David Byrne and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin discuss Science and Music

David Byrne and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music, discuss the inner workings of music. Byrne’s new book, How Music Works, is an absolute must-read.

The conversation is part of SEED magazine’s Science Is Culture series, pairing artists and scientists to explore the intersection of science and society.

How Has Stephen Hawking Lived to 70 with Motor Neuron Disease

Stephen Hawking turns 70 on Sunday, beating the odds of a daunting diagnosis by nearly half a century.

The famous theoretical physicist has helped to bring his ideas about black holes and quantum gravity to a broad public audience.

For much of his time in the public eye, though, he has been confined to a wheelchair by a form of the motor-neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Since 1985 he has had to speak through his trademark computer system—which he operates with his cheek—and have around-the-clock care.

But his disease seems hardly to have slowed him down. Hawking spent 30 years as a full professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. And he is currently the director of research at the school's Center for Theoretical Cosmology.

Like his mind, Hawking's illness seems to be almost unique. Most patients with ALS—also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, from a famous US baseball player who succumbed to the disease, are diagnosed after the age of 50 and die within five years of their diagnosis.

Hawking's condition was first diagnosed when he was 21, and he was not expected to see his 25th birthday.

Why has Hawking lived so long with this malady when so many other people die so soon after diagnosis?

We spoke with Leo McCluskey, an associate professor of neurology and medical director of the ALS Center at the University of Pennsylvania, to find out more about the disease and why it has spared Hawking and his amazing brain.

Read more of this article and interview: How Has Stephen Hawking Lived to 70 with ALS?

Thinking on your feet - Brain Size

Smithsonian researchers report that the brains of tiny spiders are so large that they fill their body cavities and overflow into their legs. 

As part of ongoing research to understand how miniaturization affects brain size and behaviour, researchers measured the central nervous systems of nine species of spiders, from rainforest giants to spiders smaller than the head of a pin.

As the spiders get smaller, their brains get proportionally bigger, filling up more and more of their body cavities.

A whole new meaning for thinking on your feet

Female brain super sensitive to stress

Researchers studied the brains of male and female rats, focusing on two regions known to play a role in learning and stress: the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

The amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure located deep within the brain, senses stressful situations. The prefrontal cortex, in the front of the brain, is necessary for higher cognitive functions.

“These two structures are intimately connected to one another,” says Tracey Shors, a professor of psychology at Rutgers, who is lead author of the study reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. “Therefore, we examined whether they communicate with one another to influence learning after stress.”

The researchers exposed male and female rats to stress, and then presented them with an associative learning task. During training, the rats learned to associate one event with another that occurred later in time. They played a tone and later stimulated the rats’ eyelids to elicit a blink.

After the stimulus was taken away, most of the male rats responded to the tone by blinking on their own. Most of the females, however, did not blink in response to the tone, indicating that they had failed to learn that association. But the research also contained a neurological surprise.

When Shors and her colleagues disrupted the connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in some of the females, those females were able to learn the association.

“This wasn’t true for males,” says Shors. “So, males and females are using different brain structures to learn after stress. In other words, females can learn after stress if the prefrontal cortex can’t ‘talk’ to the amygdala.

From this, we conclude that males and females can use different brain circuits to learn after stressful life events.”

Shors says sex differences in the brain may explain why women are so sensitive to stress, and why they are more likely to suffer from stress-related diseases such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Given these data, maybe we should consider these gender differences when we design treatments for such disorders,” Shors adds.

More from Tracey Shors at Scientific American

IS Sex just an Illusion

The only difference between these two faces is their degree of contrast. Yet one appears female and the other male. That's because female faces tend to have more contrast between the eyes and mouth and the rest of the face than male faces.

Richard Russell, the Harvard University neuroscientist who created the illusion, has previously found that increasing the contrast in female faces makes them more attractive. Conversely, reducing contrast makes a male face easier on the eyes.

Visit the Visual Illusion of the Year (2009) Competition and see if you have won