Put off by robots whose looks are close to, but not quite, human? This drop in comfort is known as the "uncanny valley," a feeling people get when exposed to robots that try to mimic humans but instead come across as creepy.
Our appetite for salt is programmed into our brains. Now scientists believe that cocaine and heroin are particularly addictive in part because they usurp that programming.
Oysters that eat the microplastics littering the world's oceans produce fewer and less-healthy offspring. What isn't clear is whether the microplastics that accumulate in oysters could be harmful to the humans that eat them.
Oysters that eat the microplastics littering the world's oceans produce fewer and less-healthy offspring. What isn't clear is whether the microplastics that accumulate in oysters could be harmful to the humans that eat them.
There's an intrinsic "wow" factor to human space missions that's easy to underestimate. It's an emotional desire to experience the great expanse beyond our atmosphere in a way that sending robots can't satisfy.
There's an intrinsic "wow" factor to human space missions that's easy to underestimate. It's an emotional desire to experience the great expanse beyond our atmosphere in a way that sending robots can't satisfy.
A recent study reported that toddlers will hide their knowledge of a solution around untrained peers, suggesting that the human desire to conform is inborn or at least develops at a very young age.
A recent study reported that toddlers will hide their knowledge of a solution around untrained peers, suggesting that the human desire to conform is inborn or at least develops at a very young age.
"There is no limit to the human capacity for language except for things like having time to get enough exposure to the language," says Suzanne Flynn, a psycholinguist at MIT. Harvard psycholinguist Steven Pinker agrees.
Language is known to be part of humans' unique cognitive endowment, and scientists have long studied how language abilities can be impaired by disease or trauma. But it is less clear what upper limits this endowment has.
"Africa is inferred to be the continent of origin for all modern human populations. But the details of human prehistory and evolution in Africa remain largely obscure."
"Africa is inferred to be the continent of origin for all modern human populations. But the details of human prehistory and evolution in Africa remain largely obscure."
Tasmanian devils went extinct on the Australian mainland 400 years ago. Humans probably contributed to their demise, by introducing the dingo for instance.
Tasmanian devils went extinct on the Australian mainland 400 years ago. Humans probably contributed to their demise, by introducing the dingo for instance.
Humans have long been fascinated by the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. Novels, films, and folk tales have encouraged curiosity and speculation about what might be 'out there' in space.
In the movie Skyline, strange lights descend on Los Angeles, drawing people outside like moths to a flame. An extra-terrestrial force threatens to swallow the entire human population off the face of the earth.
Moche villages and/or clan groups turned on each other in a battle for scarce resources like food and land. This escalated to the point where the Moche replaced ritual battles and human sacrifices with civil war.
Their throats cut, the blood of the vanquished drained into a cup and the cup was then drunk by a God-like deity. It was, the archaeologists slowly realized, a story not of war but ritual combat followed by human sacrifice.
The Moche's story is an epic account of a society that thought it could control the world and what happened to it when it found it couldn't. It's a story of human achievement and natural disaster, human sacrifice and war.
"We want to know how the heavens got structure. In short, we want to understand how we got from the Big Bang to human beings." One answer is to build bigger optical telescopes to gather photons from more distant galaxies.
Sunday’s 8-hour “Breaking Bad” session proves that Netflix is doing something right. But streaming video still lacks the numbing bliss of TV channel surfing -- settling for whatever's on, the human need to completely veg out.
Sunday’s 8-hour “Breaking Bad” session proves that Netflix is doing something right. But streaming video still lacks the numbing bliss of TV channel surfing -- settling for whatever's on, the human need to completely veg out.
Sunday’s 8-hour “Breaking Bad” session proves that Netflix is doing something right. But streaming video still lacks the numbing bliss of TV channel surfing -- settling for whatever's on, the human need to completely veg out.
What a feat for Jake Sully to go from human form, where he is paralyzed from the waist down, to his Avatar form where he walks, feels, and becomes a hero of the Na'vi on Pandora.
In the first few months of life, as a baby elephant learns to handle its trunk, the wriggling appendage has a mind of its own—kind of like a human infant’s flailing limbs.
The powerful but arrogant warrior Thor reignites an ancient war and is cast out of the fantastic realm of Asgard and sent to live amongst humans on Earth.