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How Yoga Might Protect Both Brain and Body as We Age
Yoga is often viewed in modern Western society as primarily a form of physical exercise, but its combination of movement, breath regulation, focused attention, meditation, and intentional awareness makes it a unique mind-body practice. Given growing evidence that physical activity may help protect against age-related cognitive decline, yoga raises an intriguing question: could engaging both…
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With age, the topology of our brains changes
A review of “Topological turning points across the human lifespan” (Mousley et al., 2025). The human lifespan is defined by developmental changes, and our brains are no exception. To define the stages of neurodevelopment, what they entail, and when they occur, a team at the University of Cambridge led by Dr. Alexa Mousley examined human…
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When Will My Therapist Diagnose Me With “Eldest Daughter Syndrome”?
Has your TikTok For You Page bombarded you with influencers proclaiming that you might suffer from Eldest Daughter Syndrome? The app’s algorithm can’t diagnose you with a mental illness (yet), but, even if it could, Eldest Daughter Syndrome just refers to a collection of personality traits, not a real condition. The phrase is typically associated…
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“Are You There, god? It’s Me, Margaret”: Let’s talk about puberty!
In third grade, my mom handed me a frail copy of Are You There god? It’s Me, Margaret (AYTGIMM), by Judy Blume. The pages were discolored, the binding hanging on by a thread (literally). The state of the book mirrored my feelings after having “the puberty talk” at school, split by males and females, cramped in…
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May the Force be with you–while you wait
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Highlights of “Building Minds”
For those who missed “Building Minds: Microchips & Molecules”, here is a taste of the action. For all who packed the CNSI auditorium in May for our annual interdisciplinary symposium, here is a quick trip down memory lane. Enjoy! Gimzewski (’15 symposium) UCLA’s James Gimzewski cited Alan Turing in his talk describing his research on…
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My Graduate School Survival Guide
Disclaimer: Technically, I have not yet ‘survived’ grad school. But, with three out of five years under my belt, I like to think I’ve acquired some useful wisdom. Although there is no one-size-fits-all model for successfully navigating grad school, here I’ll outline some strategies that I find particularly effective for maximizing efficiency and maintaining solid…
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Signal Detection: Decision Making in Uncertainty
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How to Take Good Notes: Go Low-Tech
More and more students are opting to take notes on laptops to save trees and – they assume – take better notes. But is this assumption correct? According to the findings UCLA’s Dr. Danny Oppenheimer recently published in Psychological Science , these students are wrong: in a study of note-taking comparing handwritten to typed notes, Meuller…
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The Top 5 Differences Between Undergraduate and Graduate School
When deciding whether or not to attend graduate school, a lot of prospective students ask how it is different that undergrad. Is it more difficult? Less fun? Stressful? Whether you are thinking of applying to grad school, have a friend/sibling/daughter/son/niece/nephew/etc. in grad school and still don’t quite understand what it means, or are a graduate…