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Life of the Happy Hormone
While dopamine is best known as the chemical responsible for the satisfying feeling from rewards like ice cream, it is also critical for the function of many parts of the brain, from mood to motion.
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The ‘Magic’ of Magic Mushrooms: The Intersection of Psychedelics and Mental Health
Since 2019, the spread of a new nondenominational church, known as the Church of Ambrosia, has sparked nationwide controversy. This church has made headlines for using entheogenic (or psychedelic experience-inducing) plants for spiritual and personal improvement. What entheogenic plants are they referring to? Psilocybin, also known as Magic Mushrooms.
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The Feasibility of Radically Translating Alien Language
The degree to which language shapes cognition, thought, and perception is an ongoing debate in the field of linguistics—a debate without clear consensus. Some veins of thought appear to believe that the relation between language and perception is so inextricable that they give form to one other.
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A Glance Beyond Death: The brain’s final symphony in activity
Death has inspired countless philosophical, theological, and scientific studies. A strange phenomenon described in a May 2023 study raises questions about whether death should be determined by heart functionality: scientists from the University of Michigan School of Medicine revealed that brain activity surges as a human dies.
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Alzheimer’s Disease and the Neurobiology of Long-Term Memory Formation
The concept of long-term memory formation is an incredible phenomena which remains far from understood. How is it possible for the assembly of atoms and molecules that comprises the human brain to have the capacity to “remember?”
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Reject Bird, Embrace Dinosaur: How Ratites Lost the Ability to Fly, Four Times
The ratites are distinguished by their lack of a keel, a protrusion of the breastbone that acts as an anchor for the muscles used in flight. Despite being earthbound, these flightless birds are found in disparate islands and continents around the world, giving rise to a compelling mystery as to their method of distribution.
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Could newly uncovered DNA-elements be key in fighting climate change?
Assimilating genetic information from their hosts, Borgs are here to (potentially) act as our saviors! No, unfortunately, you didn’t just stumble into a really good Star Trek fanfiction.scientists speculate that these Borgs — large, linear sequences of DNA originating in some archaea — may be significant in addressing a global issue: climate change.
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Captured: How Technology Changes Filmmaking
We go to the movies to exist outside of our everyday lives and enjoy ourselves. This is the value of a film we seem to inherently accept. But why is that? How does movie magic work, and how does new film technology add or take away from the marvels of cinema?
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Mussel-Inspired Science: Sealing the Future of Fetal Surgery
In the world of medical science, the most innovative ideas often come from the most unexpected sources. From research by UC Berkeley Professor of Bioengineering Dr. Phillip Messersmith, a look into the adhesive properties of mussels provides hope to create a bio-inspired ‘glue’ that can seal delicate fetal membranes post surgery.
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Never Trust a Physicist
“The Cataclysm Sentence,” by Richard Feynman: “if, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?” Feynman forces readers to evaluate: what can we define as “essential” knowledge?