During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, while the rest of us were binge-watching TV shows and baking banana bread, a couple of researchers at Johns Hopkins University took their minds off the healthcare crisis by counting the brain cells of fruit flies and mosquitoes. The researchers, Joshua Raji and Christopher Potter, discovered that the two animals had around 200,000 brain cells on average, mostly neurons, with about 10 to 15 percent non-neuronal cells, such as glial cells. (Glial ...read more
[embedded content]Americans waste a lot of food, either 40 percent or 25 percent of that which we come in contact with, depending on the source. Some experts, such as Maria Corradini, a food scientist at the University of Guelph, blame, in part, a confusing food packaging system (Sell By, Best By, Use By) that prompts people to throw out food that's still safe to eat."In general, none of these labels is directly related to food safety," she says.Even the Use By labels applied to perishable dairy ...read more
You might have heard stories about someone who has a photographic memory. Perhaps you even thought you or someone you know might have one. But is a photographic memory real? The brain works as a super machine, storing several types of memory. Imagine it as a computer hard drive, where it’s possible to keep large amounts of compartmentalized data. Yet there is a limit to the amount of information we can retain in any given memory. For example, according to German neuroscientist Boris Konrad, †...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
