Experimental Musings

Thanksgiving time is here! When we are given a chance to sit around the table together with loved ones and for better or worse, we get a chance to learn more about our own family.

There are so many commonly used home-related phrases out there. Clearly we care a lot about what is home to us. Researchers just announced that they have identified the region from which all of our modern human ancestors arose.

90% of the world is right-handed. History and culture have not been kind to left-handers, a somewhat rare occurrence among us humans. So, after all these years, if the right hand is preferred, why do we still have a bunch of lefties out there?

Consider for a moment how valuable it is that we have the ability to communicate with one another. Other animals communicate, too, but we still know very little about how their chatter translates. A recent study tried to solve a piece of this big puzzle by studying bats.

We know more about the surface of the moon than Earth’s oceans and we know even less about the human brain, but a recently published study from Cal Tech is helping us put together a few pieces of the huge puzzle that is the brain. How does the brain keep memories?