News & Comment

Advances in cognitive neuroscience and neurotechnology have increased our understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying cognitive processes. This Collection brings together research in animal behaviour and cognition, with studies investigating their physiology, neural mechanisms, and genetic bases, in order to provide insight into the function and evolution of neurocognitive systems.

The impaired brain is often difficult to restore, owing to our limited knowledge of the complex nervous system. Accumulating knowledge in systems neuroscience, combined with the development of innovative technologies, may enable brain restoration in patients with nervous system disorders that are currently untreatable. The Neuroprosthetics in Systems Neuroscience and Medicine Collection provides a platform for interdisciplinary research in neuroprosthetics.

Mountains cover about a quarter of the world’s land surface, and directly support a significant proportion of the world’s population living within mountainous regions. Mountains provide water, timber and non-timber forest products, mineral resources, and many other food, fiber, and fuel products. Mountains also provide diverse ecosystems, in terms of both species and genetics, due to the topographic complexity in mountains increasing isolation and promoting speciation. Managing mountain regions for the sustainable delivery of critical goods and services requires an increasingly detailed understanding of mountain surface processes and regulation. The aim of this Guest Edited Collection is to provide a platform for interdisciplinary studies of mountain surface processes, and their responses to climate change and human activities.

We are a story telling species. We make sense of the world by looking for order and patterns. So we often see a signal—and build explanatory edifice around it—where there is just noise; and we often see noise where there may well be a signal. This habit of shaping reality into an easy to follow narrative affects even one of the most structured and systematic human activities: science. One of two things tends to happen next. We either ignore the evidence that does not fit our story, or we bend and mould it until it does.