With gargantuan ears, gleaming brown eyes, a fuzzy white muzzle and a squat, furry body, Leonardo looks like a magical creature from a Harry Potter book. He’s actually a robot powered by an innovative set of silicon innards. Like a typical 6-year-old child, but unlike standard robots that come preprogrammed with inflexible rules for thinking, Leonardo adopts the perspectives of people he meets and then acts on that knowledge. Leonardo’s creators, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Personal Robots Group and special effects aces at the Stan Winston Stu... (p. 24)

An investigation of a man who received a successful hand transplant suggests that reorganization of sensory maps in the brain following amputation can be reversed in short order.

Scientists haven’t yet identified the source of volcanic ash used in Maya pottery, but they now have geochemical clues about the ash’s composition.

A new chemical analysis of skeletons at the Inca site of Machu Picchu strengthens the idea that the royal estate was maintained by retainers who had been uprooted from homes throughout the empire.

Excavations in two Gibraltar caves suggest that Neandertals, like modern humans, regularly visited the Mediterranean shore to complement a land-based diet with seafood

Religious believers shown pictures that evoke spiritual responses display brain activity that may contribute to feeling relief from physical pain, a new study finds. (p. 9)

A blog entry on the Sussex Amateur Brain Surgery Club’s website boasts that “these days, brain surgery is very much the preserve of professional surgeons, but we at the Amateur Brain Surgery Club believe that anyone can do it, with a few basic tools and a little care.” The post is a spoof, but whoever penned those words may be on to something. The right tools could make treating the brain a simpler, less invasive process. Researchers have zeroed in on two such tools—sound waves and microscopic bubbles—that may eventually allow doctors to tackle a range of ... (p. 20)

A new study links math achievement with individual differences in the ability to rapidly estimate quantities.

A common gene variation in men is linked to marital crises and less bonding in a study of more than 500 long-term couples.