Have you ever wondered if mice have musical preferences? Probably not. Most people have more pressing concerns. But some researchers asked exactly this question, and their answer came with a twist that nobody expected. A study in Cell Reports reveals that not only do mice develop sound preferences...

The retina is basically a tiny computer at the back of your eyeball, processing light into signals that your brain can understand. All of that processed information leaves through retinal ganglion cells, which are like the USB cables connecting your eye-computer to your brain-computer. Every single...

Your neurons are having conversations about you behind your back. Well, technically about themselves, but still. When an axon gets damaged, there's a whole internal debate happening about how to respond, and it turns out the uninjured parts of the neuron have a surprisingly loud voice in that...

Here's a question that sounds like it belongs in a philosophy seminar but actually matters a lot in hospitals: how do you know if someone is conscious? Not "awake" in the sense of eyes open, but actually experiencing the world, having an inner life, aware of anything at all?

Here's something you probably never asked yourself: "What if my pee tube could taste things?" Well, congratulations, because science has an answer you didn't know you needed. It turns out your urethra contains specialized cells that basically work like taste sensors, and when they detect bacterial...

Here's a frustrating fact about biology: a zebrafish can sever its spinal cord and regrow it, good as new. You, a human, cannot. Your spinal cord injury is permanent. What's the zebrafish got that you don't?

There's a popular story about human evolution that goes something like this: our brains got bigger, especially the prefrontal cortex, and that made us smarter than everything else. Bigger brain equals smarter primate, case closed, let's get lunch.

Ever tried to have two phone conversations at the same time? It doesn't go well. Your nervous system, on the other hand, does this routinely without breaking a sweat. When you touch something vibrating, your nerve fibers are simultaneously encoding both how fast it's vibrating AND how hard it's...

Here's a puzzle that's been bugging infectious disease doctors for ages: take a bunch of people carrying the exact same bacteria in their noses, and some will go on about their lives completely fine while others develop life-threatening meningitis. Same bug, wildly different outcomes. What gives?

Here's a betrayal you didn't see coming: your nervous system, which is supposed to be on your team, might be helping tumors evade your immune system. Not cool, nervous system. A comprehensive review in the Journal of Hematology and Oncology lays out the growing evidence that nerves actively help...