Elena Renken

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    The Power of Small Brain Networks

    It only takes four neurons to achieve big things.

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    When Do Kids Start Playing Pretend?

    It’s complicated.

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    The Power of Physician Empathy

    A new Rx for chronic pain?

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    How Different Instruments Shape the Music We Love

    The timbre of a violin or a sitar can affect how dissonant music sounds to us.

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    A Jig for the Blues

    New evidence for the curative effects of dance.

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    Unraveling the Evolution of Flight

    Bird brain scans and dinosaur fossils hint at when the first creatures grew wings.

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    Why E-Bikes Catch Fire

    The dangerous chemistry of cheaply made lithium batteries.

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    A New Doorway to the Brain

    Neuroscientists can now explore the “wild west” in our heads in incredible detail—a boon to medicine and understanding what makes us tick.

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    How the Brain Allows the Deaf to Experience Music

    Our sensory systems for hearing and touch overlap to stir a wealth of emotions.

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    Turing Patterns Turn Up in a Tiny Crystal

    The mechanism behind leopard spots and zebra stripes also appears to explain the patterned growth of a bismuth crystal, extending Alan Turing’s 1952 idea to the atomic scale.