What Does Your Brain Do? And What Can It Not Do?

Aristotle, augustine, blood, brains, carbon dioxide, Denyse O'Leary, emotions, free will, heart, Intellect, kidneys, mathematics, Medicine, memories, Montreal Neurological Institute, muscles, Mystery of the Mind, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, oxygen, pain, philosophy, Plato, The Immortal Mind, Thomas Aquinas, urine, Wilder Penfield
A surprising result of pioneering neurosurgery was the discovery that some mental processes could be stimulated in the brain but others could not be. Source
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Brain Imaging Shows Intelligence Uses the Whole Brain

brain, brain imaging, cerebellum, coordination, fMRI, Kirsten Hilger, Medicine, Michael Egnor, mind, movement, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, neurosurgeons, PNAS Nexus, strokes, textbooks, The Immortal Mind, thinking, tumors
A focus on specific regions like the prefrontal cortex can mislead. When we are thinking, we use brain-wide connections between many parts of the brain at once. Source
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Who (or What) First Used Tools?

abstract ideas, algae, birds, blanket octopus, chimpanzees, Christophe Boesch, crows, decorator crab, Egyptian vulture, Hedwige Boesch-Achermann, invertebrates, Jane Goodall, Lucy, Max Planck Institute, Neuroscience & Mind, octopus, orange-spotted tuskfish, ostrich eggs, otters, paleontology, Taï National Park, tools, Tracy L. Kivell, Tremoctopus violaceus
It’s not stone tool use that is exclusive to humans; vultures can do that too. It’s the ability to form abstract ideas. Source
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More Discoveries Point to Neanderthal Intelligence

Abric Pizarro, Annemieke Milks, Australian National University, cave lion, Clive Finlayson, cognitive ability, feathers, Gabriele Russo, Gibraltar, Gibraltar National Museum, glues, Gorham’s Caves Complex, Günter Bechly, Human Origins, Le Moustier, Middle Palaeolithic, missing link, Neanderthals, Neuroscience & Mind, New York University, pitches, Radu Iovita, resins, Sofia Samper Carro, Spain, Universität Tübingen, University of Reading, Vanguard Cave
This very ancient people we know the most about can’t be the missing link that many paleontologists are looking for. Source
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Now It’s “Whale Rights”

animal standing, anti-Western ideology, conservation, courts, Culture & Ethics, emotionalism, indigenous wisdom, industrialization, Legal Cheek, legal person, legal standing, London, Michelle Bender, national defense, nature rights, Neuroscience & Mind, Ocean Vision Legal, Pacific Whale Fund, rights, River Thames, shipping, Simmons and Simmons, whale rights, whales, windmills
As often is the case in nature rights activism, “indigenous wisdom” is invoked as somehow superior to modern conservation. Source
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Design, Engineering, Specified Complexity: Appreciating the Fruit Fly Brain

brains, C. elegans, coherence, Complexity, cortex, crystals, Drosphila melanogaster, efficiency, flight control, fruit flies, Intelligent Design, mating courtship, morphology, mouse, navigation, neural network, neurons, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, optimization, pheromones, Research, snowflake, specified complexity, subnetworks, swarming
Groundbreaking new research has documented the complexity and design of the brains of fruit flies. Source
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