Memory Palace Technique, a Tool for Memory Athletes

The memory palace is a very ancient technique, which dates from the ancient Greeks and Latins. Orators in the Roman Senate used this technique to remember the concepts they had to develop in public. To be effective, this technique requires that the places in the palace be always the same and always in the same order.

Summary of Bradbury’s “The Last Night of the World”

The short story of “Last Night of the World” by Ray Bradbury is about how a couple spent one of their evenings “in their own special way”. The whole story is about a “dream” of the world coming to an end by the husband.

E-books are not Doing a Good Job at “gathering ‘metadata’ about our reading” Compared to Normal Books

This post is all about why the concept of marginalia - making notes in the margins of a book – is still a feature not considered “seriously” in e-readers. The author believes “marking up books….is one of the Seven Undying Cornerstones of Highly Effective College Studying.”

WHY OLDER PEOPLE ARE MORE FORGETFUL THAN YOUNGER ONES?

A study published in the Journal Topics in Cognitive Science tried to examine the current measures used to show that older minds are more forgetful than their younger counterparts. The study, headed by Dr. Michael Ramscar of Tübingen University, found that these methods are “flawed” and have not taken other critical factors into account.

NEW STUDY REVEALS HOW ANIMAL DEFENSES EVOLVE

The article, SOCIAL OR STINKY? NEW STUDY REVEALS HOW ANIMAL DEFENSES EVOLVE, by the University of California – Davis is about how animals defend themselves against carnivorous animals. The researchers found out that animals that are active in the night and under threat form others use “noxious spraying,” while those are active during the day and fear from from “birds of prey….live in social groups” to defend themselves against predators.

“Noxious scents” is most effect at night when vulnerable animals unexpectedly find out predators near them. At night, they may even “stumble upon a predator.”