Besides electrical spikes, brain cells can wrap non-coding RNA in membrane bubbles and send it to neighbours, changing how their genes work. A biologist explains.
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A psychologist explains why memory is a byproduct of thinking, and why handing an essay to AI means you remember almost nothing of it.
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Max Talanov, a neural network researcher, wants a brain-to-brain link that passes on neuromodulator levels, so we could finally feel what another person feels.
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A hungry rabbit, two pedals and a cell that fires for "any pedal". Konstantin Anokhin on how neurons build red, chairs and people that physics doesn't contain.
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A brain scientist argues that we exist only at the level of consciousness. In dreamless sleep, a faint or under anesthesia, he says, you are simply not there.
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Your hunger is old, but your route to the canteen is new. Konstantin Anokhin on how the brain grows a personal tree of systems, one failed plan at a time.
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Neurobiologist Olga Ivashkina on why one breakfast in Japan stays sharp while a month of ordinary mornings melts into a single "typical breakfast".
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A man who forgot his nurse within minutes could still learn a hard new skill. Neurobiologist Olga Ivashkina on why skills and life events live in separate networks.
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A million memristors draw microwatts, and a million synapses is about a spinal cord's worth. Max Talanov on why that could make implants for paralysed patients possible.
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Why can't we recall being a baby? A neurobiologist explains infantile amnesia, silent engrams, and why your earliest memory may be partly rebuilt from family stories.
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Some neurons fire for one cartoon and ignore all others. A neurobiologist explains how the brain builds a Simpsons cell from contrast and colour, and what we still can't explain.
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