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Subscribe to RSS FeedScientists Changing Theories About Memory : NPR
Everyone knows that frustrating feeling when something is just “on the tip of your tongue.” Like when you run into an old acquaintance on the street — you know you know the person’s name, but it just seems slightly out of your grasp.
Neuroscientists are now studying that phenomenon with brain scanners, and their research is completely changing their view of how human memory works, explains Jonah Lehrer, editor-at-large at Seed magazine and author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist.
Tags: Brain, Memory, NPR, Science
Building a Baby Earth to Test Its Magnetic Field : NPR
The compass has been around since at least the 12th century, but scientists still don’t know exactly how the Earth generates the magnetic field that keeps a compass needle pointing north.
But geophysicist Dan Lathrop is trying to find out — by building his own planet.
His latest effort at the University of Maryland towers over him, a massive stainless steel sphere that looks like a prop from some old science fiction movie. Later this year he plans to fill it with molten metal and set the whole 26-ton ball spinning. At top speed the equator will whirl by at 80 miles an hour.
“It was a little scary the first time we spun it up,” he says.
If all goes well, the planet will generate its own magnetic field.