1. Burgers 2025

 How your favorite song remember things     Why can you remember the lyrics to a song from ten years ago but forget why you walked into a room? And why do some songs play on repeat in your mind, even when you don’t want them to? Music and memory have a strange relationship—one that explains why songs stick with us long after we’ve forgotten other details.    Ever had a tune looping in your brain for no reason? That’s an earworm, and it happens because music activates multiple areas of the brain, including those tied to memory and emotions. But why do certain songs take up permanent space in our minds? Maybe it’s their catchy melody, repeated lyrics, or the emotions tied to them.    And what about all those lyrics you know by heart? How do you still remember childhood TV theme songs but forget someone’s name seconds after they introduce themselves? It’s because music has structure—patterns, rhymes, and repetition make words easier to store and reca...

Memories are a trippy little thing. They make me wonder how much a single moment can impact your life. Just the other day, my friend had mentioned a movie. One that I had not thought of in a very long time.  Bridge to Terabithia.  I’m sure most of you have heard of it, or at least the book it’s based off of. One that my sister tricked me into reading back when I was in 4th grade. She led me to believe that it would be a fun little story for me to enjoy, failing to mention the tears and heartbreak it would leave me with once I reached the end.  I began to remember the shock that came with the abrupt end. I remembered watching the movie after, falling in love with the characters and adaptation as I dreaded what I knew would be coming. I even remembered exploring the thoughts of Jesse, as we both slowly learned to appreciate his friendship with the eccentric Leslie. For someone with a terrible memory, it was shocking to realize that I seemed to fully remember a story that I ...

I had six minutes to open my locker, grab my Biology textbook, that is quite literally the size of the United States, and make a dash all the way across the school to Mr. Baker’s class. Sectioning my time, three minutes for opening my locker and grabbing the book, l left the rest of the time to sprint across the rotunda. But, of course, the moment I wanted things to go smoothly, they did not, because that is how the universe works. I blanked out on my locker combination, and I could feel my sweaty palms hastily twisting the dial around. Image: https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-terms/memory-retrieval/ Have you ever blanked on your locker combination even though you have used it several times before? During my time in Mr. Baker’s class, I could not help but think about the reason why I forgot something I knew so well, especially when I needed it the most. To quench my curiosity, I started scrolling through Google to find out the culprit behind this: retrieval failure .  Appa...

Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted a photographic memory.  It all started—like most of my “bright ideas” as a child—from a book. Specifically, the Cam Jansen Mysteries , in which, you guessed it, Cam Jansen is a young sleuth who relies on her superhuman memory to solve her cases, looking at any scene and saying “click,” as if taking a picture in her head whenever she wants to remember it. And when I watched Suits , I found myself again thinking about how cool it would be if I could just read something once and never forget it just like Mike Ross. The time I would save if everything I saw was instantaneously absorbed and understood by my brain. I have always had an interesting memory—if you ask me to remember a random incident that happened when I was seven years old, I can describe to you in detail where I was, what I was thinking, and what I was wearing. But ask me what I had for lunch yesterday, or why I entered the room in the first place, that’s a no-can-do for me. B...

 This is the music video for "Are You Bored Yet?" by Wallows. I don’t like Maroon 5. I think their songs are overplayed, but I think I really liked it when this song first came out, before it was everywhere on the radio. It felt quite nostalgic for me, as if I was yearning for somebody who didn’t exist.      I do like certain songs, though, because of how they remind me of certain moments in my life. I remember that song called Old Town Road, and when it first came out, I was in the second semester of my fifth grade. On the last day of fifth grade, my teacher played that song for my class; the heightened emotions of the time charged the song with extra meaning. I was crying my eyes out because my best friend was moving to a different school for the next school year. We aren’t in touch anymore. I don’t really like the song, but I still remember that time fondly. Every time I hear it, I think of the pre-pandemic era, that Friday afternoon, and the best friend I lost th...

Photo Credit:  PIC1-Make-Way-For-Memory.png Have you ever been told that history repeats itself, or asked the question of why we place an emphasis on learning about the past? I certainly have.  When I was 6, I thought it was a complete waste of time, believing that we were spending too much time dwelling on the past and diverting our attention from the future. Now looking back, I wonder if I could have been any more wrong with that notion. But it took me time to come to this realization; as I began to learn about how the world worked and operated I developed the belief that our memories and thoughts might actually be the single most important thing propelling us forward. Logic behind this is simple: our memories help us preserve what we have learned and build off of what has already been discovered. It stops us from having to “reinvent the wheel again” everytime we build a car.  “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” penned by Sir Issac Ne...

     Due to a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia, humans have a hard time recalling memories from when they were infants. Personally, I do not remember much of anything from when I was very young which sucks because that was the time when my family decided to go to Hawaii and Greece, so I barely remember those trips. I used to live in a different house during my infant years and I do not remember anything about that house except for the fact that we had a chalk board and on some nights my dad, my brother and I would step outside and look at the stars.       The one memory that I have from those years and that house that vividly remains in my mind?       Me eating a bowl of cereal that my grandma prepared and then I accidentally dropped it on the floor. I remember everything about this event. Right after I dropped the bowl, I looked at my grandma and she looked upset, this was the first time I ever felt guilty. Although it was an ...