Tag: variability

  • Nation & World

    If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

    Research suggests that errors resulting from variability in motor function are a feature, not a bug, of our nervous system and play a critical role in learning.

    4 minutes
    Two researchers talking in a lab.
  • Nation & World

    Reading shapes

    A team of Harvard researchers has demonstrated that a shared developmental mechanism in songbirds is responsible for generating tremendous variability in their beaks, and is also a control on what kind variation can be produced.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Inconsistent? Good

    Though variability is often portrayed as a flaw to be overcome, Harvard researchers now say that, in motor function, it is a key feature of the nervous system that helps promote better or more successful ways to perform a particular action.

    6 minutes