intelligence
Why IQ tests still matter
[A]re IQ tests valid, unbiased measures of general intelligence? They certainly didn’t start out that way, says Stefan C. Dombrowski, ...
Does smoking pot lower your IQ? New study challenges current thinking
As access to marijuana increases—and while acceptance of the drug grows and perception of its harmfulness diminishes—it is important to ...
People with autism show significant increases in IQ as they mature, but development issues remain
People with autism show significant improvements in cognitive ability from age 12 to 23 years, but their autism traits remain ...
‘They weren’t just surviving’: Gibraltar caves give unprecedented peek into daily lives of last Neanderthals
Neanderthals were a resilient group. They existed for about 200,000 years longer than we modern humans (Homo sapiens) have been ...
Beware claims by consumer DNA testing companies: They can’t predict how long you’ll live
“Upload DNA data and know more about yourself,” promises Genomelink, anywhere from fitness-related attributes, such as longevity, pulmonary function, and job-related ...
‘The Intelligence Trap’: Book examines why smart people make irrational decisions
While decades of psychological research have documented humanity’s more irrational tendencies, it is only relatively recently that scientists have started ...
Viewpoint: Prenatal DNA intelligence predictors ignore environment’s role in IQ
When we examine the way DNA IQ predictors are generated, we see scientists grouping people with similar IQ test results ...
Are we as smart as we’ll ever be? Why we may be getting dumber.
You may not have noticed, but we are living in an intellectual golden age. Since the intelligence test was invented ...
Predicting IQ potential of human embryos may be possible with machine learning, genetic data
[T]he diseases that are most likely to shadow the average person’s life — cancer, heart disease, diabetes — are polygenic, ...
Will breastfeeding make your children smarter?
Most of the academic research on breastfeeding focuses on early-life outcomes—infections, for example, in the time period in which you ...
We could try to build a conscious robot. But how would we know if we succeeded?
Consciousness seems to stem from the struggle between our brain's beliefs and perceptions. How can we design neural networks to ...
Viewpoint: What it means for the world to have a collective IQ of 82
David Becker has released a new version of the World’s IQ. Each country has a score showing the cognitive abilities ...
Low intelligence in autistic children predicts ‘poor life skills and challenging behavior’
Without timely intervention, intellectual disability in autistic children can worsen over time, contributing to poor life skills and challenging behavior, ...
Searching for ‘hidden talents’: Chinese parents turn to genetic tests for their toddlers
Fears of seeing their children fall behind their peers have left Chinese parents searching for anything to give them a ...
Viewpoint: What is ‘consciousness’ and what role does it play in evolution?
One of the biggest challenges in evolutionary science is to explain the evolution of consciousness. While that is widely recognized, ...
‘Genome profiling’—not gene editing—could offer easiest path to smarter babies
For the foreseeable future, editing embryos to enhance IQ is a sci-fi fantasy. A different approach aimed at enhancing IQ ...
Yes, genes do shape our behavior, but in complicated ways
Are psychological traits definitely determined by genes? ...
Why we don’t have to worry about ‘designer babies’: Altering intelligence is too hard
One of the main worries that the public has about CRISPR is that it could be used to create “designer babies” with increased levels ...
DNA as ‘fortune teller’? There are limits as to what genes can predict
Is our future written in our genes? … King’s College London geneticist Robert Plomin, in his new book, Blueprint, presents DNA ...
Meet Alice Lee, the woman who disproved myths about skull size, sex, intelligence
On the morning of June 10, 1898, Alice Lee marched into the all-male Anatomical Society meeting at Trinity College in ...
Does a higher IQ lead to a better, happier life?
[In] a new study conducted by Ana Dimitrijevic and colleagues, [the researchers] attempted to assess the relationship between multiple indicators of ...
Are dogs really all that smart? This study says ‘no’
If you are convinced your dog is a genius, you may be disappointed in the conclusions of a study just published ...
Chasing the biology underlying human intelligence
[H]uman intelligence [has increased] over time. Proposed explanations for the phenomenon, now known as the Flynn effect, include increasing education, ...
Do super high IQ children end up successful?
The original motive behind [IQ] tests was to get a diagnostic to select children at the lower ends of the ...
Why are humans so much smarter than other primates?
By counting the number of neurons in brains, one scientist revolutionized our view of why Homo sapiens and nonhuman primates ...
Are digital gadgets hurting our brains?
Ten years ago technology writer Nicholas Carr published an article in the Atlantic entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He strongly suspected ...
Could studies on gene differences lead teachers to unfairly favor ‘more educatable’ students?
Educational paths are extremely varied, almost as unique as people themselves. They’re influenced by a complex slew of factors, and ...
