Health Mind & Brain

‘I got there first!’ How your subjective experience of time makes you think you did – even when you didn’t

‘I got there first!’ How your subjective experience of time makes you think you did – even when you didn’t

Imagine a championship match between two rival basketball teams. The game is tied, seconds left on the shot clock, two players lunge forward, reaching for the ball. In a split second, their hands both collide with the ball, but neither player gains possession. Instead, the ball goes soaring out of bounds. Immediately an argument erupts as each player claims the other knocked the ball out. The referee desperately tries to break the two apart and make the correct call.

Alzheimer’s disease: have we got the cause all wrong?

Alzheimer’s disease: have we got the cause all wrong?

Early in the 20th century, Alois Alzheimer first described a disorder of progressive memory loss and confusion in a 50-year-old woman. After she died, he examined her brain and saw that it was full of unusual protein clumps, known as plaques. Over a century later, we know that these plaques are full of a protein called beta-amyloid and are a hallmark of the disease that bears Alzheimer’s name. While other features of Alzheimer’s disease have been discovered, the theory that beta-amyloid is the main cause of this incurable disease has dominated.

All those hours you 'wasted' on gaming as a kid might have been useful after all

All those hours you 'wasted' on gaming as a kid might have been useful after all

Always had the idea that the hours you spent behind your Nintendo, Xbox, PC or Playstation must have been good for something? You can now provide that vague notion with a scientific basis. A recently published study in the Journal of Communication shows that a certain type of intelligence increases through gaming.