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Marmosets Call Each Other By Name

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/marmosets-call-each-other-by-name/

Published: September 3, 2024 12:00

Humans identify and call each other by specific names. So far this advanced cognitive behavior has only been identified in a few other species, dolphins, elephants, and some parrots. Interestingly, it has never been documented in our closest relatives,…

Accusation of Mental Illness as a Political Strategy

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/accusation-of-mental-illness-as-a-political-strategy/

Published: August 30, 2024 12:10

I am not the first to say this but it bears repeating – it is wrong to use the accusation of a mental illness as a political strategy. It is unfair, stigmatizing, and dismissive. Thomas Szasz (let me say straight up – I am not a Szaszian) was a…

Dog Soundboards

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/dog-soundboards/

Published: August 29, 2024 12:03

I am a lifelong dog owner, and like many dog owners am often impressed with how smart my dogs have been. They pick up on subtle body language and non-verbal cues, they seem to understand specific words, and they are capable of successfully communicating…

Roleplaying Games May Help Autistic People

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/roleplaying-games-may-help-autistic-people/

Published: August 27, 2024 11:51

Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by…

Superconducting Kagome Metals

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/superconducting-kagome-metals/

Published: August 26, 2024 12:03

Superconductivity is an extremely interesting, and potentially extremely useful, physical phenomenon. It refers to a state in which current flows through a material without resistance, and therefore without any loss of energy or waste heat. As our…

Collapsars and Gravitational Waves

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/collapsars-and-gravitational-waves/

Published: August 23, 2024 11:50

The state of modern science and technology is truly amazing, much more so than the fake stuff that people like to spread around. Gravitational waves have opened up an entirely new type of astronomy, a way to explore the universe through very subtle ripples…

AI Humor

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/ai-humor/

Published: August 22, 2024 11:53

It’s been less than two years (November 2022) since ChatGPT launched. In some ways the new large language model (LLM) type of artificial intelligence (AI) applications have been on the steep part of the improvement curve. And yet, they are still LLMs with…

Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Solar Power

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/luminescent-solar-concentrators-for-solar-power/

Published: August 20, 2024 12:11

Solar power is on the upswing. In 2023, 407–446 GW of solar power was installed globally, bringing the total to 1.6 TWdc. To put this into perspective, this was 55% of new power capacity added to energy production. For the first time, a renewable energy…

Framing and Global Warming

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/framing-and-global-warming/

Published: August 13, 2024 12:15

When we talk publicly about the effects of human activity on the climate should we refer to “global warming”, “climate change”, the “climate crisis” or to “climate justice”? Perhaps we should also be more technical and say specifically, “anthropogenic…

Living a Hybrid Life

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/living-a-hybrid-life/

Published: August 12, 2024 11:53

The cultural effects of the COVID pandemic can still be felt reverberating through society. One of the positive effects, in my opinion, was the sudden boost to remote technology – connecting remotely for meetings and other uses through Zoom or a similar…

The Gender Boxing Hubub

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/the-gender-boxing-hubub/

Published: August 9, 2024 12:03

Both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria earned medals in female boxing competition at the 2024 Olympics. This has caused a controversy because both boxers, according to reports, have some form of DSD – difference of sex development. This…