3000 years is such a short amount of time in terms of evolution. That's really quite something! And this made me chuckle: "The brain size reduction in Holocene humans parallels that of domesticated animals, suggesting that humans have self-domesticated by deliberately removing highly aggressive individuals from breeding populations".I was reading this research about brainsize reduction occuring in the last 3,000 years due to us socialising more and the emergence of collective intelligence. I believe there are so many areas of our brain we do not use or activate due to advances in technology and life - we do not need to tap into these areas as much or use our brain to the capacity it can be used.
Frontiers | When and Why Did Human Brains Decrease in Size? A New Change-Point Analysis and Insights From Brain Evolution in Ants
Human brain size nearly quadrupled in the six million years since Homo last shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees, but human brains are thought to have d...www.frontiersin.org
This is a review comparing the Covid virus and influenza. Essentially coronaviruses are quite special because they are one of the few groups of RNA viruses that have a proofreading mechanism during replication.
Feel free to share anything that is of interest to you!
Such an intersting topic. There must be a lot of hesitation with participation in research due to the sheer amount of misinformation out there! Which areas of psychology/neuro is your initial background in?yes that’s before the petty comments started
It will be 6 years for me as I’m doing it alongside work… looking at attitudes towards participation in research and in particular pandemic research, my initial background is also in psychology/neuro
Welcome to the thread! I briefly remember you mentioning your background on one of the thread. Yes I think you can call yourself a scientist of sorts
I so want to do a PhD but don’t know if I can handle the stress for 3 years. 
My background is in research/psychology/neuro but I love to learn about many areas of science.
You found if before I did. Thank you!I'm sure they won't mind
I’ll have a read of it later when I have more time. 
All this research talk makes me want to go back to university. 
Thanks for taking the time to explain what Paleoclimatology is and what your PhD was on. Very interesting field of work and one I was not very familiar on at all!
I managed to find a quiet moment to read the full article. It is really interesting that some of the findings were in line with the earlier research conducted in 2000. However, they found that although taxi drivers performed better than bus drivers on tests relatinf to knowledge of London, they performed weaker at acquiring/retrieving novel visuo-spatial information.It's interesting that in this paper they found the opposite results in blind people.
Patterns of Hippocampal Shape and Volume Differences in Blind Subjects - PMC
Numerous studies in animals and humans have shown that the hippocampus (HP) is involved in spatial navigation and memory. Blind subjects, in particular, must memorize extensive information to compensate for their lack of immediate updating of ...www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I've also just skimmed through this paper that was published a few years later by the taxi driver group (sadly I don't think it's open access). They found that the reduced anterior hippocampus volume observed in taxi drivers is correlated with poorer performance in tests measuring the acquisition and retrieval of new visuospatial memories, compared to London bus drivers.
London taxi drivers and bus drivers: a structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis - PubMed
Licensed London taxi drivers show that humans have a remarkable capacity to acquire and use knowledge of a large complex city to navigate within it. Gray matter volume differences in the hippocampus relative to controls have been reported to accompany this expertise. While these gray matter...pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
That is an interesting vocal range, I must say. Not as impressive as the lyrebird which can mimic a lot of sounds it hears.I thought this sounded really cute, but I listened to the clip and the lemurs aren't quite as talented as I'd hopedStill very interesting though, and I will now always think about lemurs when I hear We Will Rock You!
AAAS
www.science.org
Thanks for sharing this - it is very interesting that 48/50 of the children were successfully treated and such treatment is available until a bone marrow donor is found.I am not a scientist (computer science doesnt count does it?) but do read a fair bit and found this amazing. Saw mention of it on reddit in response to some people who tried to claim some of the newest vaccines developed are gene therapy (?) - so people discussed actual gene therapy. Its incredible.
Edit - I did use the V word here but barely haha (just saw the bit of text on the first post). Hope thats alright
Gene therapy offers a potential cure to children born without an immune system
An international team of researchers at GOSH and UCLA have developed a gene therapy that successfully treated 48 out of 50 children with a form of severe combined immunodeficiencywww.gosh.nhs.uk
Did they distinguish between sexes?
I’m getting major PhD envy.
I am not very familiar with the the field you did your PhD in. What does it entail?That’s quite a varied background! I had done some reading into the psychology/behavioural aspect of conspiracy theories. It has become quite relevant in the past couple of years since the pandemic started.
Great! Thanks for sharing - will have a read later when I have more time.
I haven’t seen you post for a while - hope all is well. The article your shared on your last post (couple of weeks ago) was a very interesting one!I'm sure they won't mind
It was right-handed male taxi drivers. They did not include females in the study.Did they distinguish between sexes?
Just amused by the idea of checking which bit of a male brain might have been responding to an image
The thread is here for whenever you have the time to share anything. That is an awesome title.Thank you!
I don't have time right now for any in-depth discussion but I'd like to kickstart this thread with one of the best titles I've come across in the literature:
Fantastic yeasts and where to find them: the hidden diversity of dimorphic fungal pathogens - PubMed
Dimorphic fungal pathogens are a significant cause of human disease worldwide. Notably, the dimorphic fungal pathogens within the order Onygenales are considered primary pathogens, causing disease in healthy hosts. Current changes in taxonomy are underway due to advances in molecular...
Scientists can sometimes have a sense of humour
