Stanford, CA, USA. Scientists have adapted mass cytometry, already in use for the measurement of impurities in semiconductors, and used it to analyze immune cells in far more detail than has been possible before.

The investigators were able to simultaneously categorize more immune cell types than ever before seen at once while at the same time peering inside those same cells and learn how various internal processes differed from one cell type to the next.

Zürich, Switzerland. Given that attention is a scarce resource in today's society, and if attention is paid only to people who are already at the top, how are scientific revolutions possible?

This is particularly important since success at innovation leads to the rich-get-richer effect and a tendency of many successful people to be content with their celebrity and material rewards.

Houston, TX, USA. Scientists considered atheist are spiritual, according to new research. Though the general public blends spirituality and religion, a study found that spirituality is a separate idea more closely aligned with scientific discovery for "spiritual atheist" scientists.

Conventionally, spirituality acknowledges an immaterial, or at least unknown, reality that attracts the individual toward discovery and personal fulfillment. Many traditional believers equate spirituality with religion, but a broader understanding has emerged with the growth of western secularism.

Boulder, CO, USA. An archaeologist believes there is strong evidence that a collective mind of humans developed no later than 75,000 years ago in Africa and fostered language, art and technology, preconditions for modern culture.

For Hoffecker, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, the collective mind is what resulted when anatomically modern humans evolved a parallel capacity to externalize thought as symbolic language, a development that fortified higher-order consciousness and human creativity.

Berkeley, CA, USA. The search for the time, place, and circumstances of our arrival as Homo sapiens is one of the most important intellectual challenges we face, with answers that have important practical implications for our continuing survival.

But first, the science. We know our own species and can distinguish ourselves from others. How do we know that? Mason Liang and Rasmus Nielsen from UC Berkeley answer some questions on how we know what we know so far, while identifying the research tasks necessary to further our knowlege.