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Source: Association for Psychological Science Date: August 28, 2007 We Remember Bad Times Better Than Good Science Daily — Do you remember exactly where you were when you learned of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Your answer is probably yes, and researchers are beginning to understand why we remember events that carry negative emotional weight. In the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston College psychologist, Elizabeth Kensinger and colleagues, explain when emotion is likely to reduce our memory inconsistencies. Her research shows that whether an event is pleasurable or...

1000GB = 20 times the size of a dual-layer Blu-ray disc Blu-ray and HD DVD have pushed the limits of optical storage further than anyone thought possible. But a new technology has emerged which makes Blu-ray's 50GB capacity look tiny. Mempile in Israel says it's able to fit an incredible 1TB of data onto one "TeraDisc" which is the same size as CDs and DVDs. That's 20 times the capacity of a maxed-out dual-layer Blu-ray disc. The incredible capacity achieved using this new technology is made possible by employing 200 5GB layers, each one only five microns apart. The discs...

Gary Lynch has spent decades trying to understand how the brain processes new information so that we can recall it later. The first time I spoke with the neuroscientist Gary Lynch, the conversation went something like this: Me: I'm interested in spending time in a laboratory like yours, where the principal focus is the study of memory. I'd like to explain how memory functions and fails, and why, and use the work in the lab as a means to illustrate how we know what we know. Lynch: You'd be welcome to come here. This would actually be a propitious time...

I was introduced to my first sociable robot on a sunny afternoon in June. The robot, developed by graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named Mertz. It had camera sensors behind its eyes, which were programmed to detect faces; when it found mine, the robot was supposed to gaze at me directly to initiate a kind of conversation. But Mertz was on the fritz that day, and one of its designers, a dark-haired young woman named Lijin Aryananda, was trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Mertz was getting fidgety, Aryananda was getting frustrated and...

WASHINGTON: Psychologists that the University of Oregon say that the capacity of short-term memory is a strong predictor of an individual's IQ level and scholastic achievement. A study conducted by them has shown that an average person can think only about four items at a time, but people with high IQ levels can remember more articles. Professor Edward Awh and Professor Edward Vogel of the university conducted laboratory experiments to test their hypothesis that the memory capacity might be influenced by the complexity of items being stored, something that might cause a four-item limit for most people. The study showed...

Shifty eyes may be a sign of good memory By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 11:41pm BST 04/05/2007 Moving your eyes from side to side for 30 seconds can boost your power of recall, researchers say. Horizontal eye wiggles are thought to cause the two hemispheres of the brain to interact more, improving the ability to retrieve memories. Scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University found people who made horizontal eye movements recognised significantly more previously studied words than subjects who did not make such eye movements. They also had fewer errors in their recall. Dr Andrew Parker, whose findings are...

Introduction: The difference between a faulty memory and lying may be a 30 year prison sentence. At least that is what Scooter Libby found out. He was convicted of lying to both the FBI and a grand jury about conversations he had with Tim Russert and Matt Cooper. The Jury decided Libby did not have a faulty memory nor was he confused or simply mistaken when he claimed NBC’s Tim Russert was the first to tell him of Plame’s CIA status. Russert, a well known media person, denied he told Libby about Plame. Before, during and after the trial Russert...

I. Mr. Weinstein’s Cyst When historians of the future try to identify the moment that neuroscience began to transform the American legal system, they may point to a little-noticed case from the early 1990s. The case involved Herbert Weinstein, a 65-year-old ad executive who was charged with strangling his wife, Barbara, to death and then, in an effort to make the murder look like a suicide, throwing her body out the window of their 12th-floor apartment on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. Before the trial began, Weinstein’s lawyer suggested that his client should not be held responsible for his actions...

The beautiful and deeply religious Madame de Tourvel is so distraught after cheating on her husband in the 1782 novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” that she blacks out the betrayal altogether, arriving at a convent with no idea of what had brought her there. Soon the horror of the infidelity rushes back, in all its incriminating force. More than two centuries later, she has become part of a longstanding debate about whether the brain can block access to painful memories, like betrayals and childhood sexual abuse, and suddenly release them later on. In a paper posted online in the current issue...

Casey E. Mellen is going back to the military as a way to honor his son killed in Iraq last year. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review) Herald/Review HUACHUCA CITY — This is a story about a father taking up the warrior’s mantle from a fallen son. Casey E. Mellen took off an Army uniform more than 20 years ago after serving more than six years in the service. In the two decades since, the 44-year-old thought the days of saluting, marching and other GI activities were over. But Mellen’s son, Casey L., who is known as Case, was killed in action while on...

Folic acid 'increases memory' By Nic Fleming, Medical Correspondent Last Updated: 2:26am GMT 19/01/2007 Folic acid supplements can significantly improve the memory and brain power of older people, according to a study to be published today. Researchers found that men and post-menopausal women aged between 50 and 70 who took daily doses had the mental abilities of those almost five years their junior. The supplements also helped maintain speed of information processing, reactions involving movement and overall brain power. These abilities decline with age, and their loss has been linked to a higher risk of dementia. Folate, the natural form...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Is there hope for your hippocampus, a new lease for your temporal lobe? Science is not sure yet, but across the country, brain health programs are springing up, offering the possibility of a cognitive fountain of youth. From “brain gyms” on the Internet to “brain-healthy” foods and activities at assisted living centers, the programs are aimed at baby boomers anxious about entering their golden years and at their parents trying to stave off memory loss or dementia. “This is going to be one of the hottest topics in the next five years — it’s going to be...

Scientists say they have the first real proof that keeping the mind active by playing memory and word games has a long-term effect on stopping older people’s mental sharpness from going rusty. A study, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has found that the benefits of mind training can last as long as five years, helping people to maintain the ability to do everyday tasks such as shopping, making meals and handling finances. In the American study of 2800 people aged 65 and older, some were not given any cognitive training, while others attended up to 10...

Why We 'Never Forget A Face'Are you one of those people who never forgets a face? An example of the drawings of faces, watches and cars that were used in the study. (Courtesy of Isabel Gauthier) New research from Vanderbilt University suggests that we can remember more faces than other objects and that faces "stick" the best in our short-term memory. The reason may be that our expertise in remembering faces allows us to package them better for memory. "Our results show that we can store more faces than other objects in our visual short-term memory," Gauthier, associate professor of...

(CBS) If there were something you could take after experiencing a painful or traumatic event that would permanently weaken your memory of what had just happened, would you take it? As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, it’s an idea that may not be so far off, and that has some critics alarmed, and some trauma victims filled with hope. "I couldn't get my body to stop shaking. I was trembling, constantly trembling. Memories of it would just come back, reoccurring over and over and over," subway conductor Beatriz Arguedas recalls. Last Sept. 30, Beatriz was driving her normal route on the Red...

11/14/2006 - TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFPN) -- Base officials, family members and friends gathered here Nov. 7 to remember a fallen NCO and participate in a dedication ceremony. The Tech. Sgt. Jason Norton Military Working Dog Facility was dedicated in the base's security forces complex. Sergeant Norton was killed Jan. 22 while deployed in support of the war on terrorism; his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device while conducting convoy escort duties near Taji, Iraq. About 25 members and friends traveled from Florida and other states to attend the ceremony at Tinker, where Sergeant Norton had been assigned...

Applying a gentle electric current to the brain during sleep can significantly boost memory, researchers report. A small new study showed that half an hour of this brain stimulation improved students? performance at a verbal memory task by about 8%. The approach enhances memory by creating a form of electrical current in the brain seen in deep sleep, the researchers suggest. ... The students? various sleep stages were monitored using an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine. When the students entered a period of light sleep, Born?s team started to apply a gentle current in one-second-long pulses, every second, for about 30 minutes....

ONE hundred years ago today, a 42-year-old German psychiatrist and neuropathologist named Alois Alzheimer shocked colleagues with his description of one woman’s autopsied brain. The woman was named Auguste Deter. Five years earlier, her husband had admitted her to Alzheimer’s psychiatric hospital in Frankfurt with a disturbing set of symptoms: memory trouble, aphasia (loss of the ability to use words), confusion, bursts of anger and paranoia. She had become a danger to herself in the kitchen and needed constant care. Alzheimer found his new patient sitting on a bed with a helpless expression. “What is your name?” he asked. “Auguste,”...

ATLANTA, GEORGIA--Going a night without sleep may cause your hippocampus to go on strike. A new study has caught this crucial memory-encoding brain region slacking off in college students the day after they've pulled an all-nighter. The study is one of the first to investigate how sleep deprivation interferes with memory mechanisms in the human brain. Neuroscientist Matthew Walker of Harvard University and his colleagues paid 10 undergraduate students to forgo a night's sleep. The next day, the students viewed a series of 30 words, and two days later--after having two nights to catch up on their sleep--the students returned...

The eve of one of Poland's biggest holidays 31.10.2006 Halloween is the eve of one of the biggest Polish holidays – All Saints Day and All Souls Day, devoted to remembering and honouring the dead. Particularly November 1st is devoted nationwide to visiting cemeteries to light candles and lay flowers on the graves of loved ones and at sites commemorating events from Polish history. The day is also an occasion for a special collection held by famous actors and public personalities to support a restoration fund for historic Polish cemeteries in and outside the country.

Army Spc. Claudia Carreon has a 2-year-old daughter, but cannot remember being pregnant or giving birth. She has two brothers and two sisters, but doesn't know who they are without nametags. She sometimes can't recall what she ate for breakfast, or where she put things when she cleaned up. "My mother found the toaster in the refrigerator," said Carreon, 32, an Iraq War veteran left with a brain injury that wiped her memory clean. The Tucson woman now lives in a discombobulated world, where conversations often don't make sense, hallucinations come without warning and relationships must be reconstructed daily from...

Physicists at the University of Chicago have discovered that air bubbles retain a "memory" of how they are formed (Phys Rev Lett 97 144503). Their study revealed that the initial conditions of bubble formation can affect the dynamics of the singularity that occurs when a bubble pinches off a nozzle. This could have profound implications for our understanding of other phenomena that involve singularities including the formation of black holes or supernovae. A singularity occurs when one or more of the physical parameters in a system approaches infinity. In bubble formation, this occurs at the moment of pinch-off, when the...

The flow of copper in the brain has a previously unrecognized role in cell death, learning and memory, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers' findings suggest that copper and its transporter, a protein called Atp7a, are vital to human thinking. They speculate that variations in the genes coding for Atp7a, as well as other proteins of copper homeostasis, could partially account for differences in thinking among individuals. Using rat and mouse nerve cells to study the role of copper in the brain, the researchers found that the Atp7a protein shuttles copper to...

rom pin numbers to people's names, most Britons have a tough time remembering everyday things, a survey said. In total 87% of Britons have difficulty remembering everyday things, while a third of women admitted forgetting where they have put things and 30% of men struggled to remember people's names. The results are part of Alzheimer's Society's Million Memories campaign which includes a website - www.millionmemories.org.uk - to help store people's memories and raise awareness of memory loss. Remembering where they put things was a problem for 42% of 16-24 year olds compared to 23% of the over 65s. Alzheimer's Society...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2006 -- As the United States gets ready to mark the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept, 11, 2001, it is important to remember and honor the memory of every person lost on that day, President Bush said today. “We also remember the brutality of the enemy who struck our country and renew our resolve to defeat this enemy and secure a future of peace and freedom,” Bush said in his weekly radio address to the nation. The president gave a series of speeches earlier this week regarding the nature of the terrorist enemy, the...

In an article in Science magazine, SUNY Downstate researchers describe erasing memory from the brain by targeting a molecular mechanism that controls memory. Finding may be applied to chronic pain, memory loss, and other conditions.Scientists at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have discovered a molecular mechanism that maintains memories in the brain. In an article in Science magazine, they demonstrate that by inhibiting the molecule they can erase long-term memories, much as you might erase a computer disc.Furthermore, erasing the memory from the brain does not prevent the ability to re-learn the memory, much as a cleaned computer disc may be...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German scientist has been testing an "anti-stupidity" pill with encouraging results on mice and fruit flies, Bild newspaper reported on Saturday. It said Hans-Hilger Ropers, director at Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, has tested a pill thwarting hyperactivity in certain brain nerve cells, helping stabilise short-term memory and improve attentiveness. "With mice and fruit flies we were able to eliminate the loss of short-term memory," Ropers, 62, is quoted saying in the German newspaper, which has dubbed it the "world's first anti-stupidity pill."

A bout of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may do damage to the brain that kick-starts memory problems, scientists have discovered. Even patients who had recovered from a period of stress started to get age-related memory difficulties about a decade earlier than non-traumatized people, they report. Post-traumatic stress, a condition that can cause patients to feel physical pain on remembering a traumatic event, is known to have a number of effects on the mind and body. One of the side effects is that patients tend to be forgetful, unable to remember a story or a list of words after they've heard...

Hewlett-Packard's research arm on Monday unveiled a wireless memory chip that can stick to any surface -- a technology that could help put more digital data into everyday objects. Dubbed the Memory Spot, the new device is about the size of a grain of rice and can store several megabytes of data. In a few years, the chip should be cheap enough to put on everything from photos to drug labels, HP (NYSE:HPQ - News) engineers say. "The next generation of kids will use these things in ways I can't even envision today," said Ed McDonnell, who heads the project....

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania found that sleep benefits an individual's ability to recall recently learned declarative memories, even when recall of these memories is challenged hours later by competing information. This finding is particularly important for individuals with mentally demanding lifestyles, such as doctors, medical residents and college students, who often do not get adequate amounts of sleep. The study appears in the July 11, 2006 issue of Current Biology. Declarative memories, or hippocampus-mediated memories, are types of memories about facts and events that can generally be put into words....

Mr. Peabrain's Misadventures BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on May 26, 1996.) I am feeling great, and I will tell you why. It's because of this article I read recently that said ... um ... it said ... OK, wait just a minute while I get out this article. ... OK, here it is: According to this article, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania did a study showing that, as males -- but not females -- get older, their brains shrink. Was I ever relieved to read that! I thought it was just me!...

I'm just trying to be a father Raise a daughter and a son Be a lover to their mother Everything to everyone Up and at 'em, bright and early I'm all business in my suit Yeah, I'm dressed up for success From my head down to my boots I don't do it for the money There's bills that I can't pay I don't do it for the glory I just do it anyway Providing for our future's my responsibility Yeah I'm real good under pressure Being all that I can be And I can't call in sick on Mondays...

Dull Hillary stumbles and the memory of Bill lingers on By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 24/05/2006) Hillary Clinton may be the Democratic front-runner for the presidency but she seems to have a lot to learn about campaigning for the White House. In a weighty speech to journalists at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday, the senator squandered an opportunity to shine before a critically important audience - the journalists who will present her to the public if, as expected, she declares her candidacy for the 2008 nomination. It began well enough. Resplendent in a lemon yellow two-piece and...

MEMORIAL DAY 2006 -- Taps Vigil Son Jarrin is a third year cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He tells a lot of stories about the traditions there, but one stands out. It concerns the Taps Vigil. The Corps of cadets at West Point numbers about 4,000. They live in a military-structured environment. They wear the same uniforms. They have the same haircuts. They eat in the same mess hall at the same time, and they assemble in formation at the end of each day rain, sleet, or snow, to hear Taps. Taps is...

A HUMILIATING accident. An apparent memory lapse. A sudden, emotional confession. Representative Patrick Kennedy's car crash on Capitol Hill early Thursday and a news conference a day later had a familiar rhythm, especially for those who study addiction or know it firsthand. Mr. Kennedy, a six-term Democrat from Rhode Island, said that his addiction was to prescription medication and that he planned to seek treatment at an addiction clinic, as he had done before. "I struggle every day with this disease, as do millions of Americans," said Mr. Kennedy, who is 38. But will a cure that apparently didn't take...

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2006 – President Bush today honored the memory of a graduate who died in Iraq during his commencement address at Oklahoma State University. The president noted that 27 members of this year's graduating class are also receiving their commissions as Army or Air Force officers today as graduates of the ROTC program. Bush commended the new officers for choosing to embrace public service and for following the example set by a 2002 OSU graduate, Luke James. With a wife and infant son, "Luke had the world at his feet," Bush said. Yet, he chose a life of...

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. (April 6, 2006) -- Greg Medina awoke in the early morning hours of Nov. 12, 2004, with an intense, shooting pain in his side. Clutching the ache, Medina was unable to cry out; he could hardly breathe. After several agonizing minutes the pain subsided, but was replaced with a haunting sense that he had lost his son, Lance Cpl. Brian Medina, an infantryman then serving with B Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 3rd Marine Division in Fallujah, Iraq. Medina went to his job as usual that morning at the construction site of the new Social...

Patients who underwent a minimally invasive procedure to reduce their risk of a stroke by clearing plaque from neck arteries had unexpected gains in memory and mental skills, according to a study that will be presented today at a medical conference in Toronto. If the results are confirmed by other trials, wider use of the procedure may allow many elderly people to continue to live independently, said Dr. Rodney Raabe, the radiologist who led the research team at the Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Wash. The procedure is known as carotid stenting and has been recently developed as an...

James McGaugh is one of the world's leading experts on how the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he's stumped. McGaugh's journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial events that happened decades ago. Give her any date, she said, and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on...

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE Women who are approaching menopause and feel their memories are slipping may be right -- but it's not because their memories are becoming impaired with advancing age, a new study finds. Instead, researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center found that there's a link between the complaints of forgetfulness and the way the brains of middle-aged, stressed women learn or encode new data. "It feels like a memory problem, but the cause is different. It feels like you don't remember, but that's because you never really 'learned' the information in the first place," said Mark...

"An apple a day" now has new meaning for those who want to maintain mental dexterity as they age. New research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell suggests that consuming apple juice may protect against cell damage that contributes to age-related memory loss, even in test animals that were not prone to developing Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. "This new study suggests that eating and drinking apples and apple juice, in conjunction with a balanced diet, can protect the brain from the effects of oxidative stress – and that we should eat such antioxidant-rich foods," notes lead researcher Thomas B....

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University have provided evidence that the act of recalling a memory is a bit like mental time travel. Their study, presented in the Dec. 23 edition of the journal Science, demonstrates that the same areas of the brain that are active during an event are activated when a person attempts to recall that event -- seconds before the memory surfaces. "This study shows that, as you search for memories of a particular event, your brain state progressively comes to resemble the state it was in...

To recall memories, your brain travels back in time via the ultimate Google search, according to a new study in which scientists found they can monitor the activity and actually predict what you'll think of next. The work bolsters the validity of a longstanding hypothesis that the human brain takes itself back to the state it was in when a memory was first formed. The psychologist Endel Tulving dubbed this process "mental time travel." How it works Researchers analyzed brain scans of people as the test subjects watched pictures on a computer screen. The images were divided into three categories:...

Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables not only makes you healthier but may also help keep your memory strong, says a study. A team of researchers led by Heidi Wengreen at Utah State University tested the memory of over 5,000 seniors up to four times over an eight-year period. At the beginning, the participants also answered questions about their eating habits, the online edition of ABC news reported. The group of seniors with the highest intake of fruits and vegetables, five or more servings a day, scored higher on the test than the rest of the participants. Moreover, those who...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Samsung, the world's largest maker of memory chips for computers and other electronic gadgets, will plead guilty to price fixing and pay a $300 million fine, federal officials announced Thursday. The penalty is the second-largest criminal antitrust fine in history and caps a three-year investigation of the largest makers of "dynamic random access memory" chips, a $7.7 billion market in the United States. The guilty plea by South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor Inc., was to be entered Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The Justice Department already has...

The July issue of Time Magazine, a "Special Issue" as they are selling it, has several segments on President Abraham Lincoln one of which is penned by the Junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. In this issue the articles ruminate on how Lincoln has been understood or misunderstood by the "ages" to which Secretary of War and one time Lincoln rival, Edwin M. Stanton, remanded him upon the President's assassination. There are 5 articles on the Civil War leader, one superfluous one on Lincoln impersonators and Obama's piece, which is termed a "viewpoint". Along with an excellent chart called "Slavery...

High-dose folic acid pills — providing as much of the nutrient as 2.5 pounds of strawberries — might help slow the cognitive decline of aging. So says a Dutch study that's the first to show a vitamin could really improve memory. The research, unveiled Monday at a meeting of Alzheimer's researchers, adds to mounting evidence that a diet higher in folate is important for a variety of health effects. It's already proven to reduce birth defects, and research suggests it helps ward off heart disease and strokes, too. The new study doesn't show folic acid could prevent Alzheimer's — the...

There's a bunch of new articles at The Perpsective, including: The Real Equivalent It Was a "Cease-Fire"????? Selcetive Memory Syndrome Good News...In Spades! "Glenn Beck on Ice" Just click the ink and enjoy! Thanks for your support!

Memorial DayBy Edgar Guest The finest tribute we can pay Unto our hero dead today, Is not a rose wreath, white and red, In memory of the blood they shed; It is to stand beside each mound, Each couch of consecrated ground, And pledge ourselves as warriors true Unto the work they died to do. Into God's valleys where they lie At rest, beneath the open sky, Triumphant now o'er every foe, As living tributes let us go. No wreath of rose or immortelles Or spoken word or tolling bells Will do to-day, unless we give Our pledge that...

"It was hot that day… hot as hell itself. The sweat poured from our skin rolling like water off a ducks back. Our routine patrol has been pushed back an hour to 15:00, it would be dark in a few hours and the cool night breeze would soon blow refreshingly upon us. But darkness and cold would come sooner than we expected. Our mission was simple, patrol a major highway to maintain an American presence and disrupt insurgent activity. For us that meant just another sweaty ride around the block, a handful of jokes to pass the time, and maybe...