Brain Teaser for the Frontal Lobes: Tipping the Scales

Wes Car­roll found this one in the Men­sa pub­li­ca­tion Num­ber Puz­zles for Math Genius­es by Harold Gale.Tipping the Scales.Question:The top two scales are in per­fect balance.How many dia­monds will be need­ed to bal­ance the bot­tom set?This puz­zle works your exec­u­tive func­tions in your frontal lobes by using your pat­tern recog­ni­tion, hypoth­e­sis test­ing, and logic.Click here to get the Answer.

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SharpBrains in Scientific American Mind/ Brain Health Blog and Newsletter

We were very hap­py to dis­cov­er that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can Mind has high­light­ed Sharp­Brains in their June/July 2007 issue!If you are here due to that issue, we’d like to wel­come you and show you around a bit. You might enjoy: Our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series in which we inter­view some of the lead­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tists in brain fit­ness, includ­ing: Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing, Cog­ni­tive Sim­u­la­tions for Bas­ket­ball Game-Intel­li­gence: Inter­view with Prof. Daniel Gopher, Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing and RoboMemo: Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, Mem­o­ry train­ing and atten­tion deficits: inter­view with Notre Dame’s Bradley Gib­son, and an upcom­ing inter­view with Yaakov Stern, the lead­ing researcher behind the Cog­ni­tive Reserve theory

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Sunday Afternoon Quiz

(These are not trick ques­tions) Name the one sport in which nei­ther the spec­ta­tors nor the par­tic­i­pants know the score or the leader until the con­test ends.What famous North Amer­i­can land­mark is con­stant­ly mov­ing backward?Of all veg­eta­bles, only two can live to pro­duce on their own for sev­er­al grow­ing sea­sons.… Can you name at least half of them?Name the only veg­etable or fruit that is nev­er sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any oth­er form except fresh.Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet begin­ning with the let­ter “S.“Click here for the answers.

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emWave PC Stress Relief System Updated

A new ver­sion of emWave® PC Stress Relief Sys­tem (for­mer­ly Freeze-Framer) has been released with a new name, new games, new fea­tures, new inter­ac­tive coach, and all new content.New fea­tures and enhance­ments include: Cat­e­go­rized con­tent sec­tions with over 100 pages of ref­er­ence infor­ma­tion includ­ing Health and Well-Being, Health Pro­fes­sion­al, Sports Per­for­mance, Work­place Per­for­mance, and Test­ing and Learning.The Coher­ence Coachâ„¢ teach­es stress reduc­tion and trains you to find “The Zone”.Emotion Visualizerâ„¢ dis­plays col­or­ful images which change as you change your emo­tion­al state.

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Brainfood” Makes the Dictionary!

A fun arti­cle from the BBC high­lights some of the lat­est entries to the 2.5 bil­lion-word data­base of words in the Collins Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary, 9th edition.We were of course biased and hap­py to see “brain­food” as a new­ly mint­ed word. Accord­ing to Web­ster’s New Millenniumâ„¢ Dic­tio­nary of Eng­lish, they define “brain food”…any food that is con­sid­ered to aid intel­li­gence, mem­o­ry, or cre­ativ­i­ty; by exten­sion, any intel­lec­tu­al sustenance.We’d like to add Sharp­Brains to the list of brain foods!

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Stress and Short Term Memory

We all know chron­ic stress is bad for our heart, our weight, and our mood, but how about our memory?Interestingly, acute stress can help you focus and remem­ber things more vividly.Chronic stress, on the oth­er hand, reduces your abil­i­ty to focus and can specif­i­cal­ly dam­age cells in the hip­pocam­pus, a brain struc­ture crit­i­cal to encod­ing short term memory.When is stress chron­ic? When you feel out of con­trol of your life. You may feel irri­ta­ble or anx­ious. While every indi­vid­ual varies in their response the type and quan­ti­ty of stress, there are some things you can do to feel more in con­trol of your envi­ron­ment. This sense of empow­er­ment can low­er your stress, and as a result, help your memory.

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