Wish you had a time machine? Can’t find a Delorean on eBay. Over the last few years, I have been using music as a device to reconnect with old friends, quickly escape from current events, and transport myself to a different time and place through the power of music. It became such a habit that […]
Care Work and Our Responsibility to the Elderly
The front page of Sunday’s New York Times featured a list of one thousand names of Americans who have died from coronavirus. At the time of publication, the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. was just over 96,000, which the Times described as “an incalculable loss.” The acts of remembering, of witnessing suffering, of sitting […]
Language learning and memory
Think back to high school. Did you take a foreign language? If so, how much do you remember? Could you say what you ate for breakfast today in that language? Exchange a few pleasantries? Thinking back, how well do you think you could speak in that foreign language even at the time you were learning […]
Memories: Alzheimer’s Disease
Tonight, the Perpetual Notion Machine wraps up the series of shows devoted to memory. Sometimes memory doesn’t always work according to plan. Bad things can happen like dementia and other diseases like Alzheimer’s. Our guests are Barbara Bendlin, researcher at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and Kari Paterson, Executive Director of the South Central […]
Memories: The Brain and the Research
Last week we learned a little about the science of memory. Tonight, the Perpetual Notion Machine continues the topic of memory. Our guest, psychologist and neuroscientist at UW-Madison Brad Postle, is back to tell us more. In his conversation with PNM’s Dennis Shaffer, Brad mentions that each memory has its own set of neurons, connections, […]
Memories: What are They?
During this holiday season, we’ll certainly remember the good times of some of the Christmas’ in the past, and also form good memories of this Christmas. So, for this episode of the Perpetual Notion Machine, we look into the science of memory – what are they, how do they form, and what triggers a memory […]