Decoding Smell: Demystifying Human Disease and Behavior

Meet some of the people featured in the October 2020 issue of The Scientist.

Changes in blood levels of oxytocin and adrenocorticotropic hormone and patterns of neural activity predict how much money people will donate to a cause with high accuracy.

Fear binds us to our human and nonhuman ancestors. Understanding the emotion can help us grapple with challenges we face today.

Researchers tease out the effects of the two cravings by having participants gamble for the chance to satisfy them.

A combination of factors, from oxytocin release as an indicator of emotional investment to cortisol and other hormones that correlate with attention, can forecast what people will do after an experience.

MRI scans from more than 800 incarcerated men pinpoint distinct structural features of people who have committed homicide, compared with those who carried out other crimes.

Drastic dietary changes during the agricultural revolution altered the configuration of the human bite, paving the way for new sounds in spoken language, a new study finds.

While shifts in behavior could help wildlife and people coexist, they might also affect the animals’ survival.