May–June 2022
WHAT’S Volume 33 • Number 3INSIDE
Muotri Lab/University of California, San Diego
FEATURES- The Personality Trait “Intolerance of
Uncertainty” Causes Anguish during COVID
High levels of it have put people at risk
of emotional problems - Can Lab-Grown Brains Become Conscious?
A handful of experiments are raising questions
about whether clumps of cells and disembodied
brains could be sentient and how scientists
would know if they were - The Pandemic Generation
Child-development researchers are investigating
whether the pandemic is shaping early brain
development and behavior
OPINION- COVID Threatens to Bring a Wave
of Hikikomori to America
We should work to protect others from falling
into long-term social withdrawal - Why Kids Are Afraid to Ask for Help
Children as young as seven years old may hesitate
to ask questions in school because they worry
classmates will think they are “stupid” - Most of Us Combine Personality Traits
from Different Genders
New research underscores that almost everyone’s
personality blends “more often seen in men”
and “more often seen in women” characteristics - The Devastating Loss of Grandparents
among One Million COVID Dead
Grandparents are a majority of the pandemic’s
death toll - Cowboy Culture Doesn’t Have a Monopoly
on Innovation
Despite stereotypes that suggest self-reliant
values lead to the most innovations, group-
centered societies have just as much creativity
ILLUSIONS - The Phantom Queen
Her majesty’s invisibility cloak
is a matter of perspective
NEWS- Artificial Neuron Snaps
a Venus Flytrap Shut
Researchers say that such biointegrated
systems could be the future of prosthetics - Aha! Moments Pop Up from Below
the Level of Conscious Awareness
People in a study handily solved puzzles while
juggling an unrelated mental task by relying
on spontaneous insight, not analytic thinking - Humans Find AI-Generated Faces
More Trustworthy Than the Real Thing
Viewers struggle to distinguish images of
sophisticated machine-generated faces from
actual humans - Lego Robot with an Organic “Brain”
Learns to Navigate a Maze
The neuromorphic computing device solved the
puzzle by working like an animal brain would
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