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Enlarge ImageDéjà vu? Subjects were shown dozens of pictures like these and tested on whether they remembered them the next day.Credit: U. Rimmele et al., J. Neuroscience, 7 January 2009 The next time you spot an old friend from across the room, thank oxytocin. Researchers have shown that the brain hormone helps us sense whether a face is familiar. Oxytocin is a powerful social chemical. In voles, for example, the hormone is key to attachment behavior: Males with higher levels of oxytocin are more likely to be faithful to their mates. Humans also make use of the hormone. Oxytocin...

A new study shows that sugar may not be so sweet for the brain – and may lead to memory problems.

Toshiba announced today the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512 GB SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSD's based on 43 nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND. In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules. These 2nd generation SSD's offer increased capacity and performance for notebook computers. They utilize an advanced MLC controller that achieves higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to...

ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2008) — It turns out there's a scientific reason why older people tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses. Medical researchers have identified brain activity that causes older adults to remember fewer negative events than their younger counterparts. Neuroscientists from Duke University Medical Center have discovered that older people use their brains differently than younger people when it comes to storing memories, particularly those associated with negative emotions.

DRAM makers are facing one of the worst downturns in their history and governments around the world are lining up to help companies through the mess. Taiwan, Germany and South Korea all appear poised to offer some assistance to their DRAM chip makers. The need could not be greater. Long before the global financial crisis hit, DRAM makers suffered steep sales declines due to a glut of their chips. DRAM prices are now at rock bottom and companies are cutting back production instead of making more chips at such steep losses. The next few weeks will be the best time...

He knew his name. That much he could remember. He knew that his father’s family came from Thibodaux, La., and his mother was from Ireland, and he knew about the 1929 stock market crash and World War II and life in the 1940s. But he could remember almost nothing after that. In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories. For the next 55 years, each time he...

This memorial has been REDONE, to express the moment of that day and the memory of sacrifices made aboard the Naval carrier USS Forrestal - CVA-59 on July 29, 1967 in North Vietnam -- Gulf of Tonkin, South China Sea, at or about 10:50 AM. Once the fires were extinguished, the extent of the devastation was apparent. Most tragic was the loss to the crew, 134 had lost their lives, while an additional 64 were injured. This disaster remains the single worst loss of life on a Naval vessel since the USS Franklin (CV-13) was bombed in WWII while operating...

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was upset that they played video at the Republican convention that included the 9/11 attacks. Talk-radio host Mark Levin has a different opinion: This is the video that Keith Olbermann does not think we should see. Me.A friend of a friend took two photographs at 8:49 a.m., September 11, 2001, from about halfway up inisde the South Tower, 14 minutes before Islamic terrorists slammed United Airlines Flight 175 into it. Those photos are hard to look at. They show smoke pouring out of a gaping hole in the North Tower above, from where American Airlines Flight 11...

Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but also, in part, how the brain is able to recreate it. The recordings, taken from the brains of epilepsy patients being prepared for surgery, demonstrate that these spontaneous memories reside in some of the same neurons that fired most furiously when the recalled event had been experienced. Researchers had long theorized as much but until now had only indirect evidence. Experts said the study had all but closed the case: For the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2008 – Fifteen minutes before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack at the Pentagon, two sisters, both Defense Department employees, sat in the building’s five-sided center courtyard to talk about their family’s newest development. “We discussed her daughter’s first day in kindergarten,” said Kathy Dillaber, recalling the conversation with her “baby sister,” 41-year-old Patricia Mickley. As they spoke, the sisters watched an airplane streak above the open-air courtyard, and their discussion shifted to early reports that morning about a pair of planes crashing in New York City. About 10 minutes later they walked together toward their...

LONDON (Reuters) - Eating tuna and other fatty fish may help prevent memory loss in addition to reducing the risk of stroke, Finnish researchers said on Monday. People who ate baked or broiled -- but not fried -- fish high in omega-3 fatty acids have been found to be less likely to have "silent" brain lesions that can cause memory loss and dementia and are linked to a higher risk of stroke, said Jyrki Virtanen of the University of Kuopio in Finland.

A new drug halts the devastating progress of Alzheimer’s disease, say British scientists. It is said to be more than twice as effective as current treatments. A daily capsule of rember, as the drug is known, stops Alzheimer’s disease progressing by as much as 81 per cent, according to trial results. Patients with the brain disorder had no significant decline in their mental function over a 19-month period. ‘We appear to be bringing the worst affected parts of the brain functionally back to life,’ said Dr Claude Wischik, who led the research. It is the first time medication has been...

Oops ! He forgot your birthday again. Well do not blame his memory for this innocent forgetfulness as the the reason behind it is down in the genes. While men may fail to match a woman's ability to remember the date of an anniversary, they are better at storing a seemingly endless cache of facts and figures and all this is because of genetic differences. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, have found that males use different genes from females when making the new connections in the brain that are needed to create long-term memories. They believe...

A refreshing night's sleep may be the best way to boost memory, a study suggests. Researchers found sleep appears to have a dramatic impact on the way the brain functions the next day. It appears to strengthen connections between nerve cells in the brain - a process key to both learning and memory. The University of Geneva study was presented to a Federation of European Neuroscience Societies conference. The researchers studied a group of volunteers who were taught a new skill or shown images they would later have to remember. The skill tasks included trying to follow a moving dot...

Eating high levels of some soy products - including tofu - may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests.

Low Levels Of Good Cholesterol Linked To Memory Loss, Dementia Risk ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — Low levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) -- the "good" cholesterol -- in middle age may increase the risk of memory loss and lead to dementia later in life, researchers reported in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association. Observing 3,673 participants (26.8 percent women) from the Whitehall II study, researchers found that falling levels of HDL cholesterol were predictors of declining memory by age 60. Whitehall II, which began in 1985, is long-term health examination of more than 10,000 British...

Today is Memorial Day, May 30, 2008 and this video in my heart of hearts had to be “REDONE”, to express the moment of that day and the memory of sacrifices made aboard the Naval carrier USS Farrestal - CVA-59 on July 29, 1967 in North Vietnam – Gulf of Tonkin, South China Sea, at or about 10:50 AM. The results of the disaster were, fatalities 134 and as many as 70 or more men wounded. The song in this video is sung by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, “I’m on the Battle Field’ and color pictures are contributed...

This video is in memory of sacrifices made aboard the Naval carrier USS Farrestal, CVA-59 on July 29, 1967 in North Vietnam – Gulf of Tonkin, South China Sea, at or about 10:50 AM. The results of the disaster were, fatalities 134 and as many as 70 or more men wounded. The song in this video is sung by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, “Down by the Riverside’ and color pictures are contributed by Bill Mason, PH2-US Navy. In the video is the actual voice of Captain John Beling, recorded during the beginning of the fires and disaster.

THIS drug is peddled on every street corner in America, and is found in every country in the world. It is psychoactive, a stimulant and addictive. Users say that it increases alertness and focus, and reduces fatigue. But the high does not last and addicts must keep consuming it in increasing quantities. Put this way, sipping coffee sounds more like an abomination than the world's most accepted form of drug abuse. But centuries of familiarity have put people at their ease. In the coming years science is likely to create many novel drugs that boost memory, concentration and planning. These...

The woman who can remember everything Last updated: 10:15 AM BST 09/05/2008 A woman who has baffled doctors with her ability to remember every detail of every day has broken her anonymity to speak of her condition. Jill Price, 42, can remember every part of her life since she was 14 but considers her ability a curse as she cannot switch off. She described her life as like a split-screen television, with one side showing what she is doing in the present, and the other showing the memories which she cannot hold back. Every detail about every day since 1980...