Bacteria use electrical signals to communicate and coordinate collective behaviors. This suggests an interesting way to cure skin infections: instead of killing the bacteria, what if we use electrodes to politely ask them to leave?
Orexin is a neuropeptide that promotes wakefulness. People who lack it often suffer from narcolepsia. A recent phase 2 clinical trial tested an orexin analogue called oveporexton on narcoleptic patients and found positive results with minor side effects. This is great news, because if it works for narcoleptic people, the rest of us might also be able to use it as a cool hack to reduce our sleeping time.
Vectors of Mind: why do so many language branches have the ānā sound in their first-person singular pronoun?
To celebrate the 200th birthday of Sir H. W. Bates, the father of mimicry research, Nature Ecology and Evolution had six academic mimicry researchers discuss the hottest questions in the field.
Ćtienne Fortier-Duboisās Historical Tech Tree, āan interactive visualization of technological history from 3 million years ago to todayā.
Psychology needs a new paradigm. In The Mind in the Wheel, the Slime Mold Time Mold writers argue that the revolution will come from cybernetics. Meanwhile, Joseph Henrich and others argue for a chronospatial revolution ā because psychology will not be a real science until it can successfully account for 400BC Persian drunkenness.
Exotic creature of the season: the go-away bird. Itās a bird who says āgo awayā.
Related: Since 1975, researchers in Russia have been diligently recording the songs of wild nightingales. This new paper presents an overview of how songs have changed over 50 years, what styles went out of fashion, and which elements remain timeless classics. My favorite part is when they play recordings of bird songs from the 70s to a modern audience, and find that kids can still appreciate the all-time bangers.
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Music
Dance Music II, a mysterious piece of electronic music from the early 70s, recovered from the archives of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India.