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Want to retrieve elusive memories?maybe remember what happened during “missing time?” The best way to do this is to get a good night’s sleep. If the brain has time to “digest” the memories laid down during the day, they will be easier to remember later.

When researchers from the University of Chicago asked volunteers to remember simple words, they tended to forget them as the day wore on. However, the people who slept well that night could remember many more of them the next day. When the brain is first asked to remember something, that memory is laid down in an “unstable” state, meaning it can be lost. But when we sleep, the brain consolidates the memories it has decided are important into a more permanent state.
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Tiny flashes of infrared light from LEDs can heal wounds, build muscle, help heal the effects of diabetes and repair blindness?but nobody knows why. LEDs are the tiny, ultra-efficient light-emitting diodes, or bulbs, like the ones found in digital clocks and TV remote controls. Despite being tested by NASA, the Pentagon and hospitals, pathologist Marti Jett says, “There’s not a clear idea of how this works.”

Noah Shachtman writes in Wired.com about research done by Dr. Harry Whelan, who used LEDs to restore the vision of rats blinded by toxic doses of methanol. After exposure to the LED flashes, 95% of their injuries were repaired.
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In the current era of global warming, scientists at the Geological Society of America are taking a look at ancient periods of climate variability, some of which lasted for millions of years. During these periods, great strides were made in human intelligence, language, and creativity. Will this happen again?

Some of the questions scientists are asking are: why did only one species (us) learn to walk on two legs (leaving the other two limbs free to use tools)? How did climate change influence our exodus from Africa (while other primates stayed behind)? Geologist Gail Ashley says, “The answers to these questions will not all come from the bones, but from what was taking place in the environment in which they were found.”
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In Whitley’s new journal,he writes: “The sun is in the most unusual state that has ever been observed. At a time when it should be recording greatly diminished sunspot activity, the most active sunspot ever observed has just finished crossing its face. The largest solar flare ever recorded?by far?exploded out of this sunspot on November 4. [But] this extraordinary event wasn’t headline news. In fact, it didn’t even make the back pages of most papers and news websites, let alone the broadcast news. Unknowncountry, Earthfiles and the NASA and NOAA sites were the only places where it was really featured as a major news item. The big media was probably making a big mistake. Here’s why.”
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