Cognitive Labs

Coming soon....those search engines of yesteryear, forgotten, like tears in the rain...

Cognitive Labs is working towards a self-service advertising system. At this moment, you can outline your budget, pick an ad-format: banner, skyscraper, text ad, and more...indicate where you would like to place an ad (Gaming Pages, Alzheimer's Pages) and place your order.

There are TWO ad formats for Memory TV:

(1) Full Screen Spot: Your brand and message are communicated to the audience of a particular test - right before the instructions. Contextually Relevant. Creates thousands of opportunities to deliver your message to the people that probably need to hear it and are most likely to respond

(2)Baseboard Spot: Your message runs in the footer above the scoring. This also builds brand, in a more repetitive way.


Consumer marketing experts (Ph.D.'s) believe that ideas communicated in brain games and puzzles are more likely to resonate with buyers over the long term, because this is what research shows. Read our post on ANAGRAMS

So, you can get started now with Cognitive Labs and our completely new, Cognitive Advertising Format, giving you space inside of Memory TV.

Being Able to Influence Consciousness might be the next weapon in the battle for our minds as we age.

University of Pennsylvania researchers have established a "Center for Spirituality and the Mind" to explore relationships between spirituality and science in the human brain.

The center derives from work initiated in Penn's Department of Radiology to embrace and encourage researchers from the fields of medicine, pastoral care, religious studies, social work, nursing, and bioethics to expand our knowledge of how spirituality may affect the human brain.

"We'll be looking at patients with mild cognitive impairment or symptoms of early Alzheimer's disease," explains Andrew Newberg, MD, Associate Professor of Radiology, Psychiatry, and Religious Studies, who also directs the Center's investigations and is Principal Investigator of this pilot study. "We'll combine their meditation with brain imaging over a period of time to see if meditation improves cognitive function and is associated with actual change in the brain's activity levels. Specifically, we'll be looking for decreased activity in specific areas of the brain."

The dementia process causes a decreased function of neurons in the brain and can result in problems with memory, visual-spatial tasks, and handling emotional issues. As it worsens in a patient, it can also eventually lead to the need for round-the-clock care.

In this study, investigators want to look at the early symptoms of dementia. Study participants will learn a particular kind of meditation, called Kirtan Kriya, identified as one of the most fundamental types of meditation practice. It's a repeated chanting of sounds and finger movements designed to help the mind focus and become sharper. Study participants will perform this meditation program every day for eight weeks to see if this relaxation technique can change the brain's response to different tasks.

"This is a form of exercise for the brain which enables the brain to strengthen itself and battle the unknown processes working to weaken it. We want to keep the mind sharp and work that muscle," Newberg adds. "We might see improvements in baseline activity levels in the brain and these patients might be able to activate their brain in a more robust way in particular. So if this kind of meditation is successful in helping patients with neurological problems, it could then someday become a low-cost additional treatment to current therapy."

Newberg will use SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) imaging to capture the baseline image of the brain as well as the brain's activity during meditation. Images will be taken at the beginning of the study and then after the eight-week program.

Who can recall when California's Central Valley was as hot as...Mesopotamia?

A Berkeley professor of the Sumerian Language and Mythology (Dr. Kikawada) once compared Sumer to "Bakersfield" just a little bit hotter.

Now it has reached that level?

Do you like our global brain/global warming theme? I was going to superimpose Al Gore's smiling face over the Earth but it looked like the man in the moon, you know, since Mr. Gore has added some weight. Then I thought maybe Newt Gingrich as a kind of anti-matter to Gore's matter, or vice-versa.

But nevertheless, do what you can to cool the earth down so we can avoid a tough hurricane season in the SouthEast, avoid fires in the West, and make sure there's enough water.

You can imagine what an extended drought would do to California, Arizona, and Nevada which are operating on thin ice right now - all the water that precipitates is being used. In Nevada, there's a deficit. 10,000 years ago the climate in central Nevada was much wetter and glaciers covered the mountains which today are dry peaks in the Great Basin - the water surplus of those millennia is being used today, just ask geologists and rangers in the Great Basin and that's what they'll tell you...

Cognitive Labs breaks previous high for site-traffic, which was last month. Thanks to you we now are on the pace to reach millions of page views per year...

Nintendo (OTC:NTDOY) delivers blockbuster quarter including 85% increase in quarterly revenues....based on BrainAge (TM) and Nintendogs(TM)

Is the Formation of Amyloid Plaque in the Brain Like a Roller Coaster Ride?

Think of your car decelerating near the end of your ride after a loop-to-loop.

Researchers in the American Journal of Pathology's August issue show how this deceleration occurs. First, keep mind and body active. This appears to activate pathways instrumental in the protection offered by environmental stimulation in Alzheimer's disease, strengthening the oft-cited proposition that enhanced mental and physical activity slows neurological decline.

Alzheimer's disease, the leading cause of senile dementia, presents with cognitive and behavioral deficiencies resulting in part from accumulation of b-amyloid (Ab) deposits within the brain (Ab plaques) and its blood vessels (amyloid angiopathy). Although previous studies have shown that increased mental and physical activity can slow the progression of the disease, how such deceleration occurs has been unclear until now.

Dr. Kathy Keyvani's group at University Hospital Muenster examined the effects of environmental stimulation on the brain pathology of TgCRND8 mice. These mice, which express a mutant form of Ab found in some Alzheimer's patients, develop Alzheimer-like features including Ab plaques and cognitive deficits. To study the effects of enrichment, mice were housed in either standard cages or enriched cages, similar to the standard but with access to a stimulus cage containing permanent fixtures (rope and gnawing wood) as well as removable items (tunnels, balls, ladders, ramps, and exercise wheels) that were changed on a rotating basis.

Following five months of standard versus enriched housing, mouse brains were examined for signs of disease. Mice housed in the enriched environment had fewer Ab plaques, smaller plaque size, and reduced amyloid angiopathy compared to mice housed in standard cages. Interestingly, there were no differences in the levels of soluble Ab peptide or the transcriptional/translational expression levels of its precursor protein (APP) or the processing of APP between the two groups. So how did environmental stimulation prevent disease?

To answer this question, Ambrée et al. performed DNA microarray analysis to determine which genes were differentially regulated in mice housed in the enriched environment compared to standard cages. Enriched mice exhibited down-regulation of pro-inflammatory genes but up-regulation of genes related to anti-inflammatory processes, protein degradation and cholesterol binding. These results were confirmed by specifically analyzing gene expression for examples in each category. Together these data suggest that an enriched environment elicits protection via pathways that prevent Ab accumulation and enhance its clearance.

The authors speculate that the altered expression of inflammatory genes may shift the immune response from one that is neurotoxic to one that is phagocytic, i.e., able to clear unwanted debris, such as Ab. In accordance with this, a significant enhancement of microglial activity was found by Western blot and morphometric analyses of microglia, which often surround and infiltrate Ab plaques. In addition, activating cellular protein degradation pathways provides another means of removing excess Ab. Finally, changes in cholesterol homeostasis, elements of which have been shown to correlate with Ab deposition, may exert beneficial effects by preventing plaque formation in the first place.

These data provide strong evidence that an environment rich in mental and physical stimulation slows the progression of Alzheimer-like brain pathology. Further investigation of the pathways and individual elements involved in such protection may provide novel treatment strategies for Alzheimer's disease. Until that time, keep your running shoes and crossword puzzles handy.

This work was supported by grants from Innovative Medical Research and German National Academic Foundation.

Work was directed by Dr. Kathy Keyvani of University Hospital Muenster and involved collaborators at University of Muenster.

Ambrée O, Leimer U, Herring A, Görtz N, Sachser N, Heneka MT, Paulus W, Keyvani K. Reduction of amyloid angiopathy and A² plaque burden after enriched housing in TgCRND8 mice: involvement of multiple pathways. Am J Pathol 2006 169:544-552

The concept of consumer space travel has been very much in the news recently, starting of course with the work of Paul Allen and Richard Branson and also some others.

Recently, several individuals have invested $20 million a piece to get a view of the earth from above; now for $35 million courtesy of Space Adventures you will be able to get out of the craft and float around (tethered of course).

I have been promising that report from NASA Ames on the effects of space flight on the human body (this is based on some discussions with researchers there) and that's coming...



Apollo era controls (no sudoku at the time!)


It is almost time to think of some new ways to accelerate the development of consumer flight, sure to become, eventually a common activity. You are going to need to do a couple of things as well - make sure that your brain is in A-1 condition, that is cognitive abilities and cognitive dexterity as you never know what can happen or if conditions subtly change onboard which could affect judgment and cognitive processes. You are going to need to create a baseline before you start out and monitor yourself over time.

You also will need to exercise the brain with beneficial activities (see above)...stay tuned as we work on ways to 'get ready' for the future and actually help it to come about in a meaningful way.

You might want to try the crazy new "out of this world" memory quiz.

A friend put this together from some 'visualizations' for Winamp.

All the same principles apply except you definitely haven't seen these pictures before unless you were a follower of 'tune-in, tune-out, drop-out' Tim Leary.
There's no plaid but there is a little of everything else. It might remind you of Dave Bowman's strange journey in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
hint: each one is a mathematical expression

The new interface for Memory TV.

When you take a Memory TV 'test' you'll see the following on your screen. You can make the picture bigger by clicking the "1" right below the picture screen. This expands the picture. If you want to shrink the picture, click on the "0" right below the big picture screen.



"1" = ON, "0" =OFF.

From the Creative Brains of our advertisers....

Has Tom Cruise helped or hurt the image of Scientology?

If you answer, you can win up to $300....

Fascinating.
Disclaimer: I am not a scientologist. Our interest is anthropological.

Memory TV now with links...just paste the code into your blog or web page and

memory tv link

there you have it. the above links to Darwin's late turtle memory test.

A bead of glass in a necklace adorning the neck of the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun has been found to be older than Egyptian Civilization. In fact, much older?

Slashdot asks whether indeed, the piece of glass can be attributed to the StarGate.

Italian scientists speculate that a meteor struck the Sahara desert or ocurred as an air-burst and fused the sands a uniquely-colored amber many thousands of years before the Egyptian Civilization....and could have collected as curios by wandering Berbers. Don't miss the games with an Egyptian theme, or the forthcoming Nag Hammadi tests.

You can see and hear the 2nd Quarter Results, from the home page, with a pop-up graphic and an MP3 audio presentation.

We are not a public company, however, we may as well begin preparing for life as one or as part of one.

Yes, we were surprised by the Ad revenue numbers. Keep in mind however that in this stage of our business we are mainly concerned with growing the visitor base, validation of the technology (which has been stress-tested by our users), and developing new content. The high-growth numbers will take care of themselves. Technically, we have no ad sales force and therefore the inventory could perform significantly better in the hands of an experienced ad sales force.

Cognitive Labs posts the following 2nd Q operating 2006 results:

Ad revenue % Change
increase or decrease 2ndQ 2005 - 2ndQ 2006
+4,640%
Page Views

Increase or Decrease 2ndQ 2005 - 2ndQ 2006 +617%

New registered users - 2ndQ 2005 - 2ndQ 2006 +866%

Expectations for the 3rd quarter will likely exceed these numbers

contact us at finance AT cognitivelabs.com for more info

This Cadillac beats the Escalade... courtesy of this Google book link

The last time in Yosemite, we took walk to the world famous Reflection Pond and found two things out:

(1) There is no reflection
(2) There is no pond.

Cognitive Dissonance.

In fact, it silted up years ago. Even though (as below) you see images everywhere...but this looks like the Merced River



To avoid the crowds and curious bears, try the Lava Beds. This a little known National Monument to the Northeast of Mt. Shasta in remote N.E. California.

In ancient times, it abutted a massive lake (which has shrunk considerably) around which Native Americans have left interesting petrogplyhs. The lava caves (with temperatures in the 50's, mark a sharp contrast to the 100 degree plus weather of the landscape in the daytime. A group of well-armed Modoc Indians made a "last stand" here against the U.S. Cavalry in the latter 1860's, necessitating the mustering of a huge force (by the standards of the American West) to end the insurrection. The Modocs resisted relocation to the reservation.

Check out the world war II movie - 1st in a series, in this case showing 1939. Google Books offers a number of World War II related titles. Pretty relevant.

Also, memory pix is becoming memory TV because we're finding that memory TV is becoming an increasingly common search term in bringing people back to the site; and we want to call it what you're calling it, not what we think...
so you'll see the tests undergo that transition. TV that actually fortifies the brain with 10 essential algorithms to increase intercellular neuroconnectivity...

Younger people who have grown up with instant messaging might have faster brains than those who grew up with only email, according to social scientists. Younger people appear to be ableto handle a multitude of simultaneous IM discussions while email users have a more "store and forward" mentality and can handle maybe just one IM discussion at a time.

As a result, the younger users probably have faster and more dexterous brains. What a social scientist (from Microsoft) here asserts may be born out through a research study involving IM, cognitive tests and email.

What if heavy IM users have better scores on measures of attention and memory? You could make the case that the social nature of the communication fosters the growth of neurons. On the other hand, IM use can lead to impersonal comunications and the choice to stay impersonal behind a construct of avatars and user names...and reduce face to face communications. Is it part of evolution? Or is it something different.

some background material... by Martha Irvine of the Associated Press

Cognitive Labs testing can help you progress upwards along Maslow's hierarchy of needs, developing better self-awareness; putting you and the rest of us in those positions where we can blossom and be successful....

MADRID, SPAIN
Canadian researchers today linked type of diet with exercise, or lack of, and the emergence of early dementia. This is one of the themes of the Conference, which is taking place right now. Here is coverage from CBS.

Soon, we are going to begin telling you the story of our time spent in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Nag Hammadi recently has been in the news because of the DaVinci Code. Nag Hammadi, along with sites such as Tebtunis in the Fayyum, a great despression to the West of the Nile river, happen to be the locations where most of the papyri known to exist have been recovered. (And truth be told, a great deal more await discovery)

Lately, we have been spending some late evenings (indeed, after we finished the design of our latest kind of memory test and the coding thereof) working on translating portions of the Hearst Papyrus, brought back to Berkeley by the intrepid George Reisner who worked under the gracious sponsorship of Phoebe Apperson Hearst. This document, along with the Ebers papyrus which it resembles are very interesting in that they document the wellness practices of the ancients and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants. In the case of the Hearst papyrus, the language is a Middle Egyptian version of Hieratic, e.g, the handwritten version of what more formally would be in hieroglyphic, brushed on a piece of papyrus in black or red ink. You are at the mercy of the handwriting and idiom of the scribe.
Above, however, you a see a piece of the Gnosis, a kind of pidgin Greek flavored with the picaresque quality of the local nome which happens to be Nag Hammadi, kind of far away from the administrative hubs of the Thebaid and especially Alexandria.

Cognitive Labs headed to its top month in Ad sales, which is more than it costs us to run the site in direct operating costs.

And, all we offer right now is Adsense from Google and make no effort to sell ads directly.

The reason is, apparently, good content.

Monthly page views for this month will pass our first quarter total and maybe our 2nd quarter 06.

But the inventory available is still there. As you might gave noticed, the new tests can also feature Ads, with 20 screens shown during each test. (These do not get included in the page view totals as they run inside a movie)

In case you are wondering. Apparently there is no limit on the growth since we just exceeded our 2006 business plan goal for page views, outlined in January, also this week, even though a fairly significant partner, Revolution Health, took its portal offline and pulled away traffic, which we have replaced and more.

Pinball Wizard, there's got to be a twist....Check out the new game in Game Central.
It'll keep the wrists supple as the brain...use the arrow keys as the dasher controls, down arrow is the pull-handle to arc the ball
It's time to get out the old Fender Telecaster...


Ever since I was a young boy
I've played the silver ball
From Soho down to Brighton
I must have played them all
But I ain't seen nothing like him
In any amusement hall
That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball

He stands like a statue
Becomes part of the machine
Feeling all the bumpers
Always playing clean
He plays by intuition
The digit counters fall
That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball

He's a pinball wizard
There's got to be a twist
A pinball wizard
He's got such a supple wrist

How do you think he does it?
(I don't know)
What makes him so good?

He ain't got no distractions
Can't hear those buzzers and bells
Don't see lights a flashin'
Plays by sense of smell
Always gets a replay
Never tilts at all
That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball

I thought I was
The Bally table king
But I just handed
My pinball crown to him

Even on my usual table
He can beat my best
His disciples lead him in
And he just does the rest
He's got crazy flipper fingers
Never seen him fall
That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball

  
Russians are urged to participate in the census; German troops are in good cheer as they open the gates at the Polish border

1939 was the year that witnessed the beginning of World War II from the seeds planted in the 1920's and 1930's. There's a chance that you might remember some of these events, or remember seeing them in the media or in books of World War II...or on the History Channel

Now, try the Memory Test that Links these Images to Your Own Cognition...

Bigelow Aerospace, run by Las Vegas hotelier Robert Bigelow has successfully launched an unmanned rocket (a converted ICBM) from Russia and deployed, 340 miles above the Earth, a prototype of its space-living habitat known as Genesis. Genesis is crafted in kevlar and is inflatable. The company successfully inflated the structure, which is almost like a dirigible or airship, today.

It contains two life forms: cockroaches and moths.

The company hopes to begin space tourism within 5 years.

Here is a timeline:

7/13/06: Genesis I: All systems are operating within expected parameters.
7/12/06: Bigelow Aerospace has received confirmation from the Genesis I spacecraft that it has successfully expanded. >>More
7/12/06: Bigelow Aerospace mission control has begun to acquire information from the Genesis I spacecraft.
7/12/06: A Russian Dnepr rocket carrying the Bigelow Aerospace pathfinder mission Genesis I has successfully launched from the ISC Kosmotras space and missile complex in the Orenburg region of Russia.

University of Birmingham (U.K.) researchers have reported that caffeine can boost nerve cell activity in the brain, potentially protecting against memory loss. The research was presented last week at the annual meeting of the Physiological Society, suggests that an effect of caffeine could be key to enhancing memory performance in the elderly.

Adenosine levels in the brain increase during the day and are especially high in the elderly. When adenosine binds to a so-called A1 receptor it decreases activity of nerve cells, but when it binds to an A2a receptor it boosts activity.

The University of Birmingham researchers found that caffeine can boost so-called gamma rhythms by more than three times the normal value, according to the results of a study performed with mice. Nerve cell activity in the brain is synchronized in a rhythmic fashion at a frequency of 25 milliseconds, and increases when the brain is engaged in solving complex problems.

Using hippocampal slices, the researchers measured oscillations in the presence and absence of caffeine. When compared to the control, the injection of caffeine increased the frequency of oscillations by 332 per cent.

This effect was attributed to selective blocking of the A1 receptor. Caffeine concentrations in the brain after a few cups of coffee or similar beverages could significantly increase gamma rhythm strength, which the researchers postulated would measurably benefit cognition.

The lead investigaor, Dr. Vreugdenhil however, warned against consumption of excessive amounts of very strong coffee due to the possibility of sleep disorders and circulatory irregularities.

You've been asking for more nature topics....here is one...

Ansel Adams...


Canyon de Chelly

take the test.

You can now take a new brainspeed test. just go to http://brainspeed.com and follow the directions. We finished the coding at about 4 am this morning, hoo-ah.

here's what it looks like to log-in:



it's a clean interface and even includes a spot for your mobile phone number so you can get an SMS or text message with news of special deals. Tesco in the UK pioneered this kind of thing. One of the good practioners here is 2ndlife, and of course all those companies selling ringtones on myspace and everywhere including here, i think it's called blinko.



Pick it up anywhere online or offline:

Whether or not we recognize faces may be part of our genetic code.

In the first study to examine whether the inability to recognize faces can be inherited, researchers found that it is in fact a common disorder that runs in families and is one of the most frequent disorders apparently controlled by a defect in a single gene. The study was published online June 30, 2006 in American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A, and is available via Wiley InterScience

The minisite is up now....read more about Prey.

In less than 5 minutes you can get the game online and start playing...the game people have been waiting for since 1999...

Get your feet wet with our Prey Test

note: we have an interest in Distream, the co. that developed the lightning fast Triton Player, they have enough bandwidth to light up all the Western states...

In just 2 hours the Revolution Begins.....


It's a new era of personal freedom.

You will be able to click 'buy' and get your full-featured intense video
game delivered instantly to your computer and begin playing in just a few short minutes. We're talking the kind of game that draws your PC to a crawl and is chopped down in horsepower to play on the XBOX 360.

Why wait in line at the store, waste gas (unless you have a prius or ride a bicycle)when you can get all the action right away on the desktop.

It all starts with Tommy, a Cherokee living in Oklahoma... >>READ MORE

In the news...there is a web rumor that Al-Muhajer (the successor of Zarqawi)

you can see him here is really in an Egyptian jail, and may not be in Iraq