Now this is really cute - people talk about how us civilized humans have lost touch with their instincts, etc. Now it seems homing pigeons are no better (or just as good? depends on your philosophical stance). A 10-year study has found that homing pigeons in Britain are just as likely to use roads and railways to guide them on familiar routes, rather than their "traditional" senses. In the same way we might take longer but more familiar routes, because it requires less thought, so the pigeons are choosing to follow less direct, but mnemonically easier, paths.

And a new study suggests that baby talk is more important than we guessed. The research suggests that baby talk "tunes" the developing brain to notice particular features, such as meter and other poetic patterns. It may also play a role in teaching patterns of emotional intimacy.

There's a new article posted on my website, reviewing the research on the benefits of mental stimulation. I've also uploaded a glossary on brain structures.

An article in New Scientist discusses recent research on our ability to recognize changes in a visual scene (which changes may influence our thinking), even when we don't know exactly what the changes are. The researcher has coined this mode of visual perception "mindsight", which is a cute term, if perhaps more cute than accurate (all sight is mindsight, after all!). The researcher suggests that this ability may lie behind our "sixth sense" (and points out that we can be wrong - sometimes his subjects perceived changes when there were none). The experiment involved vision, but could just as well apply to other senses. An interesting idea.

And another study that reminds us that what we perceive is constructed by our brain - a look at tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Tinnitus, it appears, can follow damage to the nerves in our ear (it may take some months) - it seems that damage to the synaptic endings can be followed by a growing of new synaptic endings, which are, unfortunately, due to the damage to the nerve, inappropriate. Although they don't register sounds from the environment, they are nevertheless tuned in to the auditory system, as it were, and when excited, could give the illusion that sound is being produced. (BioMedNet article - free registration required)