Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Wacken Open Air
Intertwined Creatures: The Embodied Cognitive Science of Self and Other Anthony Chemero Columbia Univ. Press (2026) Consciousness research is having an AI moment. Will the hype help the field? What does it mean for a machine to be intelligent, sentient or conscious? Can the idea of legal rights for machines ever be meaningfully justified? Those
Goodwin, G. M. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 387, 1637–1648 (2022). Article PubMed Google Scholar Carhart-Harris, R. L. Brain https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awag206 (2026). Article Google Scholar Stoliker, D. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10910-z (2026). Article Google Scholar Fox, M. D. & Raichle, M. E. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 8, 700–711 (2007). Article PubMed Google Scholar Girn, M. et
Mice All mice were group-housed and experiments were conducted in accordance with procedures approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Tufts University School of Medicine and NIH guidelines. All mice were housed in a 12-h (7:00 to 19:00) light–dark colony room at 22–24 °C, 30–50% humidity and
How people interpret touch can vary by background, but the areas on the body where people feel ticklish were found to be consistent across cultures.Credit: d3sign/Getty Ticklishness is a distinct, specialized body sensation, and how people experience it seems to be consistent across cultures, two neuroscientists have found. The study, published on 10 August in
Shaira Berg (left) smiles during a take for her short film, Gaslight.Credit: Dik Ng Shaira Berg is building a career at the intersection of academic research and creative practice. During her PhD in psychology, which focused on behavioural neuroscience, at the University of Cambridge, UK, Berg collaborated with local video-game studio Ninja Theory. Together, they