This video explains it quite well. The key hormone in question is serotonin. Serotonin is known to play a role in depression. Low serotonin levels are believed to be the reason for depression and associated symptoms of anxiety, apathy, fear, feelings of worthlessness, insomnia and fatigue. The opposite is true when a high-level of serotonin is present, you feel jovial and enthusiastic. MDMA promotes the formation of this hormone.

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It's true, and this estimate is the same for tomorrow, and the day after. This video explains the Years of Life Lost measurement - a measurement which takes into account the age at which deaths occur by giving greater weight to deaths at younger age and lower weight to deaths at older age (more information can be found here). The video neatly displays the leading causes of death in each country from 2013. According to statistics, Saudi Arabia really needs to chill out with its driving antics given that death by vehicle is the leading cause of early death there at 19 people per day!

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Turkish communities living in the mountains in the north east of the country use a remarkable whistling language to communicate. Around 10,000 people use the bird-like whistle, which researchers suggest is the first known form of language to use both sides of the brain.

Whistlers usually speak Turkish when talking near each other, but switch to whistling when they want to convey a message over longer distances, which can be up to five kilometers. The whistling language has the same vocabulary and grammatical structure as Turkish, it’s just a different format. Scientists have previously assumed that all spoken language, written texts and sign language mainly utilize the left hemisphere, but this doesn't seem to be the case for the whistling l ...

This is Richard Feynman's take on a simple question, why do magnets repel each other?

A little more on Richard Feynman. He was an American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model.

As always: A scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, but one who asks the right questions. ...

What's happening: The foam used in this experiment is a type of synthetic carbon, which means it's so dense, it doesn't allow for air-flow. Because of this, the heat smoulders through the material, rather than forming a proper flame, sucking the oxygen out as it goes, and leaving behind the dried out remains. This is the same reaction that happens when you turn wood into charcoal.

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Watch the Nikon Coolpix p900 camera zoom into the moon. This is the first bridge camera on the market with an 83x optical zoom, and it sure is something. It also includes a digital zoom, which reaches to 166x, or 4,000 mm.


What is the difference between optical and digital zoom?

An optical zoom is a true zoom lens, like the zoom lens you’d use on a film camera. They produce much better-quality images. Some cameras offer a digital zoom, which is simply some in-camera image processing. When you use a digital zoom, the camera enlarges the image area at the center of the frame and trims away the outside edges of the picture. The result is the same as when you open an image in your photo-editing program, crop away the edges of the picture, and t ...

An informative recapitulation of the brain's complex physiological mysteries.