behavior – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 The Social Benefits of Getting Our Brains in Sync https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-social-benefits-of-getting-our-brains-in-sync-20240328/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-social-benefits-of-getting-our-brains-in-sync-20240328/#respond Thu, 28 Mar 2024 13:56:52 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=136671 The post The Social Benefits of Getting Our Brains in Sync first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The renowned Polish piano duo Marek and Wacek didn’t use sheet music when playing live concerts. And yet onstage the pair appeared perfectly in sync. On adjacent pianos, they playfully picked up various musical themes, blended classical music with jazz and improvised in real time. “We went with the flow,” said Marek Tomaszewski, who performed with Wacek Kisielewski until Wacek’s death in 1986.

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-social-benefits-of-getting-our-brains-in-sync-20240328/feed/ 0 How Is Flocking Like Computing? https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-is-flocking-like-computing-20240328/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-is-flocking-like-computing-20240328/#respond Thu, 28 Mar 2024 13:00:00 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=136659 The post How Is Flocking Like Computing? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. Within assemblies of organisms that seem as though they could get chaotic, order somehow emerges. The collective behaviors of animals differ in their details from one species to another, but they largely adhere to principles of collective motion that physicists have worked out over centuries. Now, using technologies that only recently became available...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-is-flocking-like-computing-20240328/feed/ 0 How Did Altruism Evolve? https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-altruism-evolve-20240215/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-altruism-evolve-20240215/#respond Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:08:27 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=135380 The post How Did Altruism Evolve? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> We often talk about evolution in terms of competition, as the survival of the fittest. But if it is, then where did the widespread (and widely admired) impulse to help others even at great cost to ourselves come from? In this episode, Stephanie Preston, a professor of psychology and head of the Ecological Neuroscience Lab at the University of Michigan, talks about the evolutionary...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-altruism-evolve-20240215/feed/ 0 The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-part-of-the-brain-that-controls-movement-also-guides-feelings-20240123/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-part-of-the-brain-that-controls-movement-also-guides-feelings-20240123/#respond Tue, 23 Jan 2024 15:09:50 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=56909 The post The Brain Region That Controls Movement Also Guides Feelings first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In recent decades, neuroscience has seen some stunning advances, and yet a critical part of the brain remains a mystery. I am referring to the cerebellum, so named for the Latin for “little brain,” which is situated like a bun at the back of the brain. This is no small oversight: The cerebellum contains three-quarters of all the brain’s neurons, which are organized in an almost crystalline...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-part-of-the-brain-that-controls-movement-also-guides-feelings-20240123/feed/ 0 The Hidden Brain Connections Between Our Hands and Tongues https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-brain-connections-between-our-hands-and-tongues-20230828/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-brain-connections-between-our-hands-and-tongues-20230828/#respond Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:37:12 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=129538 The post The Hidden Brain Connections Between Our Hands and Tongues first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> One day, while threading a needle to sew a button, I noticed that my tongue was sticking out. The same thing happened later, as I carefully cut out a photograph. Then another day, as I perched precariously on a ladder painting the window frame of my house, there it was again! What’s going on here? I’m not deliberately protruding my tongue when I do these things, so why does it keep making...

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