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Memory tricks
How reliable is our memory?
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Amnesia and deliberate forgetting
Amnesia - loss of memory - takes many forms and can be hugely distressing.
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Strange times
Some people with brain damage, or by a quirk of fate, lack a very specific mental function. Studies of these people can tell us much about how the brain works.
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Animal personalities
Do individual animals have distinct personalities?
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Moody blues
Does our state of mind affect our response to illness?
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Sleep work
Want to improve your dance skills? Take to your bed.
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
A moving story
To control our movements, the brain predicts what input it should receive. This has important implications for tickling…
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Reading the mind
Scientists can now predict what a person is seeing just by looking at their brain, even in the absence of conscious awareness.
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Animal consciousness
Can animals be said to be conscious? Or to have a mind? The answers are not obvious.
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Language
Language may have been one of the decisive factors in the success of early humans. Language skills seem to be 'built in' to the human brain.
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Animal models
Is it really possible to use experimental animals to study human behaviour and decision making?
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
Lobotomy
The lobotomy has a bad name, but it won its inventor a Nobel Prize. Surgical intervention in the brain does have its place in the medical armoury, however.
In
‘Thinking’, September 2006
XYY - Stereotype of the karyotype
It's not only people with intersex conditions who experience gender-related stereotyping by society. Men with an extra Y chromosome - XYY - have been characterised as potentially violent…
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Gay times
Find out what biology, evolutionary theory and studies of sheep have revealed about homosexuality.
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Theories of sex
Why is sexual reproduction so important?
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Lost in love
Is being in love a pathological condition? It certainly has some profound effects on our behaviour - and our physiology.
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Upbringing versus biology
Do gender-specific behaviours arise in children because of biological factors or because infants are encouraged (consciously or sub-consciously) to conform to particular gender roles?
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
The brain game
Are men's brains bigger than women's? Are women's better connected? How important are the left and right hemispheres?
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
An academic storm
Is there evidence to suggest that there are intrinsic differences in ability between men and women?
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Blue genes
Very little is known about differences in gene activity between males and females, or what the implications of differences might be.
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Doing without sex
Will we ever take the human out of human reproduction?
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
High fidelity
We expect sexual partners to be loyal. But does this conflict with basic urges to spread our genes? Are male and female animals naturally loyal or born to be promiscuous? The answers are surprising.
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Women’s rights
Sexual equality is enshrined in UK law. But it took hundreds of years of struggle for women to achieve equal status.
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Being positive
If we think sexual equality is a good principle, should we be more active in enabling women to advance?
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006
Gender threats
Feminised fish and saggy sperm - are sperm counts in terminal decline? Are all our male fish being turned into females?
In
‘Sex and Gender’, January 2006