Mary Martin

Located in the town of Gelephu in Southern Bhutan, Mindfulness City is described as an economic hub that will lay the foundations for the country’s future growth. Spanning more than 386 square miles (250,000 acres), the site will include a new international airport, railway station, hydroelectric dam, healthcare center, and multiple public spaces.... See more

we’d argue that if you produce something iconic, you can create a cultural moment that ripples through people’s crowded psyches and impacts them deeply. And if you’re culturally and commercially successful, it paves the way for future experiments: it becomes easier to both sell tickets and sell ideas to potential clients.

Handwriting, compared to typing, results in more complex brain connectivity patterns, enhancing learning and memory. This study used EEG data from 36 students to compare brain activity while writing by hand and typing.

Handwriting, whether in cursive on a touchscreen or traditional pen and paper, activated extensive brain regions, vital for memory... See more

A popular narrative now casts all living entities as ‘machines’ built by genes, as Richard Dawkins called them. For Mayr, biology was unique among the sciences precisely because its objects of study possessed a program that encoded apparent purpose, design and agency into what they do. On this view, agency doesn’t actually manifest in the moment of... See more

Engaging in group activities that generate synchronicity – such as rituals, dancing or singing in choirs – alter the sense of self and increase connection with others.

Just over a year ago, on a visit to one of the world’s most prestigious research institutes, I challenged researchers there to account for intelligent human behaviour without reference to any aspect of the IP metaphor. They couldn’t do it

“It seems like there’s a dog paper every day,” says Alan McElligott, a zoologist at the City University of Hong Kong who has studied the minds of goats and other farm animals. “It’s almost impossible to keep up with it.” What’s worse, others say, most money for livestock research still goes to studies aimed at improving milk or meat yields, not to... See more

If we can learn about human cognition, behaviour and pathology by studying insects, how does this blur the boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’?

We build upon the key fact that the brain is (part of) the body and as such, like any other bodily organ, the brain is made of cells. The focus on cellular rather than neural, brain processing allows us to underscore the idea that flexible responses to changes in the environments requires flexible adjustments not only through neural, but also... See more