Frank Bures

“When Joshua Foer showed up at the ­U.S. Memory Championships in 2005, he thought  he was going to write a quirky story about some brainy oddballs with impressive memories. He didn’t suspect that this venture would introduce him to the complexities of mnemonic devices, teach him some ancient history and lead him to uncover his own mental prowess. He returned the following year as a top contender.

While researching Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Foer learned that becoming a grand master of memory requires accomplishing several seemingly impossible objectives. You have to remember the order of 10 shuffled decks of playing cards in less than an hour, 1,000 digits in the same amount of time, and one shuffled deck in less than two minutes. The winner takes home a trophy and a ticket to the World Memory Championships in London.”

Read the rest.

While giving a lecture at a hospital in Chennai, India, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran met a young man with a strange problem.

“What brings you to our hospital?” asked Ramachandran, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego.

“I am a corpse—I can smell the stench of rotting flesh,” the young man replied.

“Are you saying you are dead?” Ramachandran pressed.

“Yes. I don’t exist,” the man confirmed.

Read the rest here, or in the January/February issue of Scientific American Mind.

If you find relationships challenging to cultivate and maintain, then you are in good company. In his new book, evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar argues that our ability to manage such complex social connections—love lives, work colleagues, childhood buddies and friendly acquaintances—is what drove humans to develop such large brains in the first place.

Read the rest of the review of How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks, by Robin Dunbar here.