Brain Fitness Conversations in November: Live Q&A with Book Authors

AARP recent­ly released a list of Top 5 Best Books for Brain Fit­ness. SharpBrains.com is hon­ored to have pub­lished one of those Top 5 books and to present this Live Q&A Series for you to ask ques­tions to the authors of 3 of those best books on brain fit­ness. Par­tic­i­pants will sub­mit writ­ten ques­tions, mod­er­a­tors will…

Read More

Improving Driving Skills and Brain Functioning- Interview with ACTIVE’s Jerri Edwards

Today we are for­tu­nate to inter­view Dr. Jer­ri Edwards, an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­si­ty of South Flori­da’s School of Aging Stud­ies and Co-Inves­ti­­ga­­tor of the influ­en­cial ACTIVE study. Dr. Edwards was trained by Dr. Kar­lene K. Ball, and her research is aimed toward dis­cov­er­ing how cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties can be main­tained and even enhanced with advanc­ing age.…

Read More

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.

Read More

Math Brain Teaser: Concentric Shapes or The Unkindest Cut of All, Part 2 of 2

If you missed Part 1, also writ­ten by puz­zle mas­ter Wes Car­roll, you can start there and then come back here to Part 2. Con­cen­tric Shapes: The Unkind­est Cut of All, Part 2 of 2.Difficulty: HARDER Type: MATH (Spatial)Question:Imagine a square with­in a cir­cle with­in a square.The cir­cle just grazes each square at exact­ly four points.Find the ratio of the area of the larg­er square to the smaller.In this puz­zle you are work­ing out many of the same skills as in Part I: spa­tial visu­al­iza­tion (occip­i­tal lobes), mem­o­ry (tem­po­ral lobes), log­ic (frontal lobes), plan­ning (frontal lobes), and hypoth­e­sis gen­er­a­tion (frontal lobes).Click to read the Solu­tion and Explanation.

Read More

Math Brain Teaser: The Unkindest Cut of All, Part 1 of 2

Here is anoth­er math­e­mat­i­cal puz­zle from puz­zle mas­ter Wes Car­roll … The Unkind­est Cut Of All, Part 1 of 2.Difficulty: HARD.Type: MATH (Spatial).Question:The area of a square is equal to the square of the length of one side.So, for exam­ple, a square with side length 3 has area (3^2), or 9. What is the area of a square whose diag­o­nal is length 5?

Read More

Brain Teaser: Dr. Nasty’s Giant Cube

Dr. Nasty’s Giant Cube. Dif­fi­cul­ty: HARDER. Type: HYBRID (Logic/Spatial). The dia­bol­i­cal Dr. Nasty has turned his Growth Ray on a per­fect cube that used to mea­sure one foot on a side. The new larg­er cube has twice the sur­face area of the orig­i­nal. Find the vol­ume of the larg­er cube.

Read More