Category Archives: Biology

The Biological Roots of Intelligence

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Giorgio Bertini

n 1987, political scientist James Flynn of the University of Otago in New Zealand documented a curious phenomenon: broad intelligence gains in multiple human populations over time. Across 14 countries where decades’ worth of average IQ scores of large swaths … Continue reading →

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How to Figure Out What You Don’t Know

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Giorgio Bertini

Testing multiple computational models of the nervous system, researchers discover that just because a model can make accurate predictions about data, this doesn’t always translate into the underlying logic of the biological system it represents. Increasingly, biologists are turning to … Continue reading →

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Cognition all the way down

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Giorgio Bertini

Biology’s next great horizon is to understand cells, tissues and organisms as agents with agendas (even if unthinking ones) Biologists like to think of themselves as properly scientific behaviourists, explaining and predicting the ways that proteins, organelles, cells, plants, animals … Continue reading →

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Climate change and the past, present, and future of biotic interactions

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Giorgio Bertini

Biotic interactions drive key ecological and evolutionary processes and mediate ecosystem responses to climate change. The direction, frequency, and intensity of biotic interactions can in turn be altered by climate change. Understanding the complex interplay between climate and biotic interactions … Continue reading →

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Art, Music, and the Brain: Biological Benefits of Making Music

Posted on May 6, 2019 by Giorgio Bertini

Nina Kraus, professor at Northwestern University, discusses how our brains process sound, and how making music can help offset language deficiencies.

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The Biology of Love

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Giorgio Bertini

What do your cells have to do with love? Molecular biology and romance seem unlikely bedfellows, but according to Dr. Bruce Lipton, a stem cell biologist, bestselling author of The Biology of Belief and recipient of the 2009 Goi Peace … Continue reading →

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A General Theory of Love

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Giorgio Bertini

A General Theory of Love draws on the latest scientific research to demonstrate that our nervous systems are not self-contained: from earliest childhood, our brains actually link with those of the people close to us, in a silent rhythm that … Continue reading →

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The Biology of Adolescence

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Giorgio Bertini

Adolescence is a time of transformation that is characterized by discrete changes in behavior, cognition and the brain – some of which are likely pubertal dependent, and others which are not. Although set within cultural contexts, these transformations appear to … Continue reading →

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Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Giorgio Bertini

This book is a further contribution to the series Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology.It is an ambitious attempt to explain the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity, and in so doing to link philosophy of mind to more general … Continue reading →

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Evolution’s Eye: A Systems View of the Biology-Culture Divide

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Giorgio Bertini

In recent decades, Susan Oyama and her colleagues in the burgeoning field of developmental systems theory have rejected the determinism inherent in the nature/nurture debate, arguing that behavior cannot be reduced to distinct biological or environmental causes. In Evolution’s Eye … Continue reading →

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