For the last few years, scientists have been able to grow 3D nervous structures in the lab – called “cerebral organoids” – which mimic the brain of a few-week-old human embryo. In 2016, they allowed […]
Category: Interview
Paul Cohen: “We want to see whether it might be possible to convert unhealthy fat into healthier fat”
White fat is that uncomely body substance we spend our lives trying to get rid of. We know it can be bad for our health, causing obesity and its cohort of related diseases. But scientists […]
Alan Urban: “Ultrasounds are the perfect way to answer questions about the human body”
We’ve all seen ultrasound images of foetuses in their mother’s womb. But using these particular waves to “dig” deep into the inner workings of the living brain is virtually unheard of. It may not be […]
Florian Engert: “If you say computers will never beat a human… you’re going to lose”
Will we ever understand the brain? Should we be afraid of artificial intelligence? Will Humankind be surpassed by machines? Harvard neuroscientist Florian Engert shares his views on these matters. If you happened to walk by […]
Doris Tsao, the woman who cracked the code the brain uses to recognize faces
How can our brain discriminate and identify a particular face among a virtually infinite number of extremely similar faces? Doris Tsao has solved this enigma. In one of his most famous clinical tales, The Man […]
Carmen Sandi: “There is a causal link between mitochondrial function and rank in social hierarchy”
Can brain biology negatively affect an individual’s position in society? The answer seems to be yes – and the mitochondria (the cell’s batteries) appear to be an important player. Could this negative impact be reduced […]
John Krakauer: “We’re in the grips of a totalizing belief in data and techniques”
Will the study of the most fine-grained neural workings of the brain, thanks to ever more powerful techniques, enable researchers to claim they understand the brain and the behaviors it produces? There are serious reasons […]
Linda Partridge: “We want to tackle old age ill health”
Scientists hope that one day a “cocktail” of drugs will be available to allow people to live full lives until the very end by averting the major killer diseases that accompany ageing, such as dementia, […]
Zach Mainen:“We create this incredibly complicated illusion of the real world that is what we experience all the time”
It is a part of every waking moment of our lives. But whenever scientists have tried to study it, consciousness has slipped through their fingers. Will we ever understand why we have it and how […]
“We made the patients become a dolphin swimming in the ocean”
“What is a guy like you doing in a place like this?” Simply put, that’s what we were curious to find about american scientist John Krakauer, from Johns Hopkins University. Since 2014, has […]