findings on ultrasonographic scans. Dr.