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Savant Syndrome Sometimes, extraordinary abilities are demonstrated by those who are extraordinarily limited. The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. A synopsis: past, present, future And sometimes, abilities arise from an illness of, or injury to, the brain. Eureka! When a Blow to the Head Creates a Sudden Genius
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The mathemagical number 9 Today, I’ll walk you through Arthur Benjamin’s trick. Once again, here’s a link to his ted talk. He does the trick I’m giving away at around 5 minutes and 42 seconds. A performance of “Mathemagic”
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Pick a number After enjoying Arthur Benjamin doing his mathemagics, I thought I’d give it a try for myself. I wrote a little software and gave it a go. Join me and you’ll find out why I’m not a mental calculator, but that anyone can do it if they know the trick. Here’s a link …
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From mnemonic and memory to math and mental calculation You could be better at doing math than you might think. There are methods that allow one to do tricks with numbers that seem just across the street from flat out impossible. Watch as Arthur Benjamin shows us how one can calculate in ones head, sometimes …
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Memories and lasers and mice, oh my! Today’s episode is just to point you at an interesting ted talk. I don’t say much other than that you should check out this link. So, check out this link. A mouse. A laser beam. A manipulated memory. It’s about 15 minutes long, and it explains how they …
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Now where did I put…? Today, we examine the method of placing things you wish to remember within a place that you hold in your mind. For background, here’s a roughly 9-minute ted talk on systems in your brain related to memory, and how your brain keeps track of where you are, or even, where …
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As I recall Today is an introduction to Mnemonics—methods you can use to improve your memory. Here’s a 20-minute Ted talk that explains the topic nicely, including how one method works. Feats of memory anyone can do And here are no less than three separate wikibooks that let you find out how many of the …
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Back to the question It’s Monday, and I thought I’d recap what happened last week. (Who knows what you were up to this weekend.) Here’s the link I added to episode 1’s show page, just because. Comparison of the effects of unilateral and bilateral eye closure In cortical responses in kittens. And here’s the link …
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Plants grow differently in different gravity, and the brains of kittens develop differently when deprived of vision. So, what about those pesky humans? Here’s an article from Scientific American about differences in the brains of those who lose their hearing or sight at an early age. Super Powers for the Blind and Deaf – Scientific …