I don't know if you've heard about this guy HM, but he had a pretty strange memory. He's been famous for years because he could not commit information into his long-term memory. He died recently and donated his brain to science. We now know his full name is Henry Molaison. Scientists love nicknames, so they called him HM instead. Scientists are weird like that. They usually call each other names like "quark" or "phylum" or "anterolateral temporal cortex."
Anyway, Henry had some brain surgery in 1953 and things didn't go exactly as planned. After the surgery, you could ask him to memorize a bunch of numbers and he would. Then, if you asked him about it later that day, he wouldn't even know that he was asked to look at numbers. He couldn't remember what he had for breakfast or lunch or anything.
I'd say that's a pretty scary way to live, but I'm sure there are some good things to go with the bad.
Good:
He forgot the 80's.
He doesn't think he saw Glitter.
He forgot every episode of Baywatch.
Bad:
He could never remember who won Dancing with the Stars.
He couldn't remember how great Spice World was.
He forgot that Darth Vader is Luke's father.
He did help with a lot of research about how our memory works and what we can and cannot do. He could learn new motor skills. So, I guess he could learn to juggle. Or maybe he learned how to play the Wii.
Oddly enough, he thought Eisenhower knew how to play the Wii. That would have been cool if my boy Dwight actually did play the Wii. I'd vote for him again if he was a Wii-man. I know you would too.
I'm off to...I forgot...
Enjoy!
-DJ
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