What does the original photograph portray?

[ Click on image to jump to high resolution ]

[ Picture Puzzle Created for the Smartkit site]

Feel free to enter your answer below; as always, will wait about 24 hours before displaying so as to not spoil the fun. Thanks

If you missed our first distortion puzzle back in April, you can give it a try here.

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Three parts of a cross and a circle complete,

Two semi-circles a perpendicular meet,

A triangle standing on two feet,

Two semi-circles and a circle complete?

(Will unmask answers later on today or tomorrow)

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These paper folding puzzles are a great way to exercise the visual-spatial circuits in your brain.

Directions: A square transparent sheet with a pattern is given. When the transparent sheet is folded at the dotted line, which of the four choices below will result?

(Paper Folding Puzzle created for smartkit site)

Feel free to enter your answer below in the ‘comments’ section; will unmask them in about 24 hours to make sure most visitors get a chance to try it out. Thanks.

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Here’s another new puzzle type we haven’t seen yet on the site. Can you divide the picture shown below by drawing two straight lines to produce three sections, each containing:

• 3 lemons
• 2 pears
• 2 carrots
• 1 crab

If you have a printer, you may find it easier to print this one out.

[Puzzle created for the Smartkit site]

Will hold off on showing any submitted answers (in the comment section below) for about 24 hours. Thanks

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Questions like this often show up on IQ type tests:

(Puzzle created for the Smartkit site)

To make sure most visitors get a chance to try this out, answers (entered into comment section below) will not show for 24 hours. Thanks

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Alcohol’s toxic effect on the brain is readily communicated by this MRI scan comparing a normal brain to that of an alcoholic:

As you can see, the alcoholic brain on the right is massively shrunken due to brain cell loss.

While visiting Chicago recently, was reminded just how much alcohol is a part of young people’s lives. As you drive through Wrigleyville, Downtown, Lincoln Park, Andersonville you can’t help but notice bars are everywhere. Unfortunately, when many students drink, they do it to excess- i.e., they binge. What I wish I could tell all students is that the overwhelming amount of research clearly indicates binge drinking is very bad for your brain and will seriously impair your ability to learn and get good grades- both in the short and long term. From a 2007 study that appeared in the European Journal of Neuroscience:

These findings indicate that binge pattern exposure to ethanol during adolescence induces brain damage by inflammatory processes and causes long-lasting neurobehavioural consequences.

Here’s the conclusions from another study looking at binge drinking in young adults [Reference 2 below]:

…differences can be seen in mood and cognitive performance between those that binge drink and those that do no

And it’s not just college students. According to the National Institutes of Health, almost 1 out of 10 Americans meet standard diagnostic criteria for an alcohol use disorder.

The latest bit of alcohol-brain atrophy research comes from Carol Ann Paul (of Wellesley College) and colleagues. They looked at MRI brain scans of 1839 people aged 34 to 88, and their findings (presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 59th Annual Meeting in Boston May 2007) indicate the more you chronically drink, the more your brain volume decreases. The results held true even for moderate drinkers.

According to Carol:

There is a continuous negative correlation between alcohol consumption and total brain volume. It seems that there is not a beneficial effect of even small amounts of alcohol on brain volume.

For an earlier story about how alcohol knocks the teenage brain off its growth trajectory, click here.

Another bit of research released May 10, 2007 reveals alcohol can also induce atrial fibrillation, a very common heart arrhythmia which is a very strong risk factor for strokes.

Reference 1: Paul CA et al. "The Effect of Alcohol Consumption on Total BrainVolume: The Framingham Heart Study." Abstract P05.030, presented May 2.

Reference 2: Townshend JM, Duka T. Binge Drinking, cognitive performance and mood in a population of young social drinkers. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2005 Mar;29(3):317-25.

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There are 11 differences in the graffiti picture below- can you spot them all?

[Puzzle created for the smartkit site; click picture to jump to higher-resolution]

To give others a chance to answer, how about each person post 1 difference?

If you like these photo puzzles, here are two more you can try:

• Castle of Edinburgh?
• Students Learning in a classroom

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Here’s another new puzzle type we haven’t seen before on the site. It’s an antique "Find the Fault’ card from Dennis Productions.

To make sure most visitors have a chance to try the puzzle, answers (entered into comment section below) will not show for 24-48 hrs.

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Researchers in Ireland have found that brain exercises in the form of rote memorization of poems, articles, and short stories leads to memory improvement.

The study was done on healthy adults aged between 55 and 70. They underwent six weeks of intensive brain exercises involving rote memorization of a newspaper articles or poems of 500 words, followed by six weeks of rest.

Interestingly, the improvement was not seen immediately. When the study participants were tested 6 weeks later, however, a clear improvement in verbal and episodic memory was noted.

Furthermore, changes were actually detected in the hippocampus via high tech brain scans called Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS).

Dr. Richard Roche, a co-author of the study from the Department of Psychology at National University of Ireland in Maynooth:

The brain is like a muscle that should be exercised through the retirement years as a defense against dementia, cognitive lapses and memory failure

You can read more about the rote memory training study here. For an earlier smartkit article that discusses how brain training exercises can improve memory and cognitive function, click here.

For computer software that can enhance cognitive function, check out this review of  Mindfit  

[Reference: McNulty, J,. Paul Brennan, M.D., Colin P. Doherty, M.D., D. McMackin, M.D., S. Sukumaran, M.D., I.H. Robertson, Ph.D., M.A. Mangaoang, Ph.D., S.M. O'Mara, D.Phil., Sinead L. Mullally, Ph.D., J. Hayden, B.A., J. Prendergast, B.Sc., and M. Fitzsimons, Ph.D.. The Identification of Neurometabolic Sequelae Post-learning Using Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Presented November 26 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA)]

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A man wishes to cross the river with a fox, a goose and some corn, and can only take one at a time in his little boat; if he should leave the fox with the goose he would eat the goose, and if he should leave the goose with the corn she would eat the corn; how will he get across with it all?

Feel free to enter your answer into the comments; will unmask them in a day or 2.

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[click on image above to jump to journal article detailing brain-heart interactions]

According to a just released report in Japan by the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Labor, nearly 150 people lost their lives in 2006 to Karoshi.

Karoshi is a Japanese term for "death from overwork".

Back in the 1980s, when several high-ranking business executives who were still in their prime years suddenly died without any previous sign of illness, the media began picking up on what appeared to be a new phenomenon. This new phenomenon was quickly labeled kar?shi. [Wikipedia]

According to this article:

Because of peer pressure to keep up with co-workers, out-do competing groups and increase market-share at the expense of competitors, hundreds of thousand of Japanese managers are caught up in a vortex of psychological pressure that forces them to work at a frenzied pace.

Is this possible? Can you suddenly die from overworking? Absolutely. Severe stress can in fact trigger cardiac arrhythmias, heart attacks, and strokes. Over the years, many of the younger stroke patients I’ve consulted on in the hospital give a history of severe stress in the days leading up the stroke.

In the last decade we’ve learned that strong emotions and stress activate specific brain regions which in turn directly influence cardiac rate and rhythm via the autonomic nervous system. A very nice review of this topic (full text & free PDF) can be found here. It’s entitled: Brain-Heart Interactions. The neurocardiology of arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death. A diagram from the article illustrating the anatomic brain-heart connections is shown above.

We therefore have a mechanism by which ethereal emotions can have a concrete, injurious effect on heart tissue.

Unfortunately, as this world gets increasingly competitive, more and more people are getting desperate and having to work harder and harder to achieve success. Thus we have up to 25% of college students using stimulants, and are starting to see the 70-hour work week become the new standard.

Reference for above Brain-Heart article: Tex Heart Inst J. 1993; 20(3): 158–169.

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How many blue faces are needed to balance scale #3?

[Brain teaser created for smartkit site; click picture to jump to hi-res image]

Note: Even though this puzzle is very hard, the comments below are actually quite insightful. If you can follow them, your brain is almost certain to get a decent workout!

For a different type of scale balancing puzzle (one that’s been asked on job interviews!), click here.

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My wife got an email from one of her friends tonight about ‘Strawberry Quick’. As if parents don’t have enough to worry about, this strawberry flavored methamphetamine candy (looks like ‘Pop-Rocks’) is being passed around schools nationwide.

Fourteen 6th graders were hospitalized yesterday in Oklahoma after consuming the little pink crystals.

According to this article:

Strawberry Quick began to show up around mid-February on the West Coast, and the trend is moving east.

This stuff is real bad; among other things, it can quickly lead to heart attacks, arrhythmias, strokes, convulsions, and death.

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Don’t want to make all the puzzles too hard, so here’s a good one you can print out for younger children or students.

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From a recent update posted on the Medscape Neurology section:

Researchers at the American Academy of Neurology 59th Annual Meeting presented preliminary results from a study showing that long term exposure to secondhand smoke alone increases your risk for dementia by about 30%.

If you’re interested in learning more about the potential mechansim by which cigarattes destroy your brain, click here to read this earlier post. 

Reference: American
Academy of Neurology 59th Annual Meeting: Abstract S01.005. April 28 – May
5, 2007.

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