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Scientists have learned how to turn memories on and off with the flip of a switch. And while most of us, as we get older, want to remember more (for instance, people’s names), some people want to FORGET some of the traumatic events they’ve witnessed.

Scientists are able to turn memories on and off due to recent advances in their understanding of the brain area known as the hippocampus and its role in learning. Using an electronic system that duplicates the neural signals associated with memory, they can replicate the brain function in rats associated with long-term learned behavior, even when the rats they are working with have been drugged to forget.
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Dads have a lot to answer for. A study conducted with mice suggests that a woman’s risk of anxiety and dysfunctional social behavior may depend on the experiences of her parents, particularly fathers, when they were young. The study suggests that stress caused by chronic social instability during youth contributes to changes in sperm cells that can lead to psychiatric disorders in female offspring across multiple generations.
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A few weeks ago, I published a journal entry called ‘Change of Being.’ I would like to return to this subject and describe what has become an ongoing process of inner change. I was on Coast to Coast week before last with George Knapp when I had the first experience of just how much I have changed. He announced that Tony Scott had committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. He was the director of my second movie, ‘the Hunger,’ and I have followed his career with great pleasure ever since. While I did not know him personally, I did know that he had tried to get Warner Brothers to do a remake of the Hunger, wanting to bring the skills he had learned over the years to a re-visioning of the film.
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