What hasn’t received nearly as much atten­tion from memory researchers is how the brain forgets. “The vast majority of the things that are happening to me in my life — the conscious expe­ri­ence I’m having right now — I’m most likely not going to remember when I’m 80,” said Michael Anderson, a memory researcher at the Univer­sity of Cambridge, who has been studying forget­ting since … Continue reading →

As video games get better and job prospects worse, more young men are drop­ping out of the job market to spend their time in an alter­nate reality. Ryan Avent suspects this is the begin­ning of some­thing big Read full article: The Econ­o­mist 1843, “Escape to another world.”

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion last month added “internet gaming disorder” to its manual of psychi­atric diag­noses, and the reac­tion was, shall we say, muted.  At a time when millions of grown adults exchange one-liners with Siri or Alexa, the diag­nosis seems years overdue, doesn’t it? Read full article, The New York Times, “Endless Gaming May Be a Bad Habit. That Doesn’t Make It a Mental … Continue reading →

The elec­trical oscil­la­tions we call brain waves have intrigued scien­tists and the public for more than a century. But their function—and even whether they have one, rather than just reflecting brain activity like an engine’s hum—is still debated. Many neuro­sci­en­tists have assumed that if brain waves do anything, it is by oscil­lating in synchrony in different loca­tions. Yet a growing body of research suggests many … Continue reading →