What prompts a solitary grasshopper to join a violent street gang plague of locusts? Serotonin. Link from jpmassar.

Brain scans show that reading is not passive: “when we read a story and really understand it, we create a mental simulation of the events described by the story.” Link via email from gramina, who added, “In other news, water is wet.”

How memories form, fade, and persist over time. Link from housepet.

From technomom, I can move things with my brain: Brain-implanted prostheses.

The technology promises to give thousands of victims of stroke, spinal cord injury and paralyzing illnesses the ability to, say, talk with a friend, flip through television channels or transport themselves by driving their own wheelchair. One day implants may enable paralyzed people to move robotic arms or even bypass damaged parts of the nervous system to reanimate unresponsive limbs. In the meantime, the quest to develop implanted neural prostheses is bringing with it revelations about how the brain manages motion and how it can remodel itself so that only a few neurons are needed to direct action through an implant.