Bookmarks 2026-05-20T14:37:16.791Z
by Owen Kibel
35 min read
Bookmarks for 2026-05-20T14:37:16.791Z
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The Best âChilling Effectâ Yet: Thomas Massieâs Defeat | National Review Added: May 20, 2026
The Best âChilling Effectâ Yet: Thomas Massieâs Defeat | National Review
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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The new era of asymmetric war exposes the limits of conventional warfare Added: May 20, 2026
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Thomas Massie SPEAKS After LOSING Primary Election, SLAMS MAGA - YouTube Added: May 20, 2026
Thomas Massie SPEAKS After LOSING Primary Election, SLAMS MAGA
Site: YouTube
WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umXF8IeQGtESUPPORT THE SHOW BUY CAST BREW COFFEE NOW - https://castbrew.com/Join - https://timca...
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Thomas Massie LOSES Election, EXPLOSIVE Thrown At PA Polling Site | Timcast IRL
Site: YouTube
SUPPORT THE SHOW BUY CAST BREW COFFEE NOW - https://castbrew.com/Join - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLwNTXWEjVd2qIHLcXxQWxA/joinHosts: George Santos @Ge...
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President Trump Delivers a Commencement Address to the United States Coast Guard Academy
Site: YouTube
New London, CT
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Mark Cuban and Donald Trump team up for TrumpRx expansion Added: May 20, 2026
Mark Cuban partners with Donald Trump after backing Kamala Harris
Site: USA TODAY
Donald Trump had billionaire Mark Cuban at an event announcing an expansion of TrumpRx to lower drug prices. The 'Shark Tank' judge backed Kamala Harris.
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Google quietly nerfed its AI Pro plan, and here's what you get now - Android Authority Added: May 20, 2026
Google quietly nerfed its AI Pro plan, and here's what you get now
Site: Android Authority
Google is restricting the AI Pro tier with usage caps and fewer free perks after announcing it was making the AI Ultra plan more affordable.
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Will Lockett (@lockettwill.bsky.social) â Bluesky
Added: May 20, 2026Will Lockett (@lockettwill.bsky.social)
Site: Bluesky Social
Just a chaotic autistic man looking for meaning in the world
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Trump ENDORSES Ken Paxton For Senate, RINOs Are PISSED
Site: YouTube
WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umXF8IeQGtESUPPORT THE SHOW BUY CAST BREW COFFEE NOW - https://castbrew.com/Join - https://timca...
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Manage your AI credits with Google One - Google One Help
Added: May 20, 2026Manage your AI credits with Google One - Google One Help
Each product has its own AI usage limits. Your usage limits depend on which features you are using and your Google AI plan. If you reach your planâs limit, Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra members ca
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Credit History Added: May 20, 2026
Sign in - Google Accounts
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The moon shines with a swarm of stars on May 21 as Jupiter, Venus and Mercury line-up nearby | Space Added: May 20, 2026
The moon shines with a swarm of stars tonight as Jupiter, Venus and Mercury line up nearby
Site: Space
The moon glows with the Beehive Cluster on May 21, as a trio of planets form up in the evening sky.
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Watch: Thomas Massie LOSES in Kentucky and Makes Reference to "Tel Aviv"
Site: YouTube
Watch: Thomas Massie loses in Kentucky and makes reference to âTel Aviv."LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday: https://bit.ly/3Aw93ywWatch full clips of ...
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How Much Did Trump, Israel, Iran, and Antisemitism Play Into Thomas Massie's Loss, with RCP
Site: YouTube
Megyn Kelly is joined by Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth of RealClearPolitics, to debate what led to Thomas Massie loss in Kentucky, how Israel, ...
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The Science Has Spoken Against Climate Alarmism | National Review
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Quote of the day by Immanuel Kant: 'When I needed a wife, I could not support one; and when I could support one, I no longer needed...' - A life advice by German philosopher that sometimes we get things when we have learnt to live without them - The Economic Times
Immanuel Kants observation about marriage reflects a broader truth about how timing and life circumstances shape human choices. He never married, explaining that when he was young he lacked financial stability to support a family, and by the time he became established through his academic career, his life was already centered around disciplined study and routine. Beyond his personal experience, the idea captures a common life pattern where desires and opportunities often fail to align, making certain goals either unattainable when wanted or unnecessary when possible.
Life often changes peopleâs priorities in ways they do not expect. Many dreams and plans depend not only on desire but also on timing, money, responsibilities, and personal circumstances. That is one reason why certain old quotes continue to connect with modern readers. One such observation came from German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose words about marriage and timing are still widely discussed today because they reflect a reality many people understand from their own lives. The quote of the day by Immanuel Kant goes: âWhen I could have used a wife, I could not support one; and when I could support one, I no longer needed any.â The quote is closely tied to Kantâs personal life. He never married and remained a bachelor throughout his lifetime. During his younger years, he did not have enough financial stability to support a family, even though marriage may have been something he considered. Later, when he became established and financially comfortable through his academic career, his way of living had already become fixed around study, teaching, and routine. At that point, he no longer felt the need to marry. The statement became his simple explanation for why marriage never happened in his life. There is another layer to the quote that goes beyond relationships. Kantâs words speak about the way human life often works. Sometimes people strongly want something when circumstances make it impossible. Then, years later, when the opportunity finally appears, their needs and emotions may already have changed. That gap between desire and timing is what gives the quote its lasting appeal. Even today, many readers connect it to careers, ambitions, friendships, and personal goals that arrive either too early or too late.131248024 A life shaped by discipline and routine Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia, which is now known as Kaliningrad in Russia. He came from a modest family and grew up in a strict religious environment that valued discipline, honesty, and hard work. These habits stayed with him throughout his life and became part of the reason he was known for his extremely structured daily routine. Kant spent nearly his entire life in Königsberg and rarely traveled far from the city. Even when he received opportunities to work elsewhere, including offers connected to Berlin, he chose to remain in his hometown. Before gaining recognition, he experienced years of financial struggle and worked as a private tutor to support himself. His academic success came slowly, and much of his most influential work appeared later in life. Despite his reputation today as a difficult philosopher, historical accounts describe him as an engaging lecturer. He taught subjects ranging from philosophy and logic to geography and science. Students reportedly enjoyed his lectures because he mixed serious ideas with practical examples and humor. For many years, he also taught geography courses that became highly popular among students. 131184867 The work that changed modern philosophy Kant is widely considered one of the most important thinkers in Western philosophy because he tried to bridge the divide between rationalism and empiricism. Philosophers before him were debating whether knowledge mainly came from reason or from experience. Kant argued that both played a role in shaping human understanding. His most famous book, Critique of Pure Reason, explored how the human mind processes reality. Kant argued that people do not simply observe the world exactly as it exists. Instead, the mind actively organizes experiences through structures like space, time, and causality. According to him, human beings can understand the world as it appears to them, but they cannot fully know reality in its pure form beyond experience. This distinction later became famous as Kantâs idea of the phenomenal world and the noumenal world. The phenomenal world refers to things as human beings experience them, while the noumenal world refers to things as they exist independently of human perception. These ideas influenced generations of philosophers and changed the direction of modern thought. Kantâs writing style was often described as difficult and extremely dense. Even during his lifetime, readers struggled with his books. Still, the depth of his arguments made his work highly influential in philosophy, politics, ethics, and even psychology. 131203184 Kantâs views on morality and ethics Apart from metaphysics and knowledge, Kant also made a major impact on moral philosophy. He believed morality should not depend on personal gain or emotional outcomes. Instead, moral actions should be guided by duty and universal principles. One of his best-known ideas was the âcategorical imperative.â Kant argued that before taking any action, a person should ask whether they would want everyone else to act the same way. If an action could not reasonably become a universal rule for everyone, then it should not be considered morally right. He also argued that people should never treat others merely as tools for personal benefit. According to Kant, every individual has value and should be treated with dignity and respect. These ideas later became central to discussions about ethics, law, and human rights. 131156177 A legacy that still matters today Although Immanuel Kant died in 1804, his influence remains strong more than two centuries later. His writings continue to be studied in universities around the world, and his ideas still shape debates on morality, politics, religion, and human understanding. What makes Kant especially interesting is that even his smaller personal remarks, including his famous observation about marriage, continue to resonate with readers today. The quote survives not because it is dramatic, but because it feels honest and deeply human. It reflects regret, practicality, and acceptance all at once. 131231372 In many ways, the line also mirrors Kantâs own life story. He spent years chasing knowledge, building a career, and living according to discipline and routine. By the time stability arrived, life had already taken him in another direction. That personal truth, expressed in a single sentence, is what continues to make the quote memorable generations later.In his later years, Immanuel Kant became widely known in Königsberg not just for his writings but also for his extremely fixed daily walking routine, which locals reportedly used as a reference for timekeeping because of its regularity. His life was so structured that even small disruptions to his routine were unusual for him. One well-known anecdote from his final years involves his long-time servant, Lampe, whose dismissal affected him deeply and led Kant to repeatedly remind himself not to dwell on it. After his death in 1804, Kantâs ideas went on to strongly influence later thinkers such as Fichte and Hegel, shaping the development of German Idealism and keeping his work at the center of philosophical debate long after his time.
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White House pans Tucker Carlson for telling Israeli TV Netanyahu dragged US into war | The Times of Israel
Added: May 20, 2026White House pans Tucker Carlson for telling Israeli TV Netanyahu dragged US into war | The Times of Israel
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Britainâs Labour Government Flirts with Price Controls | National Review
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Google I/O 2026: Sundar Pichaiâs opening keynote Added: May 20, 2026
I/O 2026: Welcome to the agentic Gemini era
Site: Google
The latest from Google I/O: See how weâre helping you get more done with Gemini.
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Climate Change Apocalypticism Was a Fashion, Not a Cause | National Review
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U.S.-China Summit: Donald Trump Defeats Xi Jinping, Wins the Future | National Review
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Trump-Xi summit raises caution as Xi pushes aggressive Cold War 2.0 stance | Fox News Added: May 20, 2026
Trump-Xi summit raises caution as Xi pushes aggressive Cold War 2.0 stance | Fox News
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Scientists Built an Earth Map Tool That Reveals Where Your Home Was 320 Million Years Ago
Added: May 20, 2026Scientists Built an Earth Map Tool That Reveals Where Your Home Was 320 Million Years Ago
Site: The Daily Galaxy - Great Discoveries Channel
What if the place you live today was once covered by tropical seas or ancient deserts? Scientists have created a way to explore where Earthâs landscapes were millions of years ago.
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SpaceX officially files for blockbuster IPO | Fox Business Added: May 20, 2026
SpaceX officially files for blockbuster IPO | Fox Business
SpaceX on Wednesday submitted documents to move forward with its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO), as the revolutionary company that's pursuing the eventual colonization of Mars and deploying space-based AI data centers. The company, led by CEO Elon Musk, has grown into the world's largest space business and is expected to become the first U.S. company to go public with a market value of more than $1 trillion at the time of its IPO. SpaceX plans to offer its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange using the ticker symbol "SPCX" and will also trade on the recently launched Nasdaq Texas exchange, as the company is headquartered in Starbase, Texas. Founded by Musk in 2002, SpaceX has seen its business rise in recent years with the deployment of Starlink satellites that provide internet service to consumers, while it also pioneered the use of reusable rockets that can land and be relaunched to make space launches more commercially viable. MUSK SAYS TESLA, SPACEX TO BUILD ADVANCED CHIP MANUFACTURING FACILITY Starlink has become a key driver of its business, accounting for most of its $18.67 billion in revenue last year. However, despite that revenue, there's a catch – it reported a loss of about $4.9 billion last year as it nearly doubled its capital expenditures to $20.7 billion in 2025. In 2024, SpaceX reported a profit of about $791 million. SpaceX recently acquired another startup founded by Musk in xAI, which is focused on developing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.  The company's IPO filing notes that the xAI unit still loses money, though AI will be pivotal to the company's future. SpaceX recently announced that it's collaborating with another Musk firm, Tesla, on an advanced chip manufacturing facility.  ELON MUSK MISLED TWITTER INVESTORS AHEAD OF ACQUISITION, JURY SAYS SpaceX is aiming to list its shares on the Nasdaq as early as June 12 and plans to launch its road show on June 4, with a share sale as soon as June 11, Reuters reported. The IPO filing indicated that SpaceX will have a dual-class share structure that gives Class B shareholders 10 votes each, which will consolidate control under Musk and other insiders, whereas the Class A shares available to public investors carry one vote apiece.  Musk will retain 85.1% of the combined voting power of the company, according to SpaceX's prospectus. The company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) outlines a massive addressable market of $28.5 trillion across its business areas. Of that total, $26.5 trillion is attributed to AI initiatives, including $22.7 trillion in enterprise AI applications, $2.4 trillion in AI infrastructure, plus $760 billion in consumer subscriptions and $600 billion in digital advertising. It also includes $1.6 trillion in connectivity through its Starlink products, plus $370 billion from space-enabled solutions. MUSK SAYS SPACEX SHIFTING FOCUS TO ‘SELF-GROWING CITY’ ON MOON BEFORE MARS PUSH SpaceX's filing with the SEC doesn't set a stock price, but notes that Goldman Sachs will lead the underwriting. Several other firms, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citi and JPMorgan, among others, will also be involved with the process. Analysts for Wedbush Securities led by Dan Ives, the firm's managing director and global head of technology research, said that SpaceX's filing represents "the largest IPO in stock market history as the company remains at the center of two of the largest growth opportunities over the coming decades." They also explained that they expect Tesla and SpaceX to proceed with a merger after the IPO is completed, noting that Tesla invested $2 billion in xAI that was converted to SpaceX shares after its acquisition, as well as the companies' recent announcement to build a joint Terafab chipmaking facility. GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE "Musk wants to own and control more of the AI ecosystem and step by step the holy grail could be combining SpaceX and Tesla in some way to give the connected tissue between both disruptive tech stalwarts looking to lead the AI Revolution," Ives and team wrote. Reuters contributed to this report.
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Google unveils Gemini Spark â a '24/7 personal AI agent' | Tom's Guide
Added: May 20, 2026Google unveils Gemini Spark â a '24/7 personal AI agent'
Site: Tom's Guide
Google has unveiled a new agentic AI tool called Gemini Spark that takes actions on behalf of the user across Google's products.
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Russia Uncovered 511 Billion Barrels of Oil in Antarctica: A Find That Could Turn the Frozen Continent Into a Flashpoint
Added: May 20, 2026
Russia Uncovered 511 Billion Barrels of Oil in Antarctica: A Find That Could Turn the Frozen Continent Into a Flashpoint
Site: The Daily Galaxy - Great Discoveries Channel
Russian ships have mapped oil reserves in Antarcticaâs Weddell Sea that nearly double Saudi Arabiaâs.
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Meet the Mangione Press Corps - by Olivia Reingold Added: May 20, 2026
Meet the Mangione Press Corps
Their qualifications include Fulbright Scholar, sex video game creator, and Hot Girls for Zohran, writes Olivia Reingold.
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The Issue Is the Revolution: Mangionistas Glorify Terror | National Review
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Your Daily Rhythms May Help Slow Biological Aging, Study Suggests : ScienceAlert
Added: May 20, 2026Your Daily Rhythms May Help Slow Biological Aging, Study Suggests
Site: ScienceAlert
We're all a certain number of years and months and days old, but alongside this chronological age is a biological age: the rate at which our bodies are wearing down.
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Engaging in gardening is associated with better well-being in older adulthood
Added: May 20, 2026Engaging in gardening is associated with better well-being in older adulthood
Site: PsyPost - Psychology News
Want to slow down the aging process? A new 25-year study suggests you should pick up a trowel. Researchers discovered that older adults who garden frequently experience a slower rate of cellular aging and walk faster in their 90s.
An analysis of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 data found that older adults who engage in gardening more often tend to experience better psychological well-being, stronger physical function, and a 22% lower risk of death. Longitudinally, more frequent gardening was associated with slower declines in gait speed and a slower progression of cellular indicators of aging between ages 79 and 90. Comparing median values, frequent gardeners lived over a year longer than their peers not engaged in gardening. The paper was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102889"><em>Journal of Environmental Psychology</em></a>.
In modern times, people live longer than ever before, and as a result, the global population of older adults is increasing rapidly. Some estimates state that by 2030, one in six people worldwide will be aged 60 or over, and this number is expected to increase to over 2.1 billion people by 2050. Because of this, supporting healthy aging has become an urgent public priority.
Healthy aging means growing older while maintaining as much physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being as possible. The goal is not simply to live longer, but to live better. It does not mean avoiding all illness, because health problems naturally become more common with age. Instead, it means preserving function, independence, dignity, and quality of life for as long as possible.
Study author Janie Corley and her colleagues investigated whether gardening frequency is associated with baseline levels and long-term trajectories of a broad set of aging markersâpsychological wellbeing, physical function, biological aging, and mortality risk.
They analyzed data from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, a Scottish research cohort made up of people who were born in 1921 and who mostly lived in the Lothian region of Scotland, around Edinburgh. It is one of the longest-running longitudinal studies in the world, following individuals from early old age into their 90s with repeated health assessments. When the participants of this study were 11 years old, they took a national intelligence assessment (the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932). Since then, they have been re-tested several times, primarily throughout their old age.
This particular analysis established a baseline using data collected from 1999 to 2001, when the study participants were approximately 79 years old. The researchers then tracked these individuals over the following 11 years (with follow-ups at ages 83, 87, and 90) to measure physical and biological decline, and tracked their mortality data for 25 years.
After excluding participants for whom gardening data was not available, the baseline sample consisted of 475 individuals. At the start of the study, participants were asked how often they engaged in gardening as part of a broader lifestyle questionnaire. Study participants also completed assessments of their quality of life (the WHOQOL-BREF) and psychological wellbeing (the 14-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale).
Trained nurses assessed the participantsâ lung function, gait speed, grip strength, and functional ability (i.e., difficulties with basic and instrumental activities of daily living, using the 9-item Townsend scale) at ages 79, 87, and 90. Indicators of biological aging used in the study were assessments of telomere length (from the participantsâ peripheral blood DNA) and DNA Methylation-based PhenoAge (a biomarker of biological aging based on age-related changes to DNA molecules extracted from blood samples). The study authors also tracked the mortality of the study participants up to 2025. By 2025, 469 of the 473 tracked participants had died; only 4 were still alive (and aged 103 years).
The baseline results at age 79 showed that more frequent gardening was associated with a higher overall quality of life and better psychological wellbeing. Individuals who reported gardening more often also tended to have better indicators of physical aging at 79 years of ageâbetter lung function, faster gait speed, stronger grip strength, and higher functional ability.
Longitudinally, more frequent gardening was associated with a slower decline in gait speed over time. However, there were no associations with changes in lung function or grip strength over the years. Furthermore, participants who engaged in gardening more often tended to have longer telomeres at the start of the observation period and slower telomere attrition over time.
Telomeres are protective DNA-protein caps at the ends of chromosomes. They generally shorten as cells divide, which is why they are used as biomarkers of biological agingâolder individuals tend to have shorter telomeres. Slower attrition means that the frequent gardeners were biologically aging at a slower rate than the non-gardeners.
Finally, a statistical model revealed that participants who engaged in frequent gardening had a 22% lower risk of death over the 25-year tracking period. Importantly, this survival advantage remained robust even after accounting for a vast array of confounding variables, including age, sex, education, social class, living alone, perceived neighborhood quality, existing diseases, and general physical activity. The fact that the benefit held up after controlling for general physical activity suggests that gardening offers unique, protective health benefits beyond simply burning calories.
Overall, the median age of death for participants who never gardened was 88.4 years, while it was 89.7 years for people who reported frequently engaging in gardeningâan extension of over a year.
âOur results suggest that gardening may support wellbeing and longevity, with potential implications for aging in place for older adults,â the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about the associations between gardening activities and well-being in old age. However, it should be noted that the observational study design does not allow definitive causal inferences to be derived from the results. It is possible that people who engaged in gardening more frequently were simply individuals who had better health to begin with, allowing them to engage in such physical activities. While the researchers attempted to control for baseline health and activity levels, the longitudinal changes observed could still be a reflection of the underlying factors responsible for their better health status, rather than a direct consequence of gardening.
The paper, â<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102889">Gardening, healthy aging, and longevity: Longitudinal evidence from 25 years of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921,</a>â was authored by Janie Corley, Alison Pattie, Sarah E. Harris, Ian J. Deary, and Simon R. Cox.
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Tom Steyer walks back support for data center moratorium - POLITICO Added: May 20, 2026
Tom Steyer walks back support for data center moratorium
Site: POLITICO
The billionaire climate activist and Democratic gubernatorial candidate told Greenpeace he supports a moratorium, but now Steyerâs campaign says he doesnât.
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Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Fox News Polls & Official Poll Results: Latest Poll Insights & Trends | Fox News Added: May 20, 2026
Fox News Poll | Fox News
Site: Fox News
Fox News Poll
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How Trump's $1.8B "anti-weaponization" fund works Added: May 20, 2026
How Trump's $1.8B "anti-weaponization" fund works
Site: Axios
The fund uses taxpayer money without congressional oversight.
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Anthropic is paying SpaceX $15 billion per year
Site: Axios
The deal for compute nearly doubles SpaceX's annual revenue.
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Donât Miss Jupiter And The Moonâs Rare Evening Dance Tonight! Here's Where to Look!
Added: May 20, 2026
Donât Miss Jupiter And The Moonâs Rare Evening Dance Tonight! Here's Where to Look!
Site: The Daily Galaxy - Great Discoveries Channel
On May 20, the waxing moon and Jupiter align in the western sky, offering a rare and breathtaking sight for skywatchers.
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I read every document in the Musk vs Altman case and my takeaway isâ'Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point' | PC Gamer Added: May 20, 2026
I read every document in the Musk vs Altman case and my takeaway isâ'Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point'
Site: PC Gamer
Musk lost his case against Sam Altman on a technicality.
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Scientists Solved the 150 Year-Old Mystery of Why Most of Your Molecules Are Right-Handed Added: May 20, 2026
Scientists Solved the 150 Year-Old Mystery of Why Most of Your Molecules Are Right-Handed
Site: Popular Mechanics
The shape of lifeâs building blocks is the result of biology, chemistry, and quantum physics colliding.
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A Conversation with World War II Submariner Patrick Zilliacus
Site: YouTube
World War II submariner Patrick Zilliacus shares his remarkable experiences serving on board the USS Spot (SS-413). He reflects on life underwater, combat pa...
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U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) / X Added: May 20, 2026
Site: X (formerly Twitter)
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Vitamins and Supplements You Shouldnât Mix, According to Doctors Added: May 20, 2026
Doctors Warn You Should Never Take These Two Vitamins Together
Site: Good Housekeeping
Some combos can actually cancel each other out.
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The bacteria living in and on your body outnumber your own cells, which means that by strict cellular count you are not majority human â and the ratio shifts noticeably depending on whether you've just been to the bathroom
Site: Space Daily
By raw cell count, the human body is a minority partner in its own biology â and the precise composition of that partnership depends, in part, on how recently you've emptied your colon.
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The Human Body Isnât Perfect â It Was Improvised by Evolution Added: May 20, 2026
The Human Body Isnât Perfect â It Was Improvised by Evolution
Site: SciTechDaily
The human body evolved through adaptation and compromise, not perfect engineering.
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Adults with better math skills rely less on the brainâs physical movement areas
Added: May 20, 2026
Adults with better math skills rely less on the brainâs physical movement areas
Site: PsyPost - Psychology News
A new brain imaging study suggests that highly proficient adults rely less on the brain's motor regions to process numbers. As math skills improve, the brain shifts away from physical representations to highly automatic, efficient processing networks.
A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhag028" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cerebral Cortex</a></em> suggests that adults who are better at math tend to rely less on the brain areas associated with physical movement when processing numbers. These findings provide evidence that as people develop advanced math skills, their brains shift toward more automatic and abstract ways of thinking about numbers.
Number processing relies on multiple mental formats. Scientists describe a verbal format for number words, a visual format for written digits, and a semantic format for the actual meaning or quantity. In recent years, scientists have proposed that an embodied format also exists, where physical experiences like counting on fingers help shape how the brain understands quantities.
To explore how these mental formats interact at different life stages, the authors aimed to understand how physical representations of numbers relate to formal math competence in both children and adults. Xueying Ren, a postdoctoral scholar in psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, explained the motivation behind the research.
"While we know that number processing is foundational for mathematical competence, the underlying brain mechanisms have remained heavily debated," Ren said. "Theories of embodied cognition suggest that our abstract understanding of math is initially rooted in physical, sensory, and motor experiences, like counting on our fingers in early childhood. We wanted to look closely at both children and adults using fMRI to see how the brain's sensorimotor regions are recruited during number processing, and how that neural engagement actually tracks with real-world math abilities across different stages of development."
Functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, is a type of brain scan that measures blood flow to detect active brain areas. To conduct the study, the researchers collected imaging data from 104 adults with an average age of about 23 years. They also tested 88 fourth-grade children with an average age of nearly 10 years.
While inside the scanner, participants completed a number comparison task and a sound-based task. During the tasks, participants looked at two types of images on a screen. One type was symbolic Arabic numerals, like the visual number four. The other type was embodied representations, which consisted of color photographs of human hands holding up different numbers of fingers.
In the number task, participants had to decide if the number shown on the screen was larger or smaller than a specific target number. The participants pushed buttons to answer as quickly as possible. In the sound-based phonological task, participants had to judge if the starting sound of the number matched the starting sound of a cartoon object, like a fan or a sun.
The researchers also measured the participants' overall math abilities outside the scanner using a standardized assessment called the Woodcock-Johnson Third Edition Tests of Achievement. This assessment included three specific math tests. The Calculation subtest measured basic computation skills across various types of math. The Math Fluency subtest measured how many simple arithmetic problems the participant could solve in three minutes.
Finally, the Applied Problems subtest measured the ability to analyze and solve spoken word problems. To ensure the brain activity was specifically linked to math, the scientists also tested basic reading skills. They used two reading subtests to measure letter identification and the ability to sound out unfamiliar words. By comparing the math scores and reading scores against the brain scans, the researchers could isolate the specific neural networks responsible for numerical cognition.
When looking at the brain scans, the scientists observed that adults engaged a widespread network of brain regions when processing numbers compared to processing sounds. These areas included the occipital, temporal, parietal, and insular regions of the brain. Children activated a smaller, more localized set of brain areas during the same tasks.
"What surprised us most was the dramatic shift in how the brain is recruited for number processing as we grow up," Ren told PsyPost. "When looking at the overall brain maps, adults engage a much wider, more expansive network of regions across the brain compared to children."
"Yet, within that broader adult network, individuals with higher math proficiency actually showed reduced activation across sensorimotor and attentional areas, a pattern completely absent in children. This reveals a fascinating paradox: as the brain gains years of experience, actual math proficiency becomes marked not by working the brain harder, but by a transition toward incredible neural efficiency and automaticity."
In adults, lower activity in the somatosensory and motor cortices during the number task was associated with higher math skills. These cortices are the parts of the brain responsible for processing physical touch sensations and voluntary body movements. The authors also found that adults with better math skills showed reduced activation in the right insular cortex.
The insular cortex is a brain region that detects highly demanding cognitive tasks and signals the brain to apply more effort. Lower activation in this area suggests that mathematically proficient adults perceive basic number tasks as less mentally taxing. These adults operate on a sort of cognitive autopilot, requiring less conscious effort to process quantities.
"The core takeaway is that proficient math performance in adulthood is characterized by a fundamental neural shift toward efficiency and automaticity," Ren said. "While children rely heavily on basic quantity processing and sensory grounding to make sense of numbers, adults with higher math skills actually show reduced activation in sensorimotor and attentional brain areas. This suggests that as we gain experience, higher math proficiency isn't about working the brain harder, but rather about transitioning away from a physical 'scaffold' to more abstract, automated mental representations."
The scientists also examined the left intraparietal sulcus, a brain region known for handling numerical quantities. For adults, less activity in this region correlated with better math performance, supporting the neural efficiency hypothesis. For children, the exact opposite was true. Higher activity in the left intraparietal sulcus predicted better math scores in the fourth graders, indicating that young learners still rely heavily on basic quantity processing to succeed in math.
None of these brain activity patterns correlated with the participants' reading scores. This lack of correlation provides evidence that the reduced reliance on motor and quantity-processing regions is highly specific to mathematical skills. It does not simply reflect general intelligence or advanced reading comprehension.
A potential misinterpretation of these findings is that physical methods like finger counting are unhelpful for learning math. The authors note that physical representations often serve as a necessary scaffold for young learners as they grasp basic number concepts.
"An important caveat is that our findings do not imply that sensorimotor strategies, like a child using their fingers to count, are bad or should be abandoned early," Ren said. "Sensorimotor experiences serve as an essential, adaptive scaffold when we first learn mathematical concepts. The key is that this relationship changes over time; while physical grounding is vital for early learning, our long-term math proficiency relies on the brain eventually learning to offload that effortful physical processing to achieve automaticity."
A limitation of the study is that the data for adults and children were collected using two different brain scanners. This was partially due to scheduling constraints caused by the global pandemic. While scanner differences usually affect overall signal strength rather than specific behavioral correlations, future studies should use consistent equipment to rule out any potential interference.
"Because this study looked at separate groups of adults and fourth graders, one important next step is to utilize longitudinal designs to trace these neural transitions within the same individuals over time," Ren said. "It would be interesting and critical to pinpoint exactly when and how the brain shifts away from its reliance on sensorimotor scaffolding. Ultimately, understanding this developmental trajectory can help us design better, more tailored educational strategies and interventions for individuals who face persistent challenges in learning math."
These findings highlight a broader trend in brain development and cognition. "Overall, I think this study beautifully illustrates a broader principle in cognitive neuroscience: learning and high expertise are often marked by the brain doing less work, adaptively reducing activity as effortful control gives way to smooth automaticity," Ren said.
The study, "<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhag028" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reduced dependence on sensorimotor processing in the brain is associated with higher math skills in adults</a>," was authored by Xueying Ren, Marc N. Coutanche, Julie A. Fiez, and Melissa E. Libertus.
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