Invented words, memories and who knows what else.

Invented words are very interesting. I listened to a very articulate young writer on the radio yesterday, telling us that his story is set in the "premath" of the war. Presumably he meant "the years before the war". Reluctantly, I have come to accept the use of the word "prequel". A "sequel" is the story of what happens after the events of a novel or a film are over. A "prequel" tells you what happened before the events of that novel or film - in the premath? But I can't say that this new word pleases me. And anyway, if you have an AFTERmath, should not the new word be BEFOREmath? 

Here's another little oddity. The longer your ring finger compared to your index finger, the more likely you are to cheat on your partner. So now we should all start looking at our partners' hands to see how long their fingers are. The writer of the article where I found this little gem suggested that many marriages fail because people made the wrong choice of partner in the first place. Quite likely I suppose, especially if they didn't measure their fingers? 

She also went on to say that you need to work at a relationship if you want it to last. That's a novel idea! I bet few of us were aware of that!!! Hmmmm! This was part of her advice: 

"Here’s one way to practice: Once a day at least text your partner an appreciation. Tell them something you like about them, that is special and unique to them. Even better, do it in person when you get home." 

It's amazing what scientists start to investigate and make statements about. How about the following for a headline? "Scientists insert happy memories into the brains of sleeping mice." My first reaction was to wonder how they knew that the mice had the happy memories. Did they squeak with smiley faces? Did they wake up jumping for joy? Have they secretly bred speaking mice? None of these possibilities. Somehow they identified the neurons in the mice's brains that help form spatial memories about specific locations. They fed in false memories about getting food from certain places (they were not too clear about how they did that and who made sure that the mice understood English) and when the happy mice awoke they went to those places looking for food. Did they have nightmares if there was no food there after all? Were they confused? If the technique can be developed to be done by remote control, can it be used as a way of getting mice to leave your house instead of infesting your kitchen? Ok, that might be a step too far! 

However, the suggestion that this technique of inserting false (happy) memories could be used to treat depression is one I find rather frightening. Yes, a cure for depression would be a wonderful thing but this smacks of mind control and worries me more than a little.

Perhaps we are approaching the situation you find in science-fiction stories, the ones where a person who wants to learn something new, for example how to speak a foreign language, just goes to a laboratory where they fit on a special helmet and electrodes feed the skill or information into the relevant part of your brain. But who knows what other  reasons they might have for manipulating our memories?

Just a bit frightening!