Group items tagged

Dopamine might be the media's neurotransmitter of choice for scare stories about addiction, but the reality is rather more nuanced

Their genes are exactly the same, so why don't identical siblings' lives follow more similar patterns? The scientist behind a pioneering 21-year study believes he has the answer

Is playing football like falling in love? That question, which would perhaps not occur to most of us watching hours of the bruising game this holiday season, is the focus of a provocative and growing body of new science examining the role of oxytocin in competitive sports.

We understand much about human nature, but scientists are ignoring many important topics, like ethnicity and class

Maps of neural circuitry show women's brains are suited to social skills and memory, men's perception and co-ordination

Neuroscience has entered the public consciousness, and changed the way we talk about ourselves. But much of what passes as knowledge is inaccurate

Looks aren't everything but love, it would seem, is far from blind. Across cultures and sexes, some features hold greater appeal. "More symmetrical faces do seem to be rated more attractive," says Tamsin Saxton, a senior lecturer at Northumbria University and part of the evolution, perception and behaviour research group. "The theory goes that your genes provide a template for symmetrical bodies, symmetrical face. [When] there's some sort of problem - you get ill or you encounter some problem with the environment - that can sometimes throw the symmetry off a little bit," she says. "So it might be that if you are picking a symmetric partner then you are actually picking somebody whose genes are fairly well suited to the environment around you."