Most theories of consciousness, says Neuroscientist Michael Graziano, rely on magic. They point to a feature of the brain—vibrating neurons for instance—and claim that feature to be the source of consciousness.
How do we become who we are? Traditionally, people’s answers have placed them in one of two camps: nature or nurture. The one says genes determine an individual while the other claims the environment is the linchpin for development.
Although there is ample evidence showing that women and minorities face discrimination in higher levels of academia, a new study suggests that the unequal treatment exists before students even apply to doctoral programs.
With the singular, ambitious goal of understanding exactly how the brain works, the BRAIN Initiative was announced as one of Obama’s “Grand Challenges,” meant to be on par in scale and impact with the Human Genome Project.
Over the past few years, MIT neuroscientists Xu Liu and Steve Ramirez have been bringing ideas that might only seem possible in science fiction to reality.
Stanford University’s Social Psychological Answers to Real-world Questions, or SPARQ, is setting out to do what most budding social scientists hope to do: change the world. Through working directly with the public – policy makers, educators, non-profit leaders – SPARQ’s mission, as its rather lengthy but straightforward name suggests, is to develop and help implement […]