Children who count on their fingers between ages 4 and 6 1/2 have better addition skills by age 7 than those who don’t use their fingers, suggesting that finger counting is an important stepping stone to higher math skills, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

It’s boomtime for corporate psychedelia.

In the past few weeks, biotech startup MindMed secured $259m to fund its development pipeline, and competitors atai Life Sciences and Beckley Psytech merged to form AtaiBeckley.

Despite the hype around the benefits of psychedelics for mental health treatment, political economist Dr Sandy Brian Hager warns the “shroom boom” may be heading for a bust.

His study suggests investors could be spooked once more, because:

- Difficult to patent: Psychedelics cannot easily be patented, which turns off investors

- Unpredictable effects: Trips are subjective and can last up to 15 hours, complicating laboratory testing.

Pharma startups are responding by developing new classes of drugs:

- “Neuroplastogens”: All the warm and fuzzy feelings of connection without the hallucinations

- Ultra-short, intense trips: Newer compounds that cause very intense trips lasting only minutes, “at the time scale of a dental cleaning”.

For all the talk of a mental health revolution, psychedelics may deliver little more than business as usual, says Dr Hager. 

Shanghai Ranking by Research Fields for 2025: The Hebrew University ranks among the world’s top 50 in four fields, including Public Administration, which jumped dozens of places to reach 23rd worldwide—higher than Harvard.

A multidisciplinary team develops a method based on Artificial Intelligence that determines with great precision the provenance of prehistoric archaeological materials

Our brain’s reward system processes and reinforces pleasurable experiences, motivating us to seek out and engage in rewarding activities ranging from eating to social interactions to recreational drug use. Dopamine plays an important role in this process, mediated by the D2 dopamine receptor (D2R). New research published today in Nature Neuroscience finds that the same mechanism that causes drug addiction (desensitization of D2R) also controls the natural devaluation of repeated behaviors (e.g. seeking out the same thrill of going on a rollercoaster for the first time). This is the first natural use found for this mechanism.