Health & Fitness

Our mental ability to divide the complex world into categories makes our daily life much easier. But how do we categorize? What kind of stimulus properties do we assess? Researchers have come a step closer to answering these questions with the help of pigeons. They discovered that birds use different strategies to successfully learn categories. To gather data, the researchers used a novel research method. To this end, they combined so-called virtual phylogenesis, in which artificial stimuli are generated by computers, with a machine learning approach, namely an automated evaluation of the birds' pecking behavior.

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Thanks to their visual simplicity, bar graphs are popular tools for representing data. But do we really understand how to read them? New research has found that bar graphs are frequently misunderstood. The study demonstrates that people who view exactly the same graph often walk away with completely different understandings of the facts it represents.

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Scientists have successfully tested in the lab a tiny biosensor they developed that can detect biomarkers tied to traumatic brain injuries.

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Add a little spicy seasoning to a low sodium meal, and adults over the age of 60 may have a harder time noticing a lack of salt, according to a new study. The study tested saltiness perception in older adults using white sauce formulations with varying amounts of salt and different spices and seasonings added.

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Scientists have discovered that severe courses of the COVID-19 disease are not only marked by strong immune activation and inflammatory reactions, but also by a dysfunctional endothelium, in other words, the vascular system: If this barrier between blood flow and tissue is damaged, the patient's condition deteriorates.

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Researchers have detected at least four 'cryptic' variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in samples of wastewater from New York City's public sewer system.

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