ScienceDaily: Mind & Brain News

More efficient, sensitive estrogen detection developed Posted: 02 Jan 2015 07:02 AM PST A new method for detecting trace amounts of estrogen has been developed by scientists, an advance that will help health researchers. The hormone estrogen plays an important role in the human body and has been linked to everything from tumor growth to neuron loss during Alzheimer's disease. But detecting very small amounts of it in blood and other biological fluids can be difficult for health researchers, especially in the limited amounts available in laboratory experiments.

Innate behaviour determines how we steer our car Posted: 02 Jan 2015 04:16 AM PST A 70 year old mystery in traffic research has been solved: an until now inexplicable jerkiness when we steer a vehicle. The discovery may lead to safety systems in cars that can correct dangerous steering movements before they occur. “With the driver model I have developed, it is possible to predict what drivers are going to do with the steering wheel before they do it. It is possible to predict how far the driver is going to turn the wheel, right when the person starts a wheel-turning movement. It's like looking into the future,” says a researcher.

Mind over matter: Can you think your way to strength? Posted: 31 Dec 2014 12:40 PM PST Regular mental imagery exercises help preserve arm strength during 4 weeks of immobilization, researchers have found. Strength is controlled by a number of factors -- the most studied by far is skeletal muscle. However, the nervous system is also an important, though not fully understood, determinant of strength and weakness. In this study, researchers set out to test how the brain's cortex plays into strength development.