How long does your brain take to buffer? And what’s that got to do with your big toe? If you get onto a bus anywhere in Tamil Nadu, be prepared for music. Private and state-run buses alike ...

Face blindness, communication, and neurodiversity in digital social life

Why a partner when a puppy will do?

Leave me alone with my phone

Master or slave?

A history of the universe in verse

How do we prevent robots from turning on their human masters?

How come our Universe was fine-tuned to enable the miracle of Life? Consider Omega. Commonly known as the density parameter, it tells us how important gravity is in the expanding universe. ...

How to measure the immeasurable — and why it can sometimes go wrong. Different  people have different swearing habits. Some people spew out expletives  at the drop of a hat, while others fee...

Criminals usually pay for their misdeeds. But who is really to blame for crime? Adrian Raine is a renowned criminologist. He teaches psychology in the University of Pennsylvania and has writ...

Can diagnoses depend on your doctor’s mother tongue? My  passion for the nuances of language has deep roots in who I am as a  person. I study intercultural communication: it’s about how peop...

Are we basically two people at once? We like to think that each one of us is only one kind of person, a whole comprised of various facets and feelings. And as an extension of that, we like t...

How dopamine helps you pick your battles

How fast does time move? The answer depends on what you’re thinking. Time is fixed. A second is a second, there’s no question about it. Or so people thought. Then came Albert Einstein, with...

It’s not just about turning text to thoughts: how you read, and what you read it on, can literally change your brain. This piece began in my quest to try and find an answer to the age-old de...

Thinner than thread and stronger than steel, silk is not simply for snares. She’s full of brains. Very full. That’s practically all she is — a brain with its support system, carried on eight...

The conscious, the subconscious, and the neural network of your smartphone’s keyboard Before showing up for an examination, the man telephoned Sigmund Freud to fix an appointment. He also ma...

You go to sleep. What happens next?

I was reading a ‘book’ the other day. It was designed quite well. The hardest part of software design (or so they say) is not the program logic or intricate algorithms. It’s not the tracking...

Light, sight, and why things may not be the same colours they look Did you know that the sky looks blue? You probably did, specially if you’ve seen it. But just because it looks blue doesn’t...

When cars get self-conscious: a brief look at the Volkswagen scandal Diesel is cheap — cheaper than petrol. That’s why car companies have been investing heavily in developing diesel engines ...

In your telephone-line, it enables eavesdropping. In your brain, it could be the mechanism behind metaphors. I was speaking to a friend on the phone the other day, when I suddenly heard the ...

What you speak is what you think. Or is it the other way round? What language do you think in? Sometimes, thoughts come into your head. Just like that. It’s only later that you put them int...

If you’ve ever clicked the first search result you received, then the answer is yes. Have you ever heard of the search bubble? It’s the term for what happens when you use too much personaliz...