You can use up all the storage on your phone or max out your computer’s drive, but can you use up all the memory space in your brain? Despite how you might feel before an exam or after a sleepless night before a work deadline, neuroscientists say that for a typical, healthy brain, memory capacity … Read more
Artificial intelligence (AI) began as a quest to simulate the human brain. Is it now in the process of transforming the human brain’s role in daily life? The Industrial Revolution diminished the need for manual labor. As someone who researches the application of AI in international business, I can’t help but wonder whether it is … Read more
The world is awash with the color purple — lavender flowers, amethyst gemstones, plums, eggplants and purple emperor butterflies. But if you look closely at the visible-light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, you’ll notice that purple (which is different from bluish hues of violet and indigo) is absent. That’s because purple may be made up … Read more
Imagination relies on an ability to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not — and now, scientists have uncovered potential brain mechanisms that make this distinction possible. These, they hypothesize, may be significant in conditions like schizophrenia, which can affect people’s perception of reality. A paper published June 5 in the journal Neuron explored these … Read more
A brain implant that uses artificial intelligence (AI) can almost instantaneously decode a person’s thoughts and stream them through a speaker, new research shows. This is the first time researchers have achieved near-synchronous brain-to-voice streaming. The experimental mind-reading technology is designed to give a synthetic voice to people with severe paralysis who cannot speak. It … Read more
You may have heard the myth that humans use only 10% of their brains. That statement is patently untrue — most people use all of their brains, all of the time. But for people who have survived a stroke, traumatic brain injuries or brain resectioning surgeries, things do get less clear. In fact, many of … Read more
The emergence of human life may not have been as improbable as scientists once thought, a new model suggests. The finding increases the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, the researchers say. Previously, scientists assumed that for human life to emerge on Earth, it needed to pass through a series of “hard steps” … Read more
Scientists have made new improvements to a “brain decoder” that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to convert thoughts into text. Their new converter algorithm can quickly train an existing decoder on another person’s brain, the team reported in a new study. The findings could one day support people with aphasia, a brain disorder that affects a … Read more
How fast do humans think? According to a new study, it’s slower than you might expect. The peripheral nervous system — the network of nerves that deliver information between the brain and the body — takes in environmental information at over a billion bits per second, a speed comparable to a lightning-fast internet connection. But … Read more
Forgetting is part of our daily lives. You may walk into a room only to forget why you went in there — or perhaps someone says hi on the street and you can’t remember their name. But why do we forget things? Is it simply a sign of memory impairment, or are there benefits? One … Read more
