Many people in Boston are smarter than you. Here are some of them.

Um, I forgot

Genius breakthrough: Harvard researchers have discovered that sleep plays a key role in not only what we remember, but also what we forget. While previous studies have shown sleep’s mechanistic role in memory preservation, this new study demonstrates that during sleep, the brain makes a trade off: It selectively preserves and enhances those aspects of a memory that are of greatest emotional resonance, while at the same time diminishing the memory’s neutral background details.

Real life application: Now you know why you can’t forget the traumatic awkwardness of that blind date, but you can’t for the life of you remember which restaurant you went to. (more…)

In which we tally who’s smarter than you this week. The short answer? A lot of guys from MIT.

Put on your 6-D glasses

MIT researchers have found a way to create super-realistic “6-D images” that not only have a full three-dimensional appearance, but also respond to their environment, producing natural shadows and highlights depending on the direction and intensity of the illumination around them.

The image system creates a fourth dimension that changes the image as the viewing angle moves up or down. Then, a new “lighting aware” system adds additional layers of lenses and screens to add two more dimensions of change. The resulting image is then not only based on the position of the viewer, but also on the direction of the illumination. Co-ooool.

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We live in Boston, home to really smart people. So many, in fact, that sometimes their otherwise brilliant ideas are swallowed whole by the sea of incandescent brilliance (also known as the River Charles). Fortunately, we are here to rescue their genius from the  depths of the dirty river.

In-gene-ious discovery
Researches at Harvard working at Children’s Hospital Boston have identified a half-dozen new genes in autism by studying large Middle Eastern families. Large families are ideal for mapping genes; in traditional Arab societies, it is common for cousins to marry (gross but true), increasing the likelihood that offspring will inherit rare mutations.

The genes discovered all seem to be part of a molecular network that refines brain connections in response to input from the outside world. This supports the idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain’s ability to form these new connections. As a result, behavioral therapies, which expose children to a rich environment and highly repetitive activities, may help turn on dormant genes and strengthen brain connections. (more…)