brain

Are you feeling very, very sleepy?

The human brain is exquisitely tuned to identify faces and facial expressions, which are so important to human social interaction. Researchers have found that certain areas of the human cerebral cortex are specialized for processing visual information about faces.

How do people recognize faces? Is it a special ability that relies on custom circuitry in the human brain? Or, do we learn it with the same brain circuitry that we use to recognize other objects?

Robotic aerial vehicles designed for functions such as search and rescue need ways to avoid crashing into trees, buildings and walls. There's a lot that robot designers can learn from studying how insects conrol their flight.

Men and women have some obvious biological differences. But what about the brain? Are there such things as "female brains" and "male brains."

Here's a simple demonstration you can do with cool implications. Find a large object that is brightly colored, like a green door. Stand with that door to your side, but don't look directly at it.

Scientists recently found a way to drive a cockroach the way you might drive a car. They put electrodes in its brain, and by stimulating it in the right places they could move it around like a car.

On today's Moment of Science we're going to perform a little experiment in order to learn a little bit about the motor cortex--a strip of tissue running from ear to ear across the surface of the brain that is responsible for controlling voluntary movement.

An international team of neuroscientists has discovered how cuttlefish see in three dimensions. First of all, a cuttlefish isn't really a fish. The animals are closely related to octopuses and squids and part of a group called cephalopods.

In a scene from Star Wars: The Emprie Strikes Back, Darth vader cuts off Luke Skywalkers right hand. Afterwards, Luke receives a robotic replacement hand that is as good as new.