The Evening Standard (London, England) articles from May 2008

The Evening Standard (London, England) archives from May 2008

This month in Odyssey.(Science Scoops)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Have you ever thought about what life would be like without memory? How could you learn... even your own name! Without fond memories to look back on, like your first ride on a new bike (sec our cover), life would become a blank slate, begun...

News to zap your brain!(Science Scoops)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A fifty-year-old, obese man had tried absolutely everything short of surgery to lose weight. Finally, he decided to have electrodes implanted inside his brain. All he had to do was hit a button, and zap!, his hunger...

The biggest, baddest bug ever.(Science Scoops)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Don't reach for the fly swatter--his prehistoric bug was big enough to swat you around with just one of its claws! The giant sea scorpion Jaekelopterus Rhenaniae (above) lived about 400 million years ago, and grew to be up to eight feet...

Ig Nobel prizes 2007.(Science Scoops)(ignoble)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Sure, you've all heard of the Nobel Peace Prize, but what about all those scientists studying sword-swallowing, cow dung, and wrinkled sheets? To honor the wackiest of all the unconventional research out there, the magazine The Annals of...

No talking during the test!(Science Scoops)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... But please talk beforehand. Spend just ten minutes talking to a friend before your next test, and you may get a better grade. No, you don't have to talk about history or math or whatever you're studying; some plain old socializing could help...

Stinky fish.(Science Scoops)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Let's pretend you took a bath with skunk-scented soap. What would your friends at school do? They'd probably all stand far away and say, "Peeeww! What happened?" Well, now imagine you're a fish, and you take a swim...

Memory erasers.(Science Scoops)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... You wake up one morning with lank spots in your brain. Something, or someone, is erasing your memories! Is this a science fiction nightmare, or a scientific breakthrough? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Science is still far away from erasing...

Zap! Erasing memo.
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Imagine if you were walking in a back alley in New York City and you found one of those "little, flashy things" from the movie Men in Black. You remember--Will Smith's character slips on dark sunglasses and...

Lost.
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The wind roars louder as my bike gathers speed and careens down a steep hill. Suddenly, the front wheel hits something hard. The handlebars are yanked from my grip and I pitch over them. I fly through the air and...

Forever new.
May 1, 2008... "You're beautiful," Clive Wearing said to his wife Deborah. "I adore everything about you." Clive beamed like a happy newlywed. Deborah laughed, delighted. But she knew that if she left the room and returned moments later, Clive would act the...

Memento Nora.(Short story)
May 1, 2008... The body falls like leaf in rain of stinging ash. Mother covers my eyes, but I still hear it hit the pavement. Gray covers everything. I wipe and wipe but nothing comes clean. I'm so not glossy. Someone tussles my hair. "Nora, wake...

Don't forget these movies!
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sometimes forgetting makes for a memorable movie. Yet films don't always reflect sound science. Filmmakers sometimes skimp on science to explore unrealistic ideas, like starting with a blank slate of your past. Other...

A blue car & a giant slug: how Eric Kandell found.
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Eric Kandel, the world's most famous memory researcher, can tell you exactly when his interest in memory started--a day almost 70 years ago, November 9, 1938, two days after he turned nine years old. He was pushing a...

The most "Egg-cellent" memory: learn how computers "remember." Then build your own hard drive.(ACTIVITY TO DISCOVER)
May 1, 2008... It can remember every word of your science homework, plus memorize every book in your local library. Oh, and it can memorize every book in the Library of Congress, too. Not bad for a home computer! Everyone talks about computer memory. But not...

Interpreters: silver-tongued masters of memory.
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] TODAY, MURIELLE PEREGOVOY sits in a glass-enclosed booth. An ultra-light headset rests n her ears. A microphone hovers in mid-air, inches from her mouth. Peregovoy doesn't see any of it. Her attention is riveted on...

A star is born.(interpreters)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Simultaneous interpretation was the brainchild of the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. Judges and attorneys from the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States) tried Nazi war criminals...

True or false: can you trust your memory?
May 1, 2008... Donald Thomson had the perfect alibi. The victim of a violent crime had positively identified him as her attacker. However, the Australian psychologist had been on live television when the crime took place. Apparently, the victim saw part...

Boost your memory: 7 easy tips.
May 1, 2008... Your schedule says a test tomorrow' a recital next week' and a play at the end of the month. Yikes! No wonder you're feeling like your brain is going to explode. The average person can hold only a limited amount of information (about four to...

Spaced learning: it's scientific, but does it work? Students listen attentively while a biology teacher conducts ten-minute lessons. Then it's off to the gym for a 10-minute physical activity break. It's high-speed learning, and it's based on the latest discoveries in neuroscience about how we learn. Experimental trials in England indicate it works.(Kids Can ... Do Amazing Science)
May 1, 2008... Spaced Learning: A Student's Viewpoint by Lucy Barratt, Monkseaton High School age 16 What if I told you short, intense lessons are more important to good grades than hours and hours of uninterrupted study? Would you think I was...

Brain trip.(BRAIN STRAIN)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... You are in a tiny submarine inside a complicated electronic brain. You are there to repair the brain's memory function, but its defense system doesn't remember that, and therefore it wants to destroy you. You must escape. But the brain has...

Star chart.(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... To use the All-Sky Charts, first use a compass to find the direction you are facing--north, south, east, or west. Turn the chart so that the direction you are facing appears at the bottom of the chart. The chart will match the stars you see in...

The rival of mars and how the scorpion lost its claws.(STARGAZING)(Cartoon)
May 1, 2008... Watch Jack Horkheimer'. StarGazer, the award-winning international television series. Call your local PBS station for show times. StarGazer is a production of WPBT Miami, produced in cooperation with the Miami Museum of Science and Space...

Been there ... done that!(ASK DR. CY BORG)(Deja vu)
May 1, 2008... Dear Dr. B, How does deja uu work? Ethan, web post. I think you already asked me that question. Just kidding. Deja vu (French for "already seen") is the strange sensation of experiencing something new, yet feeling like you have had the...

Been done ... so what?!(ASK DR. CY BORG)(deja vu)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Dear Dr. B, How does deja vu work? Ethan, Web post I think you already asked me that question. Just kidding. Deja vu (French for "already seen") is the strange sense Dr. Cy Borg is the alter ego of Dr. Laura Gehl, who holds...

You've got mail!
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the January 2008 issue in "Science Scoops," we described the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) project. GENI's goal is to rebuild the Internet from scratch. We asked you what you thought about...

Hmm? The most interesting book you'll ever read about memory.(KIDS' PICKS)(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2008... by Diane Swanson (Kids Can Press, Ltd., 2001) Did you ever stop to think about the fact that having a memory means having a life? If you couldn't remember what happened yesterday, last week, or just minutes ago, hmmm! Life wouldn't be...

Tiny brain? Don't bee fooled.(Animal Angles)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Karl von Frisch, who discovered the dance language of the honeybee (Apis mellifera), once wrote, "The brain of a bee is the size of a grass seed and is not made for thinking." Forty-six years later, scientists agree...

Remembering yesterday.(BOOMERANG!)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Of course animals can't talk, so it's not easy to know what they remember. Set up your own memory experiment (like the one described here with the bees) for a pet--a goldfish, a ferret, or even a barnyard animal like a pig or cow. See if you...