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What are memories and what's the brain doing with them?

Memory explained
luciana christante
/
Flickr
Memory explained

Whenever we think about the past it brings back so many memories.

But what are memories, exactly?

According to Dean Martin, memories are made of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MWN_duZfIs

Early humans believed memory resided in the heart, but now we know that memories live inside our 3 pound brains. And like Bob Hope and Shirley Ross, we are thankful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKgUq5dziEk

We learned some simple but essential facts about the brain from this short lesson taught by Monty Python’s John Cleese. He is not a doctor, but plays one on TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQjgsQ5G8ug

Some people use mnemonics to remember things, like “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles” for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Lettuce, Tomatoes and Mayonnaise.

If you want to remember something it really helps to make a video. Johnny Cash did just that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WpdVE4N8hc

Every week on “Record bin Roulette,” KPLU’s John Kessler and John Maynard put an insightful and fun spin on a century's worth of discarded vinyl. The feature is published here and airs on KPLU 88.5 every Thursday during Morning Edition, All Things Considered and on Weekend Saturday Edition.

A professional bassist for over 20 years, John has been at KNKX since 1999 where he hosts All Blues on Saturday and Sunday nights. He was previously a senior producer of BirdNote for 19 years, and the primary recording engineer for hundreds of KNKX Studio Sessions.
John Maynard started working in radio in the seventies as a DJ at Seattle’s KJR AM which at the time was the dominant AM station in the Seattle market. After a brief stint as a restaurateur and night club owner, Maynard returned to radio with Robin Erickson, creating the hugely popular “Robin and Maynard Show.” In the more than 20 years under that marquee, Maynard flew with the Blue Angels, piloted the Goodyear Blimp, sang with Donny Osmond and hung out in a Universal Studios bar with Kojak (Telly Savalas).