Headshot of Jill Adams.

Jill Adams

Contributing writer

Jill U. Adams is a freelance science journalist based in Albany, New York. She covers health, mental health and biomedical research for such publications as The TransmitterThe Washington PostScientific AmericanUndark and The Scientist. She has a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Neuromechanical models deepen our understanding of animal motor control

Thanks to recent progress in physics-based simulators and robotics, it has never been easier for neuroscientists to use neuromechanical modeling to test hypotheses about animal movement.

By Auke Ijspeert
9 September 2026 | 0 min watch

Fruit flies use memory to track odors

When flies encounter a tasty smell, they stroll in and out of the odor plume—a process that depends on encoding a memory of the angle needed to travel back to the plume, according to a new study.

By Calli McMurray
8 September 2026 | 2 min watch
Illustration of folded origami.

Dimensionality—neuroscience’s red herring?

Placing too much emphasis on a specific interpretation of dimensionality, or treating it as an end-all quantification of some aspect of neural computation, may hinder progress in understanding the brain.

By Matthew Perich
7 September 2026 | 8 min read