BBC Frontiers radio program is looking at the work of one of my favorite researchers - Eric Kandel - as well as research coming out of the famous Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The commonality lies in brain chemistry - Kandel identified a protein that plays a crucial role in the development of long-term memories; Tully's team have identified a 'memory gene'. The program looks at the broader implications of this work. Might we one day be able to reinstate memory that's "lost"? Should we aspire to remember "everything"?

The BBC also have another snippet on memory, on their science program. This one talks with Prof Amy Arnsten at Yale University about why stress can make you lose your car keys (and your temper).

And last, but certainly not least! though a little more tangential - EDGE has a special event, on the famous Robert Trivers. For those unversed in evolutionary biology, let me quote from the EDGE article: "In an astonishing burst of creative brilliance, Trivers wrote a series of
papers in the early 1970s that explained each of the five major kinds of human relationships: male with female, parent with child, sibling with sibling, acquaintance with acquaintance, and a person with himself or herself. " In particular, "Trivers pointed out that all of us have a motive to portray ourselves as more honorable than we really are, and that since the best liar is the one who believes his own lies, the mind should be "designed" by natural selection to deceive itself." This one has particular resonance for me, since it was the infinite capacity of our minds to deceive ourselves that led me into psychology in the first place (and, I have to say, colors my view of the world to this day).